He had been standing there for half an hour or more in an agony of suspense, listening for any shot from the forest behind him, straining eyes and ears for any sign of the airplane.
And suddenly he heard it coming — a resonant rumour through the canyon, nearer, louder, swelling to a roar as the monoplane dashed into view and struck the cable with a terrific crash.
For a second, like a giant wasp suddenly entangled in a spider’s strand, it whirled around the cable with a deafening roar of propellers; then a sheet of fire enveloped it; both wings broke off and fell; other fragments dropped blazing; and then the thing itself let go and shot headlong into awful depths!
Above it the taut cable vibrated and sang weirdly in the silence of the chasm.
The girl was still lying flat under the walnut-tree when McKay came back.
Without speaking he knelt, levelled his pistol and fired across at the man beyond the hog-back.
Instantly her pistol flashed, too; one of the men fell and tried to get up in a blind sort of way, and his comrades caught him by the arms and dragged him back behind the ledge.
“All right!” shouted one of the men from his cover, “we’ve plently of time to deal with you Yankee swine! Stay there and rot!”
“That was Skelton’s voice,” whispered Miss Erith with an involuntary shudder.
“They’ll never attempt that hog-back under our pistols now,” said
McKay coolly. “Come, Yellow-hair; we’re going forward.”
“How?” she asked, bewildered.
“By cable, little comrade,” he said, with a shaky gaiety that betrayed the tension of his nerves. “So pack up and route-step once more!”
He turned and looked at her and his face twitched:
“You wonderful girl,” he said, “you beautiful, wonderful girl! We’ll live to fly our pigeons yet, Yellow-hair, under the very snout of the whole Hun empire!”
CHAPTER VIII
THE LATE SIR W. BLINT
That two spies, a man and a woman, had penetrated the forest of Les Errues was known in Berlin on the 13th. Within an hour the entire machinery of the German Empire had been set in motion to entrap and annihilate these two people.
The formula distributed to all operators in the Intelligence Department throughout Hundom, and wherever Boche spies had filtered into civilised lands, was this:
“Two enemy secret agents have succeeded in penetrating the forest of
Les Errues. One is a man, the other a woman.
“Both are Americans. The man is that civilian prisoner, Kay McKay, who escaped from Holzminden, and of whom an exact description is available.
“The woman is Evelyn Erith. Exact information concerning her is also available.
“The situation is one of extremest delicacy and peril. Exposure of the secret understanding with a certain neutral Power which permits us certain temporary rights within an integral portion of its territory would be disastrous, and would undoubtedly result in an immediate invasion of this neutral (sic) country by the enemy as well as by our own forces.
“This must not happen. Yet it is vitally imperative that these two enemy agents should be discovered, seized, and destroyed.
“Their presence in the forest of Les Errues is the most serious menace to the Fatherland that has yet confronted it.
“Upon the apprehension and destruction of these two spies depends the safety of Germany and her allies.
“The war can not be won, a victorious German peace can not be imposed upon our enemies, unless these two enemy agents are found and their bodies absolutely destroyed upon the spot along with every particle of personal property discovered upon their persons.
“More than that: the war will be lost, and with it the Fatherland, unless these two spies are seized and destroyed.
“The Great Secret of Germany is in danger.
“To possess themselves of it — for already they suspect its nature — and to expose it not only to the United States Government but to the entire world, is the mission of these two enemy agents.
“If they succeed it would mean the end of the German Empire.
“If our understanding with a certain neutral Power be made public, that also would spell disaster for Germany.
“The situation hangs by a hair, the fate of the world is suspended above the forest of Les Errues.”
On the 14th the process of infiltration began. But the Hun invasion of Les Errues was not to be conducted in force, there must be no commotion there, no stirring, no sound, only a silent, stealthy, death-hunt in that shadowy forest — a methodical, patient, thorough preparation to do murder; a swift, noiseless execution.
Also, on the 14th, the northern sky beyond the Swiss wire swarmed with Hun airplanes patrolling the border.
Not that the Great Secret could be discovered from the air; that danger had been foreseen fifty years ago, and half a century’s camouflage screened the results of steady, calculating relentless diligence.
But French or British planes might learn of the presence of these enemy agents in the dark forest of Les Errues, and might hang like hawks above it exchanging signals with them.
Therefore the northern sky swarmed with Boche aircraft — cautiously patrolling beyond the Swiss border, and only prepared to risk its violation if Allied planes first set them an example.
But for a week nothing moved in the heavens above Les Errues except an eagle. And that appeared every day, sheering the blue void above the forest, hovering majestically in circles hour after hour and then, at last, toward sundown, setting its sublime course westward, straight into the blinding disk of the declining sun.
The Hun airmen patrolling the border noticed the eagle. After a while, as no Allied plane appeared, time lagged with the Boche, and he came to look for this lone eagle which arrived always at the same hour in the sky above Les Errues, soared there hour after hour, then departed, flapping slowly westward until lost in the flames of sunset.
“As though,” remarked one Boche pilot, “the bird were a phoenix which at the close of every day renews its life from its own ashes in the flames.”
