then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us; and to the hills, cover us.—st. luke.
in the days of her not far distant childhood dorothea had never loved any game like hide-and-seek; she flung herself into her present escapade with much the same zest and little more discretion. her plan, so far as she had one, was to lie up in the fir wood till a search-party appeared, then show herself and give them a lead away from the farm. the rest she left to chance, na?vely confident that the luck which had sent denis to her would let her save him. she had had enough hard knocks, one might have thought, to convince her that fate does not necessarily favor the young and hopeful; but that was a lesson dorothea never had learned, and never would.
ten minutes after she had settled herself among the bracken a mounted patrol rode over the brow of the opposite hill and began slowly to descend towards the farm. dorothea scrambled to her feet and came to the edge of the wood; she began to crawl along under the hedge, stooping, furtive, a fugitive in every line. she expected every minute to hear the shout of discovery. none came, and presently she erected herself and peeped over the bracken to see if they were stealing upon her unawares. the officer in command was just riding through the orchard gate, on his way to the farm.
this was a contingency she had not foreseen—that they wouldn't notice her. dorothea stamped. "oh, you idiots!" she apostrophized the soldiers of the fatherland. she ventured herself clear of the wood. still her pursuers[pg 273] went tranquilly the wrong way; they were half down the orchard—in another minute they would be knocking at the back door of the farm. dorothea, in a fright now, ran right out into the middle of the field. ah, at last! some one shouted; the troop gathered itself together, swept past the farm, galloped down the hill.
dorothea turned and ran like a hare. she felt like one, too. they were firing at her. they wanted to bring her down before she could take cover. it wasn't believable. she couldn't be hit! but she was; it fell like a lash on her shoulder, rolling her over with the sudden shock. she was up in a minute and ran on again, crying as she went, poor little dorothea, with the unexpected sharp pain, mortally terrified of the bullets flying past her and of the thundering hoofs behind, beginning to feel she had undertaken more than she could carry through. this wasn't a bit what she had expected—it wasn't any fun at all!
but the wood received her, and she knew its alleys better than they did; and presently she was tumbling head first into a tiny dell, under a low cliff veiled in ivy and drooping ferns. you might search the wood from end to end without finding the way into the dell; and if you found the dell, you would never guess that under the creepers there was a hole, the entrance of the grotte des fées. dorothea had once tried to explore it: she got as far as a first chamber of exquisite white veils and icicles of stalactite, and then dropped her candle. she never tried again, because madame hasquin assured her the roof was unsafe. she was rather glad of the excuse; underground adventures were not to her taste. she crept inside now, but not far, not beyond the green light of the entrance.
for some time she lay panting like a dog, thought foundered in panic; but she gradually calmed down. she had a drink from the stream trickling down the cave, and by and by, feeling a good deal ashamed of herself, she made an effort, opened her coat and examined her wound. it was neither wide nor deep; the bullet had gone clean through her arm without touching the bone. but it had bled a good deal,[pg 274] and it hurt, it hurt dreadfully. she made shift to tie it up, feeling more ashamed than ever because she couldn't help whimpering with the pain. oh, she was a horrid little coward! she had come down with a bump from her vainglory. but when it was done she took heart. she looked down on her stained sleeve; how splendid to see her blood mingling with denis's! after all, she was a real casualty now; she had been really properly wounded, like a real proper soldier. that was a sustaining thought.
it was while she lay there, listening to the cool drip of the water, breathing in the cool mossy scent, that her active little brain got to work on the position. she had gone into it headlong, without thinking; she now saw many things she had ignored. first and foremost and at any cost, she must not allow herself to be caught. she was tall for a woman, and denis slight for a man, and she had put on his leather coat and leggings over all her own things, but even so there was a good deal more of them, both lengthways and breadthways, than she could fill out. "gracious! why, my wig alone would give the show away!" reflected dorothea, with a dismaying vision of hidden dangers passed. "besides, they would recognize me—major von marwitz would, i think, and lieutenant müller would, i know. and then, of course, they'd go straight and search the farm, and denis without his kit, they'd shoot him as a spy, and lettice too for hiding him—oh!" she had a moment of panic. "but i'm not going to be caught," she wound up firmly.
a plan suggested itself. she would stay here till dusk, then get away through the woods towards vresse, say, show herself there, double back to the cave, leave denis's things under the rocks, and emerge as her proper self once more. she had everything but her skirt, and it wouldn't be the first time dot o'connor had run about in knickerbockers. this was a beautiful scheme, and it would let her go back to the farm—she did want to go back to the farm. a dimple came in her brown cheek; her color rose; at that moment dorothea did not look much like an escaped airman.... dreaming such nonsense! she lifted the creepers [pg 275]resolutely and peeped out. yes, it was already pretty dark, she might start now—and suddenly she discovered that she didn't, no, she didn't want to leave the safe shelter of the cave and adventure herself in a world where bullets were flying and men hunting for her life—"oh, dot o'connor, you miserable little worm!" said dorothea. "it's just what people always say—women are no good when it comes to the point. but i will be some good!" she marched out of the cave.
