Belinda of the Red Cross

By Robert W. Hamilton

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Title: Belinda of the Red Cross

Author: Robert W. Hamilton

Illustrator: A. O. Scott

Release date: October 12, 2024 [eBook #74567]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Sully and Kleinteich

Credits: Jamie Brydone-Jack, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELINDA OF THE RED CROSS ***





                       BELINDA OF THE RED CROSS

                         BY ROBERT W. HAMILTON

                            FRONTISPIECE BY
                              A. O. SCOTT

                               NEW YORK
                         SULLY AND KLEINTEICH

                          COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
                         SULLY AND KLEINTEICH

                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




                        [Illustration: BELINDA]




                               CONTENTS


                     I. A YOUNG MAN OUT OF THE AIR

                    II. THE WRECK OF HIS HOUSE OF CARDS

                   III. CROSSED WIRES

                    IV. A DECISION

                     V. THE RUNAWAY SHIPMASTER

                    VI. FELLOW VOYAGERS

                   VII. THE MONSTER

                  VIII. "POUR LA PATRIE"

                    IX. FIRST EXPERIENCES

                     X. BELINDA AT WORK

                    XI. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

                   XII. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SHIELD

                  XIII. THE PREPARATION

                   XIV. AMID WAR'S ALARMS

                    XV. AT THE MERCY OF THE ENEMY

                   XVI. A THREATENING SITUATION

                  XVII. EXCITEMENT ENOUGH

                 XVIII. PERILS INCREASE

                   XIX. OVER THE ENEMY'S LINES AT NIGHT

                    XX. THE DUEL

                   XXI. ACROSS BURNING SANDS

                  XXII. LOVE AT WAR

                 XXIII. BECLOUDED

                  XXIV. HER FEARS ARE SHARPENED

                   XXV. PAUL IN A WHIRLPOOL OF DOUBT

                  XXVI. TOUCH AND GO

                 XXVII. RENAUD

                XXVIII. THE HERO

                  XXIX. AT LAST

                   XXX. "THOSE EYES--THAT HAND!"

                  XXXI. THE ESCAPE

                 XXXII. FROM WAR TO PEACE




                       BELINDA OF THE RED CROSS




                               CHAPTER I

                      A YOUNG MAN OUT OF THE AIR


Two white-uniformed orderlies guided the stretcher on its rubber-tired
wheels into the corridor--the corridor which was all white tile,
marble, enameled steel and glass.

The military-looking surgeon stalking ahead had not adjusted his mask;
the jetty, cropped beard he wore on his full chin gave his countenance
an especially sinister expression. His black eyes--their glance of a
peculiarly penetrating quality--embraced the two immaculately dressed
nurses on the settee beside the door of the operating room. Sue Blaine
and Belinda Melnotte had just been speaking of the Herr Doktor; perhaps
they looked conscious under his swift, keen scrutiny.

Sue Blaine had begun tragically: "Belinda, I hear the elevator creaking
again. It's either you or me to assist the Herr Doktor. And I'm so
tired of it all!"

"Yet you took upon yourself the novitiate of a trained nurse for two
years." Belinda Melnotte's laugh was low, full, delicious. It was no
saccharine giggle, but came from a splendid chest in a robust body with
a bell-like tone to it that delighted the ear. "Two whole years, Sue!
Still, I wish I were just entering, after all."

"What?" gasped the other. "Why! when I am through here I shall
incinerate my apron, cap and first-aid kit with appropriate ceremonies
in our back-yard. I'll refuse even to do up my little brother's finger
if he cuts it. No, I am through--_through_!"

"Hush! The Herr Doktor!" Belinda Melnotte breathed.

The black-browed surgeon arrived.

"You will please to act with me, Miss Belinda. It is perhaps an
important case."

Belinda Melnotte's cheeks burned warmly. It secretly angered her that
she should blush when Doctor Herschall looked at her or spoke to her.
But she almost always betrayed that mark of confusion. He was the only
member of the great hospital's medical staff who called her by her
given name.

He was quite a wonderful man, she knew, this tall and broad-shouldered
surgeon. Many of the nurses admired him immensely, for he was not
unsocial in spite of his stern and aggressive appearance.

He was a keen and analytical surgeon, with ten years of practice in the
city to add to his first fame gained in his own country. He was but
thirty-five. Others of the medical staff of the hospital, ten years his
senior, were of sprightlier manner than Doctor Herschall and seemed to
Belinda far younger. Then there were his personal peculiarities--the
boring glance of his black eyes, the almost feline touch of his
hand--which were obnoxious to the nurse.

Having been called into consultation as a specialist in her father's
case, Doctor Herschall had met Belinda in her own home. Therefore he
assumed a familiar manner toward her from the very beginning of her
hospital training that incensed her, yet it was too indefinite for her
to show open resentment.

Had she wished to do so, this was not a time to display her private
distaste for the Herr Doktor, as he was called throughout the hospital.
The rolling stretcher was at hand. Under the canvas sheet was a
still form; but a high, querulous voice--the unmistakable tones of
delirium--babbled like a running brook:

"What d'you think of her, Doc? And after all I'd done for the old girl!
Talk about ingratitude! Nursing her along all this way--clear from the
Hempstead grounds; and then, when I had to land her, doing it as though
I were putting her to sleep in a feather-bed--cranky old thing! I
hopped out to see what was wrong with the propeller, and what does she
do to me? Slapped me! That's what she did. _Slapped me_--and I never
did a thing to her----"

His shaking, querulous voice trailed off into indistinct mutterings.
The two nurses looked curiously at the face of the man on the stretcher
while the surgeon was opening the door and the wheeled conveyance was
rolled into the spotless operating room.

The nurses were not usually curious regarding the cases brought in by
the ambulances. There were so many each day that Belinda Melnotte, with
all her interest in the work, thought of them only in numbers. There is
little variety in city accident cases.

But the babbling of this young man, whose strained, flushed face
appeared at one end of the ambulance sheet, caught her attention.
It suggested something out of the ordinary; the victim might be an
extraordinary person.

"Oh, Belinda!" whispered Sue Blaine, suddenly seizing Belinda's arm. "I
know who he is. Sandy Sanderson!"

Belinda repeated the name questioningly. "You know him?" she asked.

"From his pictures in the papers. Don't you remember? The flying
man--Sandy Sanderson they call him. He won one of the flying events at
the Sheepshead Bay maneuvers only last month. Surely you remember?"

Belinda shook her head negatively; but her eyes remained fixed upon the
face of the victim of the accident. "He is feverish," she murmured,
following the stretcher into the operating room. This was indeed no
ordinary case. She half understood already the meaning of the young
man's muttered phrases. He might be seriously injured. An aviator!

"This way," said the surgeon gutturally, speaking to the men who lifted
the patient. The latter screamed weakly as he was moved; then he fell
silent and into a syncope.

"Much fever here. Hum!" muttered Doctor Herschall, straightening the
limbs of the young man on the high table. The attendants departed. The
nurse had been arranging the stand of instruments, and now wheeled it
to the doctor's hand. The cone, sponge, and can of ether were ready.
The surgeon continued to examine deftly the body before him.

"The left shoulder blade. Hum! Much laceration--scraped to the bone.
Hum! Fine physique. An athlete, this fellow, though he won't weigh a
hundred and twenty pounds. Hum! We must save this torn cuticle if we
can. If we _must_ graft--hum!--well, we must."

He had removed the ambulance surgeon's bandages. Those over the left
shoulder and the bandage about the victim's head seemed to indicate
all the injuries the young man had suffered. Yet Doctor Herschall was
thorough in his examination. His attention to detail in even the least
important case was characteristic of the man. He possessed the exact
German mind, as well as the Prussian bearing and look.

"Fever--fever," he repeated. "Much fever. And not entirely induced by
these wounds. He has only just now been brought in from Van Cortlandt
Park and, the interne tells me, could not have been long injured when
he was found beside his fallen machine."

Doctor Herschall had this habit of talking while at work--even after
adjusting his mask. At first, when Belinda chanced to assist him, he
had addressed his remarks directly to her. She never replied if she
could help it; therefore of late he merely carried on a monologue
of comment as though he were addressing a class in the operating
auditorium. His final words on this occasion startled the nurse into
speaking.

"A flying machine, Doctor? Did he fall?"

"He came down, at least," growled Doctor Herschall. "_Ach_, these
American airmen are mere amateurs! No training. Everything is haphazard
in this country. Anybody reckless and bold enough is allowed to ascend
in an aeroplane. Not like European methods--especially our own army
methods. In Germany a man must be trained for his work ere he is
allowed to pilot even a _taube_."

The deft-handed nurse made no further comment, feeling that she had
already been unwise in opening the way for his direct address. Doctor
Herschall went skilfully about his work; nor did the nurse fail in
the least of her duties. A murmured word--even a gesture--brought the
required instrument, or whatever was needed. She watched the doctor
closely, rather than looked at the raw wound he was at work upon.
She had never got over that first feeling of creeping horror that
clutched her when she beheld a gory wound. Yet she possessed such
splendid control that few suspected Belinda Melnotte even owned nerves.
She approached almost every operation with reluctance and aversion.
Abundant physical health and perfect mental poise enabled her to hide
her real feelings.

The shoulder was dressed. The cut upon the head just at the roots of
the hair, where the scar might easily be hidden, was superficial. The
head bandage being removed, the nurse gained a better view of the
airman's countenance.

There was a roach of reddish, sandy hair over the broad brow; but the
eyebrows and lashes were dark enough to lend to his features a certain
dignity. These features were sharp rather than noble of outline; yet
he possessed a good mouth and a firm chin. The twenty-four hours'
growth of beard gave unmistakable reason for his being dubbed "Sandy"
by his friends and admirers.

Belinda thought him a particularly interesting-looking young man. It
was seldom that she so quickly felt concern in the personality of a
patient.

"This fever, superinduced by the wounds, has a deeper foundation,
however," muttered Doctor Herschall. "Watch his temperature, Miss
Belinda. Speak to Doctor Potter--although I shall make a note of the
case myself."

The attendants were summoned and the Herr Doktor went away to wash
his hands and remove the spotted rubber apron. The superintendent of
nurses--by courtesy "matron"--bustled in as the still unconscious
patient was lifted to the stretcher.

"Let Miss Blaine clean up here and boil the instruments," said the
brisk little woman. "I want you to take this patient, Miss Melnotte.
Room A-a. He's just been telephoned in about. Why, he's quite a public
character!"

"I understand," Belinda said, "that he is a flying-man."

"Yes. Mr. Frank Sanderson. Quite famous, in a way. He fell with his
plane over Van Cortlandt Park in the night. There must be something
behind it--more than a mere practice flight, it would seem to me. They
do not usually go up at night, do they?"

"I really do not know, Mrs. Blythe."

"Well, he is to have the best of everything. And so young a man!"
sighed the matron, gazing down upon the face of the aviator. "Give him
your best attention, Miss Melnotte. I really feel safe when I put a
patient in your care. I wish you were not going to leave us so soon."

"I wish, too, that there might be an opening here," the girl said
wistfully.

"Do you, really? It is always the way," sighed the matron. "We graduate
so many more nurses than we can possibly use. But _you_ will have small
trouble in getting placed, my dear. So many are going into Red Cross
work just now."

"I had thought of that," murmured Belinda dreamily.

"Not you!" the matron cried. "You have too much sense, I hope, my dear.
Those who go to France for service on the battlefields take their lives
in their hands."

"But so we do if we go into some of those East Side tenements to nurse
contagious cases," the girl said quietly. "And the Red Cross nurses do
such a noble work--don't you think so?"

"Sentimentalism!" snapped Mrs. Blythe. "I hope all my girls have too
much sense."

Belinda shook her head, but made no rejoinder, although she could not
subscribe to the matron's tenets.

At the moment, too, her mind was given to thoughts of the young man out
of the air. She followed to the private room engaged for his comfort,
and helped the attendant put him to bed.




                              CHAPTER II

                    THE WRECK OF HIS HOUSE OF CARDS


Sanderson awoke with the sun streaming in through the high window and
lying like a golden mantle flung across the floor and bed. Otherwise
everything in the room seemed glaringly white. It was mid-afternoon,
and the westering orb had full command of this side of the hospital
wing.

He knew at once where he was. There was no wild start and "Where am
I?" cry. He merely looked up at the rather sturdy figure in voluminous
apron and cap standing within the range of his vision, and grinned.

"I say," he croaked, "that must have been some bump. How hot I am! Can
I have a drink, Nurse?"

She seemed to have foreseen this first request. In a moment the glass
and tube were at his lips. She would not allow him to raise his head
from the pillow. As he drank slowly the refreshing contents of the
glass he examined her face with deeper appreciation than Belinda
Melnotte imagined.

"I say," he sighed finally, "that was great! When did they bring me
in?"

"This morning."

"I--I can't remember it," he murmured. "But I must have come down
before daylight."

"You were brought downtown at nine o'clock," she told him cheerfully.
"They found you and your machine in Van Cortlandt Park."

"Is _that_ as far as I got?"

"And quite far enough, I should say," she quickly commented, and with
disapproval. "Flying at night! What reckless creatures you airmen are!"

His face was suddenly twisted into a grimace of pain, but he managed to
chuckle.

"Oh, some of us expect soon to be regular 'fly-by-nights.'" Then,
quickly: "Ah, I remember. By jove, she slapped me!"

The nurse recalled his babblings when he was brought in, and laughed
her low, delicious laugh.

"I suppose it was only a lover's quarrel," she suggested.

His eyes twinkled, too. "She's a cranky old thing. I ought to jilt
her. And after this--well, she slapped me with that propeller good and
plenty. How much will it set me back, Nurse? How long must I lie here?
Is that shoulder seriously hurt?"

"Nothing is broken," she assured him cheerfully.

"Except my head," and he felt the bandage tenderly.

"Oh, that's nothing."

"Ow! I bet that hurt me," he grinned. "So complimentary----"

"Now I must take your temperature. You may talk no longer," she said
severely.

He watched her with a rather quizzical gaze as she moved about the room
while he "smoked the glass pipe." If she apprehended his scrutiny she
was so careless of it--or so well balanced of mind--that she displayed
not the slightest self-consciousness.

He found himself cataloging in his rather hazy thoughts the several
attributes of person and manner that made Belinda Melnotte an
attractive and most refreshing personality to him. Her calm was
matronly; but her exquisite complexion, her ripe lips, the tendrils of
hair that clustered about the edge of her cap, her full and brilliant
eyes, were all virginal.

She moved with an air of perfect self-confidence. Her hand was not
small, but was very soft, very beautifully formed, and had the firm
clasp of a man's. Her bared forearm and wrist, tapering from the elbow,
was worthy of being modeled. The shadows that lay in the curves of her
neck lent the appearance of ivory to the flesh.

Sanderson was distinctly not given to worship of the feminine; but
this very capable-looking and particularly beautiful nurse held his
interest from his first conscious moment. It was not mere prettiness
or sex-charm; she was, in truth, downright beautiful.

"Magnificent!" the patient told himself, and then wandered off into a
feverish state of half-slumber in which the nurse was only one of many
characters that flitted across the screen of his imagination.

He was conscious at one time of a grave-looking man standing at the
foot of the bed and pulling his Vandyke beard while he talked in jerky
sentences to the calm-faced nurse.

"Yes, it is malarial without doubt. I know what those aviation grounds
are like. A swamp on one side--all undrained land thereabout. Full
of malaria. He likely had a high temperature when he went up in his
machine."

Sanderson thought he burst out laughing. He tried to tell the doctor
that going up in a cranky aeroplane would give anybody a high
temperature.

"With the complication of his wounds he is likely to have a siege of
it," the physician said to the nurse. "Are you in charge?"

"Day duty for the present, Doctor Potter."

"Ah--yes. When you are relieved, impress upon the night nurse that she
is to call the doctor on duty if there is the least change. I fancy he
is quite out of his head."

He was out of his head. He next awoke in the night and a plain-featured
nurse endeavored to give him his medicine.

"Say," he demanded, "where's the peach?"

"Still hanging on the tree, boy, as far as you are concerned, I fancy,"
she replied, and tried again to give him his medicine. He knocked the
spoon and glass to the far side of Room A-a.

But Miss Trivett was a very capable nurse, if lacking in personal
pulchritude. She patiently prepared the draught again and, seizing his
nose suddenly between thumb and finger, forced the dose down his throat.

"What do you know about that?" sputtered Sanderson. "You--you are own
sister to that cranky old machine of mine! _She_ slapped me----" and he
rambled off into a repetition of the story of his accident.

His temperature was high, and Miss Trivett reported this to the doctor.
It was a fight then for the aviator's life; but he did not realize how
ill he was until, after a week or more, he came out of the Vale of
Delirium in which he had wandered and beheld Belinda Melnotte clearly
again.

"Say!"

The weakness of his voice so startled him that he almost lost
consciousness before he could express his desire. The nurse was quickly
at his side and, stooping, placed a firm hand upon his breast. Later he
realized that the gesture betrayed the fact that the strong, beautiful
hand had often held him down on his pillow while he was delirious.

"Say! I--I----When do I eat, Nurse?"

She smiled upon him, and Sanderson thought her face fairly glorified
thereby.

"You may eat now if you feel like it."

"Bully!" he whispered. "Porterhouse steak and a mug of musty----"

"In liquid and concentrated form," she interposed, and soon the glass
of milk and Vichy water was at his lips.

It wearied him even to swallow that. He lay and watched her moving
quietly about. When she laid a cool palm upon his brow to mark if the
fever had subsided, he could have asked her to keep it there.

He had never experienced such a sense of weakness before--at least,
within his adult remembrance. It was a curious thing--this sense of
dependence upon a woman. And a woman so much stronger physically than
himself.

Previous to this time many girls had seemed to Frank Sanderson soft
little things--rather useless "play-toys"--were the truth to be told.
He could not remember his mother. He was the youngest of a family of
boys brought up in a somewhat haphazard fashion by a father who had
loved their mother too well to bring another woman into his life.

The young man's social instincts were not well developed. He had
been sent to a boys' school, and then to college. The athletic field
had claimed his interest rather than fraternity life and social
entertainments. And he had always looked with scorn upon those of his
mates who allowed themselves to be lionized by silly women.

For two years now he had been devoted to aviation. With a moderate
income at his disposal, and no expensive tastes to gratify, he was able
to follow this bent. The elder Sanderson was dead. Frank's brothers
were scattered--all in business in various cities. Aside from his
fellow aviators, the members of the two or three clubs he belonged to,
and a few boyhood friends, he was a man alone.

Now began for him a series of incidents that were both strange and
delightful. He had never been so near, or so familiar with, such a girl
as this before.

"So different from Stella!" he murmured to himself. "Vastly different
from Stella!"

The wound in his shoulder was healing nicely; but as an aid to
this improvement he had to be moved with extreme care. Belinda
Melnotte's strength, as well as her unstinted attention, was of great
assistance--greater than the mere medical skill expended upon the case.

The black-bearded, black-eyed surgeon came occasionally and examined
the wound; but it was the nurse who always dressed it. The cut upon
Sanderson's forehead was of course soon healed.

"We might graft a bit on this shoulder," the surgeon suggested, "and so
leave a less puckered scar. But the wound heals nicely. Hum!"

"'Hum!' it is, Doc," quoted Sanderson with a grin. "That would keep me
here longer, wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

"And I've been here too long already. It is now a month. The other boys
must have sailed. I guess we'll let it go as it lies, Doc. I shall not
dress _décolleté_, so the scar won't show," and he grinned again.

He noted how this stern and rather sour-visaged surgeon treated the
nurse. It was with a measure of familiarity that seemed to betray an
association beyond daily intercourse in the wards of the hospital.
The nurse seldom spoke to the Herr Doktor; but the latter watched her
continually, and Sanderson was troubled in his mind.

Belinda Melnotte was the most companionable of nurses--bright, joyous,
kind. When she was alone with him, or if the matron or other nurses
or members of the medical staff were in the room, she was the life of
the company. But upon the entrance of Doctor Herschall she changed.
She seemed to droop, or close within herself. She listened to the Herr
Doktor respectfully, and had nothing to say to the patient. The latter
grew more and more puzzled.

"How came you to take up nursing, Miss Melnotte?" he asked her one day.

"Because I had nursed my father so long that, when he died, I was
lonely with nothing in particular to do. Besides, one must have some
occupation. Why did you take up aviation, Mr. Sanderson?"

"For somewhat the same reason," he said, smiling. "One must have some
occupation, as you say. But going up in the air--and falling down
again--seems to me a more exciting way of passing the time than this,"
and his gesture included the almost bare and rather cheerless room.

"Ah, but we nurses live the other side of it," and she laughed. "We
do not suffer the pain, or live altogether within these sanitary and
immaculate walls."

"You serve long enough hours, I fancy," Sanderson said, with
appreciation. "And the draft upon your sympathies! Or am I
exceptionally favored, Miss Melnotte? Do you treat all your patients so
sweetly and generously as you do me?"

A warmer color flooded into her cheeks; but she still smiled.

"That is a part of our trade, Mr. Sanderson. Cheerfulness is more
potent than drugs."

"Does Doctor Herschall say that?"

She had turned away so that he could not see her countenance. But
he knew she resented the remark, for she changed the topic of
conversation instantly.

"Tell me what it feels like to be up in the air, Mr. Sanderson."

"Just like that," he chuckled. "You know you're up in the air, and if
you think of how far below the earth is, you won't think of much else,
I assure you."

"Oh, it seems very dangerous."

"Not in every way. The driver of a racing auto is in much greater
danger. Little chance of collision up yonder, unless two pilots allow
their planes to draw so near to each other that the suction of the
propellers causes a catastrophe."

"Just as the suction of a passing train may draw one under the wheels?"

"Exactly. But I feared all manner of things when I first went up as
a passenger," he pursued. "The pilot was so matter-of-fact that I
thought him reckless. I was scarcely seated and my belt hooked when we
were off. I heard the wheels bounding along the ground. Then the noise
stopped--we were in the air."

"Oh!"

"Yes. I thought I should feel vertigo, as I often did when at an
altitude. I dared not look out of the machine until we were perhaps
five hundred feet up. Then, to my surprise, I felt not the least
sensation of height. The ground seemed merely moving slowly under and
away from me. We kept climbing. I could see the country for miles and
miles."

"How wonderful!"

As the days passed and Sanderson grew stronger, there was less danger
of his exhausting himself by talking. Nurse Melnotte was really having
an easy time.

"A soft snap," little Sue Blaine declared enviously. "And such an
interesting patient, too! You always _do_ have all the luck, Belinda."

"Do you think so?" came, with her quiet smile.

"He's an awfully nice fellow. Believe _me_--I'd set my cap for him if
I'd had the luck to be detailed on the case. Think! An aviator!"

"It's a very pretty cap--and on a very pretty head, dear," laughed
Belinda.

If she felt any interest in Sanderson other than interest in the young
man out of the air as a patient, she did not betray it to either her
fellow nurses or to the patient himself. But if she was out of the
young man's sight in the daytime, he missed her. Nor did he succeed in
hiding his admiration from other eyes. One evening when she left him
in Miss Trivett's care, the night nurse remarked his gaze fixed upon
Belinda as she departed.

Miss Trivett was a good nurse, but she was brusque. The patients never
made love to her.

"I often wonder," she scoffed on this occasion, "if all the
soft-headed men are brought to this hospital. Or does bringing them
here make them soft-headed?"

"Why for the slam?" Sanderson asked chuckling. The night nurse and her
caustic speeches amused him.

"Oh, I see you making sheep's-eyes," she declared. "You fall for a
pretty face like the rest of them."

"Oh! Miss Melnotte? But she possesses more attractions than a pretty
face," corrected the young man coolly.

"True. And do you suppose you are the first man to find it out?"

The thought had not before impressed him.

"I suppose if she is attractive in my sight, she must be in the sight
of others," he said slowly.

"I should say! She's probably made desperate love to by an average of
a patient a week. _That's_ the meaning of my 'slam,' as you call it.
It's just a bit of a warning, my boy," went on Miss Trivett cheerfully.
"Beauty is more of a liability than an asset to a nurse--a nurse who is
really in earnest, I mean. And Miss Melnotte does not scamp her work.
Why, she is the most popular of us all with the surgical staff!"

Sanderson was quick to seize the opportunity to ask a question that had
long been trembling on his lips. Yet he put it carelessly.

"That black-browed German seems to be mighty fond of her."

"The Herr Doktor? Now you've said something, boy. Anybody can see that."

"Are they engaged--or anything?"

"Shouldn't wonder," Miss Trivett said briskly. "She's almost through
here at the hospital, you know. The Powers That Be frown upon anything
sentimental between the doctors and members of the nursing force. So
they're very whist about it. She's likely to remove her cap and apron
for good in a few days--and become, perhaps, Frau Doktor."

Sanderson fell silent, and Miss Trivett shortly screened the night lamp
from his eyes, thinking he had fallen asleep. Behind the young airman's
closed lids a jumble of thoughts were beating in his brain. When Doctor
Potter came to read the chart at the head of his bed in the morning he
scrutinized it for a second time.

"Tut! tut!" he muttered. Then: "What is the meaning of this sudden rise
in temperature? Didn't you sleep well last night, Mr. Sanderson?"




                              CHAPTER III

                             CROSSED WIRES


There was a tiny apartment not too far from the hospital that Belinda
Melnotte called home for these two years of her hospital training. It
was presided over by Aunt Roberta.

Aunt Roberta was a short woman of brown complexion, with a buxom figure
laced tightly into corsets that kept her very erect even in a "sleepy
hollow" chair. She was always neatly gowned, neatly shod, and displayed
well-kept hands and a spotless apron. She did the work of the apartment
herself.

