Chambers Robert William
Who Goes There!

CHAPTER XXIV
A PERSONAL AFFAIR

"My God!" he said, "it would not surprise me to find him here in the house!.. He is here – or you would never wear a face like that!.. What do you mean to do, block my way in my own house?" as she confronted him.

"Kurt – " Her white lips merely formed the word.

"Is he here? Answer me!"

"I – he – "

"Answer me!"

Behind them a voice broke in quietly: "I'll answer for us all… Don't touch that holster, General! I can kill you first… Now, then, am I to pass that door without violence?.. Because I'm going to pass it one way or another – "

He came forward, his naked sabre shining in the candle light, his grey eyes level, cool, and desperate.

Von Reiter stared at this tall young fellow in the gay uniform of the Guides. His hand, which had instantly moved toward his holster, remained suspended.

"I am going out of that door," repeated Guild.

"Will General Baron von Reiter be good enough to move aside?"

The German's eyes narrowed. "So," he said very quietly, "it is not to be the hand after all, but an exchange of cards. I am not sorry – " With a movement too swift for the eye to follow, his sword was out and glittering in his hand, and he sprang on Guild, beating at his guard, raining blows like lightning.

The girl had fallen against the table, one hand at her throat as though choking back the bursting cry of fright; her brain rang with the dissonance and metallic clamour; the flashing steel dazzled her. Two oak chairs fell crashing as Guild gave ground under the terrific onslaught; there was not a word spoken, not a sound except the infernal din of the sabres and the ceaseless shifting of armed heels on the floor.

Suddenly von Reiter went down heavily; the doormat slipping under foot had flung him to the floor with a crash across a fallen chair. After a second or two he groaned.

Guild looked down at him, bewildered, sword in hand – watched him as he struggled to his feet. The German was ghastly white. A fit of coughing shook him and he tried to disguise it with his hand.

"Pick up your sabre!" motioned Guild.

Von Reiter stooped, recovered his sword, adjusted the hilt to his hand. He coughed again, and there was a trace of blood on his lips, but his face was dead white. He looked very steadily at Guild.

"Acknowledgments to the Comte d'Yvoir," he said with an effort; and the shadow of a smile touched his thin, grim lips.

"Do I pass?" demanded Guild, as grimly.

Von Reiter started to speak, and suddenly his mouth was full of blood.

"Kurt," cried the girl in an agonized voice, "do you mean to kill him or that he is to kill you! —here– before my face?"

"I mean – just – that!"

He sprang at Guild again like a tiger, but Guild was on him first, and the impact hurled von Reiter against the table. His sabre fell clattering to the floor.

For a moment, white as a corpse, he looked at his opponent with sick eyes, then, suddenly faint, he slid into the great leather chair. There was more blood on his lips; Guild, breathing heavily, bent over and looked at him, ignorant of what had happened.

Karen came and took his hand in hers. Then a slight groan escaped him and he opened his eyes.

"Are you badly hurt?" asked Guild.

"I'm a little sick, that's all. I think when I fell some ribs broke – or something – "

"I meant fairly by you," said Guild miserably.

"You played fair. It was bad luck – bad luck – that's all." He closed his pain-sickened eyes: "God, what luck," he mumbled – "really atrocious!"

Guild, still holding his naked sword, drew his automatic with his left hand. Then he looked silently at Karen.

"Can't you leave the house by the garden?" she whispered tremulously.

"The gate is padlocked."

"Kervyn, they'll kill you if you step out of that door!"

Von Reiter, drowsy with pain, opened his eyes:

"No, they won't," he said. "Be kind enough to speak to my aide. I – I'm afraid I'm rather – ill."

He glanced at Guild: "Honour of an officer," he added weakly.

Karen stepped to the door and flung it open.

"Captain!" she called sharply.

A moment later the young hussar aide-de-camp who had escorted Guild to the British lines came clanking in.

He glanced obliquely at Guild and at Karen, but when his eyes fell on von Reiter he stared, astonished. Nevertheless, his spurred heels clicked together at salute.

Von Reiter's eyes became ironical. He looked for a moment at his aide, then his gaze wandered to Karen and to Guild.

"Where do you desire to go?" he asked with an effort.

