by Roy J. Snell
_Chapter_ XIV A Dungeon Night
There came a second blast. A deathlike silence followed. This was soonenough shattered by the anxious call of the cook, demanding to know ifall were well and by the excited cry of the children. Then, fromoutside, came the honk of an auto horn.
The door swung open. A voice shouted:
“All out for a moonlit visit to the ancient Norman castle.”
It was the young Lord Applegate. “Pile into the car, all of you.” Histone was sharp, commanding. “This is going to be bad. A dozen Jerrybombers circling around looking for targets, and the moon makingeverything bright as day. Your broad roof shows up all too clearly.”
Dashing to the corner of the room, Dave seized two buckets of water todrench the fire. They were to recall this act later, with thanksgiving.
In an incredibly short time they were all crowded into the big car andaway.
Through the back window of the racing car Alice caught a fleetingglimpse of her home, the only home she had ever known. Standing there inthe cool, shadowy moonlight, with great trees banked behind it, the oldhouse seemed a thing of indescribable beauty. Yet the word that came tothe girl’s mind was “lonely”. For a space of seconds it seemed to herthat she must leap from the car and race back to be with the dear oldhouse in its great time of trial.
This was but a fleeting fancy. A turn in the road shut the place fromher view. She heard the young Lord saying:
“I’ve fixed up an air raid shelter in the dungeon of the castle. It’sthirty steps down, walled over with massive rocks. Even had an oilheater installed. We’ll be safe and comfortable there.”
“Safe and comfortable,” Alice thought angrily. “In an insane, upsidedown world such as this, who wanted to be comfortable and safe?”
This too she realized was a wrong slant on life. “Comfort and safety,”she assured herself, “are two of the great necessities of life. For, onthe morrow, there is work to be done.” At that she did not know the halfof it.
Warmington Castle, a great, square mass of masonry, looming a hundredfeet above the meadows, greeted them as they took one more curve in theroad. A minute more and there they were.
With the droning of heavy motors still in their ears, they hurried downone narrow stairs, then another, to find themselves in a rather largewindowless room where candles blinked at them from every corner and anoil stove glowed warmly up at them.
Lady Applegate, a frail, nervous little lady, greeted them with jitteryhandshakes and an uncertain smile. Her husband had died from woundsreceived in that other war. And now this! “Poor soul,” thought Alice.
As if to guard her from bombs, the Lady’s servants, butler, cook, andtwo maids, sat clustered about her.
Dave was not long in the dungeon. Having wished to witness an air-raidhe took the thing by the bit and hurried back up the stairs. Flash, thecollie, it would seem, was of the same mind. He followed him out.
As if in search of fresh targets, just any roof gleaming up from themoonlit night, giant planes were still circling. Dave strained his eyesfor a glimpse of them.
“That’s the plague of it,” he grumbled. “If you could see them you couldblast them from the sky even at night.”
Backing away, he studied the mass of masonry above him. More a fort thana castle, it had stood there for hundreds of years. Bombs had shatteredit more than twenty years before. But the tower, with stairway leadingto the top, still stood. He was considering climbing those stairs for abetter view of the sky, when, a sudden discovery left him standing therequite motionless. From the very top of that tower had come a flash oflight.
“Spy!” His mind registered like a recording machine. “Flashing signals!”
That was enough. Two steps at a time, with the collie at his heels, hewent up those stairs. What was he to do? There were times when hebelieved in revelations straight from the Divine Will. He would knowwhat was to be done when the time came.
Approaching the top, he went on tiptoe. Unfortunately Flash could notknow the need for breathless silence. He uttered a low growl.
Instantly there came a crash. Something had fallen. There was the soundof shuffling footsteps.
The tower, a mass of standing pillars and tumbled stone, offered asplendid hiding place. One might hide from a man, not from a dog. Davehad, for the instant, forgotten the dog. Springing forward, he all butfell over some large, dark object. Bending over, he picked the thing up.“Some instrument, perhaps a—”
His thoughts broke off. The dog had found the fugitive. There came amuttered guttural curse, a sound of a solid impact, the howl of the dog,and after that scurrying footsteps.
At that instant the instrument in Dave’s hand gave forth a flood oflight. The light fell full upon the fleeting figure of a man. The manturned half about. Having caught the fellow’s profile in bold relief,Dave recognized him instantly. And then the fugitive, with the dog athis heels, plunged down the narrow, winding stairs.