Another airman said: “It is not a Lammergeier, is it?”
“It is a Stein-Adler,” said a third.
But after a silence a fourth airman spoke, seated before the hangar and studying a wild flower, the petals of which he had been examining with the peculiar interest of a nature-student:
“For ten days I have had nothing more important to watch than that eagle which appears regularly every day above the forest of Les Errues. And I have concluded that the bird is neither a Lammergeier nor a Stein-Adler.”
“Surely,” said one young Hun, “it is a German eagle.”
“It must be,” laughed another, “because it is so methodical and exact. Those are German traits.”
The nature-student contemplated the wild blossom which he was now idly twirling between his fingers by its stem.
“It perplexes me,” he mused aloud.
The others looked at him; one said: “What perplexes you, Von
Dresslin?”
“That bird.”
“The eagle?”
“The eagle which comes every day to circle above Les Errues. I, an amateur of ornithology am, perhaps, with all modesty, permitted to call myself?”
“Certainly,” said several airmen at once.
Another added: “We all know you to be a naturalist.”
“Pardon — a student only, gentlemen. Which is why, perhaps, I am both interested and perplexed by this eagle we see every day.”
“It is a rare species?”
“It is not a familiar one to the Alps.”
“This bird, then, is not a German eagle in your opinion, Von
Dresslin?”
“What is it? Asiatic? African? Chinese?” asked another.
Von Dresslin’s eyebrows became knitted.
“That eagle which we all see every day in the sky above Les Errues,” he said slowly, “has a snow-white crest and ta
il.”
Several airmen nodded; one said: “I have noticed that, too, watching the bird through my binoculars.”
“I know,” continued Von Dresslin slowly, “of only one species of eagle which resembles the bird we all see every day… It inhabits North America,” he added thoughtfully.
There was a silence, then a very young airman inquired whether Von Dresslin knew of any authentic reports of an American eagle being seen in Europe.
“Authentic? That is somewhat difficult to answer,” replied Von Dresslin, with the true caution of a real naturalist. “But I venture to tell you that, once before — nearly a year ago now — I saw an eagle in this same region which had a white crest and tail and was otherwise a shining bronze in colour.”
“Where did you see such a bird?”
“High in the air over Mount Terrible.” A deep and significant silence fell over the little company. If Count von Dresslin had seen such an eagle over the Swiss peak called Mount Terrible, and had been near enough to notice the bird’s colour, every man there knew what had been the occasion.
For only once had that particular region of Switzerland been violated by their aircraft during the war. It had happened a year ago when Von Dresslin, patrolling the north Swiss border, had discovered a British flyer planing low over Swiss territory in the air-region between Mount Terrible and the forest of Les Errues.
Instantly the Hun, too, crossed the line: and the air-battle was joined above the forest.
Higher, higher, ever higher mounted the two fighting planes until the earth had fallen away two miles below them.
Then, out of the icy void of the upper air-space, now roaring with their engines’ clamour, the British plane shot earthward, down, down, rushing to destruction like a shooting-star, and crashed in the forest of Les Errues.
And where it had been, there in mid-air, hung an eagle with a crest as white as the snow on the shining peaks below.
“He seemed suddenly to be there instead of the British plane,” said Von Dresslin. “I saw him distinctly — might have shot him with my pistol as he sheered by me, his yellow eyes aflame, balanced on broad wings. So near he swept that his bright fierce eyes flashed level with mine, and for an instant I thought he meant to attack me.
“But he swept past in a single magnificent curve, screaming, then banked swiftly and plunged straight downward in the very path of the British plane.”
Nobody spoke. Von Dresslin twirled his flower and looked at it in an absent-minded way.
“From that glimpse, a year ago, I believe I had seen a species of eagle the proper habitat of which is North America,” he said.
An airman remarked grimly: “The Yankees are migrating to Europe.
Perhaps their eagles are coming too.”
“To pick our bones,” added another.
And another man said laughingly to Von Dresslin:
“Fritz, did you see in that downfall of the British enemy, and the dramatic appearance of a Yankee eagle in his place, anything significant?”
“By gad,” cried another airman, “we had John Bull by his fat throat, and were choking him to death. And now — the Americans!”
“If I dared cross the border and shoot that Yankee eagle to-morrow,” began another airman; but they all knew it wouldn’t do.
One said: “Do you suppose, Von Dresslin, that the bird we see is the one you saw a year ago?”
“It is possible.”
“An American white-headed eagle?”
“I feel quite sure of it.”
“Their national bird,” said the same airman who had expressed a desire to shoot it.
“How could an American eagle get here?” inquired another man.
“By way of Asia, probably.”
“By gad! A long flight!”
Dresslin nodded: “An omen, perhaps, that we may also have to face the Yankee on our Eastern front.”
“The swine!” growled several.
Von Dresslin assented absently to the epithet. But his thoughts were busy elsewhere, his mind preoccupied by a theory which, Hunlike, he, for the last ten days, had been slowly, doggedly, methodically developing.