One afternoon and evening in each fortnight Belinda spent at home.
There was a great contrast in character between aunt and niece. Aunt
Roberta was all French; her niece displayed some Teutonic traits of
character.

Grandfather Melnotte and Grandfather Genau had both come to America
as young men. Belinda, as a second generation American girl, held few
prejudices of either nation. But Aunt Roberta had no good word now for
the Genaus.

"_Alboche_," she frequently said. "A brutal, stupid people. Your
Grandfather Genau was a gross man--he ate and drank e-_nor_-mously. He
died of an apoplexy."

"Poor man!" sighed her niece.

"And your Grandmother Genau was _huge_--she suffered of an avoirdupois.
She would have won a prize for flesh in a street fair--cer-tain-lee!"

"I fear I may be too stout," Belinda would say mildly.

Aunt Roberta had spent all her girlhood in a French convent at
Montreal. Then, for many years, she had lived in Paris. Until of late
she had spoken English so seldom that she used the language in a way
all her own--not brokenly or with much accent, but with most amusing
transpositions. She would have gladly spoken French altogether, only
when she undertook to do so Belinda would not reply.

"I am American--American, I tell you, Auntie!" the girl would cry. "We
speak English here in New York. That I am both German and French by
blood is enough. I will speak neither of those languages _now_--unless
I am obliged to."

She had refused to listen to her aunt's diatribes against the Germans
since the war had begun; but in truth she felt the two nationalities
of her forebears warring within her heart. She pitied both peoples
with all her sympathetic nature. She thought much on the unfortunates
struggling in the battle lines. Her hospital work broadened her
sympathy for all suffering. It is not always so. Some it makes callous.

As the end of Belinda Melnotte's two years of hospital probation drew
near, she felt stronger cords drawing her toward those centers of
activity, the field hospitals of France and Belgium. But she had not
mentioned this feeling to any one.

Those related to her by ties of blood were fighting on both sides in
the great struggle. There were two young cousins in the German ranks in
Northern France whom she had known and played with when they were all
three children--Paul Genau and Carl Baum. Her mother had taken her to
Germany several times.

In America Belinda had few relatives now save Aunt Roberta. After
her father's death she would have been quite alone had it not been
for the brisk, taut little _tante_. Mr. Melnotte had left no great
fortune to his only child; merely a comfortable income from well-placed
investments, enough for her simple needs and to spare for Aunt Roberta.

Although Aunt Roberta's tendencies were strongly aristocratic, she
admired Belinda's independent and practical nature. She was proud of
her niece for taking up a profession. Not that she expected Belinda
would remain in the work after obtaining her diploma.

"If we were in our own suffering coun-tree," she sighed frequently,
"your training and experience might be of value--yes! The poor soldiers
of France! Ah, they need the nurses! This great and rich United States,
that owes so much to _la belle_ France, doles out a little money
and a few blankets to our _poilus_--like giving coals and bread to
beggarwomen while France fights the battles of the world!"

Between such opinions as these of Tante Roberta and those expressed by
Mrs. Blythe, the hospital matron, Belinda was puzzled. Practical as she
was, her temperament was not ordinarily assertive. She was not given to
forming logical opinions for herself, save on moral topics.

Aunt Roberta she knew would be delighted to return to France.

"This coun-tree, pah!" the taut little Frenchwoman would say, her
gestures vigorous, "is too commercial. There is little art here, nor do
the women even know how to dress. Their bonnets--pooh! They are built
by the tens of thousands to sell for ten dollars each. Oh, _oui_, and
their gowns! They are sold by the gross, all of one pattern. These
Americans have no air about them--no _chic_."

"I am an American," stoutly maintained Belinda in answer to this.

But she sometimes wondered if, after all, she was truly American. The
two hereditary natures within her seemed tugging in opposite ways. She
really had but small affiliation (so she thought) with America and its
citizenship.

The great milestones of history venerated by Americans of ancient
lineage meant little to her. She had journeyed with college friends to
Plymouth Rock and felt no thrill. The tall shaft of the Bunker Hill
Monument was to her merely an observatory point. The spot where the
first American blood was shed in the Revolution inspired her with no
pride of race.

All that had followed in the later decades of United States history
after all seemed of small moment to Belinda Melnotte. The years of
struggle to maintain the Union and to free from slavery the whites as
well as the blacks of the South were merely incidents she had read
about in school. Her two grandfathers had come to the country while
the Civil War was in progress; but the struggle had meant nothing to
them save as it offered greater opportunity to make money. And it meant
little now to Belinda.

This country--these United States of ours--is indeed a melting pot for
the nations of the earth; but the fire under the pot sputters like a
handful of green thorns and the brew of citizenship infuses slowly.
Love of country seldom develops solely from gratitude; it is when one
is called upon to give that one learns to love. And Belinda Melnotte
had never given much of even her thought to this, her native land.

She felt a strange and growing unrest as the time of her graduation
from the hospital drew near. She secretly feared, however, that this
uncertainty and indecision had something to do with her interest in the
private patient she was nursing.

The Aero Club had ordered everything done for Sanderson that could be
done to make comfortable a person in his situation. When he was well
enough to have visitors there were several men who came to see the
aviator who were either fellow-airmen or were interested in flying.

Belinda suspected that Sanderson was one of a number of courageous
young men who were schooling themselves for aviation work of a
particular character and for a particular purpose. Just what this
special work was she did not know, for Sanderson and his friends were
secretive.

She found these visitors to Room A-a very interesting, however; and
they made much of Sandy's pretty nurse. Gay as she was with them,
Belinda kept a sharp oversight of her patient; and if she saw him
growing tired she hurried the visitors out without much ado.

One of the young aviator's brothers, who lived near enough to visit
the patient on more than one occasion, intimated he suspected Frank of
feeling more than a passing interest in the nurse. She, however, was
not supposed to overhear the observation.

"Who wouldn't?" Frank Sanderson stoutly responded.

"Look out!" his brother warned him. "If Stella hears of it----"

"Stella! What Stella doesn't know will never trouble her," the man in
bed said quickly, and in no very pleasant tone. "By the way, how is
she--and the kiddies?"

"All right. Hasn't she been to see you?"

"I should hope _not_!" The nurse at the window, busy with the work in
her lap, covertly glanced at her patient. His face was flushed and
beclouded. "I won't have her come here--now remember that, Jim! But you
might assure her that I am all right."

"Humph! Play buffer for you, is it?"

"Well, give a look in at the kiddies, anyway. They are not to blame."

"Right-o!" agreed Jim, and soon departed.

From that hour Sanderson found his nurse not quite the same as she had
been. He soon recovered his usual cheery manner. Not so Belinda. She
had raised a certain barrier between them, and that barrier he was
unable to surmount.

Still sick, he peevishly laid it to the influence of the black-browed
surgeon. Or was it that, now he was better, the nurse was merely
following her usual method of "freezing" a too ardent patient?

He ventured a query to Miss Trivett one night; for although one could
not really like the night nurse, she was trustworthy.

"I don't know what I've done to offend Miss Melnotte," Sanderson said
honestly. "But she keeps me at a distance----"

"Oh, my! Little-boy-crying-for-the-moon!" the nurse said, half in scorn
and half in sympathy. "Are you going to prove yourself no wiser than
the rest of them? And you an aviator! Bah!"

"Well, I'm hanged if that ugly Dutchman's half good enough for her,
even if he did fix me up!" Sanderson growled.

"Of course he isn't. What man is ever good enough for a woman?" was the
tart rejoinder.

"The Lord help the fellow who gets you, Miss Trivett!" Sanderson said
with feeling.

"No. You are wrong. I know my own weakness," sighed the wise, if plain,
nurse. "If I _should_ marry, I would love him so much that he might
walk upon me if he wished."

It was not by any determined and set method that Belinda Melnotte kept
Sanderson at a distance. She merely followed the calm path of her duty
as usual, betraying nothing to her fellow-nurses of what fretted her
spirit.

A few days more and The Head would put into her hand the certificate
for which she had served two hard years. A dozen besides Sue Blaine
and herself were to be graduated.

As there was some operating-room work to be done, Belinda was excused
from attendance on the convalescent in Room A-a. Sanderson discovered
this when another nurse came to his call in the morning. She was a
probationer and had a year yet to serve.

"Say, where's Miss Melnotte?" he demanded.

"She's busy." The nurse told him why.

"Isn't she coming back to me?"

"I don't suppose so. She's not going to work in this hospital any more."

The aviator spent a gloomy forenoon. Then he wrote some letters, called
for Mrs. Blythe, and arranged with her for his departure from the
hospital the next day.

When Belinda stopped at Room A-a the second evening to learn how he was
getting on, the room was empty save for the attendant who was cleaning
up. Sanderson had been gone an hour.




                              CHAPTER IV

                              A DECISION


There was a florist's box in Belinda's little sleeping room on the last
day of her occupancy of it. She was almost afraid to open it at first,
for she feared the card within might bear Doctor Herschall's name.

However, when she had opened it, the roses it contained, which had cost
a dollar a stem, she distributed with lavish hand among the graduating
class. That popular piece of fiction, just then being discussed by the
book reviews, "The Flying Faun," with Frank Sanderson's autograph on
the flyleaf, she hid away, showing it to nobody.

She was unable to put an accusing finger upon a single thing he had
done or said that was discourteous. He was by no means one of those
hybrid creatures--neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring--known
as "a lady's man." He owned to merely a natural gentleness in his
conduct toward women; and by nature he possessed much of the cheerful
awkwardness of a Newfoundland pup.

Belinda's instincts of motherliness--largely developed in all girls
of her placid and sweet temperament--had really drawn her toward her
patient at first because of these boyish traits. He seemed to her quite
unspoiled; there was nothing artificial about him. If his glances
boldly betrayed his admiration for his nurse, his lips uttered only the
most considerate expressions of approval. He had never taken advantage
of his situation as so many of her patients did. Miss Trivett was
right. Beauty in a nurse is not always an asset.

Yet Belinda felt in her heart that Frank Sanderson had not been honest
with her. Had she not overheard his brother's remark she would never
have suspected the aviator of being a married man.

The "Stella" mentioned by the brothers, though the aviator's wife and
evidently the mother of the "kiddies," was plainly not beloved. Either
the couple were legally separated, or their married life was a farce.
Only on that single occasion had Sanderson mentioned the woman--and
never to his nurse.

The discovery had halted instantly any advance Belinda might have
contemplated toward a closer friendship with the aviator. There had
already been intimate moments between them when youth had called
strongly to romance--when each had lifted for a little the veil which
hid those secret lives we all live.

Belinda had thought she saw what lay behind Frank Sanderson's reckless
bearing and volatile spirits--and approved. There were deeper currents
in the aviator's soul than the shallows he showed to the world in
general. She felt that he had a far more serious reason for taking up
the perilous work of aviation than he was willing ordinarily to admit.

On the other hand, she had hinted at some portion of her doubts and
uncertainties for the future in her disclosures to Sanderson. He did
not understand entirely what she meant; had he done so he would never
have hastened away from the hospital, accepting the night nurse's
observations for facts, and leaving only the flowers and the book as a
reminder of his friendly intercourse with Belinda.

When the girl bade the matron and her particular friends among the
nursing staff good-by that last evening and left the hospital by the
side exit with her bag, it was her fate to meet Doctor Herschall
likewise going out. Or had he waited for her?

"We lose you, do we, Miss Belinda?" he said, taking her bag with his
usual assurance. "We shall miss you--none more than I, Fräulein, I do
assure you."

"You are very kind, Doctor," murmured the girl, wishing that she might
rid herself of him.

But she had no inspiration for his dismissal. His way could not
possibly lie in the direction of her home, yet he took that turning as
a matter of course.

She could not afterwards have repeated their desultory conversation,
even in part. She was confused and nervous--as she always was in the
surgeon's company.

"I shall do myself the honor of calling upon you and your good aunt,
Fräulein," declared he, "and at an early date."

"I--I think I may go away for a change and rest," she stammered.

"All the more reason for my making my call soon, then," said Doctor
Herschall coolly. "I have something of importance to say to you."

"Oh, I feel you would better not come, Doctor Herschall!" she cried
desperately. "Really, I do not feel fit for--for company. I am quite
done up."

"I hope I shall not miss you when I call, Miss Belinda," he repeated,
his keen eyes searching her averted face. She was looking at his empty
right hand, its long, pliant fingers working spasmodically, as they did
when he was in earnest. She realized that they were wonderfully able,
dexterous fingers; yet when she saw them work in that nervous manner
she always thought of them as clutching in a horrid way for an enemy's
throat.

"If I should miss you," purred the Herr Doktor, "I shall come again
and yet again. My time is not altogether my own, as you know; but no
sacrifice would I count too great, Miss Belinda, for the pleasure of
your society."

He left her at the door and strode away. Belinda's cheeks burned
furiously and she bit her lip to keep back the sobs. She was both
enraged and afraid.

He took so much for granted! There was no use in trying to show the
Herr Doktor his place.

"I hate him!" she gasped.

His assurance and masterfulness almost cowed the girl's spirit. Belinda
Melnotte was not one who ordinarily shrank before any human being; the
influence of the black-browed surgeon upon her mind was almost uncanny.

"I hate him!" she repeated. "I wish I might never see him again!"

However, she felt it would be impossible to refuse Doctor Herschall
admittance when he called. She could easily imagine what the visit
would be like. Aunt Roberta would refuse to sit in the room with him.
To the little Frenchwoman the big Prussian doctor was pariah. Nor could
Belinda play neutral between them.

Therefore she gladly seized the opportunity offered the next evening to
escape from the house. Somebody called her up and asked her to attend a
neighborhood Red Cross chapter meeting.

"Just to countenance the affair, you know, my dear. We are endeavoring
to get dollar members and interest people in our work in France."

Tante was willing to attend, albeit in a critical spirit. She did not
believe that anything of real worth was being done by Americans for
"the dear _poilus_ of _la belle_ France."

Belinda went, however, with an open mind. Already she had contemplated
Red Cross work, although she really knew very little about it. To-night
an earnest man, just from the battlefields of war-wrecked Northern
France, addressed the rather apathetic audience. In the summer of 1916
it was difficult to find an audience in America that was otherwise
regarding any phase of the great war. The speaker was a grim-looking
little man, ugly and in earnest; yet there was a saving twinkle in his
eye.

"I am here for the specific purpose of getting as many dollar bills
out of your purses as I can to-night," he said in the course of his
remarks. "A dollar bill is a little thing after all. You pay it over
and it does its work. But the thrill of giving it does not last long.

"Do you want--" he cried, rising on his toes and suddenly smiting the
table before him with a clenched fist--"do you want to get a lasting
thrill--one that may last a year--two years--perhaps to the very hour
of your death? Then, enlist with us. We need men and women alike--men
and women of pluck and who possess sanctified common sense.

"_You_ are needed--needed right in the battlefield hospitals I have
tried to tell you about to-night. We want men and women of some
experience and proven ability--not failures; for those who are failures
in one walk in life are almost always failures in any other position.
Our recruits must be modest, even-tempered, inventive and enterprising,
ready to go anywhere and do anything upon the shortest possible notice.

"We need the best of you, and the best there is in you. Nor can we pay
you, or offer you anything but a modicum of fame. You will hear of the
Red Cross doing much; but the names of the actual doers of these things
are seldom exploited.

"It is, indeed, an enlistment in an army of peace, working to alleviate
the horrors of armies at war. There are no medals, no honorable
mention, no promotions on the field of valor by brevet or otherwise.
And we demand perfect obedience to stern rules, and that each enlisted
man and woman shall give every ounce of strength of mind and body he or
she possesses.

"Now, this is the opportunity I offer you, besides the chance to give
dollars to the Red Cross. We want men and women who will work without
salary and without hope of seeing their names or pictures in the
papers. Come on and sign up for the work. But don't crowd."

He sat down suddenly amid the half nervous titter of a part of his
audience. They did not crowd. The workers circulating through the
hall gathered some harvest of money and several promises of future
contributions. When the meeting was adjourned Belinda left Aunt Roberta
to have a word with the lean little hospital-worn man.

"I wish to serve," she said.

"Yes--Miss----?" He scrutinized her with growing approval.

"Melnotte. I am my own mistress. I hold a nurse's diploma." She told
him the name of the hospital. "I can afford to pay my own expenses."

"And you wish to serve--where?"

"In France. I speak the language."

"When can you be ready, Mademoiselle?"

"To-morrow."

"Good! The _Belle o' Perth_ sails the day after. There are others of
our forces going by her. It can be arranged. You know that the crossing
will be dangerous?"

"More dangerous than the work on the battlefields?" she asked him
quietly.

"Gad! No, Mademoiselle."

"Tell me what to do--how to go about it," she said simply.

Afterwards, when the girl had gone back to Aunt Roberta, the man most
heartily congratulated himself.

"If I haven't done anything else on this trip, I've netted a good one
there!" he thought.

But how much he influenced Belinda's decision, how much her dislike
and fear of Doctor Herschall urged her into the work, or how much
her disappointment in Frank Sanderson had to do with it, it would be
difficult to say. Most important decisions arise from mixed motives.
She did not discuss this phase of it at all. She merely said to Aunt
Roberta:

"We are going."

"_Ma foi!_ Where?"

"To France--to Paris first."

"_Oui! Oui!_ My child, those are the sweetest words you have ever said
to me!"

Aunt Roberta asked no further questions.




                               CHAPTER V

                        THE RUNAWAY SHIPMASTER


Frank Sanderson rode to the North River pier in a taxicab and Jim, his
next older brother, who had always been a good chum of the aviator's,
rode with him.

"Good of you to leave everything to see the last of me, Jim," the sandy
one observed.

"By Jove, boy! I've a feeling that maybe it _is_ the last I shall see
of you. I wish you were not so headstrong, Sandy."

The latter grinned at him.

"Seems to me I've heard something like that before. But it isn't that
I'm so headstrong, old chap. You'd do the same if you were in my place.
I'm foot-loose----"

"How about Stella and the kids?" put in Jim wickedly.

"They are amply provided for, as you know. I shall miss the kiddies, of
course--cunning little busters! But Stella----"

"Is going to take on some when she knows you have gone."

"As long as the steamship is off Sandy Hook when she learns the Great
Secret, what care I?" returned the aviator, shrugging his shoulders.
"And do, for goodness sake, talk of something else. There may be a
swift and messy end before me, but at least I sha'n't be talked to
death by a Flora McFlimsey over there in France."

"No," Jim admitted. "There is something in that, I allow. However, I'll
not weep over you yet, my boy. You've pulled through many a tight place
and escaped many a threatened danger."

The other nodded. "I don't expect anything more serious to happen to me
serving in the Lafayette Escadrille than might occur if I remained here
and continued to make exhibition flights. Over there I'll be with the
finest bunch of fellows in the world, and be _doing something_."

"Ye-es," hesitated his brother. "But what are you going to do it _for_
Sandy?"

"Mixed reasons," returned the aviator frankly. "It's exciting, of
course. Then, there is one's desire, when one can, to pitch in and
help people who are putting up such a tremendously plucky fight as the
French are. There's another, too."

"Yes?"

"It's coming to us. Before this thing is settled--war, I mean--and
settled for good and all, Uncle Sam is bound to get into it."

"I'm afraid you are right, Sandy," sighed the more conservative Jim.
"But I hate to see it come."

"Of course. All you conservative business men do. But you'd better be
prepared," the younger man said, wagging his head. "And that's my main
object in going to the war zone, after all."

"Preparedness?"

"In a way. When we get into the war--this war, or a war--the United
States will need men with flying experience such as can be gained only
in actual warfare. If I am spared," added the young man simply, "I
shall be ready for service."

"Gad! That's right, Sandy. It's rather fine of you, too. But--it's so
uncertain."

"Life is uncertain at best," returned the aviator, with his usual
cheerfulness. "We'll look on the brighter side of it, if you please.
This is no wake, Jim. The corpse is very much alive at present writing."

"That shoulder all right?"

"All right."

"They certainly did well by you at that hospital."

"I was the little white-headed boy there, for a fact," agreed the
younger man.

"The big surgeon--what do they call him?"

"Herschall," growled the other, with suddenly clouded face.

"A brainy fellow," observed Jim. "And that pretty nurse--Miss Melnotte
was she called? I had an idea you were smitten there, Sandy, and
smitten hard."

"You never can judge by looking at a toad how far he will hop,"
returned the aviator coolly. If he had partially confided in the tart
Miss Trivett, he was not wearing his heart on his sleeve for everybody
to read.

"Well," Jim said soberly, "a man in your position has no business to
try to tie up any woman's affections."

The sailing of even a large ship from the port of New York was no
longer, in these war times, a gala occasion or the beginning of a
pleasant sea adventure for its passengers. In general, parties coming
aboard to speed those sailing were discouraged. A crowd was no more
allowed to gather on the dock.

For this reason, perhaps, Frank Sanderson did not make the discovery
when he went aboard that on an upper deck forward was a bevy of girls
whom he certainly would have recognized. Instead, he and Jim sat in his
stateroom and smoked until just before the ship's departure.

It was a cheerful party that he missed, and Sue Blaine was the life of
it.

"My dear Belinda!" she cried, "you were always one of the plucky ones.
It makes poor little me feel like a hap'orth o' nothing! But two years
of hospital slavery is enough for me. And just think of what you are
going up against now! The French wounded will be worse than those poor
fellows they brought us out of that subway explosion that time--do you
remember?"

"I have thought of all that," Belinda said quietly. "I have thought of
their need and what I can do to help them. Oh, yes, Sue--I have thought
of it."

"Trust Miss Melnotte for being both calm and literal," laughed somebody.

"Goodness, yes!" cried the volatile Sue Blaine, yet looking at her
friend admiringly. "But I don't see _why_ you do it. If you were
crossed in love, you couldn't be more desperate."

"Mercy!" gasped Miss Trivett, who was present, and who smiled at
Belinda, though her shrewd eyes were ready for the betrayal of any
secret. "Not our Belinda--never!"

The Red Cross recruit remained her usually placid self, even when the
mischievous Sue Blaine went on to say:

"Of course, it wouldn't be the Herr Doktor? He will be desolate, I am
sure."

"More likely one of her private patients," another of the party
suggested. "Oh! The flying-man! I'm sure his roses were beautiful. I
have mine at home yet."

"Be sure," stated Miss Trivett, "that if Miss Melnotte had cared
anything for that boy _you_ would have got none of his roses."

Belinda remained proof against all the raillery. The whistle blew and
the girls hastened toward the nearest gangway after bidding their
friend an affectionate good-by. But Sue Blaine came running back, her
eyes dancing and increased mischief lighting her piquant face.

"Oh, you sharper!" she whispered, pinching Belinda's plump arm. "And
you never said a word!"

"About what, dear?" her friend asked amazedly, yet kissing her again.

"He's here!" Sue Blaine hissed dramatically.

"For pity's sake! _Who_ is here? Not--not Doctor Herschall?" and
Belinda did not very successfully hide her anxiety.

"Nonsense! No! That perfectly splendid airman, Sandy Sanderson!"

"On this boat?" murmured Belinda feebly.

"Yes, ma'am! And he's going, too. His brother has just bidden him
good-by and gone ashore. Didn't you know he was to sail? What fun! Wait
till I tell the Herr Doktor. Wouldn't you like to see his face when I
do?" And the mischief-loving Sue Blaine ran away before Belinda could
make reply.

At least, she told herself, she was forewarned. She would not meet
Frank Sanderson unexpectedly. He could not, of course, have known of
her decision to join the Red Cross. Undoubtedly his own plans for the
voyage had long since been made. Her sailing on the _Belle o' Perth_
could not have influenced him.

Nearly all of the visitors had gone ashore, but there was some delay in
getting under way. Belinda, in a meditative mood, strolled along the
deck. She was thinking of Sanderson and was somewhat startled when she
heard his name mentioned.

She glanced to one side. A group of college boys were chatting gaily,
just getting ready to leave the ship.

"Sanderson is on board, but Nevins didn't come," said one,
disappointedly. "Too bad! I was counting on giving Dicky some good
advice," and he laughed.

"Better give Sandy the advice," broke in another. "He needs it. The
idea of an aviator like him tying fast to a girl like Stella!"

"And those kids!" added a third college boy.

"I understand he promised Jerry he'd do it. He was under obligations to
Jerry. He just about had to marry her."

"Obligations be hanged! Think I'd marry a girl like Stella? All she
thinks about is her looks. And she can talk down anybody she meets.
Nixy, not for yours truly! I pity Sandy, I do!"

"We all do," affirmed a fourth of the group.

"Maybe that's why he's going to France--to escape from her."

"Like as not. If I was tied to a skirt like that I'd want to hike to
the North Pole!"

The college boys passed on, out of Belinda's hearing and left the ship.
The Red Cross nurse shrank back, her cheeks burning. She had heard
every word. She walked on in a more thoughtful mood than ever.

Aunt Roberta always remained in her stateroom, and usually in her
berth, until she was "attuned," as she termed it, to the motion of the
ship. There was little, anyway, at this sailing, to keep one on deck.
The ship was towed out into the stream and started seaward with no band
playing and no cheering from the dock. Only the whistled farewells of
other craft were as cheerful as usual.

The ship's lower decks were piled tier upon tier with stores, and she
was bound for a French port. She would be a fair mark for a German
submarine if one crossed her path. Although the Germans were supposedly
giving the crews and passengers of merchant ships a chance for their
lives before sinking such craft, an experience in an open boat, even in
calm, pleasant weather, was not to be looked upon lightly.

Therefore, those who sailed upon the _Belle o' Perth_ when she left the
port of New York supposedly had serious reason for making the voyage.
Later, however, Belinda discovered among the first cabin group one
individual who had come along for the excitement of the trip.