Dave was fast, but not fast enough. Once, as he raced down those stairs,he caught a glimpse of man and dog. Then he tripped over a broken step,plunged downward, hit his head against the wall, was out for thirtyseconds, and so lost the race.
He arrived at the castle door just in time to see two fleeting shadows,a man and a dog, lose themselves in the deeper shadow of a small, lowstone structure fifty yards or more from the castle.
As he stood balanced on the threshold he suddenly became conscious of atremendous roar overhead. It seemed that one of those tri-motoredbombers must crash against the castle’s tower. And then?
In sudden terror he fairly tumbled down two flights of stairs, bangedagainst the massive iron-bound door to the dungeon, tumbled through andslammed the door behind him, just as a terrific blast set the castleshuddering from towers to dungeon.
In the moments that followed they could hear the dull thud of masonryfalling. But it all seemed very far away, like part of a bad dream.
There came a second crash, a third. Then all was silent and the ghoststhat perhaps haunted this dungeon, spirits of those who suffered here insolitary confinement centuries ago, might, Dave supposed, walk in peace.
It was Alice who broke that silence. Her voice was as calm and restfulas it would have been were she seated before the fire in her ownkitchen. She was speaking to the two waifs from London’s slums. Theywere curled up beside her on an ancient stone bench.
“Yes, children,” was her answer to a whispered question, “Louise andCharlotte, the two lady spies, lived and worked as spies for a longtime. They performed many daring feats.
“You know,” she went on, and they were all listening now, “Louise andCharlotte always had messages to carry across the line. In places therewas a river to cross. Always there was the terrible wall of barbed wireand traps. Louise, who could not swim and dared not trust a boat, wentacross the river many times on a large chopping bowl.”
“Funny little boat,” Peggy whispered.
“They used strange devices for hiding their messages.” Alice had a goodmemory. “Once when Louise was arrested she threw a black ball of yarninto the brush at the side of the road but held to the end until it hadlanded. The message was wound inside the ball of yarn.”
“They didn’t find it. That was good!” Tillie whispered. “Go on! Whatelse?”
“Once the two girl spies seemed to be going on a picnic. They weremunching bread and sausages as they marched along. Once more they weresearched. Nothing was found. The message was in Louise’s sausage.
“Oh yes,” Alice drew a heavy sigh. “Those two girls did marvelous thingsfor their country. They set up a secret radio and sent over messages.They trained carrier pigeons to take messages across the line. DaringFrenchmen were carried over the line in airplanes to spy out the enemy’sdefenses. Louise helped them.
“And after that,” the story teller sighed more deeply, “there camedarker days. The enemy counter-spies wove a web of evidence about them.They were arrested.
Evidence was produced. They were court-martialed.The sentence was: ‘For Louise, death. For Charlotte, death.’”
“And—and were they really shot?” Peggy whispered with a shudder.
“Not yet.” Alice’s voice was low. “Their prison keeper had come torespect and love them as if they were his children.
“‘Poor souls’, he said, ‘So they have condemned you to die? Ask what youwill. It shall be granted.’
“When the day for their execution was near,” Alice went on, “theyrequested that they might spend their last night on earth together.
“The keeper carried this request to the governor. He returned with aradiant face. ‘He has refused it,’ he whispered to Louise. Thank God! Itmeans that they will not shoot you in the morning. Otherwise he wouldnot have denied you.”
“Oh, good!” Peggy breathed.
“That morning,” Alice went on after a time, “another beautiful girl,Gabrielle Petiti, was to be shot as a spy. Louise and Charlotte heardher walking to the place of her execution and they heard her cry:‘Salut! O mon dernier matin!’ (Salute, O my last morning!)”
“Oh!” Peggy whispered.
“And were—” Tillie began.
“No, Louise and Charlotte were not shot.” There was a catch in Alice’svoice. “Because of their loyalty and great bravery they were sent toprison for life.
“Two months and two days before the great war ended Louise died inprison. Charlotte lived on and went back to keeping shop. Perhaps she’sliving still.”
“And now perhaps she’s a spy again.” Peggy shuddered with ecstasy. “I’mgoing to be a spy some day.”
“Alice, my dear,” said Lady Applegate, “that’s no story to tell to achild.”
But Tillie whispered very low, “I—I think it is wonderful, Alice. I—I’dlike to kiss you.” And she did.
Just then there came a scratching at the door. “It’s Flash!” Cherrycried. “We’ve all forgotten him.”
As she threw the door open the dog went creeping across the floor tocurl up, still whining low, at Alice’s feet.