they were still beating the wood; there were soldiers everywhere. but dorothea had been a red indian many times in the shrubbery at home. she lay in the brake not ten yards from lieutenant müller (yes, it was he in person), and laughed to hear him issuing his curt, disappointed orders. it was dark, and the men were bored, and not very numerous; she slipped between the cordon like a weasel, and had reached the next hill when by accidental good luck she showed herself against the sky-line. a sentry gave the alarm, and again she had the whole patrol streaming in pursuit. this suited her to a t, for she was drawing them away from the farm, and she was not in the least afraid of being caught. it was black as a wolf's mouth, and she knew the woods between here and vresse like the palm of her hand. she had her second wind of courage now.
somewhere about two in the morning she found herself—not at vresse, but at mogimont, in a totally different direction. it didn't matter, for it was miles away from rochehaut, which was all she cared about; but in her ignorance of her whereabouts she nearly blundered into the tiny station, where a melancholy middle-aged german was brewing himself coffee. beating a hasty retreat, she found a haystack in a corner of a meadow, and climbed into its warm depths to wait for the dawn. imprimis, she had not yet showed herself at mogimont, and she must; secundis, after her recent performance she wouldn't trust herself in the dark to find the way back to the farm. she was extremely tired (dorothea liked a good eleven hours in her bed), and she fell fast asleep. the sun was high when she was aroused[pg 276] by the shaking of her couch. she opened drowsy eyes, to see the top of a ladder pushing itself up against the sky; a moment later she was gazing into the round astonished eyes and open mouth of the landsturm sentry, who had come to fetch a truss of hay.
dorothea had meant to show herself, but not at such close quarters. she hurled herself upon him and tipped his ladder over. he fell off, she slipped down the other side of the stack and made for the woods. luckily she had only a few yards to cover. she was plunging through the hedge as her adversary turned the corner of the stack. he fired, and missed; out of the station rushed his comrades at the shot; down the hill through the woods fled dorothea, laughing—yes—laughing; his expression had been so funny!
it was a close shave, nevertheless. she was up an oak-tree, flattened against the trunk, when the pursuit went past, and there she stayed until the alarm died away in another direction. she would have stayed longer; but when the world turned to black mist and began to spin round her she slid down as fast as she could, and ended by rolling out of the lower branches. when she came to herself she was lying at the foot of the tree in a pool of blood, ten feet from a path, at the mercy of any chance wayfarer. her arm had broken out bleeding again; she was parched with thirst and felt like death. it was thirst which at last spurred her to her feet, in the hope of finding water. and in that land of brooks and springs she did find it—a tiny runnel, tasting of the brown leaves through which it oozed, but water of life to dorothea with the wound-thirst on her. she drank and drank, and laved her head and face and arms, and drank again, till the sky stood still, and the trees left off dancing jigs before her eyes.
but she had lost a good deal of blood; she was weak, and feverish, and muddle-headed; and in consequence she made a blunder. she ought now to have stripped off denis's things, which had served their turn, and left them hidden. but she had got into her head that she was to take them[pg 277] back to the cave, and she had not wits enough to mend her plan; she could only carry out what was fixed before.
all that day, then, she toiled along, still in the character of the escaped avion. but the forests of the semois are lonely; she met no one but a couple of children picking whortleberries, who dropped their cans and their dinner and fled, taking her for a german. dorothea shuddered at the bread; she tried a few berries, but they made her sick. she could not eat that day, but she drank of every brook she came across. it was very hot, and denis's coat and cap and leggings were made of leather and lined with fleece, and their dark color attracted an egyptian plague of flies. dorothea was far spent by the time she struck the familiar track through the pine wood.
she was so far spent that for some time she walked along the track itself, forgetting it was no place for her. it seemed too much trouble, too much, to stoop and crawl and hide among the bracken. when a bramble caught her sleeve she burst out crying. she missed her way and stumbled into the hidden dell from the wrong side, brushing waist-high through flowering willow-herb which streamed down the hill-side, rose-pink, almost lilac in intensity of color.
oh! the coolness, the green twilight of the cave! dorothea with a great sigh buried her face in icy crystal water. oh! it was good! she lay for some time before she discovered that one reason why she had been feeling so queer was that her arm was bleeding again. she gave a twist to her bandage, but she was too tired to see to it properly—too tired even to get rid of her flying kit; a deadly lassitude weighed on every limb. by and by, when it was cooler, and darker, and the flies were less troublesome, she would slip off down to the farm.
