THE GREATER LOVE
As the blinding lens of the sun glittered level and its first rays poured over tree and rock, a man in the faded field-uniform of a Swiss officer of mountain artillery came out on the misty ledge across the chasm.
"You over there!" he shouted in English. "Here is a Swiss officer to speak with you! Show yourselves!"
Again, after waiting a few moments, he shouted: "Show yourselves or answer. It is a matter of life or death for you both!"
There was no reply to the invitation, no sound from the forest, no movement visible. Thin threads of vapour began to ascend from the tremendous depths of the precipice, steaming upward out of mist-choked gorges where, under thick strata of fog, night still lay dark over unseen Alpine valleys below.
The Swiss officer advanced to the cliff"s edge and looked down upon a blank sea of cloud. Presently he turned east and walked cautiously along the rim of the chasm for a hundred yards. Here the gulf narrowed so that the cleft between the jutting crags was scarcely a hundred feet in width. And here he halted once more and called across in a resonant, penetrating voice:
"Attention, you, over there in the Forest of Les Errues! You had better wake up and listen! Here is a Swiss officer come to speak with you. Show yourselves or answer!"
There came no sound from within the illuminated edges of the woods.
But outside, upon the chasm"s sparkling edge, lay a dead man stark and transfigured and stiff as gold in the sun.
And already the first jewelled death-flies zig-zagged over him, lacing the early sunshine with ominous green lightning.
They who had killed this man might not be there behind the sunlit foliage of the forest"s edge; but the Swiss officer, after waiting a few moments, called again, loudly. Then he called a third time more loudly still, because into his nostrils had stolen the faint taint of dry wood smoke. And he stood there in silhouette against the rising sun listening, certain, at last, of the hidden presence of those he sought.
Now there came no sound, no stirring behind the forest"s sunny edge; but just inside it, in the lee of a huge rock, a young girl in ragged boy"s clothing, uncoiled her slender length from her blanket and straightened out flat on her stomach. Her yellow hair made a spot like a patch of sunlight on the dead leaves. Her clear golden eyes were as brilliant as a lizard"s.
From his blanket at her side a man, gaunt and ragged and deeply bitten by sun and wind, was pulling an automatic pistol from its holster. The girl set her lips to his ear:
"Don"t trust him, for G.o.d"s sake, Kay," she breathed.
He nodded, felt forward with cautious handgroping toward a damp patch of moss, and drew himself thither, making no sound among the dry leaves.
"Watch the woods behind us, Yellow-hair," he whispered.
The girl fumbled in her tattered pocket and produced a pistol. Then she sat up cross-legged on her blanket, rested one elbow across her knee, and, c.o.c.king the poised weapon, swept the southern woods with calm, bright eyes.
Now the man in Swiss uniform called once more across the chasm: "Attention, Americans I I know you are there; I smell your fire.
Also, what you have done is plain enough for me to see--that thing lying over there on the edge of the rocks with corpse-flies already whirling over it! And you had better answer me, Kay McKay!"
Then the man in the forest who now was lying flat behind a birch-tree, answered calmly:
"You, in your Swiss uniform of artillery, over there, what do you want of me?"
"So you are there!" cried the Swiss, striving to pierce the foliage with eager eyes. "It is you, is it not, Kay McKay?"
"I"ve answered, have I not?"
"Are you indeed then that same Kay McKay of the Intelligence Service, United States Army?"
"You appear to think so. I am Kay McKay; that is answer enough for you."
"Your comrade is with you--Evelyn Erith?"
"None of your business," returned McKay, coolly.
"Very well; let it be so then. But that dead man there--why did you kill your American comrade?"
"He was a camouflaged Boche," said McKay contemptously. "And I am very sure that you"re another--you there, in your foolish Swiss uniform. So say what you have to say and clear out!"
The officer came close to the edge of the chasm: "I can not expect you to believe me," he said, "and yet I really am what I appear to be, an officer of Swiss Mountain Artillery. If you think I am something else why do you not shoot me?"
McKay was silent. "n.o.body would know," said the other. "You can kill me very easily. I should fall into the ravine--down through that lake of cloud below. n.o.body would ever find me. Why don"t you shoot?"
"I"ll shoot when I see fit," retorted McKay in a sombre voice.
Presently he added in tones that rang a little yet trembled too--perhaps from physical reasons--"What do you want of a hunted man like me?"
"I want you to leave Swiss territory!"
"Leave!" McKay"s laugh was unpleasant. "You know d.a.m.ned well I can"t leave with Les Errues woods crawling alive with Huns."
"Will you leave the canton of Les Ernies, McKay, if I show you a safe route out?"
And, as the other made no reply: "You have no right to be here on neutral territory," he added, "and my Government desires you to leave at once!"
"I have as much right here as the Huns have," said McKay in his pleasant voice.
"Exactly. And these Germans have no right here either!"
"That also is true," rejoined McKay gently, "so why has your Government permitted the Hun to occupy the Canton of Les Errues? Oh, don"t deny it," he added wearily as the Swiss began to repudiate the accusation; "you"ve made Les Errues a No-Man"s Land, and it"s free hunting now! If you"re sick of your bargain, send in your mountain troops and turn out the Huns."
"And if I also send an escort and a free conduct for you and your comrade?"
"No."
"You will not be harmed, not even interned. We set you across our wire at Delle. Do you accept?"
"No."
"With every guarantee--"
"You"ve made this forest a part of the world"s battle-field.... No, I shall not leave Les Errues!"
"Listen to reason, you insane American! You can not escape those who are closing in on you--those who are filtering the forest for you--who are gradually driving you out into the eastern edges of Les Errues! And what then, when at last you are driven like wild game by a line of beaters to the brink of the eastern cliffs? There is no water there. You will die of thirst. There is no food. What is there left for you to do with your back to the final precipice?"
McKay laughed a hard, unpleasant laugh: "I certainly shall not tell you what I mean to do," he said. "If this is all you have to say to me you may go!"
There ensued a silence. The Swiss began to pace the opposite cliff, his hands behind him. Finally he halted abruptly and looked across the chasm.