The effect was electrical; the old man clutched the b.u.t.ton eagerly and poured forth a torrent of French as he dragged the boys one after the other into his poor abode and shut the door.
"We"re Americans," said Tom. "We can"t understand."
"It iss all ze same," said the man. "I will talk in ze American. How you came with ziss b.u.t.ton--yess? Who have sent you?"
To Tom"s surprise he spoke English better than either Florette or her brother, and the boys were infinitely grateful and relieved to hear their own language spoken in this remote place.
"We are Americans," said Tom. "We escaped from the prison camp across the Alsace border, and we"re on our way to the frontier. I knew you were French on account of the fleur-de-lis on the end of your flagpole----"
"And ze b.u.t.ton--yess?" the old man urged, interrupting him.
Tom told him the whole story of Frenchy and the Leteurs, and of how he had come by his little talisman.
"I have fought in zat regiment," the old man said, "many years before you are born. I have seen Alsace lost--yess. If you were Germans I would _die_ before I would give you food. But I make you true welcome. I have been many years in America. Ah, I have surprise you."
"What is this place?" Archer ventured to ask.
"Ziss is Mernon--out of fifty-two men they take forty-one to ze trenches. My two sons, who are weavers too, they must go. Now they take the women and the young girls."
Further conversation developed the fact that the old man had worked in a silk mill in America for many years and had returned to Alsace and this humble place of his birth only after both of his sons, who like himself were weavers, had been forced into the German service. "If I do not come back and claim my home, it is gone," he said. So he had returned and was working the old hand loom with his aged fingers, here in the place of his birth.
He was greatly interested in the boys" story and gave them freely of his poor store of food which they ate with a relish. Apparently he was not under the cloud of suspicion or perhaps his age and humble condition and the obscurity and remoteness of his dwelling gave him a certain immunity. In any event, he carried his loathing of the Germans with a fine independence.
"In America," he said, "ze people do not know about ziss--ziss beast.
Here we _know_. Here in little Mernon our women must work to make ze road down to ze river. Why is zere needed a road to ze river? Why is zere needed ze new road above Basel? To bring back so many prisoners--wounded? Bah! Ziss is what zey _say_. Lies! I have been a soldier. Eighty-two years I am old. And much I have travelled. So can I see. What you say in Amerique--make two and two together--yess? Zere will be tramping of soldiers over zese roads to invade little Switzerland. Am I right? If it is necessaire--yess! _Necessaire!_ Faugh!"
This was the first open statement the boys had heard as to the new roads, all of which converged suspiciously in the direction of the Swiss frontier. They were for bringing home German wounded; they were to facilitate internal communication; they were for this, that and the other useful and innocent purpose, but they all ran toward the Swiss border or to some highway which ran thither.
"Ziss is ze last card they have to play--to stab little Switzerland in ze back and break through," the old man said. "In ze south runs a road from ze trench line across to ze Rhine. Near zere I have an old comrade--Blondel. Togezzer we fight side by side, like brothers. When ze boat comes, many times he comes to see me. Ze last time he come he tell me how ze new road goes past his house--all women and young girls working. It comes from ziss other road zat goes from ze trenches over to ze Rhine. South it goes--you see?" he added shrewdly. "So now if you are so clevaire to see a fleur-de-lis where none is intentioned, so zen you can tell, maybe, why will zey build a road zat goes south?"
Tom, fascinated by the old man"s sagacity and vehemence, only shook his head.
"Ah, you are not so clevaire to suspect! Ziss is Amerique! Nevaire will she suspect."
Tom did not altogether like this reference to Uncle Sam"s gullibility, but he contented himself with believing that it was meant as a thing of the past.
"They can"t flim-flam us now," Archer ventured.
"Flam-flim--no," the old man said, with great fervor.
"Maybe that"s where they took my friend"s sister and his mother," Tom said.
"I will tell you vere zey take them," the old man interrupted. "You know Alsace--no? So! See! I tell you." He approached, poking Tom"s chest with his bony finger and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his blue eyes until he seemed a very demon of shrewdness. They wondered if he were altogether sane.
"Nuzzing can zey hide from Melotte," he went on. "Far south, near Basel, zere lives my comrade--Blondel. To him must you show your b.u.t.ton--yess.
In Norne he lives."