She met this person at dinner on the first evening out. Belinda was
alone, Aunt Roberta being served with tea and toast in her room. The
first officer, who was a socially inclined soul and an American, could
not bear to see so pretty a girl eating her dinner in silence. On the
other side of Aunt Roberta's empty chair was a nattily dressed old
gentleman, with a great shock of white hair and a moustache equally
white. His clothing was blue and of naval cut.

"Miss Melnotte," said the first officer, reading her card, "I want you
to know Cap'n Raphael Dexter," and he nodded to the old gentleman.
"Now, you be nice to her, Cap'n Raphe. Miss Melnotte's all alone just
now."

"Honored, Miss Melnotte," declared the captain, with old-fashioned
courtesy. "If I can say anything to help keep your mind off your
troubles, I shall be glad."

His face was very brown and there were innumerable wrinkles about the
eyes, as is usually the case with plainsmen and seamen--those who
gaze across great distances; but the eyes themselves twinkled liked
cut-steel beads.

"How do you know I have any troubles, Captain Dexter?" she asked.

"Why, I am the only person on this craft, I opine, who is travelin' for
pleasure," he said, watching her quizzically. "People don't sail in war
time--at least, not _this_ war time--without bein' in trouble of some
sort. Eh?"

With his head on one side as he asked the question, he looked somewhat
like a shrewd old cockatoo.

"It is true I am not crossing for pleasure," she admitted, and told him
her object in sailing for the shores of France.

"Plucky girl! Yes, the French are making a wonderfully good fight. We
couldn't have done better ourselves," declared this staunch American.
"I'm Yankee--the real stock. Clear back to the Revolution and beyond.
I fought in the Rebellion. Would you think it? Powder monkey on
Admiral Farragut's flagship," he pursued proudly. "Enlisted and lied
about my age at twelve--and for a liar I made a pretty good fighter,"
he chuckled. "The admiral himself said _that_ when I was laid up in
sick-bay with a bit of shell in my leg. I carry that scar--and a limp
in damp weather--to this day."

"Oh, you have seen real fighting at sea, then?" Belinda said, with
interest.

"Yes, ma'am! Hist!" whispered Captain Dexter, leaning nearer. "That's
why I am aboard this _Belle o' Perth_."

She looked her surprise and misunderstanding.

"Hopin' to see a scrap. Bless you, Miss! I was retired from
the sea--let alone from the navy--long ago. My darters are all
pacifists--three of 'em. Prudence, Patience and Penelope. That was my
wife's doin's." Vast disgust was expressed both in voice and features.

"What was?" asked Belinda, finding her interest in the curious old
gentleman growing.

"Namin' those darters of mine." He always gave the word the
old-fashioned New England pronunciation, although his speech was not
much marred by a local twang. "I always managed to be at sea when the
children were born and she had 'em christened one o' them outlandish
names before I could make port. Long v'y'ges in those days. And we
never had any boys.

"I could make up my mind," said Captain Dexter grimly, "that if there
was a new baby on hand when I got home, it would be a gal and would
have some milk-and-water name tacked on to it. By Hannah! I was always
a fightin' man myself; but my wife ought to have been a Quaker."

"What would have been your choice of names for your girls?" Belinda
asked, much amused.

"Something like Joan or Brunhild, Minerva or Judith--regular
upstandin' names, those," he said promptly. "You see, Miss Melnotte,
I believe the names children bear help form their characters. All my
darters--Prudence, Patience and Penelope--are just as wishy-washy as
the names sound."

"Oh, Captain Dexter!"

"Fact. Take it right now. All three opposed to war for _any_ reason.
Full up with foolishness about this peace business--and peace at any
price, too! By Hannah! scare't to death at me goin' to sea again--want
me to settle down ashore like a tabby cat beside the kitchen stove."

"I presume they think you have done your share, Captain."

"My share! Ain't I as spry as ever I was? What's seventy-odd? My family
have always run old Methuselah a close race. I had one uncle who lived
to a hundred and three--and then choked to death on a fishbone!"

"You surely are well preserved," Belinda said flatteringly.

"'Preserved'! I'm pickled, Miss Melnotte. Pickled in salt brine and
salt air. And nothin' must do--there wasn't any comfort for me--till
I'd promised them three darters that I wouldn't sail a ship on the sea
again. But," said I, "you can't keep me _off_ the water. I'll take no
active part; but the feel of deck planks under my feet I must have once
in a while."

"They agreed to that," chuckled Captain Dexter. "Thought I'd be
satisfied, I s'pose, to take a trip now and again on a canal-boat! By
Hannah! they don't know where I am now--and won't know till some time
to-morrow when the rural mail carrier gets to Penelope's house. She's
the first one of the three on his route out of Old Saybrook."

"Why, then, you've run away!" exclaimed Belinda.

"Run away?" the captain snorted. "Me, a shipmaster of forty year
standin'? By Hannah! I've given my darters the slip, I do allow. If
they had their way with me I'd be wearin' a cap and knittin' tidies on
the sunny side of the porch this very minute.

"I'm goin' across," concluded Captain Dexter, "to see something of this
war. They can't scare me with talk about German raiders nor submarines.
The way it looks to me, them undersea boats are only play-toys. They
might sneak up on a ship's heels and do some damage; but mostly they
wouldn't stand a show in an open fight with a craft like this, if she's
properly handled."

"Oh, I hope we shall not meet a submarine!" the girl said earnestly.

"Well, I dunno as I can join you there, Miss," and the old shipmaster's
grin was a good deal like that of a mischievous boy. "I've always
wanted to see all the new things as they came out--telegraph,
telephone, automobiles, these flying machines and all of Edison's
wonders. Now I'd like to clap my old eyes on one o' these U-boats, as
they call 'em--and see it in action, too!"




                              CHAPTER VI

                            FELLOW VOYAGERS


Belinda had seen Frank Sanderson at the captain's table; but he had
not spied her. She sat with her back to him while listening to the
talk of the Yankee shipmaster. The aviator arose and strolled out on
deck without glancing in her direction. Then she went to see how Aunt
Roberta fared.

Of course, the Red Cross recruit did not expect to remain undiscovered
to Sanderson for the entire voyage. Indeed, she was not altogether sure
she wished this. If he chanced to read the list of passengers he would
be sure to see her name. But she preferred to choose her own time for
first speaking with him.

Belinda Melnotte was quite sure the aviator's reason for crossing the
ocean was somewhat the same as her own--a desire to help the embattled
French. His intention was to join those other American flying men over
there and do actual fighting for the Allies.

Because of the strict neutral attitude of the United States at that
time, these volunteer aviators could not fly under their own flag; but
the so-called Lafayette Escadrille was doing notable work for what
Aunt Roberta so vigorously called "_la patrie_."

The general conversation in the saloon--all over the ship, in fact--was
about the war. After Belinda had assured herself of Aunt Roberta's
comfort, she slipped into her coat and sought the open deck. Every
group she passed was eagerly discussing some phase of the great
struggle.

Fire Island light was already dropping below the horizon. She noted
that there were few lights on deck--by no means as many as are usually
displayed on a passenger liner. Ordinarily in the evening, these big
ships sparkle with chains of lamps.

She saw the wireless operator in his house amidships. Unexpectedly the
poles began to spark and crackle. A message was being received. She saw
the mate who had introduced her to Captain Dexter run to the door of
the wireless room for the message.

A minute later bell signals were sounding all over the great, throbbing
ship. Several series of lights were snuffed out. The stewards went
along the corridors rapping on stateroom doors and ordering lights
shrouded or shades drawn at the ports. It was an order that bred
fear in many hearts. Peril, unknown and from an unknown direction,
threatened.

Belinda met the old shipmaster cheerfully pacing the deck and whistling
softly to himself.

"Oh, Captain Dexter!" she demanded, tucking her hand into the crook of
the arm he offered her with his old-fashioned air of courtesy, "what is
the matter? What could that message have been, do you suppose?"

"I calc'late," said the runaway captain, "that we just got wind of a
submarine somewhere in these waters. The mate says she was spied from
Nantucket lightship and that the news was relayed across to us. Maybe,
however, she was just one of our own subs out on scout duty."

"Do you suppose she would attack us so near shore?" Belinda asked.

"Not knowin' the submarine's orders, I couldn't say, ma'am," declared
Captain Dexter. "But whatever them undersea navigators are told to
do, they _do_. To my mind they come nearer bein' marionettes with the
strings pulled by their superiors at home than any human bein's since
the world began. The blind obedience of Hannibal's hordes you read
about, or that of the fanatic Mussulmen, never had nothing on these
Germans. They've been trained for generations to let other folks think
for 'em."

"Oh, no! Oh, no, Captain Dexter! We think for ourselves!" cried Belinda
hurriedly.

"_We_, Miss?"

"Oh, I know I have a French name. But some of my people were German. I
can sympathize--I _do_ sympathize--with my mother's people."

"Yet you are going to nurse the French wounded?"

"But I sympathize with the poor _poilus_ much more than with the
Germans," she said, shaking her head. "I cannot feel bitterness for
either side, Captain Dexter. But I hate the war itself."

"Then you are more nearly neutral than most of us," commented the old
shipmaster shrewdly.

They paced the deck together while the throbbing ship drove on through
the sea and the night, an unlighted bulk upon the face of the waters.
The twinkling stars were all that lighted their way. Patches of the sea
here and there were faintly phosphorescent; otherwise the heaving water
was scarcely visible from the high deck.

"It is mysterious--almost terrifying," the girl said in a low voice.

"So it is," the captain rejoined in his brisk way. "I've felt it oft
and again when I was pacin' my own quarter on a moonless night--for a
sailin' ship is never lighted like a steamer. I've looked off over the
water and wondered what was under it, and imagined more monsters than
ever lived back in those early ages that the scientific books tell us
about."

"But you never expected a submarine to bob up out of the sea," the girl
suggested.

"Not much!" he chuckled. "Once I thought I saw a sea serpent."

"Really! And what was it?"

"A school of porpoises chasing each other, head to tail. And maybe we
won't see anything more excitin' than that this trip."

It was not until the following day that Belinda met Frank Sanderson.
The submarine scare of the first evening at sea was all but forgotten
in the morning sunshine and with the _Belle o' Perth_ plowing through a
perfectly placid sea.

The calm was not sufficient, however, to tempt Aunt Roberta on deck--or
even out of her stateroom.

"An absolutely horizontal posture for forty-eight or sixty hours
after leaving port is the only safeguard against _mal de mer_," the
Frenchwoman declared. "How you can be so reckless I do not see,
Belinda. It is almost a crime for a woman to possess such robust
health."

So, after breakfasting with Aunt Roberta in the stateroom, Belinda
sought the deck alone, and under the pilotage of a deck steward found
her chair in the lee of a forward house. It was a sheltered situation
in all weathers and there were few other passengers in view when she
settled herself comfortably in it.

Indeed, she had met nobody as yet save the Yankee shipmaster; and he
scorned such artificialities of life aboard ship as reclining chairs.
He paced the bridge with a friendly watch-officer, or encircled the
ship on a "two-hour constitutional" for exercise.

"I couldn't sit mum by myself in one o' these chairs and do nothing,"
he confessed to the nurse. "I'm not a readin' man. Long watches below
at sea I used to play push--and I play it yet."

"What is 'push'?" she asked curiously.

"It's seaman's solitaire. Ain't once in five hundred times it comes out
right. But it keeps the mind occupied. And that's a blessin', as you'd
very soon learn if you was master of a windjammer, months and months
away from port."

"With the expectation of another daughter arriving during your absence
whom your wife would be sure to christen to displease you," Belinda
suggested slyly.

"By Hannah! Yes. And more'n that. Why, I've seen the time at sea when
I've buried all my friends and relations--in my mind, of course--and
preached their funeral sermons. It does beat all how a person that's
lonesome will get so low in his thoughts."

Belinda did not feel in the least lonely, despite the fact that Aunt
Roberta remained in her berth. Although there were not many first
cabin passengers and the opportunity for meeting pleasant people was
therefore limited, there was much else about the ship that interested
the girl. The sea itself was always changing, and she had not crossed
often enough for the small details of life on board ship to bore her.

Before she had read a dozen pages in her book (it was "The Flying Faun"
she had brought with her) she saw the trim figure of Frank Sanderson
coming down the deck. The aviator was not a large man--not many men who
follow the flying game are large men--but Belinda had already noticed
that he was very well built, and walked "with an air," as Aunt Roberta
would have said.

He was looking at the cards on the empty chairs, searching for his own.
Suddenly he spied it, and without troubling the deck steward started to
move the chair to a position that better suited him.

It was at this juncture that he raised his eyes and found himself
looking squarely into Belinda Melnotte's brown orbs. She saw him start,
pale a little, and then the blood flooded into his neck and face until
the sprinkle of little freckles across the bridge of his nose--that
looked as though they had been shaken out of a pepperbox--became a
bright copper color.

"Miss Melnotte!" he gasped.

"Bring your chair here, Mr. Sanderson," she said with perfect composure.

The suggestion relieved a very awkward moment for her. She felt that
his greeting might be too warm. But a man with a deck-chair in his
arms cannot display over-exuberance of feeling upon greeting an
acquaintance. And then--Belinda was so perfectly self-possessed.

"Why, I had no idea you were aboard, Miss Melnotte! Er--are you
traveling alone?" was Sanderson's first query, when he had placed his
chair beside her.

"My aunt is crossing with me," she said. "But I am not so surprised to
see you."

"No?"

"I fancied you had it in your mind to join your comrades already in
France."

"And you?"

She told him of her sudden decision. He beamed upon her.

"That's bully!" he cried. "The Red Cross is doing all kinds of good
work. I honor you nursing recruits, especially when so many of you do
not favor war."

"Who does favor war, Mr. Sanderson?" asked the girl seriously. "Surely
the poor men fighting in the trenches are not in favor of it. Their
masters all publicly deplore it. And the neutral peoples condemn it
utterly. Still----"

"Still Mars reigns," he interposed. "To take their word for it, nobody
is to blame and nobody wants to continue fighting. Yet the munition
factories and gun works keep busy. There will be plenty of work for you
good women--and plenty for me to do too," he added in a lower tone.

"It is so dangerous--your work," she sighed.

"I was just thinking that about yours," he returned, smiling. "You will
work within sound--perhaps within reach--of the guns if you serve in
the field hospitals."

"While you will be in the very midst of battle," she returned more
lightly. "Yet you would not falter?"

"No-o. Nor I wouldn't have you, as long as you have signed up for the
job," he admitted. "You know, we Americans have our national reputation
to keep up. We aren't supposed to get cold feet."

"I am not sure that I am an American," she murmured.

"Why, of course you are! I've thought a good bit about what you said
once of your mixed ancestry, and how you felt the German part of you
and the French part of you at war. I reckon such a mixture makes
exceedingly good American timber, after all."

"I wish you might prove that thesis to my satisfaction, Mr. Sanderson."

"Why, if the German part of you is dissatisfied with the French part of
you, and _vice versa_, then throw the opinions and prejudices of both
away and declare yourself an out-and-out Yankee. As they used to say in
the old-time revival meetings, 'Claim the blessing, and it's yours!'"

"Oh, Mr. Sanderson, that sounds very encouraging indeed! But it's not
so easy to 'claim the blessing,'" and she sighed.

They talked of other things. Belinda's manner had denied any
familiarity on Sanderson's part had he been inclined to assume such an
air. But she was kind.

Nor did her manner change appreciably toward him during the bright days
that followed. She met his advances toward warmer friendship with a
reserve that he could only accept as final.

Although Doctor Herschall was not on board the ship, Sanderson feared
that there was an understanding between the black-browed surgeon and
Belinda Melnotte.

He met Aunt Roberta in a day or two, and the little Frenchwoman--who
wore just as decisive an air and carried herself with as much
_sang-froid_ afloat as ashore--showed that she liked the young man. She
approved of his purpose in crossing the Atlantic too.

"_Ma foi!_ you are the only _Américain_ I have met that I could marry,
M. Sanderson," she said gaily. "You appreciate _la belle_ France."

But she amended this statement when Belinda introduced Captain Raphael
Dexter into the little group.

"But yes, he is a fine man," she confided to her niece. "Did you ever
see such a be-au-tiful head of hair? And his eyes--so keen; they
twinkle like boulevard lights on a winter night. My faith! he is a
fine man."

"Oh, Aunt Roberta! I have never heard you rave over a man before. You
make me anxious. Remember I need a chaperon for a while yet."

But Aunt Roberta was quite in earnest.

"Perhaps these _Américains_ improve as they mellow. And how brave of
him! He is an old war horse."

"A sea-horse, you mean," laughed Belinda. "He is a dear old man, I
agree. But remember, Aunt Roberta, he has three daughters. They might
object very vigorously to the captain's assuming new marital duties at
his age."

Aunt Roberta laughed gaily.

"Does he not say they are all three pacifists? They surely then cannot
be militant. _Ma foi! Non!_"

The _Belle o' Perth_ plowed as gaily through the sea as though no
submarine menace was known. The wireless crackled a staccato warning
now and then. Twice the ship's course was changed suddenly, but the
officers made no public explanation.

Anxiety, however, set the officers' features in grim lines. There was a
tenseness in their manner--a strained air like that of men waiting for
a threatened catastrophe. Once the ship was convoyed all day and night
by a great, gray-hulled cruiser that signaled back and forth to the
liner, but flew only a small ensign at her peak.

It was hard to arouse any spirit of gaiety among the passengers. They
partook of the expectant manner of the ship's officers. Many of them
spent most of their waking hours sweeping the sea with opera glasses
and binoculars. There was a reluctance to go to bed at night; yet the
first cabin was not a cheerful place in which to spend the evening. No
ship ever had a keener lookout than this, for passengers as well as
crew were continually on the watch. Just what they were looking for,
however, few could have told.

"They used to have pools on shipboard on the day's run, I remember,
and on how many whales we'd spot, and the like," observed Sanderson.
"I wonder how it would do to make a pool on whether or not we sight a
submarine."

In a group by the rail on this supposedly next-to-the-last day of the
voyage, were standing Belinda and her aunt, Captain Dexter and the
aviator. The captain seldom troubled to use a glass.

"There's nothing the matter with my eyes," he often said, "if the
rheumatism does ketch me in my game leg now and then.

"There's something adrift yonder," he observed, pointing. "Stickin' out
of the water. Looks like a spar."

Sanderson, with his glasses to his eyes, wheeled till he got the
direction of the captain's pointing finger.

"I see it. No spar, Captain," he said swiftly. He glanced up at the
first officer on the quarter-deck. "Mr. Orcutt!"

"Aye, aye!" replied the officer, coming to the rail.

"They've spotted us," the aviator said, his voice unshaken. "See
yonder?"

His own glasses found the object again. Captain Dexter uttered a
startled expletive. Aunt Roberta grasped Belinda's arm. The latter
asked:

"Surely, it isn't a submarine, Mr. Sanderson?"

"That is a periscope. I've seen one before!" cried Sanderson, his eyes
glued to his glasses. "Yes, she is approaching! She'll be near enough,
if we follow our present course, to launch a torpedo in five minutes!"




                              CHAPTER VII

                              THE MONSTER


The first officer of the _Belle o' Perth_ had already signaled for
the captain. The latter came running, and a wave of excitement spread
through the ship.

The passengers on deck crowded to the rail at which Belinda Melnotte
and her party were already standing. There was no outcry, and the crew
went about their duties, but like magic an armed officer appeared
beside each boat, while the wireless began to crackle overhead.

Bell-signals rang back and forth between the quarter-deck and the
engine room. One man appeared on deck with a life preserver strapped
under his arms. At that, a woman shrieked and was borne below, sobbing.
But there was no panic.

Indeed, a solemn silence seemed to brood over the ship and her company.
The revolutions of the screws had been immediately increased. The
ship was plowing through the sea swiftly; but the wavering, pipe-like
periscope was coming up on a slant. Although the submarine was not
speedy enough to cross the steamship's bows, she would soon be able to
strike.

Aunt Roberta sank into a chair and put her hands over her eyes; but she
made no murmur or complaint. Belinda and Sanderson stood together at
the rail. Captain Dexter had suddenly departed.

The girl swept the arc of the horizon as far as she could see with
her gaze. Ahead and to the eastward lay a fogbank. She wondered if
the officers on the steamship's quarter-deck saw this. She placed a
tentative hand upon Frank Sanderson's arm.

"See!" she whispered, pointing.

He turned the glasses forward and nodded. Then he suddenly dropped them
and gazed directly into her excited face.

"Why," he murmured, "you are not frightened, Miss Melnotte."

"I--I do not know whether I am or not," she confessed. "But if that
awful boat reaches us----"

"She is going to be within gunfire in a minute," he declared. "We are
trying to escape. That constitutes a crime in the eyes of the Teuton.
She will send us a shell, at least."

"Perhaps she will not hit us."

"You have a poorer opinion of German efficiency than I have," he
returned dryly. "I am glad it has come in the daytime. If you have
valuables in your stateroom--you and your aunt--you had better secure
them."

"Oh!"

"We may be in the boats in ten minutes."

She still clung to his arm, looking deep into his eyes as he spoke.
There was something in their steady fire that thrilled her. She knew
she gazed into the eyes of a man who was perfectly fearless of spirit.

"'The look of eagles,'" was her unspoken thought.

"Do you hear me, Miss Melnotte--Belinda?"

She started and the color swept into her throat and face. His tender
tone could not be mistaken. His desire to aid and sustain her savored
of a thought she had determined to shut away from her mind and heart.

And yet, in this intimate moment, with death advancing upon them, was
it wrong to show him a little, just a breath, of her real concern? Her
hand slipped down his coatsleeve with a caressing gesture and lay for
a moment trembling in his own. Frank Sanderson thought, as his hand
closed over it, that it was like the body of a bird fallen from its
nest that he had once picked up by the roadside. He could feel her
fluttering heartbeats in the pulse of it.

They continued to gaze into each other's eyes for a long moment.

Above on the quarter-deck rose the sharp voice of Captain Raphael
Dexter.

"Isn't no different, as I can see, from bein' chased by a mad whale.
And that's happened to me twice. A whale can only hit head on, and
yonder dogfish can only shoot straight ahead. Am I right?"

"Quite true, Captain Dexter," quietly agreed the ship's commander,
recognizing the old shipmaster's wisdom and experience.

"Then run your ship zigzag," pronounced the Yankee skipper. "Run for
the fog yonder, but keep a-changin' your course--that's the caper!" he
added as the captain telegraphed the change to the wheel-house.

The ship bore off suddenly. Instantly a shrieking shell rose from the
submarine, which was now awash, and, describing a parabola, dropped
just beyond the steamship's stern.

It was an unmistakable command to "Stop!"

A murmur rose from the watching passengers along the rail. Groups of
the crew had gathered on the lower deck to view the submarine. There
were a number of the stokers off duty. Suddenly, from their midst, rang
out a startling, terrifying appeal:

"She'll sink us! _Stop the ship!_"

The eager, blazing face of Captain Raphael Dexter appeared at the break
of the quarter-deck. Forgetting he was not on his own ship, he bellowed:

"Shut that man's mouth! Gag the poor fool! What are we--men or mice?"

"We're _men_--that's what we are, Skipper!" shouted Frank Sanderson,
suddenly grinning up into the face of the old shipmaster.

An appreciative, if uncertain, laugh was raised among the passengers
and crew within hearing. The commander of the _Belle o' Perth_ had now
taken a confident stand. Captain Dexter apologized for his display
of excitement and retreated from the quarter-deck, where fraternal
courtesy only had allowed him.

A second shell from the submarine exploded within half a cable's
length. The great ship swerved sharply, the sea boiling under her bows.
She swung in a great arc and it looked as though she would end by being
driven directly upon the U-boat.

The commander of the undersea craft evidently thought this was the
intention. Although the submarine was not then in a perfect position
for such an attempt, a torpedo was launched--an act not at all
unpermissible, as the craft attacked refused to halt.

Belinda Melnotte and Frank Sanderson, now hanging over the rail, saw
the white streak of the torpedo in the sea. Other passengers had run
below to secure their valuables and to put on life preservers. But the
Red Cross recruit had refused to go; and Aunt Roberta was a fatalist.

Belinda realized that the aviator again held her hand. She did not seek
to withdraw it. Their mutual gaze was fixed on the deadly missile shot
from the torpedo tube of the U-boat. Another moment----

Tendrils of fog were wafted across Belinda's cheek. She glanced around,
startled. The high bows of the _Belle o' Perth_ were already parting
the fogbank. That was why the commander had shifted his helm so quickly.

The great steamship swept grandly past the ugly undersea boat. The fog
closed softly about the _Belle o' Perth_ and hid her. The ship's course
was changed for a third time and at once she was out of the zone of
danger. The less speedy submarine could neither overtake her before she
entered the fog, nor discover the liner once the mist had closed about
her.

But something had happened in these minutes of anxiety to both Belinda
and Frank Sanderson. They turned, when the ugly craft was out of sight,
to look once more into each other's countenances.

The nurse remembered suddenly about that other woman and "the kiddies."
Sanderson thought of his brother's warning: "A man in your position has
no business to try to tie up any woman's affections."

He released her hand and the lowered lashes hid from him the light that
shone in Belinda's eyes.

"_Mon Dieu!_" said Aunt Roberta, aroused from her stupor, "if once we
arrive in that so dear France, never will I step foot upon the sea
again--_non_!"

"Pshaw!" interjected Captain Dexter, rejoining, them at this moment.
"You mustn't mind a little thing like a submarine. Anyway, when the
war is over, the sea will be perfectly safe."

"_Merci, Monsieur!_" gasped Aunt Roberta. "Can the dreadful ocean be
_ever_ safe?"

"Why not?" demanded Captain Dexter stoutly. "Jack was probably right
when he said in a living gale: 'God help the poor folks ashore
to-night!' On shipboard you don't have to worry about chimney bricks
or roof tiles blowin' off in a bit of a gale and knockin' you down.
There's lots of accidents that happen ashore that couldn't possibly
ketch you on board ship."

