The Hosts of the Air by Joseph A. Altsheler (books under 200 pages txt) 📕

changed his intention and did not say what was in his thought. He said instead:

"Antoine is looking unusually important. He is going to serve us wine. He has mineral water, too. Will you take a little of it with your wine? It's a white wine, and the water improves it for me."

"Yes, Mr. John, I'll take mine the same way."

Any dinner, although it may have a flavor which the food and drink themselves, no matter how good, cannot give, must draw to an end, and when the dessert had been served and eaten John looped back the heavy curtain still further and looked out at the white cataract.

"The snowfall will certainly continue the rest of the day," he said, "and perhaps all through the night. Suppose we go to the smoking-room. Antoine and Suzanne must eat also. It's their hour now."

"That is true, Mr. John. The smoking-room is a good place, but I'm afraid that you have no cigarette."

"I don't smoke, but we can talk there, of your brother Philip, of your mother, safe now, of Paris, delivered as if by a miracle from the German menace, and of other good events that have happened."

He held open the door of the dining-room and when she went out he followed her, leaving Picard and Suzanne to their hour.

CHAPTER V THE REGISTER

John and Julie in the smoking-room were not lonely. They talked of many of the events he had suggested, and of more. Two of the windows looked out upon the town instead of the river, but they could see little there save the towering spire of the cathedral and the blank and ruined walls. The snow was already very deep, but the fall was not diminishing. The gray gloom of coming twilight, however, was beginning to show through it and once more John returned silent thanks that he had come into Chastel and found Julie. He was serving vicariously for Philip who undoubtedly had been held back by the snow.

"It will be night soon," he said. "It's likely that the snow will cease in the morning, and then I'm quite sure that Philip will come for you. It must have been his intention for you to help at the hospital camp below."

"I think so, too."

"Then why not go there in the morning?"

"And he would miss me. He would be searching all Chastel for me, and perhaps would then go away, believing that I had not come."

He was about to say that Philip, missing her in the town would be sure to look for her in the hospital camp, but he forebore. It was very pleasant for them there in the hotel, and why hurry?

"At any rate, it would be unwise to leave tonight," he said. "I think Suzanne herself will agree with me in that statement. I'll ask her, as she'll be in here very soon now."

"Why so soon?"

"Because I've noticed that Suzanne, besides being your maid is also your chaperon."

"She's been that as far back as I can remember, and I believe a most excellent one. Suzanne, I know, loves me."

"I'm sure of it. I don't blame her."

"Look how the snow is leaping up against the window, Mr. John! Ah, Suzanne is ahead of your prediction! She's coming now."

Suzanne stood in the doorway. John surmised from her look that her distrust, at least in a mild form, had sent her there.

"Now that your maid can be with you," he said, "I think I'll take another look at the front of the hotel. Possibly, a new guest has arrived and registered since we last saw the bureau. Will you excuse me for a few minutes, Miss Julie?"

John was merely impelled by a sense of duty to take a look about the hotel, not that he expected to find anything, but because a good soldier should never neglect his scouting operations. He went first into the little lobby at the entrance, where the offices were. Antoine had lighted a candle and left it on the desk of the bureau. Otherwise he could have seen little in the room as the twilight was advancing fast, and the white gloom, made by the falling snow, was shading into gray.

He opened the front door. There was nothing in the street. The tower of the cathedral was almost hidden by the storm and the twilight and the gaunt ruins of the houses, covered now with snow, looked inexpressibly dreary and lonely. The dismal spectacle without heightened the bright gladness within, where he and Julie had sat face to face, only a narrow table between, and Antoine and Suzanne had served.

He stood awhile in the open door, the snow whirling now and then against him, and the faint mutter of great guns coming at almost regular intervals to his ears. He was trying to decide what to do, free from any influence, however noble, which might unconsciously turn him from his duty. His was in the nature of a roving commission, and yet he must not rove too far. He decided that if Lannes did not come in the morning he would insist upon Julie going with him to the hospital camp. It would be hard for him to go against her wishes, but he was bound to do it, and easy in little things, young John Scott had a will in greater affairs that could not be overborne.

But his heart remained singularly light. This was a good hotel, the Hôtel de l'Europe. He had not found a finer or better in Europe. Others might be larger and more magnificent, but not one of them had offered him such light and hospitality at a time when they were needed most. He went back to the bureau, where the register still lay open. He had a vague impression that it was not lying just as they had left it, that it was turned much more to one side, and he glanced at the names, which a quaint fancy had made them write on the open page. His own name had been inscribed there last, and he started when he saw another written beneath it in a bold flowing hand. But the light was so dim that he could not at first make it out, and despite all his courage and power of will an uncanny feeling seized him. A chill ran along his spine, and his hair lifted a little.