"To Antwerp."

"The road is still open." And, to the hussar: "Safe conduct for Captain the Comte d'Yvoir across the railway. Write it now."

"And for my comrade, Mr. Darrel, and ten recruits," said Guild quietly.

"And for his comrade, Mr. Darrel, and ten recruits," repeated von Reiter in a failing voice. But he was smiling.

"And – for me!" said Karen.

Von Reiter's eyes had almost closed; he opened them again, heavily, as she spoke. Karen bent over him:

"Kurt, I must go. I can not remain here now. Besides – I want – my – husband."

"Think well," he said drowsily. "Think diligently – at this moment – solemn – supreme – " He raised himself a little, then relapsed: "God," he murmured, "what luck to meet with under your own roof!.." And, to the hussar: "Write it that Miss Karen Girard goes also – if she so desires."

There was a silence. The hussar scribbled on the stamped paper in his tablets. After he had finished he laid the tablets and the fountain pen on von Reiter's knees. Very slowly the latter affixed his signature.

He said to the hussar: "I am ill. Go to Trois Fontaines and bring me a medical officer."

When the hussar had gone and when the whirr of the automobile had died away down the drive, Guild aided the hurt man to a sofa and Karen brought pillows from a bedroom.

He was very thirsty, too, and she gave him water continually. At intervals there were slight signs of mental wandering, perhaps symptoms of pneumonia, from his crushed ribs, for he coughed a great deal and the fever already reddened his blond skin. But in the main his mind seemed to be clear. He opened his light-blue eyes and glanced at Guild continually.

"Bad luck, old chap," he said in English, "but no reflection on you. Just bad luck, bad, very bad! We Germans usually have an ally in God. But the trinity is incomplete without luck."

Guild said in a low voice: "I am really sorry, von Reiter. I hope you will come out all right. God knows I bear you no ill will."

"Many thanks. I shall come out all right. There is much work to do." A ghost of the ironical smile touched his feverish lips again. "And much work to be done after this business in Europe is settled… I mean in America. She must pay her reckoning. She must settle with us Germans… I wish it might come soon —now!– while their present administration remains – while yet this dull President and his imbecile and grotesque cabinet ministers are in power… I beg your pardon – seeing you in that uniform made me forget that you are also Mr. Guild."

But the irony in his wearied eyes made it very plain that he had not forgotten.

"Karen?" he said presently. She leaned forward in her chair beside him.

"It was just bad luck, very bad luck," he muttered; "but yours is luck" – he turned his dulled eyes toward Guild – "luck to be envied… Some day I hope it may be – the hand."

"It is now, if you wish," said Guild.

The other shook his head: "Too soon, too soon," he muttered. "Even a German officer has his – limits. Between you and my luck I'm in a bad way – a very bad mess."

Karen bent over his hand and touched it with her lips.

The fever was gaining; he began to roll his blond head from side to side, muttering of love and luck and of the glory of God and the German Empire. A slight smile remained on his lips.

Before the automobile arrived from Trois Fontaines the fever seized him fiercely. His coughing racked him incessantly now, and the first heavy hemorrhage soaked his grey tunic and undershirt.

They eased him all they could, laying open his broad blond chest and the ribs now terribly discoloured where his fall had crushed them in again under the bandage.

How the man could have risen and come at him again Guild could not understand. He was terribly shocked.

Dreadful sounds came from his laboured breathing; he lay with eyes closed now, one burning hand lying in Karen's.

Toward four o'clock in the morning a far, faint sound penetrated the room.

Von Reiter's eyes opened. "Halt!" he whispered. "Who goes there?"

It was Death. He seemed to understand that, for he sighed very lightly, his hand closed on Karen's, and he lay gazing straight upward with brilliant eyes.

A few moments later there came a rush, a crunching of gravel, the loud purr of the motor outside.

Then Karen opened the door and a medical officer entered the room in haste.

Guild turned to Karen: "I must go to the woods and bring in my men and Darrel. Dearest, are you decided to go with me?"

"I could not remain here now. I do not wish to."

"Then wait for me," he said, and went out into the night.