"Like being run down by an automobile," chuckled Sanderson.

"Or fallin' out of one of your pesky airships," retorted the Yankee
shipmaster. "By Hannah! I've sailed the seas for sixty years--and look
at me. Ain't never been killed yet."

"Ah, _le capitaine_," murmured the little Frenchwoman, "is so brave!
But poor weak womankind must tremble at such awful events as this that
has just happened. Ah! those terrible Germans! They are sea-tigers!"

"I'd liked to have had the management of this ship for ten minutes,"
grumbled the Yankee shipmaster. "I believe I could have run that
dogfish under. At any rate I'd have tried to."

"Oh, Captain Dexter!" ejaculated Belinda, in horror. "You would have
sunk her with all her crew?"

"Well, I don't see how I could have saved 'em," responded the captain,
with some disgust. "They'd have sunk us quick enough."

"But you say yourself they are only obeying orders!" she exclaimed
spiritedly.

"Ha! And I'm afraid my hand would have obeyed the orders of my brain
without much compunction," concluded the captain grimly.

The incident colored the entire voyage in the memory of all. Belinda's
remembrance of it was bound to be a painful one.

This was not alone because of the submarine chase. Continually in
her thought was the vision of the way Frank Sanderson had looked at
her--the little he had said--the pressure of his hand.

Had she given him further opportunity, would he have spoken the word
that was the master key to her heart?

She trembled at the thought. Yet, there was that other woman--the
kiddies----

She half hated him! She wholly loved him! They landed, and she and Aunt
Roberta journeyed slowly to Paris without Sanderson's having been given
the opportunity to speak again to Belinda in private.




                             CHAPTER VIII

                           "POUR LA PATRIE"


When Aunt Roberta stepped foot on French soil it was to be expected
that all things would begin to go well with her.

The port with its crowded docks, bulging store-houses, trains of
wounded English going home, platoons of prisoners likewise boarding the
transports for the concentration camps in England--"Ah! the terrible
_Boches_!" shuddered Aunt Roberta when she saw these--the baggage
lorries piled high with Red Cross supplies, ambulances coming down to
the docks with the "_grands blessés_" immovable on their backs, the
troops of "walking wounded"--all these sights and sounds affected the
volatile little Frenchwoman strangely.

"Ah! _non! non!_ This is not France--not _my_ France!" she wailed. "Let
us go on to Paris--and quickly."

But to go to Paris quickly in these days of the great war one must
possess the influence of a marshal of France. It was a jest aboard the
train: "Even _les Boches_ could not get to Paris!"

And the train itself! "_Ma foi!_" was Aunt Roberta's disgusted cry,
"it is a cattle train--no better! It should be seen to."

"If you were English you would write to the _Times_ about it," laughed
Belinda. She had made up her mind to suffer discomforts of all kinds
when she enlisted for service in the Red Cross, and she would not lose
her cheerfulness thus early in the game.

Paris was reached at last. Aunt Roberta saw little change in the gay
city. There were flowers at the street corners, and flags and trophies
fluttered everywhere. It chanced to be the occasion of the visit of
some important men in the councils of the Allies, and the French
authorities know well the value of flowers and flags, bands and gay
uniforms, to cheer the hearts of a patriotic people.

This modern struggle lacks many of the elements of the old-fashioned
"pomp of war"; yet there must be some display in the French capital.
Else Paris would not be Paris.

They went to a rather musty hotel, Belinda and her aunt, for a day or
two while they looked for an apartment. For Aunt Roberta was to remain
in Paris, and her niece would want a home to go to when she was able to
have a home. One could not walk right into even a base hospital, put on
one's cap and apron, and go to work. There is more red tape than that
about it.

"Ah, well, the poor hotel--it is war time," sighed Aunt Roberta,
trying to excuse the discomforts of the place.

But when they began their search for an apartment they soon made a
discovery of moment. The gay life of the city, so attractive to the
American visitor, might be at low ebb; nevertheless there were many
Americans, as well as other foreigners, living in Paris. Visitors
benevolent; families of those Americans serving at the front, and there
were at this time nearly twenty-five thousand from the United States
serving France in one capacity or another; people driven out of the
actual zone of warfare and able to live in the capital. And all, it
seemed, were living in furnished apartments.

They looked and looked for two foot-wearying, brain-fagging days.
Always Aunt Roberta's house-wifely soul was seared by some lack in
the arrangement of those rooms they saw, or she was horrified by the
slovenliness of the halls, or she suspected vermin.

"Enough!" cried Belinda, at last, and with energy. "We cannot refuse to
lease an apartment because you do not like the cut of the _concierge's_
nightcap. Time is being lost. I must get to work; but I must see you
settled first."

"But my dear Belinda!" wailed the good woman. "The bath in that last
place was--was archaic!"

"If you wished a modern bath in a thirty-dollar apartment you should
have remained in America," declared her niece, and that was almost as
"catty" a retort as she was capable of making.

Aunt Roberta had already been subdued by discouragement. The next
morning they took the very first place that offered. It was on a good
street, but the building, or "hotel," itself presented an air of shabby
gentility that should have warned them both that it had long since
harbored more guests than rent-paying ones.

The _concierge_ was a dried, little, apple-cheeked man--too old for
service in the army; a hungry-looking little man who was so eager
for small change that he bewailed to them on first acquaintance this
disability that kept him from earning a sou a day as a soldier of
France.

"I am deprived of my rights by age, Mademoiselle," he said to
Belinda--"the affliction of years. Yet am I not spry and active?"

"If he is," complained Aunt Roberta in private, "why does he not scrub
these steps?"

The wanderers signed for the apartment, however, and moved in at once.
It was on the Rue de Rivoli, among more modern apartment houses and
mansions; but it was set back from the street, with a high iron fence
and a very ornate gateway and grill in front of it. The courtyard was
flagged, with a dry fountain on either hand as one walked to the house.
A handful of dry stalks in the narrow strips of baked earth that had
been garden-beds told of the summer's drought. The flowers were no
more.

Dust rose from the rugs as they walked through the rooms, and Aunt
Roberta sneezed.

"_Gesundheit!_" her niece wished absently.

"Don't! Don't dare speak that heathen tongue here!" cried Aunt Roberta
in horror. "Do you wish us both to be arrested as spies?"

Then she opened her trunk, found one of her starchy print dresses, put
it on, and commenced to clean. Although dinner was brought in from a
restaurant, Aunt Roberta had not finished cleaning by bedtime.

"And those beds! Have they never heard of iron beds, and proper
springs, and a sanitary mattress?" burst forth the good woman at last.
"Ah! those canopies--reeking of the First Empire, I am con-fi-_dent_!
The heaps of dust and debris in the closets! The pots and pans, smoky
and greasy on the outside, and burned within! That _concierge_--_le
sale cultivateur!_--no more fit for his tasks than one of the pigs he
was wont to drive before he migrated to Paris!"

"But this is Paris," Belinda ventured to remind her.

"Not the Paris of my memory," Aunt Roberta grumbled. She was beginning
to realize the change.

That was a memorable night for both.

"This is truly 'embattled France,'" cried Belinda, finally driven
from between the sheets of her bed by the enemy horde; and she spent
the remainder of the night lying in her robe on top of the bedclothes,
which she first carefully tucked in all around so as to confine the
warring insects to their trenches.

Aunt Roberta was in despair. She had spent the night, it was proved,
sitting upright in a chair.

"_Ma foi!_ I send that gray-headed janitor at once for a gallon of
petrol. I will myself saturate the beds. And down come those canopies!"

It was noticeable that Aunt Roberta, of her own volition, began again
to use English quite as much as she had in New York. Indeed, before
the day was over, Belinda heard her decrying the stupidity of the
_concierge_ because he did not understand certain American phrases that
she had picked up in the United States.

Belinda went to the _Comité des Secours Américains_ that morning, and
registered. It occupied a spacious, elegant suite, its windows looking
toward the Seine. Its air was that of a busy American corporation
office, with a bevy of stenographers and typists at work, all with
wonderfully dressed hair and some with the latest model of "skimpy"
skirts. Even in war time these Paris-dressed girls made one feel the
inferiority of fashions in any other part of the globe.

She had desired from the beginning to be an actual aid in the work of
the Red Cross for France. Not in the American division, nor yet in the
work for the British soldiers. She learned that an examination was soon
to be held for nurses' diplomas in the French Red Cross.

Fresh from her work in the New York hospital, she felt that this was
her chance. She armed herself with Red Cross textbooks in both French
and English and went home to study with confidence. To Aunt Roberta's
housecleaning complaints she waved a careless hand.

"I have to study," she said. "Show me a clean corner where I can camp."

"There is no such place," sniffed Aunt Roberta. "But you may as well
sit here in the dining-room and I will clean up to and around you. _Mon
Dieu!_ what a house!"

Belinda studied night and day until the very hour of the examination.
Then she faced nine doctors in an oral inquest. They were polite indeed
to _la fille Américaine_; but they were very exacting. The examination
lasted two hours, and she passed with credit.

She entered the service. Actually she was a member of the French
military force. She was something more than a mere volunteer Red Cross
nurse. Soon she would be sent to a military hospital directly behind
the fighting line.

Belinda came away from her session with the examining doctors in a
spirit of buoyancy. She had accomplished something worth while,
proving to herself as well as to the examination board that she had in
her an ability above the ordinary. She very well knew that some of the
American women who had offered themselves for the work--and with the
very best intentions--had proved to be failures.

As she came down the steps of the Bureau her eyes were bright and her
face glowed, flowerlike. Or so thought the young man in the gray outing
suit and with the wide American straw hat to shade his freckled face,
who chanced just then to be swinging down the avenue.

"Miss Melnotte!"

"Oh, Mr. Sanderson! So you have reached Paris," she said demurely.

"Well put. Came pretty near not getting here at all. You and your aunt
had it pretty soft, getting those reservations--believe me. My! you
look fine."

"Don't make me blush, Mr. Sanderson," she begged, smiling. Who could
help smiling when this boyish young man was looking with such open
admiration into one's face? "And this is such a public place," she
added.

"Say," he said, seizing an opening that Belinda had no intention of
giving him, "it is public here! And warm, too! There's one of the
jolliest little cafés yonder. I used to patronize it when I was over
here before. They serve a cold and temperate drink almost as good as
you can get in New York."

"You tempt me," confessed Belinda frankly.

When she had left this young man at the rail of the _Belle o' Perth_ it
was with the intention of being coolly polite to him--that was all--if
they met again. But it was thirst (she had answered questions for two
hours, remember!) that led to her impulsive yielding.

She determined to give Frank Sanderson no opportunity for an extended
tête-à-tête. But her recent success made her desire a confidant of her
own kind and age. In a minute she was volubly telling the young man all
about it.

"Bully!" said Frank, leading her to a seat in the shaded garden. "My
congratulations."

They ordered. On opposite sides of the little, round iron table, was it
strange if they became a bit intimate? Little as Belinda had intended,
she could not help warming toward one so enthusiastic over her proposed
work.

"It's fine! It's splendid of you, Miss Melnotte!" he cried. "And an
officer of the French army--no less!" He saluted, with laughter. "Why,
the best I can look for at first is a non-com's stripes. I believe they
make 'em corporals when they have passed first flying examinations."

"But you are a professional aviator already."

"In America. Not here. The Frenchies go at the game--especially in
the army--in a different way." He told her swiftly of his hopes and
aspirations. "I feel, too," he added, "that I need the practice. I'm
going to enlist and enter one of the aviation schools if possible--and
at once."

"I hope you will have every success, Mr. Sanderson," she said, suddenly
recovering her usual poise and rising to give him her hand.

He held it a moment longer than necessary.

"Miss Melnotte," he cried hastily and under his breath, "my wishes for
your safety and happiness are of the warmest. I cannot express myself
as I should like to--I have no right to express myself--now. But if the
time ever comes----"

The girl drew away her hand. The perplexed expression that came
into her eyes--eyes the moment before so bright and tender in their
glance--would have closed his lips had her words not done so.

"Mr. Sanderson," she said brusquely, "aren't you forgetting yourself?
Good-by--and good luck."

He had no idea that as Belinda Melnotte passed on so swiftly--a
delightful bit of color to his eyes in the sun-drenched street--she
pulled close her veil across her face to hide the tears. Suddenly the
world seemed a sad place to her again. All the exhilaration of her
success before the examination board was gone.

She went home to Aunt Roberta in a very serious frame of mind and
mentioned only casually her meeting with Frank Sanderson.

The next few days were such busy ones for Belinda that she had little
time for moping. She had entered upon a career that promised to fill
both her mind and heart.

She had gained at least six months in advancement by joining the
French Red Cross and earning a commission. Otherwise she would have
been obliged to serve a term at a base hospital. Now, in two days, she
was ordered away. Just where she was going she did not know. It was
"somewhere in France."

Aunt Roberta wept a little over her when she learned her niece was
really going. But she soon dried her eyes and went back to her
everlasting cleaning of the apartment. The little woman would never be
satisfied until she had these rooms in the gloomy old hotel as spick
and span as the ones she had left in New York. Besides, work takes
one's mind off one's afflictions.




                              CHAPTER IX

                           FIRST EXPERIENCES


The train rolled on staggeringly. Berth cars had long since been
removed from all military trains as being too cumbersome. The
exigencies of the situation demanded that comfort and luxuries be
sacrificed to a desire to move men--many men--quickly. The gay but
strangely practical French more quickly adjusted themselves to the
intensely serious fact that the party which endured most was destined
to win the war.

It was a strictly military train on which Belinda Melnotte traveled.
She was an atom in the Military Department of the French Republic;
so why should she not be jounced about on a hard seat as well as the
soldiers traveling to the trenches? She was to halt short of the
trenches; just how short she did not know.

Her uniform was quite as distinctive as that of the soldiers
themselves. Nor could the cross on her cap and breast be mistaken.
These marks of her service won the girl a good deal of attention.

She had, during her stay in Paris, become used to hearing little but
French spoken. Speaking it so perfectly herself, she did not think
she minded the lack of the sound of English. Yet suddenly, while the
train stood for some time and for some mysterious reason at a little
station, she heard through the open window a high-pitched voice singing
a popular music hall ditty--and it sounded good!

"Yet I suppose he is intoxicated. He seems to be," she said to a man
in uniform with the empty coatsleeve, who had strolled along the
platform to speak to her with the camaraderie which it seemed was quite
customary.

"But no, Mademoiselle. He is one _Anglais blessé_--a _grand blessé_. In
an ambulance behind there," with a characteristic shrug of the shoulder
indicating the direction. "They wait for the _train sanitaire_. He is
one of these air pilots, it is said, and fell with his Nieuport--such a
young man! And with red hair," added the one-armed _poilu_, as though
the last fact made it all the more sad.

This information startled Belinda. She jumped up from her seat and
rushed to the door, which stood open, for the soldiers returning from
furlough who occupied the compartment with her had all stepped out.

"Where is he?" she demanded of the one-armed man. "Show him to me," she
added as she leaped to the platform.

"But even you can do nothing for him, Mademoiselle," he said
flatteringly. "He is delirious. They have removed both his legs. The
_ambulancier_ states that he cannot live."

Of course, it was foolish of her. Frank Sanderson could not possibly
have joined the Aviation Corps, been assigned to this sector, and
fallen with his airplane all in a few days' time! Yet the suggestion
made her run around behind the station to where the now weakening voice
of the singer still chanted the foolish song in English.

One look at the white face on the stretcher reassured her. But, oh,
he was so young! And his eyes burned so brightly! He thought in his
delirium that he knew her and he smiled and tried to reach forth his
hand to her.

"Hi, there, Flossy! Was it you singin' that jolly bit? My word! but
you're a long way from home."

"She doesn't understand you, old scout," said the American ambulance
driver. "She's French like the rest of 'em."

"Oh, can nothing be done for him?" gasped Belinda.

The ambulance driver came quickly to attention, blushing like the great
boy he was. "Beg pardon, Miss. You _look_ French, you know."

The injured aviator was laughing immoderately, if weakly. "What d'you
think of this Johnny, Floss? Callin' you a French girl. Ah!" he added
in quite another tone, "they were a long while gettin' these legs of
mine off--don't you think? They held a sheet up between me and my legs
when they first tried to do it: but I knew when they cut into me--the
butchers! The blood spurted up and spread all over the sheet, so it
did!"

"Local anesthetic," whispered the ambulance driver to the white-faced
nurse. "Couldn't etherize him. And it's all for nothing, I fancy. Might
as well have let the poor chap be buried whole as in pieces."

The locomotive whistled a warning. There was really nothing she could
do for the sufferer. Belinda fled back to the train and it moved on.
She had glimpsed a little of what her work was to be--and the _poilus_
in her compartment respected her tears.

But they tried to cheer her up immediately. If a woman's tears appeal
to men of all nations and in all walks in life, they particularly
appeal to a Frenchman. A big, bewhiskered lieutenant sat down beside
her and talked to her as though she were a child he was comforting.

"_Non! Non!_ Do not take on so, Mademoiselle. Let the tears be for us
chaps who are hit. Then _we_ weep--not our nurses. We must look to you
for cheerfulness--for courage. _Mon Dieu!_ this fighting would be a
hard task indeed were it not for you of the _Croix Rouge_."

Another man had picked a bunch of wild flowers while the train was
halted (who but a Frenchman could have made so artistic a bouquet of
the poor little blossoms?) and he presented them to Belinda with a
polite speech. An apple-cheeked boy slipped into the seat beside her
after her bewhiskered comforter was gone and blushingly showed her the
photograph of the girl he had just been home to marry. Naturally the
nurse had to be interested in that romance.

And so, soon, the train stopped again and there was a cow-shed in
sight where clean, mild-eyed cows were standing to be milked. Belinda
ventured forth again to beg a cup of the fresh milk. The women milking
would not let her pay for it, and when they learned she had come from
America they showered her with blessings.

"These good people seem so grateful for the little America is doing for
their country," she later wrote in her diary.

There were children, too--bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked little ones in blue
smocks and sabots. They clung to her skirt, and the older ones asked
her questions about America--especially about New York, which they had
heard much of.

Louis, or Alphonse, or Henri had been to New York before the war and
had told them unbelievable things. They were now in the trenches,
having returned from their work in New York to fight for _la patrie_.
Was it true that there were buildings in New York higher than the
Eiffel Tower?

Then the train rolled on again. It drew on toward night. Once they
slowly passed a long _train sanitaire_. The chorused, if low, groans
from the wounded was a wail as from souls imprisoned in purgatory.

Belinda steeled herself against displaying the feelings of horror these
sounds called up. She talked cheerfully with the returning _poilus_.
Another nurse--one with experience in the field hospitals--joined her
and this girl's chatter was very helpful to the recruit.

"Of course, there really are no field hospitals in this war. Where
those big guns throw their iron fourteen, sometimes sixteen,
kilometres, a hospital in the field would have small chance of escaping
bombardment, to say nothing of attack from _tauben_ that have little
respect for the Red Cross flag," she said bitterly.

"The first dressing of wounds--if the victim cannot walk--is done right
in the trenches by the first-aid men. Rude enough the dressing is
sometimes; but many lives are saved by the work. In the hospital you
will go to, you'll be within sound of the guns all right. Don't worry
about that. And it'll be very different from the hospitals you've been
used to, no matter how much experience you've had at home. My faith,
yes!

"They have settled on the huts as the best of all for this work--a
nurse to a hut and from twenty-four to three dozen patients for her to
attend. Work? I believe you!"

It was midnight when the Red Cross recruit arrived at the end of her
railway journey. She was to report here to an official who would tell
her how to reach her assignment. But the morning must do for that.

Belinda got a room above a wineshop on the main street of the town, and
was made comfortable by the shopkeeper's wife. It seemed strange to her
to be going about so absolutely alone and unattended. Yet she felt no
fear. These people--everybody she met--were so kindly disposed that one
could not feel otherwise than confident of perfect safety.

At least, no anxiety kept Belinda Melnotte awake after her tiring
journey from Paris. The clatter of wagons and the braying of mules
awoke her with the rising sun. A baggage train was going through the
central street of the town, and there was no sleep for the nurse after
that.

The housewife served her coffee and a roll with which to break her
fast, being likewise glad to talk to the mademoiselle who had come so
far to nurse the poor _poilus_. Her husband--"_mon brave_"--the woman
declared, was fighting somewhere for France--she knew not where.

"He has promised me not to get killed," she said cheerfully. "Of course
I would not have him an _embusqué_--no Frenchman may show the white
feather at this time. But some of these men are so reckless! They
think more of a smoke than they do of their lives--and we poor women at
home suffering agonies of fear for them! _Ça y est!_ That is what we
are here for, _n'est-ce pas_, Mademoiselle?"

As early as possible the nurse sought an interview with the major. He
was a big, hairy man, with twinkling blue eyes behind his eye-glasses.
He was young, but very decisive.

"You are very welcome, Mademoiselle," he said in English, although
Belinda had addressed him in his own tongue. "Do you speak German, too?"

"I am part German and part French by ancestry," she told him. "I speak
both languages."

"But you are American born," he responded with satisfaction. "That is
a saving grace--at this time," and he smiled. "I know your hospital in
New York. Is Doctor Herschall still on its staff?"

"Yes."

"His name is known, Mademoiselle. Many of these German surgeons
are quite wonderful fellows--masters in their art. But it has been
remarked--and wondered at--that Herschall has not returned to his own
country. He is in sympathy with his people, is he not?"

"I know very little about the Herr Doktor's opinions," said Belinda
cautiously. "From some of his speeches, however, I should think him
quite favorably disposed toward his Government. Prussians generally
are, I believe."

The French surgeon nodded. "Now for you, Mademoiselle," he said. "With
your evident knowledge and experience you will be very helpful in the
place I shall send you to. 'Let nothing you dismay,' as the English
marriage service puts it. As you Americans say, 'Tackle any job.'
Remember that in all probability there will be nobody near who knows
any more than you do, or who can do the task any better."

With this he sent her away in an empty ambulance that was returning
to a small village up near the battle front, and beyond. The growl
and rattle of the big guns had been a disturbing factor to Belinda's
hearing since soon after sunrise. The driver of the ambulance, however,
said they were very distant. There was no fighting on the immediate
front at present.

This _ambulancier_ was nothing but a boy. He had finished his freshman
course at Columbia and had insisted on coming over to serve France in
the Red Cross. Like Belinda, he was "half French."

"Mom and the girls are in Paris. They're knitting socks and winding
bandages for the Red Cross. Dad stays at home and makes dollars for us
all. Poor dad! he has the hardest job--and serves France more perfectly
than any of us!"

Belinda began to realize after listening to him that driving a cheaply
built American ambulance behind the battleline was no sinecure.

"The British chaps call these motor-cars 'mechanical fleas.' But they
do the work--and as a usual thing it takes a shell to really put 'em
out of commission. We drivers learn how to repair them--even if we
break down on the road. The British Johnnies can laugh; but France
should strike that Detroit manufacturer a special medal-of-honor.

"I carry in my tool and repair kit almost everything but a new
chassis," the boy added, laughing. "That's since I broke down once
coming along from the front with two _blessés_ on the stretchers.
Seemed to me at the time the old girl busted in half a dozen places at
once.

"I'd have made the hospital on three cylinders at that, only for a
steep hill. Twice the old car all but got to the top only to die,
coughing, and slide clear back to the bottom. My two _blessés_ were
pretty well shattered below their waists; but they were good sports.
They were laying bets with each other as to whether I'd pull 'em over
the hill before a _Boche_ shell got 'em."

"But you _did_ save them?" Belinda asked.

"One of 'em," said the boy soberly. "I had to walk twelve kilometres
for help. While I was gone one of the wounded chaps died. He had taken
the short end of the bet and he paid the other chap just before he went
off. Good sports, those _poilus_, after all."

Belinda listened--and looked. Not many physical and visible signs of
war along this road. It was a warm morning; the dust rose behind them
in a stifling cloud, but ahead the driveway and the fields were clear.
Why! there were neatly staked vineyards, blooming gardens, vegetable
fields--all the signs of farm industry.

But here, beside the road, was an excavation. Had somebody started to
dig a cellar--or a well--and abandoned it unfinished? It was right at
the roadside.

A little farther on there were several similar holes in a row. The road
circled around them through a field that had been plowed. Suddenly the
nurse was thrilled by a thought.

"Oh!" she cried, "what are they?"

"Shell holes--craters," replied the ambulance driver. "This section was
under fire a week ago."




                               CHAPTER X

                            BELINDA AT WORK


The _directrice_ was just as positive and bustling a little Frenchwoman
as Aunt Roberta. Belinda was quite sure she must have made an atrocious
nurse, even in time of peace; but she possessed great executive ability
and was inured to the work by long experience. It was "the job" to her,
and "the job" only. If the wounded looked to her for pity rather than
justice, they looked in vain.

"Don't let them bully you, these wounded," she instructed Belinda.
"They will do it if you do not put your foot down firmly. It's their
work to get back to the trenches as soon as possible--or be sent home.
It's our job to get them back on the firing line as quickly as it can
be done. Remember that."

"Ah!" breathed the queer little man who was _infirmier_ of _Salle III_
to which Belinda was assigned. "_Madame la Directrice_, her bark is
much worse than her bite. _Ma foi!_ one would think to hear her that
her hand wore a steel gauntlet instead of being like velvet. _Oui!
Oui!_"

He was a man with a twisted foot and a harelip, named Erard.

He had been born with the harelip, of course; but the twisted foot he
had suffered as a boy. A heavy truck had run over it, he told Belinda.
He could not, of course, serve in the trenches; but no more patriotic
son of France ever lived, it seemed.