With a cry of anger at himself, he seized the candle and held it over the page. Then he read the new name:

Fernand Weber, Paris and Alsace.

With another exclamation, but this time of relief, he put the candle back upon the desk. Two beads of perspiration that had formed upon his brow rolled from it, and fell upon the register. And Weber had come, too! He was not surprised at it. Since he was Lannes' messenger, and he was free to come and go as he pleased, it was altogether likely that he would appear in Chastel to see the reunion of brother and sister, and his work well done. Moreover, he was a man who knew. John had often noticed that Weber's characteristic was knowledge and now he would help them.

He lifted the candle high above his head and looked around the lobby, but there was no sign of the Alsatian. He must have gone outside again. Saying nothing to Julie or the Picards, John resolved to seek him. He needed his heavy overcoat and he was able to secure it unobserved, because Julie had gone up to her room, and Antoine and Suzanne had disappeared in the back regions of the hotel.

He had a faint hope that when he returned to the lobby he might find Weber there, but it was still lone and silent, and drawing the collar well about his ears and throat he thrust himself out into the snow. Turning his back to the driving flakes he walked eastward, searching everywhere through the advancing twilight. Weber, of course, knew of their presence in the hotel as he had seen their names on the register, and the lighted candle on the bureau. It must have been a sudden alarm that called him away so quickly, else he would have gone in at once, and have spoken to his friends.

Unfortunately the night was coming fast. Thick gray gloom clothed the whole east, and but little light showed in the west. Looking back he saw no light in the hotel, but that was to be expected, as Picard would certainly loop the curtains heavily over the windows. Out here in the ruined town much of his extraordinary buoyancy departed. The cold and the desolation of the world made him shiver a little. He thrust his hand into the pocket of his overcoat, and closed it upon the butt of the automatic.

He thought once of calling at the top of his voice for Weber, but instinctive caution kept him from doing so. Then he caught sight of a slender moving figure far ahead and feeling sure that it must be the Alsatian he hurried forward. The figure moved on as fast as he, but, eager in pursuit, he followed. It was shadowy and slim at the distance, but he knew that it was a human being, and either it was Weber or some man of Chastel returning to see what had happened to his town. In either event he wished to overtake him.

But the figure led him a long chase. The man seemed to be moving with some definite purpose, and kept a general course toward the east. Now John called out once or twice, though not loudly, but the stranger apparently did not hear him. Then he pushed the pursuit more vigorously, breaking into a run, and just beyond the eastern rim of Chastel, feeling sure now that it was the Alsatian, he called once more:

"Weber! Weber!"

The man paused and he seemed to John to look back, but the snow drifted heavily between them just then, and when the cataract had passed he was again moving on, more slender and dim than ever. Beyond him lay a little wood, torn and mangled by shells and shrapnel, as the town had been, and John, afraid that he would lose him in it, ran as fast as he could through the deep snow, calling once more, and loudly now:

"Weber! Weber! Weber!"

The figure stopped at the edge of the wood and turned. John, holding up his hands to show that he meant no harm, continued his panting rush through the snow. The man stood upright, magnified into gigantic size by the half light and the storm, and, as John came close, he saw that in very truth it was Weber. His relief and joy were great. He did not know until then how anxious he was that the stranger should prove to be Weber, in whose skill and resource he had so much confidence.

"Weber! Weber!" he cried again. "It's Scott. Don't you know me, or am I so clothed in snow that nobody can recognize me?"

"I recognize you now, Mr. Scott," said Weber, "and glad am I to see that it's you. I was afraid that I was being followed by a German scout. I could have disposed of him, but it would not have saved me from his comrades."

"Comrades!" exclaimed John, as he shook his hand. "Why, are Germans about?"

"I think they are. At least, I've come out here to see. You'll forgive my jest, Mr. Scott, in writing my name under that of your party on the register, won't you? As Mademoiselle Lannes has doubtless told you, I carried the letter from her brother, directing her to join him in Chastel, and, as my duties permitted, I came here also to see that my work was effective. I'd have gone at once, but I heard suspicious sounds in front of the hotel, and I came out at once to investigate."

"What did you find?"

"Near the cathedral I saw footprints which the falling snow had covered but partially. No, it's not worth while to go back and investigate them. They're under an inch of snow now."

"Why did you think Germans had made them?"

Weber opened his gloved hand and disclosed something metallic, a spike from a German helmet.

"This," he said, "had become loosened and it fell from the cap of some careless fellow. It could have been there only a few minutes, because the snow had not yet covered it. I think a considerable party has got behind the French lines under cover of the storm and has passed through Chastel."

"But they must have gone on. Why would they remain in a ruined town like this?"

"I see no reason for their doing so, unless to seek shelter for a while in some buildings not wholly wrecked, just as you and Mademoiselle Lannes' party have done."

John felt a throb