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Page 109
"This looks promising. You're a clever man, Weber, and my debt to you is
too big for me."
"Don't think about it. Be careful and don't make any noise. Here's the
other stair. You'd better hold to my coat again."
They stole softly down the stair, crossed an unused room, went down
another narrow, unused passage, and then, when Weber opened a door, John
felt the cool air of the night blowing upon his face. When the attempt
at escape began, he had not been so enthusiastic, because he was leaving
Julie behind, but with every step his eagerness grew and the free wind
brought with it a sort of intoxication. He did not doubt now that he
would make good his flight. Weber, that fast friend of his, was a
wonderful man. He worked miracles. Everything came out as he predicted
it would, and he would work more miracles.
"Where are we now?" asked John.
"This door is by the side of the kitchens. A little to the left is an
extensive conservatory, nearly all the glass of which has been shattered
by a shell, but that fact makes it all the more useful as a path for
us. If we reach it unobserved we can creep through the mass of flowers
and shrubbery to a large fishpond which lies just beyond it. You're a
good swimmer, as I know--and you can swim along its edge until you reach
the shrubbery on the other side. Then you ought to find an opening by
which you can reach the French army."
"And you, Weber?"
"I? Oh, I must stay here. The Prince of Auersperg is a man of great
importance. He is high in the confidence of the Kaiser. Besides his
royal rank he commands one of the German armies. If I am to secure
precious information for France it must be done in this house."
"Come away with me, Weber. You've risked enough already. They'll catch
you and you know the fate of spies. I feel like a criminal or coward
abandoning you to so much danger, after all that you've done for me."
"Thank you for your good words, Mr. Scott, but it's impossible for me to
go. Keep in the shadow of the wall, and a dozen steps will take you to
the conservatory."
John wrung the Alsatian's hand, stepped out, and pressed himself against
the side of the house. The breeze still blew upon his face, revivifying
and intoxicating. The lazy, feathery clouds were yet drifting before the
moon and stars.
He saw to his right the gleam of a bayonet as a sentinel walked back and
forth and he saw another to his left. His heart beat high with hope. He
was merely a mote in infinite night, and surely they could not see him.
He walked swiftly along in the shadow of the house, and then sprang into
the conservatory, where he crouched between two tall rose bushes. He
waited there a little while, breathing hard, but he had not been
observed. From his rosy shelter he could still see the sentinels on
either side, walking up and down, undisturbed. Around him was a
frightful litter. The shell, the history of which he would never know,
had struck fairly in the center of the place, and it must have burst in
a thousand fragments. Scarcely a pane of glass had been left unbroken,
and the great pots, containing rare fruits and flowers, were mingled
mostly in shattered heaps. It was a pitiable wreck, and it stirred John,
although he had seen so many things so much worse.
He walked a little distance in a stooping position, and then stood up
among some shrubs, tall enough to hide him. He noticed a slight dampness
in the air, and he saw, too, that the feathery clouds were growing
darker. The faint quiver in the air brought with it, as always, the
rumble of the guns, but he believed that it was not a blended sound.
There was real thunder on the horizon, where the French lay, and then he
saw a distant flash, not white like that of a searchlight, but like
yellow lightning. Rain, a storm perhaps, must be at hand. He had read
that nearly all the great battles in the civil war in his own country
had been followed at once by violent storms of thunder, lightning and
rain. Then why not here, where immense artillery combats never ceased?
Near the end of the conservatory he paused and looked back at the house.
Every window was dark. There must be light inside, but shutters were
closed. His heart throbbed with intense gratitude to Weber. Without him
escape would have been impossible. He would make his way to the French.
He would find Lannes and together in some way they would rescue Julie,
Julie so young and so beautiful, held in the castle of the medieval
baron. In the lowering shadows the house became a castle and Auersperg
had always been of the Middle Ages.
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