"Just now," Erard said, "mademoiselle will find it easy. Only eighteen
of the beds are filled. There are thirty-four _blessés_ when the ward
is full."

Erard watched at night. He gave the patients their breakfasts; he
washed them; he lifted them when the nurse dressed their wounds; he
fetched and carried; he had so many duties that Belinda wondered if the
little man with the harelip ever slept--if he ever found time to eat.

The _blessés_ in the care of the American recruit were just at the
"fussy stage." They were inclined at first to be critical. They
resented losing a nurse they had got used to, to have foisted upon them
"a greenie." Too, she was an American, it was said, and these wounded
_poilus_ had their doubts concerning the good intentions of _les
Américains_.

"Why, they tell me the _sales Boches_ are just as welcome in that
America as we French," one said.

During these first few weeks, there were not many new cases brought
into _Salle III_. Just enough to keep the number up to the average
of eighteen or twenty. Quite as many were discharged to go back to
the trenches, or died, or were sent to the base hospitals as being
practically unfit for "gun fodder," as were brought in from the front.
Just now there was a lull in this sector. The French and the Germans
seemed merely watching each other.

The wise ones said a great battle was in preparation. But it was very
monotonous, this waiting. The guns growled and thundered, but in the
distance. Belinda was not sure she would have found an occasional shell
bursting near by hard to bear.

From the doorway of her hut where she found time occasionally to
stand to breathe the pure air Belinda could see the huge captive
balloons, wagging lazily back and forth at their tethers. Sometimes
a smaller shape darted across the horizon--an aeroplane of some
kind--occasionally chased by black bursts of smoke, the shells fired by
the German aerial guns.

Somewhere over there, perhaps eight or ten kilometres away, were
the trenches. At any time--at first the thought made Belinda very
nervous--a battle might break out along this sector. Like leashed dogs
the French and the Germans were tugging to get at each other--ready to
fly at each other's throats.

The aeroplanes she watched with particular interest. She wondered if
Frank Sanderson had as yet joined the Flying Corps. Was he already
assigned to work on the battle front? Was he one of those whom the
French acclaim the greatest heroes, the pilot of a battleplane? She
had heard nothing from him--nor of him--since they had parted at the
little Paris café.

That was her own fault and the girl fully realized it. She had
dismissed him with an abruptness that must have hurt the aviator if he
cared for her at all. And Belinda was positive that he did care.

She could not forget "Stella" and "the kiddies." She told herself
stoutly at first that she wished nothing to do with a man such as Frank
Sanderson had proved himself to be. Yet her intimacy with the young
aviator back in the New York hospital and on board ship had revealed no
characteristic of his nature that bore out the suspicions of him which
had been bred in her heart and mind.

This was why her thought returned ever and again to the careless,
cheerful, smiling American. He would make, she was sure, the very
highest type of _pilote_.

The characteristics that made him what he was seemed to deny the
possibility of his playing fast and loose with any woman. Belinda could
not understand these contradictions.

In the loneliness of her poor lodging at night these and similar
thoughts fastened upon her mind. How she had been interested in
him from the very first! When he was brought into the New York
hospital--wounded and delirious--Sanderson had appealed to her as no
other young man had ever appealed.

Was it because she was now so lonely that she could not scatter
these thoughts--that she could not drive his spirit away from her?
Was it because she was away from friends and amid strange and trying
surroundings that she was so weak? She tried to excuse herself by
admitting these reasons for a time; but at length she had to face the
thing out.

Belinda Melnotte was no coward. The turmoil in her soul could not go on
for long without arousing scorn for herself.

"Why, he is not worthy of my thought," she told herself bitterly. "A
married man! A man with wife and children! Oh! I should be ashamed of
myself! I who call myself good!

"This certainly cannot be love. He has a fascination for me; just as
Doctor Herschall inspires me with disgust--with hate! Am I different
from other girls? Is there something wrong with me--something innately
bad? I do love him! I do! I _do_! And I hate myself for it!"

She threw herself upon her bed, muffling her sobs in the pillow. This
acknowledgment of what she termed her weakness in caring so deeply for
Frank Sanderson seared her very soul. And her agony was the heavier
because she had nobody in whom she might confide.

The monotony of her work in the hospital finally deadened her
apprehension of the coming battle; but it dulled no other thoughts.
Her little round of life was made up of petty duties and interests
that were narrowing to both body and mind. She had the same wounds to
dress each day; the same physic to administer; the same complaints to
hear; the same jokes to listen to--some of them not at all clean; the
same faces to see and voices to hear. Oh, yes! her work at the New York
hospital had been vastly more interesting, had had more variety.

Yet a war hospital is so much cleaner than a hospital in time of peace.
Here there were none of the foul diseases which came under her care
while she was a probationer. And there were no old people doddering to
their graves, full of the ills that come with advancing years.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I wish you might see me and my children now, Tante," wrote Belinda
to Aunt Roberta. "The ward is spick and span. There is a trophy of
flags draped at the head, which all the _blessés_ face. When I had
arranged this and hung branches of bright-hued autumn leaves over each
window (and bribed two of the orderlies to wash those windows till the
panes shone!) my little _infirmier_ of the harelip marched proudly in
with a small silk American flag which he had secured from one of the
_ambulanciers_ from New York. This he placed up with my arrangement of
banners and the whole ward applauded--that is, all those of the poor
fellows who possess their full complement of hands and can applaud.

"It made my eyes sting. Not so much because of the Stars and Stripes,
perhaps--although to a full-blown American I suppose it is a comforting
sight--but at the thought expressed. My queer little _infirmier_, as
well as my wounded, have learned through these weeks to love me.

"If you think the furnished flat on the Rue di Rivoli something of a
cross, dear Tante, I wish you could see our makeshifts here. And the
room I have to sleep in at the other end of the village--quite fifteen
minutes' walk.

"Old Minerva, the aged dame is called with whom I lodge. She remembers
'70 of course, and is never through talking about it. _Then_ the
Germans marched by twice triumphant--going to Paris and returning.

"'But it is not so this time--the _sales embusqués_! They strut by
quite as grand as before,'--she points south, to Paris--'but they come
back on the run! _Ça y est, maintenant! Ça y est!_' and she smiles a
toothless but delighted smile.

"She does well by me, does Minerva. When I have made my toilet by six
o'clock (and now it is still pitch dark at that hour) she has ready a
huge bowl of coffee, bread and butter, with sometimes a baked apple or
some other _compote_.

"I walk briskly to the hospital. The sentinel at the gate salutes me,
for know you, dear Tante, I am a real officer of the French army--I
wear the insignia, A. D. F. and a bar, beside my _croix rouge_. Erard
is sure to be brushing out the entrance of _Salle III_ and welcomes me
with his crooked smile.

"He has already cleaned up the ward, emptied the slops, cleansed
pans, got rid as well as possible of all the more offensive things.
He does not slip out at night through the hedge, as some of the other
_infirmiers_ and orderlies do, to visit a neighboring _estaminet_ and
get drunk. He is a faithful little man, is my Erard.

"I must speak to each of my children first, or they would feel the day
had begun wrong. Then I look to see that all things are in order, and
start instrument boiling. Ah, that instrument boiling! It is an endless
task.

"Taking temperatures and marking charts is the next duty. Face washing
and mouth rinsing go with this, and Erard officiates at the combined
ceremonies.

"The doctor comes about eight o'clock, and after he goes I am left to
my own resources for the rest of the day unless something unexpected
happens to some of my patients.

"Dressings follow, and the first to manage are the more important ones.
Sometimes I accomplish only three or four of these before the bell
rings for soup at a quarter to eleven. At first these major wounds
almost keeled me over! The washing of huge shrapnel holes, the putting
in of drains, the probing for bits of shell--all the horrible by-bits
of work that the surgeons have no time for!

"We nurses have our _déjeuner à la fourchette_ immediately after the
patients are fed, crowding into a small detached hut where we eat and
gossip as fast as possible. It is the single hour of general relaxation
during the day. There is not another American girl here (am I American,
I wonder?), but they are all lovely to me.

"Mail arrives immediately after lunch. And those _blessés_ who receive
little presents from home--oh, how they are envied by the others! Dear
fellows! they almost always pass the goodies around, even though they
be but a few cheap candies. And I am obliged to take my share. These
gifts I often hide away, however, to slip into some poor fellow's hand
before I go at night. It is marvelous what comfort there seems to be
for even the most sorely wounded in a peppermint or a lime wafer.

"The remaining dressings follow, and so all the afternoon. Then comes
soup for my children--and for myself--after which I give massage
to those who need it, prepare soothing drinks for the night, give
injections and play '_ma mère_' in general to the ward--stuffing cotton
under weary backs and plastered limbs; and so bid all good-night. Then
I polish my instruments, clean up in general, and am relieved by my
harelipped _infirmier_, who comes stumbling in for another vigil,
bravely blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

"Ah, Tante, I shall want to forget all this some day. I wonder if I can!

"You say Captain Dexter has called. If he comes again give him my best
love--the dear, brave man! If he is as interested in flying as you say
he is, he must know what has become of Mr. Sanderson."

       *       *       *       *       *

Aunt Roberta wrote frequently and sent on, too, letters which arrived
from America. One came from Sue Blaine--a cheerful and newsy missive
and one which the Red Cross nurse read over and over again. Especially
this portion of it:

    "Oh, my darling Belinda! you should have seen Herr Doktor's face
    when I told him of your departure for France. It seemed he had
    called at your house and you were gone. He was actually white when
    I explained your sudden disappearance--I do not know whether with
    rage or because he feared for your precious life, honey!

    "However, it was not long before the Herr Doktor left us himself.
    He bade nobody good-by, and I learned on good authority that he
    had secretly slipped out of the States, homeward bound. Many of
    the warmer supporters of the Kaiser among our New York Germans are
    doing so. And, of course, Doctor Herschall would be of infinite
    help to the Prussian Hospital Staff.

    "The trenches will, I presume, separate you and him, if the Herr
    Doktor succeeds in reaching Germany. At least, you will not have to
    serve under his direction in your hospital work. Now isn't that a
    blessing, Belinda?"

Not that this news of Doctor Herschall's departure, presumably for the
battlefields, should have been of any moment to the Red Cross nurse.
Yet she admitted the fact that he had a certain influence upon her and
that this had not been dwarfed by separation from him.

"This war will make him famous I am sure," she told herself. "Those
wonderful hands of his will perform operations that other medical
men will acclaim as scientific marvels. But the unfortunates whom he
operates upon--will it be worth while? Will it be really a Christian
act to drag them back from the grave to spend torturing years as
cripples and half-men?"

The lull between battles was not to last for long after this letter was
received from America. Despite the prophecies that there would be no
push until spring, and in spite, indeed, of the pouring October rains,
one night at midnight the near-by guns broke out and shook Belinda in
her bed.

She got up and dressed. There was no possibility of sleep for her, for
neither her ears nor her nerves were attuned to this thunderous music.
Belinda went to the window, opened the creaking shutter, and leaned
across the sill. She could feel the tremor of the house after the
report of each gun.

Toward the north, where she knew the trenches lay, a red flash abruptly
illuminated the starless sky. A roar like the blowing up of a gas-tank
followed in train of the flash. It was one of the huge German guns.

The artillery battle soon became general. The horizon was lit with
flames. The air crashed about her ears. She was so deafened that she
did not at first hear the noise of the troop of ambulances getting
under way for the front.

They swept under her window, their shapes but dimly outlined, for
they carried no lights. A lamp moving along the road--especially an
automobile lamp--was an object easily spied from a directing _taube_ or
a captive balloon; and a shell was likely to drop upon the bright mark
within a few moments.

Belinda put on her long blue cape, pulled up the hood, and went out.
Minerva and the other lodgers remained in bed. They had suffered other
bombardments.

The nurse needed nobody to tell her that those dark cars rolling off to
the north, finding their way over the broken roads by the light of the
illuminating bombs thrown up from the trenches, or by the flash of the
shells, would begin soon to return laden with wounded. She must be "on
the job," as _Madame la Directrice_ was so fond of saying.

Suddenly the searchlights began to play more rapidly above the
trenches. High up in the gloom they revealed certain drifting shapes
against which the anti-aircraft guns were turned--a squadron of
bombarding machines returning from a raid behind the German lines.

She watched these vague forms as the moving lights searched them out.
Then the shrapnel began to burst about them.

They came on slowly, as though tired after their long journey into
the enemy's country. She hoped they would soon be safely across the
battleline.

Suddenly, like a new star in the murky firmament, a red flame appeared.
Belinda watched it with terrified gaze, for she knew instinctively what
it was.

In the midst of the squadron of bombarding aeroplanes this light had
sprung up. It spread rapidly--and began to fall.

One had been set afire! This thought only for an instant preceded
another in the girl's mind: Suppose Frank Sanderson was in that burning
machine!

Faster and faster the flaming aeroplane plunged toward the earth,
trailing behind it a tail of sparks like the tail of a comet.

The shells ceased bursting high in the air. The glow of the fallen
aeroplane was swallowed up in the flashes of the trench guns. The
squadron had passed behind the French battleline.

But somewhere on that No-Man's-Land between the trenches, the wreck of
the bombarding machine and the aviators who accompanied it were being
devoured by the flames.

The girl hurried along the road, shuddering and fearful. When she
arrived at the hospital there was an air of excitement and expectancy
that she had never seen there before. It was communicated to the
restless patients in her ward. The little wooden hut shook and rattled
to the roar of the guns.

"A great day has begun, Mademoiselle," chirped the harelipped Erard,
bustling about, doing unnecessary things, setting the whole ward "by
the ears," until Marius swore at him.

"Dirty little rabbit-mouth!" declared the irritable _blessé_. "He will
never learn. And with that broken foot dragging, dragging, like a
child's toy cart. _Mon Dieu!_ What a useless beggar!"

"Hush, Marius," the girl said. "Poor Erard is very kind to me."

"_Sale embusqué!_ Why is he not kind to _me_?" growled Marius.

It was scarcely light--gray dawn of a cloudy fall day--when the
ambulances began to trundle in at the gateway of the hospital enclosure
with their burdens of wounded.

Belinda was called to the operating ward to help. Piles of clothing
lay here and there on the floor--filthy, muddy, blood-soaked; torn or
cut from the broken bodies on the beds. The _brancardiers_ stepped on
these heaps, or kicked them aside, as they lifted the stripped wounded,
one by one, to the brown canvas stretchers, and carried them, walking
carefully out of step, to the operating room.

That operating room! Belinda had a vision for a moment of the spotless,
sterilized compartment at the New York hospital, with Doctor Herschall
in mask, apron and white apparel, waiting at the table for a single
case to be brought to him, putting his wonderful hands and fingers
through an exercise like a pianist's gymnastics, to make them supple.

Then the girl was suddenly so busy that she had no time for visions.




                              CHAPTER XI

                         AN UNEXPECTED MEETING


Belinda worked that morning in the operating ward until her knees shook
under her and she felt that she would drop.

The guns continued to thunder and shake the huts. The stretcher bearers
came and went. The three operating tables were so thickly surrounded by
white-gowned surgeons that one could not see what was upon them.

The _directrice_ seized Belinda at last and dragged her out of the ward.

"I've been looking for you," she said.

"Oh, Madame!" gasped the girl. "I feel I cannot----"

"Who wants you to? You've done too much already," interrupted the
_directrice_. "It is time you had your soup. Haven't had anything to
eat yet, I suppose? How many times must I warn you girls that your
first duty to the wounded in your charge is to yourselves?"

The decisive little woman drove the girl to the dining-hut, where other
nurses were being supplied with the necessities of life. They were all
oddly silent and preoccupied this morning. Even the most volatile
Frenchwoman of them all wore a subdued air.

The routine in the wards was much disturbed. Belinda went to _Salle
III_ as soon as her nerves were less aquiver. She had learned something
about herself this morning that she had not known before. Technically
she would never be a good war nurse! The _directrice_ was right. A very
few years of such work would leave Belinda Melnotte a nervous wreck.

The stretcher-bearers had already begun to bring into her ward from the
operating room all the surgeons had left of the broken bodies sent back
from the _postes de secours_.

It had begun to rain heavily. The guns rolled on as though they would
never cease. Every time the knee of the leading _brancardier_ thrust
open the swinging door of the ward, cold rain and wind swept in.

Little Erard had a brisk fire burning in the stove, however; and it
was well, for there was a great call among the patients for hot-water
bottles. They complained, too, that Belinda had not given them her
usual attention. Marius thundered forth maledictions upon poor Erard.
The little _infirmier_ had accidentally spilled a little egg upon the
_blessé's_ clean nightshirt.

"But remember, Marius, we have much to do to-day," the nurse
admonished him. "They will fill our ward with unfortunate _opérés_."

"Ah, the dirty fellows!" growled Marius. "Why do they not take them
elsewhere? We do not want them here."

Sympathy for each other's wounds is not always at a high mark among the
_blessés_; but when Gaston, who lacked a leg and an arm both on the
same side, so, as he said, he must always go lopsided, pointed out that
nobody was keeping Marius from leaving the ward and going out into the
rain if he wished to, the growler was silenced.

Sometimes when the door opened to admit a stretcher the wind blew out
the alcohol lamp over which the syringe was boiling. The _brancardiers_
left muddy boot prints down the ward. They dumped the _opérés_ almost
carelessly into the beds, and clumped out again.

The beds in the ward were at last filled. Without little Erard, Belinda
never would have got through that day. Nor did the wounded who had been
with her so long fail, after a time, to appreciate her difficulties,
all save Marius.

The day ended at last. She would have remained, but _Madame la
Directrice_ came herself, supplied a night nurse, and ordered the girl
to go home for the rest she so badly needed.

"There is another day," said the woman sharply. "Or, if there is
not--if this is the end of the world--all the better! The good God
will attend to these _blessés_ in that case.

"If you wear yourself out to-night, how will you do all these dressings
to-morrow? And with only that little ape of a man, Erard, to help you?
For there will be more, and yet more wounded. Hear the guns?"

As though one could shut the sullen roar of the guns out of one's
ears! The hut shook and everything inside was in a tremor from the
rolling discharges of the artillery on both sides. Under cover of this
continual bombardment the infantry was trying to advance.

All day, Belinda learned, the aeroplanes had been flying above the
smoke of the battle. Occasionally she had gone to the door of the ward
for a breath of air and had peered each time into the clouds. But she
could see none of the flying escadrilles serving on this sector.

She had not heard from Aunt Roberta regarding Frank Sanderson. Whether
he had joined the French Flying Corps or not, she had no way of
knowing. He might, even had he joined what was now called the Lafayette
Escadrille, be assigned to this locality and be engaged in this very
battle which seemed now so very terrible.

Her way home through the half-ruined village was lit by the glare of
distant rockets and flares. The rain-drenched air shook with the heavy,
sullen reports of big guns. Minerva's habitation, poor as it was,
seemed a haven of refuge to the girl on this night. She was worn out in
body and spirit.

She feared she would not be able to sleep; not, however, entirely
because of the thundering of the cannon. The sights and sounds of the
day had strongly affected her mind. With the horror and pity she felt
for the torn and broken bodies of the men brought in from the trenches,
had grown in Belinda Melnotte's heart a bitter hatred for the enemy
that had caused their wounds.

For the time she was all French. These were her people--bound to her
by ties of blood and ancestry. They were beating an invading foe back
from the soil of their forefathers. With the vituperative Erard she was
ready to call them Huns and barbarians.

Her heart was hot charged with these thoughts when she went to bed. And
then, as her head touched the pillow, exhausted nature asserted itself.
Almost instantly Belinda fell asleep; nor did she awaken at her usual
early hour.

When finally the awakening came she thought at first it was a Sunday
morning at home, it was so quiet. The sun was coming up, round and rosy.

The appreciation of this last fact aroused her thoroughly. She knew
she must be late. She sprang to the window to see the fields covered
with low-rolling mist. Nothing was to be seen in the direction of the
battlefield, and only a single broken-down ambulance was in sight on
the road.

She scamped her toilet on this morning to rush down for a drink of
coffee before hastening to the hospital. It was cold, for a biting air
came out of the low-hung fog, and she drew her cape close around her
throat as she walked hurriedly along the road.

She wondered how the battle had ended--or if it had ended. The hospital
had been overcrowded when she left the evening before. Were they still
bringing in those ruins of men that the guns had made?

As she walked on she became aware of a whirring and buzzing apparently
directly in her rear. She turned out to make way for the automobile,
the engine of which she thought she heard.

But nothing came out of the mist in the roadway. Yet the whirring and
clattering increased. Then, suddenly, she knew that the sounds were in
the air.

On one side of the road was a plowed field. Belinda realized that some
pilot was seeking to make his landing in this open space; and landing
in a fog is one of the most uncertain things that confront the pilot.

In the first place the altimetre which is supposed to register the
aeroplane's height is never delicate enough for that purpose when the
machine is descending for a landing. It is always fifteen or twenty
yards behind the rapidly dropping aeroplane. Then, the pilot's eyesight
is of little use in a fog.

It must be by exercise of almost a sixth sense that the aviator judges
the position of the ground when coming down on such a day as this.
Belinda knew this. She almost screamed a useless warning as she heard
the clashing wings drawing nearer so swiftly.

Through the rolling mist a great shape--like nothing so much as a huge
and horrid insect--came plunging down. Belinda did scream as the end of
one wing brushed the top rail of the fence between field and road.

Low as the aeroplane was--its bounding wheels had already touched the
earth--that slight collision almost threw it over. She ran along the
road as fast as she could run to keep pace with the rocketing, creaking
machine.

It stopped with a jolt. As is the rule when nearing the ground for a
landing the aviator had unhooked his belt, and he was catapulted from
his seat. The frightened girl saw him land upon hands and knees on the
ground; but luckily that field had been recently plowed.

She started to climb the fence, when the aviator struggled to his feet.
He saw her almost at once, and before making any examination of his
aeroplane, he stumbled toward her.

He was so bundled in furs and leather, and so masked, that he looked
like a being from another planet rather than a man. Although the sun
had now begun to burn up the mist, objects were still too indistinct
for either to descry clearly the other's features.

"Can Mademoiselle tell me where I have landed?" he asked in a muffled
voice. "What town is this yonder?"

She told him the name of the village in a breathless voice that must
have sounded strange to him, for he stepped nearer to peer across the
fence into her face, and she shrank back, troubled by his scrutiny.

"By jove! Not _you_, Miss Melnotte?" was his amazed cry.

"Mr. Sanderson! How wonderful! What are you doing here?"

"Scouting. I was up for two hours. Pretty near frozen. Believe me, the
temperature is low about six thousand feet up. And I got lost spiraling
down. But you, Miss Melnotte?"

He was looking at her so earnestly, with such warmth in his gaze, that
Belinda was forced to lower the lashes over her own eyes. She could
feel the accelerated pumping of her pulse. The bitter, bitter thoughts
she had harbored regarding Frank Sanderson suddenly melted, now that he
was with her.

She told him swiftly of her work and where her hospital unit lay.

"I must hurry to my _blessés_--I am late now," Belinda went on. "It was
such a terrible day yesterday. And you are in danger here, too."

This final observation seemed almost to burst unbidden from her lips.
Sanderson pressed her hands quickly.

"It's very sweet of you to say so, Miss Melnotte."

"There--there has been nobody I knew so near the battleline before,"
she faltered. "It seems terrible that you should be flying here."

"But you are housed much nearer the danger zone than I," he said. "Why
did you not take up your work in a base hospital?"

"Why did you join the Flying Corps instead of doing some safer work?"
she returned.

"Oh, there's excitement in this flying."

"And after yesterday," she said sadly, "I see that there is plenty of
excitement in my work."

"You are wonderfully courageous," he said. "But I shall worry, now that
I know you are so exposed."

She ignored this suggestion of his intimate interest, saying only:

"Perhaps the battle is ended. There are no guns this morning."

"It is only a lull," he responded earnestly. "I know that we are about
to make a strong attack all along this sector. That is why I must
hasten my return. May I hope to see you again, Miss Melnotte?"

"I hope you will be spared to," she replied frankly. "I must go now. Is
your machine all right? Can you mount again?"

"Must. I'm due back there at B----," and he pointed.

"It is wonderful--this flying."

"It's a bit ticklish," he said. Then, with a laugh: "You should see
Captain Raphe Dexter at it!"

"_He_ has not actually taken to flying? Aunt Roberta said----"

"He surely has. Been up with me at Pau. He is now taking a course in a
private aviation school, he writes me. He's a wise old bird. I believe
some of his money is coming to our escadrille. He's as plucky as they
make 'em, and a fine old gentleman!"

He shook hands with her again and started for the Nieuport. She watched
him from the roadway and waited, late as she was, until he was in the
air before continuing her way toward the hospital.

Sanderson circled above her head in the aeroplane, like a great bird,
and then, mounting higher, winged his way to the rear.




                              CHAPTER XII

                     THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SHIELD


The _médecin major_ himself had hurried to the front and was going
through the wards and asking questions when Belinda arrived at the
hospital.

The battle had opened unexpectedly, and no time had been given to weed
out those _blessés_ who were convalescent. More wounded would be coming
in hourly, and now all that could be done was to send those patients
that might be moved with any degree of safety to the base hospitals.

That meant transferring them by ambulance to the town where a _train
sanitaire_ would take them to the extreme rear. It was known the
_postes de_ _secours_ were overflowing and that all the wounded--some
of them Germans--had not been removed from the ground between the two
lines of trenches.

There had been charging and counter-charging across this No-Man's-Land
and the Red Cross men at the battle line made no distinction between
fallen enemy and fallen friend.

So Belinda saw all but six of her old patients sent away before noon.
Gaston actually wept and kissed her hands at parting. Even grouchy
Marius expressed his good wishes for her future--of course, in his own
peculiar way.