A few moments later they took von Reiter upstairs to his own room. His mind seemed to clear again for a while and he said feebly but distinctly to his aide-de-camp:

"My daughter and her fiancé, the Comte d'Yvoir, are going to Antwerp for their wedding. I remember that military trains now leave Trois Fontaines by way of Trois Vierges, Liège, and Lesten. We control to Lesten, I think."

"Yes, Excellence."

"Write for me that my daughter and the Comte d'Yvoir shall be accorded transportation as far as we control. You will take them to Trois Fontaines in my automobile; you will make personal requisition of the chef-de-gar for the privacy of a compartment. You will affix to the outside of the compartment a notice that the persons in possession are travelling on my business and under my personal protection, and that they are not to be detained or interfered with in any way… Write it separately to be affixed." His voice was weak but perfectly distinct.

The hussar wrote steadily in his tablets, finished, and waited.

"Hold them while I sign," whispered von Reiter. He signed both orders.

"Take them now. I shall not need the car. I shall be here a long time – a – long – time. I am ill. So inform headquarters by telegraph."

"At orders, Excellence."

Von Reiter closed his eyes: "Say to the Comte d'Yvoir that it was – bad luck – very bad luck… But not – his fault… Tell him I am – contented – that a Gueldres is to marry my – daughter."

The aide saluted. But the sick man said nothing more.

Von Reiter was still unconscious when Guild returned from the forest.

Karen met him on the steps; he drew her aside:

"Dear," he whispered, "there has been more violence during my absence. The Lesse men caught a traitor – a wretched charcoal burner from Moresnet – prowling about their camp.

"They hung him with his own belt. I saw him hanging to a beech-tree.

"Darrel was greatly worried when I told him that the Courlands had been forced to continue on to Luxembourg City. He has gone to the hamlet of Croix to hire a peasant to drive him after them and try to overtake them.

"As for the others, they will not come to Antwerp with me now. They have seen 'red' again; and in spite of all I could do they have started back toward Lesse to 'drive' Uhlans as they saw the wild game driven."

The girl shivered.

Guild made a hopeless gesture: "It means the death of every man among them. The Uhlans will do the hunting and the driving, not the poor, half-crazed peasants… It means the end of Lesse and of every man who had ever called it home."

The hussar appeared at the door. Guild looked up, returned the precise salute, and his careworn features softened as he listened to the instructions and the parting message from the now unconscious officer above.

There was a silence, then:

"Karen," he said quietly, "are you ready?"

"Yes."

The hussar asked whether there was luggage, and learning that there was he sent the chauffeur in to bring out Guild's box and Karen's suit-case and satchel.

The girl ran upstairs to the sick room. They admitted her.

Guild was standing by the car when she returned, a drooping, listless figure, her handkerchief pressed to her face. He gave her his arm and aided her into the car. The hussar stepped in beside the chauffeur.

Dawn was just breaking behind the house; the evergreens stood out, massive and black against the silvering east.

As the car moved slowly out of the gravel circle the first bird twittered.

Guild bent over the girl beside him: "Is he still unconscious?"

"Yes."

"Is there any chance?"

"They don't know. It is the lungs. His body is all crushed in – "

She rested her cheek against his shoulder, weeping, as the great grey car rushed on through the pallour of early dawn.

CHAPTER XXV
WHO GOES THERE!

Stretched out flat on the seat of a railway carriage, her tear-marred face buried in her arms, her dishevelled hair tumbled around her neck and shoulders, Karen lay asleep. In that car all the other compartments seemed to be full of Saxon reserve artillery officers, their knobbed helmets shrouded in new grey slips, their new, unwrinkled uniforms suggestive of a very recent importation from across the Rhine.

Ahead, cattle cars, ore cars, and flat cars composed the long train, the former filled with battery horses and cannoniers, the latter loaded with guns, caissons, battery waggons, forges, and camp equipment, all in brand-new grey paint.

Except when the train stopped at some heavily guarded station, nobody came to their compartment. But at all stations officers opened the doors and silently examined Guild's credentials – energetic, quick-moving, but civil men, who, when the credentials proved acceptable, invariably saluted his uniform with a correctness impeccable.

Nevertheless, before the train moved out again, always there was a group of officers gazing in polite perplexity at the green jacket and forage cap and the cherry-coloured riding breeches of a regiment which, they were perfectly aware, was already in the saddle against them.

