The airman was becoming excited and his voice trembled a little with the effort to control it.
"It"s growing pink in the east. Try a handful of dust again," he suggested almost gaily.
"North," she said briefly, watching the dust aloft.
"Luck"s with us! Look at the east! If their High Command keeps his nose out of this place!--if he _does_!--Look at the east, little bell-mistress!
It"s all gold! There"s pink up higher. I can see a faint tinge of blue, too. Can you?"
"I think so."
A minute dragged like a year in prison. Then:
"Try the wind again," he said in a strained voice.
"North."
"Oh, luck! Luck!" he muttered, slinging his sack of bombs over his shoulder. "We"ve got them! We"ve certainly got them! What"s that! An airplane! Look, little girl--one of our planes is up. There"s another!
Which way is the wind?"
"North."
"Got "em!" he snapped between his teeth. "Run over to the stairs. Listen!
Is anybody coming up?"
"I can hear nothing."
"Stand there and listen. Never mind the row the guns are making; listen for somebody on the stairs. Look how light it"s getting! The sun will push up before many minutes. We"ve got "em! _Got "em!_ Wet your finger and try the wind!"
"North."
"North here, too. What do you know about that! Luck! Luck"s with us! And we"ve got "em--!" he lifted his clenched hand and laughed at her. "Like that!" he said, his blue eyes blazing. "They"re getting ready to gas below. Look at "em! Glory to G.o.d! I can see two cylinders directly under me. They"re manning the nozzles! Every man is masking at his post! Anybody on the stairs! Any sound?"
"None."
"Are you certain?"
"It is as still as death below."
"Try the dust. The wind"s changing, I think. Quick! Which way?"
"_West._"
"Oh, glory! Glory to G.o.d! They feel it below! They know. The wind has changed. Off came their respirators. No gas this morning, eh? Yes, by G.o.d, there will be gas enough for all----!"
He caught up a bomb, leaned over the parapet, held it aloft, poised, aiming steadily for one second of concentrated coordination of mind and muscle. Then straight down he launched it. The cylinder beneath him was shattered and a green geyser of gas burst from it deluging the trench.
Already a second bomb followed the first, then another, and then a third; and with the last report another cylinder in the trench below burst into thick green billows of death and flowed over the ground, _west_.
Two more bombs whirled down, bursting on a machine gun; then the airman turned with a cry of triumph, and at the same instant the sun rose above the hills and flung a golden ray straight across his face.
To Maryette the man stood transfigured, like the Blazing Guardian of the Flaming Sword.
"Ring out your Brabanconne!" he cried. "Let the Huns hear the war song of the land they"ve trampled! Now! Little bell-mistress, arm your white hands with your wooden gloves and make this old carillon speak in bra.s.s and iron!"
He caught her by the arm; they ran down the short flight of steps; she drew on her wooden gloves and sprang to the keyboard.
"I"ll hold the stairs!" he cried. "I can hold these stairs for an hour against the whole world in arms. Now, then! The Brabanconne!"
Above the roaring confusion and the explosions far below, from high up in the sky a clear bell note floated as though out of Heaven itself--another, others, crystalline clear, imperious, filling all the sky with their amazing and terrible beauty.
The mistress of the bells struck the keyboard with armoured hands--beautiful, slender, avenging hands; the bells above her crashed out into the battle-song of Flanders, filling sky and earth with its splendid defiance of the Hun.
The airman, bomb in hand, stood at the head of the stone stairs; the ancient tower rocked with the fiercely magnificent anthem of revolt--the war cry of a devastated land--the land that died to save the world--the martyr, Belgium, still p.r.o.ne in the deathly trance awaiting her certain resurrection.
The rising sun struck the tower where three score ancient bells poured from metal throats their heavenly summons to battle!
The Hun heard it, tumbling, clawing, strangling below in the h.e.l.lish vapours of his own death-fog; and now, from the rear his sky-guns hurled shrapnel at the carillon in the belfry of Nivelle.
Clouds possessed the tower--soft, white, fleecy clouds rolling, unfolding, floating about the ancient b.u.t.tresses and gargoyles. An iron hail rained on slate and parapet and resounding bell-metal. But the bells pealed and pealed in clear-voiced beauty, and Clovis, the great iron giant, hung, scarcely sonorous under the shrapnel rain.
Suddenly there were bayonets on the stairs--the clatter of heavy feet--alien faces on the threshold. Then a bomb flew, and the terrible crash cleared the stairs.
Twice more the clatter came with the clank of bayonets and guttural cries; but both died out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding inside that stony spiral. And no more bayonets flickered on the stairs.
The airman, frozen to a statue, listened. Again and again he thought he could hear bugles, but the roar from below blotted out the distant call.
"Little bell-mistress!"
She turned her head, her hands still striking the keyboard. He spoke through the confusion of the place:
"Sound the tocsin!"
Then Clovis thundered from the belfry like a great gun fired, booming out over the world. Around the iron colossus shrapnel swept in gusts; Clovis thundered on, annihilating all sound except his own tremendous voice, heedless of sh.e.l.l and bullet, disdainful of the h.e.l.l"s shambles below, where masked French infantry were already leaping the parapets of Nivelle Redoubt into the squirming ma.s.ses below.
The airman shouted at her through the tumult:
"They murdered my brother. Did I tell you? They hacked him to slivers with their bayonets. I"ve settled the reckoning down in the gas there--their own green gas, d.a.m.n them! You don"t understand what I say, do you? He was my brother----"
A frightful explosion blew in the oubliette; the room rattled and clattered with shrapnel.
The airman swayed where he stood in the swirling smoke, lurched up against the stone coping, slid down to his knees.
When his eyes opened the little bell-mistress was bending over him.
"They got me," he gasped. All the front of his tunic was sopping red.
"They said it meant the cross--if I made good.... Are you hurt?"
"Oh, no!" she whispered. "But you----"