"The dogs that follow us, Mademoiselle, can be no worse than the dogs
who leave. _Mon Dieu!_ No!"

In spite of these removals, this proved to be a trying day for the
young Red Cross nurse. There were three deaths among the _opérés_
before night. The _médecin chef_ himself came, at her report, to
see what was the matter. There were four others for whom she had
fears--_grands blessés_ all.

Belinda had no desire to make a record in healing the wounded who came
to her ward. Of course, it was very fine if _Madame la Directrice_
could report to headquarters that so many _blessés_ passed through her
hospital and that of them all only a small number were lost. But to
Belinda mere figures entered very slightly into the work.

Her humane instincts revolted from looking at the work as "the job." To
"make a record" was farthest from her thoughts.

She was only desirous each day of making those under her care as
comfortable as possible; to ease pain where it was being suffered so
bravely; to cheer the hours of these men who had done their duty at the
front and were now doing their duty here on the hospital cots.

They were all brave fellows--even those who were the very hardest to
handle. During the interval before this last battle commenced the
general had come through the ward and pinned the _Médaille Militaire_
over the hearts of some of her worst patients for acts of bravery
performed on the field. Even upon the egg-stained nightshirt of Marius
the medal had been pinned.

The girl from America saw and appreciated the human side of this
tragedy too much to be finally successful as a nurse in a war hospital.
She realized this fact quite keenly, but she had no idea of asking to
be relieved.

She knew she had made her charges happier--more cheerful--more
comfortable. Whatever the work might take out of her, she had helped
them all. Those who were removed loved her. The spoken blessings of
some of them rang in her ears. The kisses of the courteous Gaston on
her hands were still warm. Even the eyes of Marius as he was taken out
assured her that he never would forget her.

"It is worth while. It is worth the sacrifice of self," Belinda thought
as, with the ward finally cleared up again, she waited for the fresh
accession of wounded.

Suddenly there was a call for her outside. The great guns had been
silent all day, and since the visit of the _médecin major_ more wounded
had been taken away than had been brought in. But now the ambulances
were rolling in again from the front. During the lull the wounded were
being picked up from the fields between the lines--some of them having
lain there in the rain and cold for thirty-six hours.

_Madame la Directrice_, coming to Belinda's ward, said to the girl:

"You are familiar with German, are you not, Mademoiselle Melnotte?"

"I speak the language--yes, Madame," the girl replied.

"Take these men, then, to _Salle III_," ordered the _directrice_.

The men on the stretchers were prisoners. The gray-green
uniforms--where the garments had not been stripped from the
bodies--were unmistakable. The type of countenance as well was
unmistakable.

In silence the German wounded were brought into the ward. They, too,
were silent; even their groans were stifled as they lay shattered
beside their enemies. If the French soldiers might have reviled them at
another time, they did not do so now.

The _brancardiers_ lifted the broken bodies from the stretchers to
Belinda's clean beds. Most of their foulness had been removed in the
receiving ward. Yet the girl almost shrank from touching them.

In her heart was bitter resentment against these members of a race
that had plunged the whole world into war. She could not forget the
putrid, awful cases of gas gangrene which had been under her care, the
results of a horrid and barbarous method of warfare utterly unknown in
a presumably Christian world until the brains of Teutonic scientists
had suggested it.

Other awful putrefactions and criminal mutilations had come under her
eyes in this hospital, directly due to Prussian methods of warfare. She
could not forget them; she could not escape their significance. To her
these grim, wounded men brought in as prisoners did not seem at all
like the _blessés_ she had been nursing. Pity excused none of their
faults.

She dressed their wounds as carefully as she did those of her French
patients. She listened to them, if they spoke, as patiently as to the
others. Yet for that first day and the next her horror of these alien
prisoners almost stifled her natural tenderness when she approached
them.

Belinda had, during these weeks at the field hospital, become
thoroughly imbued with the hatred of the French for their ancient
enemies, and by their attitude toward them. She had listened to little
but tales of the barbarisms of the detested "_Boches_." Her mind
was filled with stories of rapine and vandalism on the part of the
Prussian-baited German hordes.

Yet she was wise enough to hide these deeper feelings from the
orderlies and stretcher-bearers, as well as from little Erard. The
latter's fantastically expressed hatred of the enemy had been so
frequently shown that Belinda feared an outbreak when he was called
upon to help with these German wounded.

Nor was she wrong in this expectation. Only, the crooked little man's
explosion of feeling was not just what the nurse had expected.

One of the strangers could keep nothing on his stomach at first, and,
knowing little French, the poor fellow was slow in making his need of
the basin understood by Erard.

"Ah, these _sales étrangers_!" growled Erard. "_Nom de Dieu!_ that I
should serve the _cochon_! Why do they not let them die where they
fall? Or stick them with the bayonet, as they do our poor _poilus_ when
they have too many prisoners?"

Then suddenly he saw how pallid the man was and how he had fallen
limply on his pillow.

"Ah, Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!" he called softly to Belinda. "Come
quickly! What shall we do? This poor fellow is dying!"

And the two worked over the man an hour to save him once more from the
grave.

At the end of the ward a delirious patient had been flung upon a cot.
Had he not been so weak they must have strapped him down. From side
to side he rolled his head. He was just a pretty, fair-haired boy--a
mother's boy. And if that mother could have seen the poor, tortured
limbs and the great shrapnel wound in his thigh!

Belinda went to his side no more frequently than she did to the others.
Yet she was haunted by the suffering and by the youth of the lad. Once
she lingered to lay a palm upon his pain-wrinkled, sweating brow.

"_Ach, liebes Mütterlein! Mein Mütterlein!_" he murmured, and somehow
managed to seize the nurse's hand.

For ten minutes Belinda stood, until the weak fingers slipped from her
hand and the boy slept. And what were her thoughts?

Not of the horrors of war. Not of the criminal practices of a
blood-inflamed soldiery fighting for the already moribund issue of the
Divine Right of Kings. Not of the wrongs of France.

She suddenly had a vision of a grassy lane, on either hand old but
pleasant houses with red-tiled or thatched roofs, a rambling inn on
one side, a footbridge over a stream at the end of the lane, and a
gristmill with its babbling wheel.

Marching out of one dooryard into the lane defiled a phalanx of geese
led by a high-headed old gander. The little girl, Belinda herself, in
the short petticoats and with the plaits of hair down her back, who was
standing in the lane was a stranger and she was afraid of that gander.

But here to her rescue came running two tow-headed lads--not older
than herself, but braver. They were her defense and comfort.

Carl and Paul, her cousins! Somewhere they were fighting with the
enemies of France! Or were they already shot down? And did they lie,
like this poor lad, in some hospital at the mercy of strangers?

Another incident served to impress the girl's mind deeply. The battle
had rumbled away along the front to other sectors. But the passing to
and from the trenches of troops and the heavy rumbling of the wagons
continued past the hospital, day and night.

The Flying Corps, too, was busy, and Belinda was not too much engaged
with her own work to worry about Frank Sanderson. How did he fare?
There were airplanes being shot down, she heard, every day above the
trenches. If the aviators fell within the German lines they were seldom
heard of again. They were considered spies, of course. And, then, there
are few falls, whether in peace or war, of flying machines that do not
compass the pilot's death.

Then one day there walked into _Salle III_ two visitors--first a smart
old man in a blue suit and with a broad smile upon his sea-bronzed
countenance, and behind him Sanderson himself with a hamper on his arm.

"Captain Dexter!" cried the nurse, giving both her hands to the
beaming shipmaster, but looking over his shoulder at Sanderson.

"What did I tell you?" demanded the Yankee captain of the aviator. "I
told you she'd be tickled to death to see folks from home."

"Home?" repeated Belinda, a little startled by the thought of America
being her home.

"By Hannah!" pursued the shipmaster. "Isn't she a regular Yankee girl?
I'm proud of you young folks that have come over here to give these
Johnny Crapauds a hand in their fight. I meet you everywhere I go about
France--in the air, on the auto-busses--these jitneys as I'd call 'em
at home--carryin' the wounded; and best of all in the hospitals. All of
you doin' your 'bit,' as John Bull calls it. Well! Well! I told you,
Frank, that she'd be glad to see us."

The nurse had given the young man her hand.

"And we haven't come empty-handed," went on Captain Dexter in his loud,
cheerful tone. "Got something for your boys here----"

"They are mostly Germans now in this ward," Belinda interrupted.
"Prisoners."

"By Hannah! That so?"

"The poor fellows!" Sanderson said. "We've got candy and cakes. The
captain insisted they'd be appreciated by fellows who have to live
mostly on broth," and he laughed.

There were other comforts, too, in the hamper. Some things the sight
of which almost brought tears to the nurse's eyes, for there were not
many luxuries seen in the wards. She noticed that the captain himself
was surprised by some of the articles taken out of the hamper, and
she believed the old man's thoughtfulness had not suggested all the
comforts produced. Lastly came a quantity of cigarettes and tobacco,
with pipes--the greatest boon possible to those _blessés_ who were
convalescent.

Belinda watched, too, Sanderson's manner as he went down the ward
distributing to the occupants of the cots such of the dainties as she
said each might have. He could speak German with the same facility that
he spoke French, and he was as cheerful and kindly to the Germans as to
the few French left in _Salle III_.

Indeed, for the first time since the influx of prisoners a spirit of
cheerfulness spread through the ward. Some of these silent, suffering
prisoners, so far from their homes and with wearisome confinement
facing them, actually smiled.

Sanderson discovered something that Belinda had not learned. One of
the Germans--a man somewhat older than his fellows--could speak broken
English.

"_Wie geht es?_ You are from America, yet?" he said to Sanderson. "I
lif' there, too."

"By Hannah!" roared Captain Dexter from the rear, "why didn't you stay
there?"

"Yes, I wish I was back there alretty. But I haf' to fight for the
Fatherland."

"A reservist," whispered Belinda. But she had not learned this about
him before. She really had not felt interested enough in the bearded,
silent man to talk much with him.

But Sanderson seemed interested in everybody in the ward and was
immensely cheering. Jacob, as was the bearded man's name, told the
young aviator he had a delicatessen store in New York, on the upper
East Side.

"But, soh!" he blew a sigh. "I may never see it again."

The energetic Captain Dexter had to view the entire hospital, and
went off with one of the visiting doctors for that purpose. It was
being whispered about among the hospital attendants that the "so-rich"
and benevolent _Américain_ was about to furnish money for an entire
hospital unit to the _Croix Rouge_.

"The skipper must be causing his three 'darters' a great deal of worry
of mind just now," chuckled Sanderson, remaining with Belinda. "He's
drawn on his bankers for so much money that, he tells me, Mesdames
Prudence, Patience and Penelope tried to hold up the advances,
thinking the poor old chap had gone quite off his head and had become
demoralized by the wickedness and gaieties of Paris. They do not
realize that Paris at present is about as lively as its namesake in
Kentucky, U. S. A.!

"And what good the old gentleman manages to do with his money--my word!
He spends it like a sailor ashore with his pay in his pocket. The other
day I found him strapped--flat broke, and without enough to pay for his
dinner. But it's worrying the three 'darters.'"

"They must be disturbed about him, I suppose," Belinda agreed. "And
he's such a splendid, brave old man."

"He's the kind of American I'm proud of," the aviator said earnestly.
"Perhaps he may be somewhat boastful, but in these days that has
actually become a virtue. You must confess, Miss Melnotte, that we
Americans have much to be proud of."

"Have we?" she retorted, smiling rather seriously. "I do not know--I am
not sure that I may claim much part in America or things American."

"Ah!" he said, with quick understanding. "This work here has made you
feel that your sympathies are all with your father's people?"

"It is so," she admitted.

"You lack the proper perspective--yet," he said, nodding. "But you will
get it before long, I am sure. The skipper and I have an advantage over
you, to be sure. But your country--America--will be in this war before
long."

"God forbid!" she murmured.

"It cannot be helped. The autocratic government of Germany has gone mad
with lust of blood and power. Before long," and he gestured toward the
Stars and Stripes so brightly gleaming in her trophy of banners on the
wall, "that flag will become the most beautiful thing you ever looked
upon!"

"Oh, Mr. Sanderson!" she said deprecatingly. "You are
over-enthusiastic. You seem so sure the United States will come in."

"As sure as I am of my own existence," he told her gravely. Then, in a
suddenly altered tone, and speaking softly, he added: "I wish, indeed,
I were as sure of something else."

"Yes?" she said, rather absently.

He rushed on boyishly, desperately:

"I wish I were sure of how you will feel about me after the war is
over. Miss Melnotte--Belinda----"

"Mr. Sanderson!" she exclaimed, drawing away from him. "Surely you are
forgetting yourself."

"Oh, Belinda----"

"If you have no regard for yourself--for your duty as a man," the girl
cried hoarsely, "show some compassion for me."

"But, Belinda, listen! I tell you----"

"You may tell me nothing! Nothing! You have no right to speak to me in
this way."

"You--you forbid me?" he stammered, gazing at her with a hurt
expression. Her eyes were aflame, her cheeks hot with anger. Yet she
trembled through all her frame. "Do you mean this?" he went on slowly.

"Certainly I mean it," she declared fiercely. "Never speak in this vein
again. If you do I must forget that we are even acquaintances, Mr.
Sanderson."

The return of Captain Dexter made further speech between them
impossible. Belinda would not even take Sanderson's hand when the
visitors departed.




                             CHAPTER XIII

                            THE PREPARATION


Belinda Melnotte took to her lodging that night a heavy and troubled
spirit. Sanderson's visit to the hospital had lifted not at all the
burden of doubt and unhappiness that she had borne so long.

She confessed to herself--and confessed it with shame--that the
appearance of the young aviator had caused her joy unspeakable. When he
had clasped her hands she had been obliged to fix her gaze elsewhere
that Sanderson might not see in her eyes the very expression he
evidently longed to see there.

Yet, how she had dismissed and flouted him! Every word she said in
spurning his half-spoken address had cut her own heart like a knife.

She loved him. She needed him particularly now in her heavy trials and
ungrateful tasks at the hospital. Ah, if beside her stood just such a
strong-souled, tender yet cheering presence as the aviator possessed!

Yet she cried: "Unworthy! Unworthy! He _must_ be bad! He _is_!"

That other woman and her children stood beside the aviator in Belinda's
vision. She could not recall his presence to her thought without
bringing up, too, the wraiths of the family he must wrong in his
thoughts every time he tried to address her--Belinda--with affection!

Even if he contemplated divorcing Stella, the Red Cross nurse could not
think of him as her fit mate. It was against her religious training and
abhorrent to her own conscience.

It became difficult for Belinda to bring into her ward a cheerful face,
as had been her wont, to speak lightly to her charges, to raise--as she
had heretofore--the spiritual temperature.

Desultory fighting continued; but after all there had been no great
push. It was abandoned, they said, till spring. Snow and mud, rain and
frost, made of all Northern France where the trenches lay an almost
impassable wilderness. Nature and the elements gave the embattled
armies a respite from the fray.

That is, these circumstances made all but ordinary trench fighting and
air activities impossible. There were sorties and counter attacks along
the sector almost daily; but the general result was _nil_ for either
side.

The Red Cross nurse went back to Minerva's one evening under a lowering
sky that was copper colored by the rays of the setting sun all along
the horizon. The landscape, Belinda thought, was the dreariest she had
ever seen. Here and there stood tortured, broken trees, where shells
had burst in the branches. Everywhere in the fields were _marmite_
holes, or the craters made by the shells from the "Big Berthas." Many
of the houses along the way had been burst asunder by the shells, and,
of course, had never been repaired.

In her room under the now-thatched eaves of the stone-walled cottage
Belinda delayed undressing, not because her body was not wearied, but
because her brain was wide, wide awake. In the dull radiance of a smoky
lamp she read over again the few letters from Aunt Roberta and from
girls whom she had known in New York or at college that had reached her
since she had come to the battlefields.

There was a cheerful note in all--even in Aunt Roberta's.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Captain Dexter has called again and reports that you are very well and
as pretty as ever. Ah, he is a dear man. He knows how to compliment
a woman. He should be French," was the burden of Aunt Roberta's last
letter.

"He calls in the morning in a taxicab and takes me to drive, if I have
time to go. In the afternoon he sometimes takes tea with me. That is,
if I and Margot are not housecleaning. Such a house as this is for
dirt! And Margot must be watched like a hawk or she will sweep the
sweepings under the furniture. If all goes well the captain sometimes
takes me to dinner. The cafés and restaurants are not very gay, I must
confess. It is very different now from my remembrance of Paris as it
used to be. Why, it is not even as gay as New York! And these landlords
here evidently never heard of hot-water supply! All I get through the
rusty registers in these rooms, too, is the smell of coal gas--no heat,
I vow! I know why the nobles who once lived in this hotel are here
no more; they all froze to death in the cold winter of '74--and the
present winter promises to be even colder. I have set up a coal stove
in the parlor, as the tradesmen seem to know nothing about oil heaters.
The captain says he would like to have the opportunity of putting his
feet up on a base-burner (whatever that may be) and of eating a baked
apple at night before he retires, as he used to do in Old Saybrook.
That Old Saybrook must, in truth, be a place very charming."

       *       *       *       *       *

There were three of Belinda's school friends in France--one married to
a Frenchman and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of French patriotism;
the other two working for the suffering wounded. But letters from all
three were in cheerful vein. The wearied girl mentally compared their
state with her own. In her diary she wrote:

    "There is something lacking in my life. I have no spring left
    in me. It is not that I am more exhausted in body than I used
    sometimes to be in the hospital at home (the 'home' was crossed
    out and 'New York' written instead), but I miss something--I need
    something----"

A clatter against the closed shutter of her window made the girl look
up. Again the rattling--was it pebbles?--startled the silence of the
room. The whole house was still.

Belinda stood up, dropping her pen, one hand upon her heart. She saw
her face in the little oval mirror over her dressing-table. Her lips
were wreathed in a smile, her eyes were aglow. Her appearance startled
the girl.

She crossed the room quite calmly as, for a third time, the pebbles
clattered on the shutter. She unhooked and pushed back the swinging
blind. A figure stood in the middle of the road, looking up at her.

"Belinda! Miss Melnotte!"

"Yes."

"This is Sanderson."

"I know," breathed the girl, resting both palms on the window-sill and
looking down upon him. If her face had not been in the shadow! If he
could have seen her luminous eyes!

"I wanted to see you again--just to speak to you," he pleaded, coming
closer under the window.

"What is it? You are not going back?" she asked, but keeping her voice
perfectly steady.

"No. I am going forward." He laughed with a strange tenseness in his
tone. "I cannot tell you much about it. It is forbidden. 'Even the
night hath ears.'"

"Oh! An air attack?" she whispered.

"In force. Several squadrons. Before daybreak. I--I wished to see
you--to speak to you. If I should not return at once, you'll--you'll
tell Captain Dexter to attend to my papers. He'll understand. I've
fixed things for the kiddies----"

"Oh! Yes," she said. Her voice was suddenly hoarse and dry. She drew
back further into the shadow.

"Good-by, Miss Melnotte--Belinda."

"Good-by, Mr. Sanderson."

He turned away rather abruptly and trudged back along the road toward
the town.

She stood long at the casement--long after he was out of sight, and
her thoughts were bitter. She had let him go from her without a tender
word--without a whisper to console him. She fought down sternly the
desire to call him back--to slip into her cape and run after him along
the dark and lonely road.

He would go into the air at dawn on a mission that seemed to her
mind almost sure to have a fatal ending. How often he faced death in
his daily flights she did not know. But evidently Frank Sanderson
considered this present venture as threatening more than usual peril,
or he would not have come so far for a last glimpse of her.

A last glimpse! She thought of that moment on the _Belle o' Perth_ when
the nearness of death from the submarine attack was so heavy upon them.
She had been kinder to him then. She had let him see for a moment that
she cared.

Would he remember that weakness on her part when he mounted into the
skies at dawn? Or would his last thought of her be as she was when she
let him go from her window without a word of cheer?

On Sanderson's part, plodding gloomily campward, he felt as though he
had been guilty of a weakness in venturing to see Belinda. He had no
right to try to interest the girl in his affairs. How chaotic those
affairs might be in another twenty-four hours!

He had learned that afternoon that there was to be a strong air attack
over the German lines. For some reason the general in command desired
the Germans harassed at this point.

The town was filled with new troops and arriving guns and supplies. The
loaded, low-hung wagons ground through the streets and on toward the
north. Troops of all kinds marched through--the most of them fresh,
lively young fellows who hailed the aviators as they passed their camp
with, "Hey, Bill!" "'Ello, Charley!" "_Américain Aviateur!_ Hi! Hi!"

A train of giant mortars had gone up only two days before, mounted on
great trucks and drawn by big motor lorries. It seemed as though all
the world was in arms and was deploying past that aviation camp.

The preparations for the coming flight of at least three
squadrons--perhaps more--were carried on in secret; yet a bustle
all through the camps preceded it. The first business was an air
reconnaissance. Every pilot wished personally to see that his machine
was in the best shape possible, leaving nothing to chance, and very
little to the judgment of his mechanicians.

Sanderson's aeroplane was a small Nieuport--one of those called by the
French _appareils de chasse_ on account of their great speed (over one
hundred miles an hour)--and had long since reached the front. The young
American had been favorably marked during the winter as a cool and
well-balanced pilot, with plenty of nerve and daring in reserve. His
type of machine made him distinctly a fighting _aviateur_.

As he came back from his call upon the Red Cross nurse, foot-weary
and not altogether composed in his mind, it was midnight. Before he
reached the château where the members of his escadrille were quartered,
he saw the bombarding unit going up--the first of this planned aerial
attack on the Germans.

The machines mounted slowly, turning in great circles overhead until
they reached the proper altitude--twenty-two of them. Then they
vanished with their destructive bombs into the north. These bombs have
propellers attached so as to retard their fall; otherwise they might
sink too deeply into the earth to do much damage when they explode.

Before the bombarding squadron returned in the early morning the order
came for the battleplanes to get under way. Sanderson had not had much
sleep, but he was perfectly ready for the work in hand.

As the young American "jumped" his aeroplane from the ground and
soared upward he saw many other machines rising--not only of his own
escadrille, but of the several others brought to the sector for this
attack.

His Nieuport scaled up the airways at a sharp angle--too sharp,
perhaps, with the wind that was blowing. Surely the American was not
careless in his management of the aeroplane--on such an occasion as
this, too!

Yet his mind might not have been wholly upon the work before him. Was
Belinda thinking of him at this moment? Was she kinder to him in her
secret thoughts than she was openly?

She must know that an attack in force upon the German aircraft fleet
would mean the destruction of many French aeroplanes and the death of
their pilots. _He_ had no charm against disaster!

Suddenly his Nieuport swerved, rolled sideways, and seemed about to
turn over. Sanderson shut off the motor. The machine, quivering and
shaking, seemed to stand still on its tail for a moment.

A stronger draft of air had struck the wings, and only the pilot's
quick action in shutting off the motor had saved him from a fatal
accident. The Nieuport righted itself, and Sanderson drove on after the
members of his escadrille.




                              CHAPTER XIV

                           AMID WAR'S ALARMS


Sanderson, in his fast-flying Nieuport, shaped his course in a long
slant toward the trenches. He flew over the hospital in which Belinda
worked. She might then be wending her way toward it from her lodging.
If so, and if she saw the flotilla of aeroplanes overhead would she
think of him?

The whole sector along the trenches had become alive since the first
streak of light. And of course the Germans were just as busy. From
above, the conflict seemed like a huge cauldron, over which the steam
hung like a cloud, and out of which pale rockets shot--the exploding
shrapnel.

The yellow mist rose to a great height, in places obscuring the
battleline for many rods. Flashes, like the snapping of parlor matches,
identified the positions of the guns. In some places, and for hundreds
of yards, the gun-carriages touched one another.

In other spots Sanderson could easily descry the network of
trenches, at certain points broken and half obliterated by muddy
excavations--huge shell holes.

It was difficult at some points to tell the French from the German
trenches, they were so close together. It was a horrid, barren waste,
this land. Forests had been wiped out, fields plowed so deeply by shell
and shrapnel that it almost seemed that for decades no green thing
would ever grow there.

Ruined villages lay like heaps of potsherd; in color the land was all a
dirty brown.

High, as Sanderson was now, above this boiling, turgid pit, it was a
silent battle. The noise of his motor drowned the whistle of the shells
and the roar of the bombardment.

The French artillery biplanes were hovering over the German lines like
buzzards over contemplated prey. And surely the carrion was in the
making.

On sentinel duty, as he was, Sanderson mounted higher to watch
for attacking German aeroplanes. A dull, explosive sound suddenly
reached his ears. He saw that certain white puffs were following him
about--exploding shrapnel from the enemy's anti-aircraft guns.

The work that fell to his share on this occasion, however, was not
all observational. Up from behind the German lines rose a squadron of
fighting Fokkers attended by smaller _tauben_. They spread out as they
advanced, and so could not always protect each other's flanks.

The American aviator saw his opportunity. He shot from an
eight-thousand-foot level in a sharp slant down upon one of the
heavier German machines that had come boldly over the French trenches.
Pointing his Nieuport with exactness he fired the mitrailleuse and saw
with satisfaction the havoc accomplished which had been his desire.

The heavier machine fell through the air like a wounded bird. Flames
broke out, for as is always the case when shot down over enemy
trenches, the German aviator ignited his gasoline tank that the machine
might be destroyed rather than be of use to the French.

Sanderson, shooting southward after his brief conflict, was not
untouched. The _tauben_ on duty had fired on him. A bullet had plowed a
furrow across one of his shoulders, and he felt a trickle of blood into
his shoe from a scratch above his left ankle.

But greater than these personal hurts was another discovery he made.
A bullet had severed a metal stability control. By all the rules of
aviation he should have lost control of his aeroplane and come down in
a fatal smash.