At one station Guild was able to buy bread and cheese and fruit. But Karen still slept profoundly, and he did not care to awaken her.

From the car windows none of the tragic traces of war were visible except only the usual clusters of spiked helmets along the line; the inevitable Uhlans riding amid the landscape; slowly moving waggon-trains pursuing roads parallel to the railway; brief glimpses of troops encamped in fields. But nothing of the ravage and desolation which blackened the land farther south was apparent.

In the latitude of Liège, however, Guild could see from the car windows the occasional remains of ruined bridges damming small streams; and here and there roofless and smoke-stained walls, or the blackened debris of some burnt farm or factory or mill.

But the northern Ardennes did not appear to have suffered very much from invasion as far as he could make out; and whether the region was heavily occupied by an invading army he could not determine from the glimpses he obtained out of the car windows.

The line, however, was vigilantly guarded; that he could see plainly enough; but the sky-line of the low rolling country on either side might be the limits of German occupation for all he could determine.

Two nights' constant wakefulness had made him very sleepy. He drowsed and nodded in his corner by the shaking window, rousing himself at intervals to cast a watchful glance at Karen.

She still slept like a worn-out child.

In the west the sun was already level with the car windows – a cherry-hued ball veiled slightly in delicate brown haze. The train had stopped at a siding in a young woodland. He opened the window to the fresh, sweet air and looked out at the yellowing autumn leaves which the setting sun made transparent gold.

It was very still; scarcely a sound except from very high in the air somewhere came a faint clattering noise. And after a while he turned his head and looked up at a flight of aeroplanes crossing the line at an immense height.

Stately, impressive, like a migration of wide-winged hawks, they glided westward, the red sun touching their undersides with rose. And he watched them until they became dots, and disappeared one by one in mid-heaven.

Presently, along the main track, came rushing a hospital train, the carriages succeeding one another like flashes of light, vanishing into perspective with a diminishing roar and leaving in its wake an odour of disinfectants.

Then the train he was on began to move; soldiers along the rails stood at attention; a company of Uhlans cantered along a parallel road, keeping pace with the cars for a while. Then the woods closed in again, thick, shaggy forest land which blotted out the low-hanging sun.

He closed the window, turned and glanced at Karen. She slept. And he lay back in his corner and closed his haggard eyes.

The next time he opened them the light in the car had become very dim.

Twilight purpled the woods and hills; dusk was arriving swiftly.

It was dark when, at a way station, a soldier opened the door, saluted, and lighted the lamp in the compartment. The train lay there a long while; they were unloading horses, cannon and waggons; teams were being harnessed in the dark, guns limbered, cannoniers mounted, all in perfect order and with a quiet celerity and an absence of noise and confusion that fascinated Guild.

Presently, and within a space of time almost incredible, the artillery moved off into the darkness. He could hear the rhythmical trample of horses, the crunch of wheels, sabres rattling, the subdued clank and clatter of a field battery on the march. But he could see no lights, distinguish no loud voices, no bugle-calls. Now and then a clear whistle note sounded; now and then a horse snorted, excited by the open air.

The car in which they were was now detached and sidetracked; the long train backed slowly past and away into the darkness.

And after a while another locomotive came steaming out of the obscurity ahead; he heard them coupling it to the car in which he sat. The jar did not awaken Karen.

Presently they were in motion again; the tiled roof of an unlighted railway station glided past the window; stars appeared, trees, a high dark hill to the right.

A military guard came through the corridor, lantern in hand, and told Guild that the car was now entirely empty and at his disposal.

So he rose and went forward where he could look out ahead and see the dull glow of the smokestack and the ruddy light of the furnace.

For a long while he stood there watching the moving silhouettes of engineer and fireman. The sombre red light trembled on the rails and swept the wayside trees or painted with fiery streaks the sides of a cut or glittered along the rocky wet walls of tunnels.

When at last he went back to the compartment, Karen was sitting up, twisting her hair into shape.

"Do you feel rested?" he asked cheerfully, seating himself beside her.

"Yes, thank you. Where are we, Kervyn?"

"I don't know."

She was still busy with her hair, but her eyes remained on him.