"this is where he went," said an eager voice. "see how he has broken these pink weeds! and here is the blood again."
"himmel! i have passed this tree ten times, and never have i seen this path! but what is become of him? he cannot have flown out of the place!"
[pg 278]
dorothea sat up; she was cold enough now. oh! why had she not thought of the wood being still patrolled?
steps came swishing through the long grass. suddenly the cave grew lighter, and there was a startled exclamation. they had lifted the curtain of ivy. both began to chatter at once, rapidly, excitedly. "i tell you, it is not safe, these caves are dangerous!" "aber, if we fetch the herr lieutenant he will not give us the reward, we shall have to share with the rest!" private blum had a young lady in germany, and he wanted all he could get. dorothea could not follow all their talk, but she gathered to her joy that one was going off to fetch help while the other stayed on guard. yes, he was certainly alone; she could hear him walking up and down and singing to himself—"ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten—" now, with any luck—
the song ceased. the ivy was lifted again.
"englishman!" pause. "englishman, are you there? do you hear me? if you will come out you shall have your life—i will not harm you!"
private blum had a mind to steal a march on his comrade. getting no reply, he went head first into the hole on hands and knees, his rifle tucked under his arm. it was very dark and very wet, and disagreeable stories about underground rivers and bottomless abysses were running in his head. he paused. "englishman!" he called again less confidently.
this time there was a reply; a shot came out of the dark. he seized his rifle and returned the compliment; then, feeling what seemed like the entire grotto tumbling about his ears, he backed out hurriedly. "du lieber gott!" he muttered, standing up in the sunshine and feeling himself all over to make sure he was not hurt, "but that is a dangerous one! i will leave him to the herr lieutenant—he will know how to settle him!"
the luck was all with the enemy. dorothea lay weeping tears of rage over denis's useless revolver. she had dropped it into the stream; she had never let one off before, she had no idea they kicked like that! and now what was she to do? if she could have disposed of private blum, as she had[pg 279] hoped, she might have got away; but she had not disposed of private blum. he was out there, very much alive, and in another minute lieutenant müller would join him; and if lieutenant müller saw her—
till this minute dorothea had never doubted of success. but now? dead or alive, if she fell into german hands, it would be equally fatal; denis would be worse off than if she had never interfered. he might even owe his death to her. "oh, darling, darling!" dorothea murmured, crushing her hands together, an agonizing stricture at her heart. "oh, it isn't fair. oh, god, let me save him! oh, i must save him, i can't bear it if he dies through me, i can't, i can't, i can't. oh, isn't there any, any way?"
pieces of rock, loosened by the explosion, were still pattering down; one fell on her hand. she glanced round impatiently, and saw to her dismay that half the cave seemed ready to fall in; very little more would bring down an avalanche. she sprang to her feet—and stood still. she had seen how to save denis.
so simple, after all! why, of course it was what always happened, in the ordinary course of operations. so much neater, too, than if she had escaped. the search would come to an end, the roads would no longer be guarded, denis would have a far better chance of getting off. and there would certainly be nothing left to identify. oh, it was a topping idea! perhaps if denis crossed the frontier into holland she might follow—no, she couldn't, though, she was forgetting; how queer! she would be dead.
death. she was going to die, all alone here in the dark. she would never see the sunshine any more. she would never see denis any more, never be his wife, never taste the happiness which niggard fate, at long last, was offering her. it was the end. and while she was trying to subdue her aching, unsatisfied rebellion, to remind herself that she had only petitioned to be allowed to save him and should be thankful, in a flash of sunset light which illumined and interpreted the past, dorothea saw that it was the only perfect end. she would have been his wife? ah, but it would[pg 280] never have been the same, he would never have given her what he once gave; she had spoiled that. it would have been pity, amends, the second best. he would never, never love her living; no, but he would love her dead. for her sake he would go softly all his days; she was sure, now, of an unfading shrine in his memory. yes, and even apart from denis, little dorothea was shyly proud. she was not giving her life for him alone; she was dying as a soldier for her country, and could claim the soldier's due of amnesty and an honored grave.
how far away the world had gone! and how dim and queer she felt! was it her arm again? those moments of waiting might have been very cruel, but, more lucky in her death than in her life, dorothea was spared them. she did not hear lieutenant müller outside, nor his orders to the men. she had drifted far away, to happy hours at bredon and her beloved aeroplane. it was evening; the solemn splendors of the sunset were all about her in the sky. she was flying through a sea of gold—of pure gold, like unto clear glass—or was it the glory of god?