Sanderson did not lose his head. He was quite aware, when the rod
snapped, that death rode at his shoulder. He seized the broken stay and
held on, steering with his other hand. This called for all the strength
he possessed; for if an automobile traveling fifty miles an hour needs
muscle as well as skill at the wheel, how much more does an aeroplane
pilot need strength in handling his machine traveling at twice that
speed!

The American, still slanting downward, crossed above the French
trenches, aiming to descend in a not-far-distant field, a little out
of the line of fire, where repairs could be made. Fate, however, had
more in store for him. A whirling squall of wind suddenly caught his
Nieuport, and he felt the tail of the machine go down and the nose
shoot up.

He was caught in the fatal _perte de vitesse_.

There are two ways in which the aviator may know when he is approaching
the danger point of "loss of speed"--by closely watching the speed
indicator and by feeling the controls. The moment the controls become
lifeless and have no resistance the pilot must act instantly to regain
his momentum.

But situated as Sanderson was, he had no chance to save himself. The
_vrille_ was on before he could as much as think. His aeroplane was
suddenly descending in a whirlpool--spinning like a match in a basin.

The Nieuport was making the corner of one wing a pivot and was
revolving about it--the first turn slowly, but each succeeding turn
increasing in speed.

Sanderson whispered the one word "Belinda" as he looked out and saw
that he was less than a thousand feet above ground and approaching it
at an alarming rate of speed. He had shut off the motor the instant of
the alarm, or the Nieuport would have folded up like a book.

He had seen so many similar accidents where pilots had "slipped off the
wing." Seldom if ever had such accidents turned out other than utter
tragedies.

But there was one thing he knew--a possible way of salvation, though
almost an impossibility for any save the coolest brain. It is harder
to do nothing when danger threatens than anything else--unless one
is paralyzed with fear. And Frank Sanderson was not the person to be
bemused by peril.

So this one thing he did--_nothing_. He let go of everything save the
broken control rod and shut his eyes. He felt the sickening down-rush
of the aeroplane and sensed, too, the up-rush of the ground.

Expecting a crash that would be the last sound in his ears, the last
physical feeling he would have in this world, he was suddenly shocked
by the lurching and righting of the aeroplane. He turned on the motor,
recovered the steering wheel and control, finding himself on a line of
flight scarcely two hundred feet above the ground.

He came safely down in a field where a party of wondering French
soldiers welcomed him with acclamation. They had seen the _perte de
vitesse_ and thought the _Américain aviateur_ had been shot down.

A first-aid man of the Red Cross dressed Frank's slight wounds, while
an amateur mechanician repaired the broken stability rod. In half an
hour he took his machine up again and winged his way back to the firing
line, amid the cheers of the soldiers.

Clouds were gathering in the upper strata of air, and at the usual
observation level these drifting blankets of mist began to obstruct
his view of the battlefield and the space directly above it. He was
therefore driven down to the six-thousand-foot level and later to five
thousand feet.

There was fighting between the German and French aeroplanes over other
parts of the field; but just at present all seemed quiet near Sanderson.

A great cloud drifted over and touched him like a chill and almost
palpable hand. He felt that this was no place in which to remain, and
was about to descend a few hundred feet to escape the menace of the
cloud when, in shutting off his motor preparatory for the volplane, he
distinguished the noise of another motor near by.

He shot a keen glance about. He marked each friendly aeroplane in his
group. All the German machines he saw were at a distance.

Then he suddenly decided that the motor he heard must be that of an
aeroplane in the midst of the cloud just above him. An enemy aeroplane!

He had been observed from a distance, and a German _taube_ had been
sent to attack him, the enemy using the screen of this cloud to make
the attack sure. As Sanderson started downward he saw the black shape
of the _taube_ swoop out of the cloud.

His antagonist had the advantage at the start, and well Sanderson
knew it, for he was attacking the American's machine from above. The
German's mitrailleuse was already beginning to spit a hail of bullets
about the falling aeroplane, a fire which the American could not return
until he could change his flight and "point" his machine.

Every moment Sanderson delayed in changing his course added to his
peril, yet he hesitated to mount upward again. There was a chance--a
narrow one but a conclusive strategy if successful--that he was tempted
to put to the test. It was a desperate expedient and might end fatally
to himself as well as to the German; yet the American contemplated
putting it into execution.

The German continued to shoot as he fell upon Sanderson's machine, and
already there were several fresh bullet holes through the wings of the
latter's aeroplane. As always, the fear of a bullet in his gasoline
tank fretted the American's mind. And, too, he had thus far not fired a
shot in self-defense.

It was the desperate resort, therefore, that he embraced. He started
his motor, righted his aeroplane, and as soon as he was sure of his
speed, lifted the machine's nose for a higher altitude.

Seeing this change on the part of the Nieuport, the pilot of the
_taube_ instantly followed suit. At least, he shot into a level and his
own motor began to buzz again.

But Sanderson had expected this. He knew the German would not be
likely to give him a chance to pass and rake him broadside with his
mitrailleuse. He, however, trusted in the speed of the Nieuport. As
though shot out of one of the great guns hammering awe at each other
below, his _appareil de chasse_ darted up, turned, and was aimed
directly for the under side of the _taube_--and at the most vulnerable
part, the tail.

The speed of the American's aeroplane was what counted. His rain of
bullets crippled the German machine. It "went off on the wing," dropped
some hundreds of yards, and then righted before Sanderson could turn
again and shoot from above upon it.

Sanderson now had the advantage the German had previously held. He was
the pursuer and the German was in flight.

He held, too, an added advantage. Sanderson had the German running for
the rear of the French lines, having intervened his Nieuport between
the enemy and escape to the northward.

The injury to the German's aeroplane made it positively necessary for
its pilot to descend. And he was descending in enemy territory. This
being the case, he did what every aviator is supposed to do in like
circumstances--and what the German airman always does.

Racing downward for a landing, with Sanderson in hot pursuit, the pilot
of the _taube_ saw that he could not reach the earth in safety and
there fire his gas-tank, so destroying his machine that it should yield
no "comfort or support to the enemy." Sanderson saw his antagonist turn
deliberately and fire his gasoline tank while he was yet some hundreds
of feet above the ground. The little _taube_ was on fire in a moment.
The pilot still endeavored to make a landing and save his own life; but
the flames enveloped him.

Sanderson redressed his machine and made a safe landing. The burning
_taube_ came down in one place near by, while in another spot had
fallen all that was left of the brave fellow who had piloted it.

The American reached the remains of the German before anybody else.
He stood with head uncovered while a field surgeon made a perfunctory
examination of the charred heap.

"Indeed, yes, _Monsieur Américain_, he is dead," agreed the French
doctor. "But he was a brave man though a _Boche_."

       *       *       *       *       *

Disaster stalked with hooded face across these waste lands of Northern
France. Belinda felt the spirit of it before she heard a word of
retreat. Before, even, the broken troops toiled thickly past the
hospital and through the village from the trenches, the Germans in her
ward seemed to know that along this sector their countrymen were making
gains.

Changes in the personnel of the ward had finally cleared out every
French soldier Belinda had nursed. There were only Germans left, many
of them seriously wounded. She spoke German all day long. Even Erard,
with the facility of the Latin, had picked up a speaking vocabulary
that served in his care of the detested "_Boches_." The little
_infirmier_ with his afflictions of harelip and twisted foot was really
accorded more polite treatment by the Germans than he had been by his
compatriots.

A nervous air of expectancy overlaid the entire hospital. The removal
of such wounded as could be moved started afresh. The _médecin chef_
was short in his replies to questions. _Madame la Directrice_ was in
tears.

The troops going up, who sometimes passed Belinda on the road as she
trudged to and from Minerva's, did not at first betray the feeling that
disaster was in the air. Though they were marching in coats already
saturated by the rain and knew they might remain in that condition
during their entire "stage" in the trenches, they seemed not to be
daunted.

They plodded on, singing gaily, unmindful of rain and wind, weighted
down by their equipment. They hailed the women they passed with:
"Good-morning, Margot!" "Chère Is'belle!" "By the old mill site,
to-night, Marie!"

But the men who came back!

They did not march back from the trenches at first. Sandwiched in with
the ambulances along the crowded roads were motor-busses containing the
dumb, stupid creatures that for a week had held back the enemy.

They looked scarcely human--brown with mud from head to foot, faces
masked with dirt and a week's growth of beard. They looked at the
passer-by with a faraway, half-unconscious expression, so utterly
stupefied by the terrible bombardment and their miseries that they
scarcely appreciated their escape.

The attack by the French along this front had not been a success, or
so it seemed to the layman. If it had been a thrust to call German
reserves from other places and center them here, to make the real
attack by French and British more potent, as some said, perhaps it was
a well-conducted piece of strategy.

But the enemy poured down upon the devoted soldiers holding the
front of this sector and by mere weight of numbers--and weight of
guns--forced the French to retreat. It went on so for several days. The
French gave only a few yards at a time; but it was retreat!

Belinda had seen nothing of Sanderson since the night he had come
to her window. Nor had she heard anything definite of him. Stories
were rife that the American escadrille of flying men had conducted
themselves with great honor in the raid over the German lines. One of
their number had been killed.

Through Erard, who was the recipient of much gossip and who took a
vivid interest in everything pertaining to the flying escadrilles, she
tried to learn who the lost aviator was.

This was impossible. Bulletins sent out for general consumption are
seldom read so near the battlefield.

She did hear that one of the younger members of the Lafayette Squadron
was acclaimed an "ace." He had brought down the necessary number of
enemy aeroplanes to receive that honorable title. Names, however, did
not reach Belinda's ears.

Then there came something else to startle her ears. The boom of the
great guns came nearer. Suddenly one afternoon a shell fell within the
hospital enclosure.

It was a chance shot without doubt; but the explosion of the engine of
destruction did as much damage as though it had been intended. The end
of a ward was torn to pieces and three _blessés_ and an orderly were
killed outright. A Red Cross nurse was one of those removed from the
ward and started upon an ambulance for the railroad that very night.

The order for evacuation came. All that night the ambulances rolled out
with their groaning burdens for the rear. No more ambulances returning
from the first-aid stations stopped at the hospital. The station must
be abandoned.

All was in confusion. There were to be no cases removed this night from
her ward, therefore Belinda could go home. The French wounded were to
be taken out first.

The girl from America felt her assistance was just as much required by
the German prisoners as by the brave Frenchmen. Three more shells fell
during the night within the corporate limits of the village. She came
back to the hospital early in the morning to find half the people gone
and utter panic reigning.

It had seized upon many of the attendants of the hospital. _Madame
la Directrice_ had been slightly wounded by a falling timber the day
before and the _médecin chef_ had ordered her taken away despite her
protestations. At once the nursing force went to pieces; for most of
the nurses had depended utterly upon the strong mind and vigorous
discipline of the energetic Frenchwoman.

Belinda found nobody in her ward save the prisoners. The sentinels at
the doors were gone, too. Breakfast was ready and there was nobody to
give it to the patients. The girl felt that her little world was fast
toppling about her.

She removed her cape and bustled into her huge apron and cap. The
ordinary formalities of the early morning hours must be dispensed with.
First of all it was necessary for her _blessés_ to eat.

In the midst of serving coffee and over-done eggs to the men who were
able to be of some help to themselves, before taking the trays to the
more helpless patients, little Erard put a very pasty-looking face in
at the door.

"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!" he cried.

"What is the matter with you, Erard? You have deserted me!"

The _infirmier_ pushed farther into the ward. He had a knapsack
strapped to his shoulders and carried a cheap straw bag.

"Everybody goes, Mademoiselle!" he cried. "It is retreat! Hear?"

A terrific explosion sounded near--then a fusillade of bombs. Several
German Fokkers had got by the French air scouts and were raining
missiles upon the sector, while the "Big Berthas" were getting the
range of the villages back of the line. These hamlets had been shelled
before, and the people knew what it meant. Old Minerva had been packed
up, ready to leave, before the girl had started for the hospital.

"What has that to do with us, Erard?" the nurse demanded. "Our duty is
here. They have not yet ordered the evacuation of our ward."

"Nor will they, Mademoiselle," cried the little _infirmier_. "These
_sales Boches_! Let them lie! Let their own guns cut them to shreds!
They shell the hospital now."

His shriek arose above that of the shell that landed within the hedge.
A window was broken. Belinda ran to pick up the bits of glass and close
the aperture as best she could against the draft.

Erard had gone. She looked out of the door. A throng of orderlies,
frightened nurses, the last of the French wounded, were crowding to the
entrance gate.

The _médecin chef_ was trying to preserve order and to "count noses."
He was getting them off in the motor-busses and ambulances commandeered
for the occasion. He turned and saw Belinda and beckoned commandingly.

Behind the girl lay thirty-four men on the cots of the ward--most of
them helpless--unable even to rise unaided from their pillows. Jacob
was almost the only patient who could hobble about. The poor lad
whose condition had first roused Belinda's pity for the prisoners had
pneumonia and must be attended hourly.

She shook her head. She understood only too well where her duty lay.
But those poor sick and dying men----

The _médecin chef_, his mouth open, his clenched hands gesticulating
his anger at what he considered her stupidity, started across the
yard toward her. The gateway was emptied suddenly and she heard the
throbbing of the engines as the autos made their departure.

She heard, too, the whistle of the falling shell. It burst with a
deafening report overhead.

Belinda saw the _médecin chef_ throw his hands heavenward, spin once,
and fall with his face masked in blood, and featureless. By the posture
of the limbs, by the utter stillness of the body, she knew it was
useless to go to him. He had died instantly.

The girl staggered back into the ward and let the door swing shut.
There was excitement here--excitement that would surely raise the
temperatures of the weaker patients.

Jacob had climbed out of his cot and stood on trembling limbs in the
short, gaily striped cotton flannel shirt that some woman in America
had made in a spare hour. It was a grotesquely made garment, and the
bewhiskered German was a grotesque figure in it.

"What is it, Fräulein?" he asked her.

"The station is abandoned. The Germans advance," she told him calmly.
"But we must not lose heart--or hope. Be cool. Keep quiet. I have not
forsaken you."

"_Mein Gott!_" gasped the old man. "_Sie sind Deutsch!_"

"I am the nurse--in charge of this ward," she said, almost fiercely.
"Get back into bed, Jacob."

He obeyed her, and she finished serving the breakfasts, for there was
no further alarm. Later, however, the man humbly asked to assist her
with the more seriously wounded, and she accepted his offer in the
spirit in which it was made.

She went no more to look out; but she knew by the immediate silence
that the hospital enclosure was deserted. In the distance was the
rumble of heavy lorries dragging away the big guns to prevent their
capture by the Germans, and the rattle of cannons and caissons as well,
as the horses galloped to the rear with the batteries.

Men's lives were being poured out like water to save these guns from
capture. The roll of the advancing German batteries drew nearer. The
marching by of troops was no longer heard. This was almost a rout;
those who retreated made no secret of their desire to escape, and they
ran!

Belinda tried to continue the usual routine of her work. She neglected
none of the wounded. For the most part these Germans were silent before
her; with each other they whispered excitedly.

Rescue for them was possibly near. But how about Belinda?

The dressings were over for the day. Even Ernest, the boyish pneumonia
patient, was quieted. But the hour was late and nobody had eaten since
breakfast. As for herself, a cup of coffee hastily swallowed had been
all with which she had broken her fast.

Of course, the cooks had gone with the other hospital attendants. She
wondered if she could find in the cooking hut the materials for a meal
for her thirty-four patients. It was a task from which, after her
tiring morning, she shrank.

And at that moment a heaven-sent smell seemed to assail her nostrils.
Of course, it could not be! It must be an hallucination!

The door of the ward swung slowly inward. A figure in a cook's cap and
long white apron backed in, bearing a huge cauldron of smoking broth.

He turned and Belinda saw the queer, twisted face of Erard.

"Mademoiselle," he said simply, "I could not leave you alone with these
_Boches_. _Non! non!_"




                              CHAPTER XV

                      AT THE MERCY OF THE ENEMY


This long and anxious day closed, and night came. Belinda did not
go back to old Minerva's. She was sure she would find nobody at the
thatch-roofed cottage. Indeed, she might not find even the cottage
itself.

Erard, a most unheroic figure in his soiled cook's apron and cap,
insisted upon Belinda seeking rest. He took his usual place in nominal
charge of the ward at night, after preparing a meal for all that was
more filling than dainty.

The nurse lay within call and without removing her clothes; and thus
managed to obtain a few hours' sleep.

The rumble and roar of the guns had now become so familiar to her ears
that she scarcely noticed the noise--unless of a shell that burst near
by. But not many of these startling explosions occurred. The big German
guns were throwing their iron beyond the site of the abandoned hospital.

That Belinda had been left behind in the haste and confusion of
the final evacuation was not to be wondered at. The injury to the
_directrice_ and the shocking death of the _médecin chef_ had made the
hurried departure from the hospital almost a rout.

The huddled body of the dead physician lay where it had fallen in the
yard. There was no time to give to the dead when the wounded needed so
much of her strength.

With no night nurse, no assistance of orderlies, the work bore heavily
upon Belinda and her _infirmier_. Jacob did what he could; but his
wounds had been painful and he was only able to hobble about the ward.

Erard crept to Belinda's side as she was busy preparing packs and
bandages for the day's dressings, and whispered:

"Mademoiselle, what will you do when the _Boches_ come? Me, I shall
slip away. I am a small man--and a cripple. They will not bother one
like me. But you, Mademoiselle----"

"I speak German," Belinda said briefly.

"But you wear the French insignia." He touched lightly with his finger
the A. D. F. and bar on her breast. "Hide that," Erard whispered
warningly. "Let even these _Boches_," with a gesture toward the ward,
"forget it if they will. Take off your cap and the Red Cross, too. The
German Red Cross nurses wear different caps--and their Geneva Cross is
in different form, too. Be German, Mademoiselle. It is for the best."

"Papa Jacob says I am already German," Belinda said, with a smile.

"_Ma foi!_ Let it be so. I swear you speak the gutturals like a native.
Let them all think so."

It was, after all, good advice, and after a little hesitancy she
obeyed. From what she had heard of the rudeness of Prussian officers
she doubted if her position as a Red Cross worker--especially under the
French Department--would aid her.

Nor was she at all sure how her present patients would treat her if the
German troops marched in. Some of them she had cared for through many
weeks; but they had been rasped and embittered by their imprisonment.
They would not forget, perhaps, that she had nursed them under protest.

Erard had difficulty in finding food supplies for them all. He ventured
outside the gate in the hedge and came back to report that the village
was deserted. They had made breakfast; but he declared the prospect of
another meal was limited to "cobblestone soup."

The little _infirmier_ was absent on some mission from the ward when
the first of the enemy arrived. Belinda, boiling instruments and
writing up temperature charts just as though she expected the usual
visit of the doctor, suddenly heard the hurried tramp of feet without.
A command in German to "ground arms" followed. The door swung inward.

A man in steel helmet and long cloak strode into the ward. She heard
the clank of his equipment as he stepped across the threshold.

Turning to let the door swing to, his eye caught the trophy of flags
upon the end wall of the ward. The sight seemed to fire him with wrath.

He threw open his cloak and drew the saber from its scabbard with a
single gesture.

He uttered an angry ejaculation, and with a sweeping blow cut the
banners from their fastenings. As they fell he trampled upon them with
his muddy boots.

He had not seen Belinda. She had risen shakingly at his entrance; but
at this insult to the colors she flung herself forward, crying in
English:

"Stop! You _shall_ not!"

There was a rumble of excited voices behind her from the Germans on the
cots. The officer swung about, his sword ready to receive the attack
her cry seemed to threaten. When he saw it was but one woman he dropped
the point of the weapon and strode a single pace forward, staring at
her with dawning amazement.

The banners, entangled in his heavy boots, were kicked forward along
the boards. The small American flag, broken from its wand, slithered
to her feet. Belinda stooped, scarcely knowing why she did so, seized
the silken flag and crumpling it as she rose again, thrust it into the
bosom of her blouse.

"_Ist es möglich?_" gasped the corporal, thrusting back his helmet She
saw his features and an answering cry broke from her lips:

"Carl! Carl Baum!"

"Belinda! My little cousin! 'Linda! Is it possible?"

He advanced his gloved hand instead of the sword and seized her
doubtful one.

"What are you doing here, 'Linda?" he demanded. "Am I crazy? I cannot
believe my eyes. What does it mean?"

"I am the nurse in charge of this ward, Carl," and her self-possession
returned. "The French wounded have all been removed. There was not time
to take these poor fellows. They are all your countrymen--and were
prisoners."

"I see!" he cried, beaming upon her. "You bravely stayed to nurse them?
Ah! I love you for it, my cousin!"

"I am of the Red Cross service," she told him.

"Red Cross? Of the German----?"

"French. But I came from America to help."

His expression of countenance changed. "Not to help these accursed
French?" he growled.

"Why not? It is a work of mercy," she said coolly.

"Ah, I see. You could not get to Germany."

"I was not sure that I wished to help Germany," she said quietly. "This
work was thrust upon me," and she motioned to the wounded men on the
cots, "because I could speak their language."

"What do I hear you say?" cried Carl Baum. "Your heart does not bleed
for your country----?"

Her head came up and her eyes flashed as she interrupted him:

"No more my country than France is my country!"

"_Ach!_ these accursed Americans! Are all Germans in those States
outlaws?" cried the young man, his wrath rekindled. "Well? What is it?"
for Jacob stood at his elbow.

"The Fräulein is German," the old man said with confidence. "She has
been the angel of the ward. Some of us would have died without her care
and would never have struck another blow for the Fatherland. Think of
this, sir. She remained when all the others deserted us and the shells
began to fall."

He turned swiftly to the listening ward:

"_Ist es nicht wahr, meine Kinder?_" and the answering cry was chorused
from every cot: "Yah! Yah!"

The girl beamed upon her grizzled champion.

"Carl," she said to her angry cousin, "we must not quarrel. The whole
world sees not as you do."

"But it _should_," grumbled the young man. "What am I to tell the Herr
Lieutenant? I was sent to seize this station. Our own wounded will be
brought in. We have the detested French on the run at last. The Herr
Doktor will soon take charge here."

"I will report to him," said Belinda calmly. "And will be glad to
continue to assist as I may. My ward is in good order, he will find.
We need supplies and--I am afraid my little helper, the _infirmier_ as
they call him, Erard, has run away. Be kind to him if you find him,
Carl."

"That is true, Corporal. He is a good little man," said Jacob. "And he
can make soup."

"_Gott!_ is that a recommendation to mercy?" and for the first time the
young man laughed.

He was, after all, only a rosy-faced youth, Belinda thought.

"Attend to Ernest, please, Jacob," she said with confidence. "I will
talk to my cousin."

"Cousin 'Linda," murmured Carl, with growing comprehension as he gazed
upon her, "what a beauty you've grown to be! The photograph you sent us
doesn't begin to do you justice."

"You flatter me, Carl," she said, surprising herself by her casual
tone and manner. Yet her heart beat heavily in her bosom. The prospect
before her seemed dark.

"Wait till Paul Genau sees you," continued Carl. "He always has raved
over you. But then--he does over every pretty girl he meets. He did
over some of those Belgian girls last year--and they were cows," added
Carl frankly.

"Paul is well, then?" Belinda interrupted him to ask.

"He is sergeant-major of our company. No end of a swell, too. And
clever! Oh, yes, Paul is clever! We must give him credit for that."

Carl, she could see, was the same thoughtless, kindly, rather
"chuckled-headed" lad she had known of old. She was thinking quickly,
for she knew her position might be made or marred by small things.

"Can you see Paul before reporting to your Herr Lieutenant, Carl?" she
asked. "You see, if both of you speak well of me the over-officers will
be more likely to consider me safe. I would not like to desert these
poor fellows now."

"Yes, I'll find Paul," promised the good-natured young corporal. "And
he's smart. He'll know just what we must say."

He waved his hand and strode out of the door. Belinda put a hand to
her heart as though to still its throbbing and sat down suddenly. She
heard Carl set a sentinel at her door. She felt herself to be in some
personal peril, yet of what nature she scarcely knew.




                              CHAPTER XVI

                        A THREATENING SITUATION


"Fret not thyself, Fräulein," Jacob said, with tenderness, patting
her shoulder. "These are thine own people. If Germany is stern to her
enemies, she is generous to her friends."

And Belinda wondered! She had listened to the patriotic speeches of
the wounded Frenchmen for months. She had considered herself almost
wholly French. She had scarcely endured, because it was her duty, these
wounded Germans.

But they were her mother's people. She remembered clearly her visits to
Germany and how kind her cousins--these two boys, Carl Baum and Paul
Genau--had been to her. They had half quarreled over her at her last
visit, indeed, being at that age when boys are apt to be much "taken"
with pretty cousins.

The family life of the Genaus and the Baums, as she had seen it, was
ideal. They were quiet, humdrum, peaceable folk, possessing all the
sturdy virtues of the Teutonic race. Who would have thought that when
next she should meet her two playmates they would be in the habiliments
of war?

She waited in some perturbation of mind for what should next befall
her. She was actually glad that her personal possessions had been left
in old Minerva's cottage. There was nothing belonging to her here at
the hospital, she told herself, to arouse suspicion.

But she forgot one thing--one very important thing.

She heard footsteps without once more. The sentinel grounded arms. In
came a young man, smiling, handsome in a keen-featured way, and brisk.
Carl was behind him.

Belinda would not have known her cousin, Paul Genau, he had so changed.
Unlike Carl, his military service--both before and since the beginning
of the war--had vastly altered him. He was plainly one of those young
Germans who ape the junker class--who absorb and seemingly thrive upon
Prussian militarism.

"By the great god Thor!" ejaculated this breezy young sergeant-major.
"It surely is! I believed Carl here had quite lost his wits--I did upon
my life, Cousin. Welcome to Germany, dear Belinda!"