"Can I do anything for you? Do you need anything?" he asked.

"I seem to need almost everything!" she protested, "including a bath and a clergyman. Oh, Kervyn, what a wedding journey! Is there anything about me that resembles a bride? And I'm not even that, yet – just a crumpled, soiled, disreputable child!"

"You are absolutely adorable just as you are!"

"No! I am unspeakable. And I want to be attractive to you. I really can be very nice-looking, only you never saw me so – "

"Dearest!"

"I haven't had any clothes since I first met you!" she said excitedly. "You know I can scarcely bear it to have you think of me this way. Will I have time to buy a gown in Antwerp? How long will it take us to marry each other? Because, of course, I shall not let you ride away with your regiment until you are my husband."

She flushed again, and the tears sprang to her eyes. It was plain that her nerves had given way under the long strain.

"Kervyn! Only yesterday war meant almost nothing to me. And look at me now! – look at the girl you saw in England only a few days ago! – a woman today! – a wife tomorrow, please God – and the fear of this war already overwhelming me."

She brushed the starting tears from her eyes; they filled again. She said miserably: "We women all inherit sorrow, it seems, the moment our girlhood leaves us. A few days ago I didn't know what it was to be afraid. Then you came. And with you came friendship. And with friendship came fear – fear for you!.. And then, very swiftly, love came; and my girlhood was gone – gone – like yesterday – leaving me alone in the world with you and love and war!"

He drew her face against his shoulder:

"This world war is making us all feel a little lonely," he said. "The old familiar world is already changing under our bewildered eyes. It is a totally new era which is dawning; a new people is replacing the inhabitants of earth, born to new thoughts, new ideals, new ambitions.

"I think the old tyranny is already beginning to pass from men's souls and minds; the old folk-ways, the old and out-worn terrors, the tinselled dogmas, the old false standards, the universal dread of that absolute intellectual freedom which alone can make a truly new heaven and a new earth.

"All this is already beginning to pass away in the awful intellectual revelation which this world war is making hour by hour.

"What wonder that we feel the approaching change, the apprehension of that mortal loneliness which must leave us stripped of all that was familiar while the old order passes – vanishes like mist at dawn."

He bent and touched her hand with his lips:

"But there will be a dawn, Karen. Never doubt it, sweet!"

"Shall our children see it – if God is kind to us?" she whispered.

"Yes. If God is very kind, I think that we shall see it, too."

The girl nodded, pressing her cheek against his, her eyes clear and sweetly grave.

He said: "No man ever born, since Christ, has dared to be himself. No woman, either… I think our children will begin to dare."

She mused, wide-eyed, wondering.

"And he who takes up a sword," he said in a low voice, "shall find himself alone like a mad dog in a city street, with every living soul bent upon his extermination.

"Thus will perish emperors and kings. Our children's children shall have heard of them, marvelling that we had lived to see them pass away into the mist of fable."

After a while she lifted her face and looked at him out of wistful eyes:

"Meanwhile you fight for them," she said.

"I am of today – a part of the mock mystery and the tarnished tinsel. That grey old man of Austria quarrels with his neighbour of Servia, and calls out four million men to do his murders for him. And an Emperor in white and steel buckles on his winged helmet summons six million more in the name of God.

"That is a tragedy called 'Today.' But it is the last act, Karen. Already while we hold the stage the scene shifters are preparing the drama called 'Tomorrow.'

"Already the last cues are being given; already the company that held the stage is moving slowly toward the eternal wings. The stage is to be swept clean; everything must go, toy swords and cannon, crowns and ermine, the old and battered property god who required a sea of blood and tears to propitiate him; the old and false idol once worshiped as Honour, and set upon a pedestal of dead bones. All these must go, Karen – are already going… But – I am in the cast of 'Today'; I may only watch them pass, and play my part until the curtain falls."

They remained silent for a long time. The train had been running very slowly. Presently it stopped.

Guild rose and went to the door of the compartment, where a lantern glimmered, held high. Soldiers opened the door; an officer of Guard Cuirassiers saluted.

"We control the line no farther," he said. "Telegraphic orders direct me to send you forward with a flag."

"May I ask where we are?" said Guild.