"We"ll write that down," said Tom.
"Nuzzing you write down," the old man said sharply, clutching Tom"s arm.
"In your brain where you are so clevaire--zere you write it. So! You are not so clevaire as Melotte. Now I will show you how you shall find Mam"selle," he went on with a sly wink.
Emptying some wool out of a paper bag, he pressed the wrinkles from the bag with his trembling old hand and bending over the rough table close to the lantern, he drew a map somewhat similar to, though less complete than, the one given here.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SHOWING THE ROUTE TAKEN BY TOM AND ARCHER.]
There is nothing like a map to show one "where he is at," to quote Archer"s phrase, and the boys followed with great interest as Melotte penciled the course of the Rhine and the places which he wished to emphasize in the southern part of Alsace.
"Here at Norne lives my comrade, Blondel," he said. "Two years we work togezzer at Pas_sake_--you know? In ze great silk mills."
"Pa.s.saic," said Tom; "that"s near Bridgeboro, where I live."
"Pas_sake_, yess. So now you are so clevaire to know who shall leeve in a house, I will tell you how you shall know ze house of my comrade, Blondel. _By ze blue flag with one black spot!_ Yess? You know what ziss shall be? _Billet!_" He gave Archer a dig in the ribs as if this represented the high water mark of sagacity.
"Oh, I know," said Archer; "it means Gerrman officerrs are billeted therre. Go-o-od _night_! Not for us!"
The old man did not seem quite to understand, but he turned again to his map. "Here now is ze new road," he said, drawing it with his shaky old hand. "From ze Rhine road it runs--south--so. Now you are so clevaire--Yankee clevaire, ha, ha, ha!" he laughed with a kind of irritating hilarity; "why should zey make ziss road? From ze north--from Leteur--all around--zey bring our women to make ziss road. Ziss is where Mam"selle is--so! Close by it lives my comrade, Blondel. Ziss is n.o.ble army to command, ugh!" He gritted his teeth. "_All are women!_"
Tom looked at the map, as old Melotte poised his skinny finger above it and peered eagerly up into his face from the depths of his scraggly white hair. It was little enough Tom knew about military affairs and he thought that this lonesome old weaver was in his dotage. But surely this new road could be for but one purpose, and that was the quick transfer of troops from the Alsatian front to the Swiss border. And the sudden conscription of women and girls for the making of the road seemed plausible enough. Could it be that this furnished a clew to the whereabouts of Florette Leteur? And if it did, what hope was there of reaching her, or of rescuing her?
He listened only abstractedly to the old man"s rambling talk of Germany"s intention to violate Swiss neutrality if that became necessary to her purpose. His eyes were half closed as he looked at the rough sketch and he saw there considerably more than old Melotte had drawn.
He saw Frenchy"s sister Florette, slender and frail, wielding some heavy implement, doing her enforced bit in this work of shameless betrayal. He could see her eyes, sorrow-laden and filled with fear. He could see her as she had stood talking with him that night in the arbor.
He could see her, orphaned and homeless, slaving under the menacing shadow of a German officer who sprawled and lorded it in the poor home of this Blondel close by the new road. _Here he climb to drop ze grapes down my neck. Bad boy!_ Strange, how that particular phrase of hers singled itself out and stuck in his memory.
"So now you are so _clevaire_," he half heard old Melotte saying to Archer.
And Tom Slade said nothing, only thought, and thought, and thought....
CHAPTER XVII
THE CLOUDS GATHER
"We never thought about asking him to translate that letterr," said Archer.
"I"m not thinking about that letter," Tom answered. "All I"m thinking about now is what he said about that new road. I"m not even thinking about their going through Switzerland, either," he added with great candor. "I"m thinking about Frenchy"s sister. If they"ve got her working there I"m going to rescue her. I made up my mind to that."
"_Some job!_" commented Archer.
"It don"t make any difference how much of a job it is," said Tom, with that set look about his mouth that Archer was coming to know and respect.
They were clambering up the hillside again, for not all old Melotte"s hospitable urging could induce Tom to remain in the hut until daylight.
He would have liked to take along the rough sketch which the old man had made, but this Melotte had strenuously opposed, saying that no maps should be carried by strangers in Germany. So Tom had to content himself with the old man"s rather rambling directions.