It was this: Assuming that the bird really was an American eagle, the problem presented itself very clearly — from where had it come? This answered itself; it came from America, its habitat.
Which answer, of course, suggested a second problem; HOW did it arrive?
Several theories presented themselves:
1st. The eagle might have reached Asia from Alaska and so made its way westward as far as the Alps of Switzerland.
2nd. It may have escaped from some public European zoological collection.
3rd. It may have been owned privately and, on account of the scarcity of food in Europe, liberated by its owner.
4th. It MIGHT have been owned by the Englishman whose plane Von Dresslin had destroyed.
And now Von Dresslin was patiently, diligently developing this theory:
If it had been owned by the unknown Englishman whose plane had crashed a year ago in Les Errues forest, then the bird was undoubtedly his mascot, carried with him in his flights, doubtless a tame eagle.
Probably when the plane fell the bird took wing, which accounted for its sudden appearance in mid-air.
Probably, also, it had been taught to follow its master; and, indeed, had followed in one superb plunge earthward in the wake of a dead man in a stricken plane.
But — WAS this the same bird?
For argument, suppose it was. Then why did it still hang over Les Errues? Affection for a dead master? Only a dog could possibly show such devotion, such constancy. And besides, birds are incapable of affection. They only know where to go for kind treatment and security. And tamed birds, even those species domesticated for centuries, know only one impulse that draws them toward any human protector — the desire for food.
Could this eagle remember for a whole year that the man who lay dead somewhere in the dusky wilderness of Les Errues had once been kind to him and had fed him? And was that why the great bird still haunted the air-heights above the forest? Possibly.
Or was it not more logical to believe that here, suddenly cast upon its own resources, and compelled to employ instincts hitherto uncultivated or forgotten, to satisfy its hunger, this solitary American eagle had found the hunting good? Probably. And, knowing no other region, had remained there, and for the first time, or at least after a long interval of captivity and dependence on man, it had discovered what liberty was and with liberty the necessity to struggle for existence.
An airman, watching Dresslin’s thoughtful features, said:
“You never found out who that Englishman was, did you?
“No.”
“Did our agents search Les Errues?”
“I suppose so. But I have never heard anything further about that affair,” he shrugged; “and I don’t believe we ever will until after the war, and until—”
“Until Switzerland belongs to us,” said an airman with a light laugh.
Others, listening, looked at one another significantly, smiling the patient, confident and brooding smile of the Hun.
Knaus unwittingly wrote his character and his epitaph:
“Ich kann warten.”
The forest of Les Errues was deathly still. Hunters and hunted both were as silent as the wild things that belonged there in those dim woods — as cautious, as stealthy.
A dim greenish twilight veiled their movements, the damp carpet of moss dulled sounds.
Yet the hunted knew that they were hunted, realised that pursuit and search were inevitable; and the hunters, no doubt, guessed that their quarry was alert.
Now on the tenth day since their entrance into Les Errues those two Americans who were being hunted came to a little wooded valley through which a swift stream dashed amid rock and fern, flinging spray over every green leaf that bordered it, filling its clear pools with necklaces of floating bubbles.
McKay slipped his pack from his shoulders
and set it against a tree. One of the two carrier pigeons in their cage woke up and ruffled. Looking closely at the other he discovered it was dead. His heart sank, but he laid the stiff, dead bird behind a tree and said nothing to his companion.
Evelyn Erith now let go of her own pack and, flinging herself on the moss, set her lips to the surface of a brimming pool.
“Careful of this Alpine water!” McKay warned her. But the girl satisfied her thirst before she rose to her knees and looked around at him.
“Are you tired, Yellow-hair?” he asked.
“Yes…. Are you, Kay?”
He shook his head and cast a glance around him.
It was beautiful, this little woodland vale with its stream dashing through and its slopes forested with beech and birch — splendid great trees with foliage golden green in the sun.
But it was not the beauty of the scene that preoccupied these two. Always, when ready to halt, their choice of any resting-place depended upon several things more important than beauty.
For one matter the place must afford concealment, and also a water supply. Moreover it must be situated so as to be capable of defence. Also there must be an egress offering a secure line of retreat.
So McKay began to roam about the place, prowling along the slopes and following the stream. Apparently the topography satisfied him; for after a little while he came back to where Miss Erith was lying on the moss, one arm resting across her eyes.
“You ARE tired,” he said.
She removed her arm and looked up at him out of those wonderful golden eyes.
“Is it all right for us to remain here, Kay?”
“Yes. You can see for yourself. Anybody coming into this valley must be visible on that ridge to the south. And there’s an exit. This brook dashes through it — two vast granite gates that will let us through into the outer forest, where they might as well hunt for two pins as for us.”
The girl smiled; her eyes closed. “I’m glad we can rest,” she murmured. So McKay went about his duties.
First he removed his pack and hers a hundred yards down stream, through the granite gateway, and placed them just beyond.
Then he came back for Miss Erith. Scarcely awakened as he lifted her, she placed one arm around his neck with the sleepy unconsciousness of a tired child. They had long been on such terms; there was no escaping them in the intimacy of their common isolation and common danger.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 909