"Not far from Antwerp. Will you aid Madam to descend? Time presses. We have a motor car at your disposal."

He turned, aided Karen to the wooden platform, which was thronged with heavy cavalrymen, then lifted out their luggage, which a soldier in fatigue cap took.

"There was also a box," said Guild to the officer of Cuirassiers.

"It is already in the tonneau." He drew a telegram from his pocket and handed it to Guild, and the young man read it under the flickering lantern light:

Captain the Comte d'Yvoir:

I am told that I shall recover. It has been, so far, between us, only the sword; but I trust, one day, it shall be the hand. Luck was against me. Not your fault.

I send to you and to my daughter my respect and my good will. Until a more auspicious day, then, and without rancour.

Your friend the enemy,

Von Reiter, Maj. – Gen'l.

Karen, reading over his shoulder, pressed his arm convulsively. Tears filled her eyes, but she was smiling.

"May we send a wire?" asked Guild of the officer.

An orderly came with pencil and telegraph blank. Guild wrote:

We are happy to learn that you are to recover. Gratitude, respect, salute from me; from her, gratitude and love. It will always be the hand. May the auspicious day come quickly.

Gueldres, Capt. Reserve.

The orderly took the blank; Guild returned the salute of the Cuirassier and followed the soldier who was carrying their luggage.

An automobile stood there, garnished with two white lanterns and a pair of white flags.

A moment later they were speeding through the darkness out across a vast dim plain.

An officer sat in the front seat beside a military chauffeur; behind them, on a rumble, was seated a cavalryman.

In a few minutes the first challenge came; they stopped; helmeted figures clustered around them, a few words were whispered, then on they rolled, slowly, until there came another challenge, another delay; and others followed in succession as the tall phantoms of Uhlans loomed up around them in the night.

Two of these lancers wheeled and accompanied the automobile at a canter. One of the riders was a trumpeter; and very soon the car halted and the Uhlan set his trumpet to his lips and sounded it.

Almost immediately a distant bugle answered. The cavalryman on the rumble stood up, hung one of the lanterns to a white flag, and waved it slowly to and fro. Then the mounted Uhlan tied the flag to his lance-tip, hung the lantern to it, and raised it high in the air. Already the chauffeur had piled their luggage by the roadside; the officer got out, came around, and opened the door. As Karen descended he gave her his arm, then saluted and sprang to his place. The car backed in a half circle, turned, backed again, swung clear around, and went humming away into the darkness.

From the shadowy obscurity ahead came the trample of horses.

"Halt! Who goes there?" cried the mounted lancer.

"Parlementaire with a flag!"

The Uhlan trumpeter sounded the parley again, then, reversing his trumpet, reined in and sat like a statue, as half a dozen cloaked riders walked their horses up under the rays of the lantern which dangled from the Uhlan's lifted lance.

A cavalryman wearing a jaunty Belgian forage cap leaned from his saddle and looked earnestly at Guild.

"Who is this, if you please?" he asked curiously.

"Reserve cavalry officer and his wife," said the Uhlan crisply. "Orders are to deliver them to you."

The Belgian lieutenant had already recognized the uniform of the Guides; so had the other cavalrymen; and now they were hastily dismounting and leading their horses forward.

"Karen," said Guild unsteadily, "it's my own regiment!" And he stepped forward and took the lieutenant's hands in both of his. His features were working; he could not speak, but the troopers seemed to understand.

They gave Karen a horse; Guild lifted her to the saddle, shortened the stirrup, and set her sideways.

They offered him another horse, but he shook his head, flung one arm over Karen's saddle and walked on slowly beside her stirrup.

Behind them the clatter of retreating hoofs marked the return of the Uhlans. From somewhere in the darkness a farm cart rumbled up and cavalrymen lifted in their luggage.

Now, under the clustered planets the cart and the troopers moved off over a wide, smooth road across the plain.

And last of all came Karen with Guild on foot beside her.

Her horse stepped slowly, cautiously; her slim hand lay on her lover's shoulder, his arm was around her, and his cheek rested against her knees.

All the world was before them now, with all that it can ever hold for the sons of men – the eternal trinity, inexorable, unchangeable – Death, and Life, and Love.