He caught her unexpectedly in his arms and imprinted a kiss upon her
cheek before she could defend herself.

"Hold on!" growled Carl from the background. "That is an unfair
advantage. 'Linda is my cousin as well as yours--and she did not
welcome me so."

"Nor did she invite her Cousin Paul to welcome her so warmly!"
exclaimed Belinda, freeing herself quickly. "Your ear shall ring, Paul,
if you do that again."

The sergeant-major laughed easily.

"Never wait to ask a pretty girl for such favors, my Carl. I have told
you so before. You are too slow. 'When the orchard fruit hangs ripe
over the hedge, pluck it and go thy way.' It is a good motto."

"No more of your mottoes, Paul," Belinda said with some sharpness. She
was suddenly doubtful of this cousin, if not of the other. "Has Carl
told you the position I am in?"

"Verily. So you have been aiding your French cousins? One of them--Leon
Mandeville--is in one of our prison camps."

"Poor Leon!" sighed Belinda.

"And serves him right," growled Carl stoutly.

"Worry not, sweet Cousin. His whole nation will soon be in like
condition."

"Yes," said the girl. "I see you call _this_ Germany."

"We will never give up these provinces, once belonging to France," Paul
returned quickly. "You see, we advance. Well! We will not quarrel,
sweet Cousin. I will inform the Herr Lieutenant--the captain himself if
need be--of our relationship. They know _me_," said Paul proudly.

"You are doing a noble work, Cousin Belinda. These are all Germans, you
say? Are you sure?"

He asked the question keenly, glancing about the ward.

"You would better question them," said Belinda with scorn.

"Oh, the Herr Doktor will do that--without a doubt. He will arrive
soon. And he is a great man, indeed! But I will report," he added,
swinging on his heel. "You may as well come, too, Carl. I don't wish to
give you any advantage with our cousin.

"You are very charming, Belinda. And I am considered a judge of the
charms of pretty fräuleins."

"Is it so, Paul?" she retorted. "I see you are a very forward boy. You
have yet to learn your place. Carl," she added, smiling at his rather
downcast face, "will you do something for me?"

"A thousand, Cousin!" he cried, his stolid countenance beaming again.

"Find my little _infirmier_, Erard. He speaks enough German to make
himself understood. You must be kind to him."

"He will be questioned by the Herr Lieutenant," promised Paul, laughing.

"So I shall be, I presume," the nurse said coolly. "But one may easily
see the poor little lame man, Erard, is quite harmless."

"We have heard of these harmless people before," said Paul. "Well, we
shall see."

"I will find him, Cousin 'Linda," promised Carl, following his cousin,
the sergeant-major, out of the ward.

She was not disturbed thereafter for some time. Occasionally she went
to the door and saw the German wounded streaming in, some afoot,
but most of them borne on stretchers. She saw none of the hospital
attendants to speak to at first. The sentinel at the door of her ward
naturally kept the nurses away.

Erard appeared with the evening's supply of soup. A German soldier came
to help carry the heavy pot. The little Frenchman gestured to Belinda
to say nothing until the other had gone. Then he thrust a scrap of
paper into her hand. On this twist was written:

    "This is your man. He seems a harmless creature as you say. Say
    that your name is 'Genau'. I have so told the Herr Lieutenant. Your
    father's name is too French.--Thine ever, PAUL."

The note made her indignant. Evidently Paul Genau had usurped the
errand she had confided to Carl and with his power as a higher
"non-com" had "set his cousin down a peg." She determined to punish the
young sergeant-major for that in time. "He always was a crowing little
bantam," she told herself indignantly.

Then she marked the remainder of Paul's note. Deny her name? The
thought shocked her. "Genau" was truly her name, too--she had been
baptised "Belinda Genau" to please her mother's fancy. Yet it seemed to
the girl that she would be denying herself--denying the principles and
beliefs she held.

Still there might be sound sense in Paul's advice. And how could she
really escape this small masquerade? He had thrust it upon her!

She was much disturbed and was not at all sure of her course when a
very gorgeous lieutenant came later to visit her ward. He ordered the
sentinel on duty at the door relieved and walked through the ward,
talking with the nurse for the most part, rather than looking at the
patients or questioning them. Naturally the latter duty fell to the
members of the Medical Staff.

"The Herr Doktor will do all that, Fräulein," the lieutenant said,
laughing. "You may have a bad quarter of an hour with him, if all is
not right. Believe me, Fräulein, I would not wish to cause so charming
a lady any trouble. Fare thee well, Fräulein Genau."

Belinda knew after this interview whose manner her Cousin Paul aped.
The young Lieutenant Graf von Harden was not a handsome man; but he
evidently held a very high opinion of himself and was used to adulation.

The lamps were lit in the ward. She had watched several of the other
huts filled with wounded. Wards I and II had most of the serious cases.
The stretcher-bearers continued to come in. The surgeons were at work
in the operating ward, as the French surgeons had worked there a few
days before.

Save in the change of language spoken, the work of the hospital station
went on much as it had before. But she saw all new faces. Few had
spoken to her. There were not many women nurses, and all whom she saw
were busy. From one she learned the Herr Doktor in charge was about to
arrive, and she watched for him.

Suddenly there was increased bustle of attendants and soldiers at the
gate in the hedge. She heard a powerful motor-car stop before the
entrance. A tall figure in a helmet and long black cape and carrying a
walking-stick came through the gateway.

"The Herr Doktor," was the murmur Belinda heard.

He strode down the yard. All the afternoon the hurrying
stretcher-bearers had turned aside for that supine figure lying on the
ground--the body of the good physician who had governed the hospital
under the French régime. The advancing Prussian officer halted beside
it.

"What is that?" he asked, turning the body half over with his cane. He
saw the cross and military insignia upon the dead man's breast. "Ha!
Chief of the Medical Staff, eh? Well, let him not lie here. Bury the
dog."

He marched on, passing Belinda's door without a glance. The girl had
shrunk back, hiding herself within the ward. She was trembling and
afraid. Fear laid hold upon her--such fear as she had not experienced
since entering upon her work on the battlefields. For it was, in large
part, that uncanny shrinking of the soul she had been wont to feel in
the New York hospital. And it was from the same cause.

The grim, helmeted figure that stalked down the yard, the chief of this
German hospital unit, was Doctor Franz Herschall!




                             CHAPTER XVII

                           EXCITEMENT ENOUGH


It had seemed to Belinda Melnotte as though she were only marking time
during these retrograde movements of the French forces and the advance
of the German line. But to Frank Sanderson every hour had been filled
with excitement.

Not so full that he had not thought of her. Whatever may have been
the obstacle in the young aviator's life that caused Belinda pain and
mortification of spirit because of her own weakness, Frank did not
allow any impediment to balk his tender thoughts of the Red Cross nurse.

She was ever in his mind, especially as his work during these terrible
days brought him into such deadly and almost hourly peril. As he had
uttered Belinda's name when his Nieuport was dashed earthward on the
first day of this battle that still raged between the armies, so
thought of her was present with him all the time. It seemed to the
young man as though her spirit hovered about him as he soared upward in
his aeroplane to hang over the line of battle. He felt that she must be
thinking of him!

Despite her seeming coldness when he had walked from the town to old
Minerva's cottage the night before the battle, he believed that Belinda
Melnotte felt more interest in him than for some reason she was willing
to betray.

He remembered those pregnant moments aboard the _Belle o' Perth_ when
the submarine had been about to attack. A girl surely would not "make
believe" at such a time!

It was true Frank Sanderson's interest in women and his knowledge of
them was limited; but he was sure he knew Belinda Melnotte's nature.
Hers was too sturdy and direct a character to be merely coquettish.

"And great heavens!" cried the aviator, "what kind of girl could she
be to flirt at such a time as that? We expected to be blown up by that
submarine. No. She gave me a little glimpse of her real feelings then.
She actually warmed toward me. And that time in Paris, too--in the
little café. We were real friends then. But now! now, she seems utterly
cold!

"Can it be, after all, that the black-looking doctor has some hold
upon her? Some engagement made when she was too young to realize what
she was doing--or, at least, one that she now regrets? Does he stand
between us?"

The thought disturbed him vastly. Yet he could not allow such
meditations to get between him and his work. The flying game is too
exacting for the pilot of a battleplane to allow his attention to be
divided.

As Belinda was told, during the confusion of the hospital's evacuation
the squadron of American flying men had made a splendid record in the
action. One pilot had been lost with his machine. But it was not Frank
Sanderson. It was the latter, however, who earned the title of "ace" in
the earlier days of the battle.

His own Nieuport was pretty well riddled in his exploits, and he was
forced to accept the loan of another aeroplane or remain idle while his
machine was undergoing repairs.

Idleness, while his brother aviators were in the air, was farthest from
Frank Sanderson's desire. Although the slight wounds he had received
on the first day of the general engagement made him both stiff and
sore, he was quite able to pilot a machine. And there was something of
importance in the wind--a bold strategy--in which he desired to have a
part.

The aviation camps were moved back. There were engagements every day
between the French and German aircrafts. The first air attack by the
Lafayette Escadrille and the other squadrons of the French Flying Corps
here in the field had stirred up a veritable hornet's nest along the
sector.

It had become a duel between the flying men of the two armies. At
dawn, or before, the battleplanes mounted into the air behind the
lines, and attack and counter-attack was the order during most of the
day. There was usually a breathing space at noon, or thereabout, for
the _remous_ are more frequent then, and no aviator cares to manipulate
an aircraft in attack while these "holes in the air" are present.

When the retreat had begun Frank Sanderson had been personally unable
to look for Belinda. He was told the members of the Red Cross unit had
all escaped from the hospital in which she worked, save the _médecin
chef_ himself, who had lingered behind to be killed by a shell.

The French retreat was, however, suddenly halted. A corps of Petain's
"iron men" reinforced the broken but sullen ranks of the first-line
fighters. These veterans stemmed the tide of Germans. Neither steel
nor lead, gas nor liquid fire, could make these Verdun heroes give way
before the hated enemy. The two lines were deadlocked on the front
of this sector while the French and British, on either flank, slowly
advanced to crush the German hordes.

Such strategy, however, was quite unseen by the ordinary fighting men.
Even from the altitude scaled by the airmen the wisdom and the farsight
of commanders were not understood.

Like the veriest private in the ranks, the aviators obeyed
orders--nothing more. Frank Sanderson went up with his squadron and
"did his bit" as best he could.

It was in a raid upon the German captive balloons--the first successful
attack ever made upon the "_saucisses_"--that the young American
aviator took a special part and in which he won honor.

Against the monster balloons aeroplanes had heretofore been all but
powerless. Their machine guns fired bullets which, even if incendiary,
were too small to set on fire the gas-containing envelope. The aircraft
cannon carried by the larger French machines, too, had proved useless.
The holes their projectiles made in the balloons were too small to
allow a sufficient quantity of air to enter and cause an inflammable
mixture.

But now a new invention was tried--four rockets mounted on either side
of an aeroplane; and Sanderson's machine was one of those chosen for
the experiment.

The head of the rocket was a dart, resembling a salmon-gaff, while the
tail of the rocket was wound into a spiral spring, set in a socket.
The Nieuport was stripped of all equipment save the pilot's seat, and
Sanderson mounted with the dozen other "sausage-fighters."

The attack was made just at sunrise, for if it were possible to destroy
the German captive balloons an important movement of the French troops
could be made without the enemy observing the action in time to ward
off a flank attack.

The several balloons had been apportioned to the aviators armed as was
Frank Sanderson's aeroplane. These specially ordered _appareils de
chasse_ were surrounded by the full strength of the combined squadrons
of battleplanes.

Sanderson mounted to a two-thousand-foot level only, for the tethered
balloons were only half as high. Moreover, the air in this stratum was
perfectly "solid." From this level, then, he aimed his machine.

Shrapnel from the German anti-aircraft guns burst about him; but he
awaited calmly the signal from the captain of the squadron.

This waiting, when at any moment a stray bullet might damage his
propeller or ignite his gasoline tank, was not an easy experience. The
young aviator's mind was keenly alert to the work before him. But he
thought, too, of personal matters. Particularly of the girl with whom
he had crossed the ocean and on whom he had centered the most serious
interest of his young manhood.

This train of thought did not run to "if I see Belinda again"; but was
"when I see Belinda again." For Frank Sanderson was, if nothing else,
optimistic.

The signal came. He tested his controls, and then darted on a long
slant at the monster balloon which was his object of attack. There was
no hesitancy or uncertainty in this dive.

Like a great dragonfly dipping over a still pond, he darted toward
his prey. At the moment the shrapnel bullets were thickest about his
machine, he touched the switch that released the eight rockets.

A sheet of flame hid his machine for a moment, and a spray of sparks
spread out, following the flight of the incendiary missiles. The darts
were well aimed; probably all of them found their billets in the huge
bag of the balloon.

The "_saucisse_" sagged. Flames crept slowly around the silken
envelope. The little Nieuport darted away while the observation balloon
burst and fell to the ground with its unfortunate human burden, a mass
of flames.

Within an hour seven great balloons were thus destroyed by the French
aviators, and then the others were withdrawn from service for the day.
The Germans marched on across the fields that had heretofore rung to
the tread of French-shod feet; but their line of observation was broken.

Frank Sanderson returned from the successful raid for some small
repairs and to have his mitrailleuse again affixed upon the nose of the
aeroplane. There was much freedom allowed in the camp of the Lafayette
Escadrille, or else the visitor Frank found waiting for him had a deal
of influence with the military authorities.

"Captain Dexter!" Sanderson exclaimed, seeing trouble in the Yankee
shipmaster's face the moment he removed his cap and mask, "what is the
matter?"

"Belinda!" ejaculated the captain. "Have you seen the girl? Where is
she?"

"Isn't she with the hospital unit?"

"No. I've been there. Moved heaven and earth to get a permit to come
up here the moment we heard the hospital station was changed. Her aunt
insisted. And Belinda isn't there!"

"You--you----Are you sure?" stammered Sanderson.

"Ain't I tellin' you? She isn't there. She never got away from the
other station. And that's clean behind the German lines now!"




                             CHAPTER XVIII

                            PERILS INCREASE


Jacob, Belinda's self-appointed helper, aroused the girl from the spell
of fear under which she had fallen at sight of Doctor Herschall.

"Poor Ernest is suffering greatly, Fräulein," he said. "These boys!
They should be at home with their mothers. It matters not so much that
war takes us old fellows. It is crueler to the young."

The girl, recalled to her duty, hurried to the side of the lad. Ernest
was not a patient youth. His disregard of her orders had brought on
this attack of pneumonia that the doctor had now successfully combatted.

He was querulous and by his exactions made it difficult for the nurse
to attend properly the other serious cases left in her charge. It was
not in Belinda's nature to be unkind, or even brusque. She could only
be patient and faithful.

Meanwhile she sensed rather than saw the neatly fitted cog-wheels of
the Prussian system begin to revolve in this newly established station
of its hospital service--and revolve without a hitch. Discipline was
the keynote and within an hour of the Herr Doktor's arrival one would
scarcely have believed this was but a recently occupied base.

The Red Cross is the Red Cross everywhere; but in Germany at the
present time it is almost entirely merged in the military branch of the
government.

On Belinda Melnotte's part it took at first much fortitude for her to
go about her usual tasks. The presence of Doctor Herschall at this
hospital seemed almost unbelievable; though from Sue Blaine's letter
she knew he must be somewhere on the battle front.

She well knew the opinions of the Herr Doktor, for he had expressed
them time and again within her hearing. He had been a student at Bonn
in his youth and was a Prussian by birth. His belief in the military
destiny of the Prussian Government was not to be shaken. That he had
remained in America so long after the war was begun was a mystery to
all those who knew him well.

During the ten years he had resided in the United States, Doctor
Herschall had made no attempt to associate himself with America or
American interests. His affiliations were entirely German and he
scoffed at any advancement in science or any discovery in his own
profession, that did not have its birth in the German universities.

How much she had been influenced to take up this Red Cross work by her
antipathy for Doctor Herschall and a desire to escape his attentions,
Belinda had scarcely known; but now she would have given anything had
the ocean again separated the Herr Doktor and herself.

How she wished she had retired with the French nurses and other
attendants. For it did not seem--now--so necessary that she should have
run into this unforeseen danger by attending these "_Boches_."

She used the accustomed scornful phrase in her thought, yet with a
qualm of conscience. These Germans were not "a stupid and brutal
people." They had once been as near to her and as dear to her as her
father's nation. If her mother had lived until she was grown to young
womanhood, and had been to her the companion and friend her father
had been, Belinda might have been pro-German--might not have had her
thoughts and sympathies drawn so strongly to the French.

A man nurse, a strong, capable fellow, appeared to relieve her rather
late in the evening. She had been assigned a cot in one of the empty
wards, where she slept with other women attendants. They accepted her
as German like themselves, but from another hospital unit. It was
too late and all were too weary for Belinda to be troubled by any
cross-examination.

She knew when she awoke on the morrow she would awake to the danger of
a general inspection of the wards which the Herr Doktor would probably
undertake. Because of Paul Genau's advice--his insistence, indeed--her
full name had not been recorded with the Military Head.

Had it been possible for Belinda Melnotte to escape from the hospital
enclosure on this morning, she certainly would have deserted her ward
and tried to get through the lines into territory held by the French.

The point of the wedge driven by the German advance into the yielding
French lines she was told was far beyond the town. Many non-combatants
had been caught by the swift advance and were being sent to the rear by
the Germans. Some--those who would be a burden to the conquerors--were
weeded out and allowed to escape to the French lines; and Belinda might
have been fortunate enough to be one of these.

However, with two sentinels standing at the gateway of the hospital
enclosure and nobody allowed to go out without a permit save the
stretcher-bearers, what chance had she? Perforce she was held to her
service.

She did not see Paul Genau that day or the following. But Carl was
at her beck and call at almost any time. He was stationed with a
detachment of privates to guard the hospital. His regiment was
scattered along the roads hereabout guarding lines of communication and
the supply trains that rumbled past.

"Thank you, Cousin Carl," she said, when he had done some friendly act
for her. "You are a comfort."

"Say!" gasped the enamored Carl, "I'd be glad to serve you at all
times, Cousin 'Linda. You are the nicest girl I ever knew. If this war
were only over----"

"Well, what if it were?" she asked, rather amused by his seriousness.

"_Ach!_ I'd marry you, 'Linda," he cried, with perfect frankness.

"Silly!" scoffed Belinda. "I'll be a sister to you. That is the best I
can do."

"I don't want any more sisters; I have enough of them already,"
grumbled Carl. "You know what Mena and Louisa are, 'Linda. They would
try the temper of any man."

"How do you know I would not be a greater trial?" she asked him, much
amused.

"I have asked these wounded what sort you are," Carl replied simply.
"They tell me you are uniformly kind. That you were just as kind to the
French sick as you were to them."

"Praise indeed!" murmured Belinda. She was touched by this evidence of
the faithfulness of these men who had been prisoners.

"Anyhow," Carl continued, "Paul Genau says you are fair game. He swears
he means to win you."

"Oh, indeed!" ejaculated Belinda hotly.

"Don't blame me, 'Linda," urged Carl. "I only repeat his own
expression."

"And you evidently think me 'fair game,' too."

"Oh, _I_ am in love with you, Cousin," declared Carl boldly. "Paul is
never in love--not really--with anybody but himself."

Belinda made no audible comment upon this statement, but to herself she
admitted Carl Baum was an apt reader of Paul's character.

There were other matters that caused her much more anxiety just then
than Carl's boyish protestations of admiration. The flying machines
of all kinds remained very active above this part of the field. Daily
there were battles in the air--often several engagements between
sunrise and dark. While at night the anti-aircraft guns, flare-bombs,
and searchlights betrayed the fact that the French were making frequent
raids into the territory occupied by the German forces.

She saw the successful attack upon the German observation balloons; but
of course she did not know what part Sanderson had in the raid. Her
thoughts were, however, upon him almost continually. She wondered if he
had learned that she was within the enemy's lines; and, if so, what he
thought about her and if he considered her peril.

Her expectation of the appearance of Doctor Herschall in her ward was
likewise nerve-racking. A medical examiner came each morning to look
at her patients and examine her charts. She had of course written
these up in German instead of in French, and this physician had
commended her work warmly.

"You are a credit to the profession, Nurse Genau," he said.

So the name she had acknowledged by Paul's advice had spread among the
hospital attachés. But what would the Herr Doktor say when he met and
recognized her?

These personal trials rather tempered the threatening perils of the
battle that raged almost at the door of the hospital. The German
commander suddenly discovered that his advance wedge was being squeezed
from both sides by the unexpected weight of the enemy's reserves.
Reinforcements were brought up with promptness; but the German advance
was halted.

The guns thundered continually. The hospital lay about in the middle
of the widest part of the wedge and so escaped the French shells. But
bomb-dropping from the French air machines had become a nightly terror.

To the north of the hospital, and several miles away, was a small wood.
In some way it had escaped utter annihilation, perhaps because it was
too open to offer cover for either infantry or a battery.

Toward evening, when Belinda was outside for a breath of air, she,
with others, saw a most exciting duel in the air just above this grove
of trees. First of all a small aeroplane was observed coming swiftly
out of the north. There had been no action in that direction during the
day, and this machine was alone.

"_Ach!_" said Carl, who was near his cousin, "that fellow is a spy. It
is a spy-plane. You can see he has been carrying one of his accursed
comrades into our territory for spy-work and is now returning alone."

"Are you sure it is a French plane?"

"Absolutely. See! He is chased." Then: "_Ach!_ our flyingmen never
fail!"

A second aeroplane was shooting down from a greater height, close upon
the trail of the Nieuport. The two aviators circled so low above the
treetops that the spectators could plainly observe the duel.

Belinda shuddered.

The German airman pointed his craft once, and then again, to bring his
fixed machine-gun to bear upon the French aeroplane; but either the
latter managed better and escaped, or the German's gun was clogged. At
least the latter did not bring his antagonist down at once.

Suddenly the watchers gasped in unison--a smothered cry of horror. The
swiftly darting aeroplanes, half circling each other, seemed drawn
together by the suction of their propellers. They entangled, pitched
downward, and plunged through the broken treetops, out of sight.

"Oh! The poor things! The poor things!" groaned Belinda, covering her
eyes.

Carl removed his cap. "A hero--that," he said. "Ach, he did not fail!"

The horrified girl could appreciate little of the heroism of either
aviator. The awful incident depressed her anew. She could not sleep for
hours that night for thought of it.

Suppose one of the aviators was Frank Sanderson? He must be daily
suffering just such deadly peril in the air. Her heart ached and she
rose to another day's work in the hospital, heavy-eyed and despairing.

By order of the visiting doctor several semi-convalescents were removed
from her ward that morning. They all seemed grieved to part with
her--these men whom she had so shrunk from nursing in the first place.
It touched the girl.

Other wounded were being brought into the station all the time and the
other wards were filling up. Soon the stretcher-bearers were directed
to her ward with an unconscious burden.

"Badly bruised, but otherwise only a broken shoulder, Nurse," one
informed Belinda. "They put him under ether to set the bone. A brave
fellow, this. They found him in the wood yonder--the hero of that air
fight last night."

"Impossible!" gasped the nurse. "They must have both been killed. I saw
them fall. Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes, Fräulein. He is a _fliegender Mann_--they stripped the
uniform from him when he was brought in."

The bearers did not see the girl's face as they lifted the hero from
the stretcher to the clean cot. She gazed with both amazement and
horror at his countenance. It was masked in a fortnight's growth of
beard--a reddish whisker--and the inflamed welt of a bullet marred one
cheek. His rather long hair was tossed back from his brow. Just at the
roots of it was a sharply defined scar--the mark of a not long-healed
wound.

She was left alone beside the cot as the bearers clumped out in their
heavy boots. Enthralled, Belinda continued to gaze upon the features
which, disguised as they were, she could not fail to recognize.

Behind her Jacob called softly:

"Fräulein! Fräulein! the Herr Doktor Herschall approaches to inspect
the ward."




                              CHAPTER XIX

                    OVER THE ENEMY'S LINES AT NIGHT


The report Captain Raphael Dexter brought Sanderson, that Belinda was
missing from the hospital unit, at first benumbed the young aviator's
mind. He could scarcely believe it; yet the Yankee shipmaster's
insistence could not be denied.

Frank finally was assured that the captain had undoubtedly obtained
correct information. The tragedy was a fact.

For tragic the happening was, Sanderson had every reason to believe.
A girl left behind in the abandoned hospital station at the mercy of
the Prussians! Tales of their treatment of helpless women were not
unsubstantiated.

The horror and despair that seized upon the aviator shook Captain
Dexter.

"By Hannah, boy! don't take on so," he, alone with Frank in his
quarters, urged. "I didn't suspect that there was so much betwixt you
and the girl."

"There isn't," Sanderson declared. "There's nothing between us. But I
love her, Captain Dexter," and the confession was wrung from the young
man in his agony of spirit. "It's my misfortune, too, to be tangled up
in a way that ought to keep me from asking her even to _think_ of me."

"Do tell!" murmured Captain Dexter anxiously. "Mixed up with another
woman, are you? By Hannah! I wouldn't have thought it."

Frank did not hear this. His mind was fixed upon Belinda and her peril.

"We must do something," he said, recovering in a measure his calmness.
"Her position as a Red Cross nurse should assist her. There must be
some way of communicating with her--some means of inquiry."

"By Hannah! I'm not goin' back to that aunt of hers without knowin'
what's become of the girl. Let me tell you, that Mam'selle Roberta
isn't the woman for a man to try to bamfoozle. She's as sharp as can
be. By Hannah! I wouldn't darest go back to Paris without takin'
Belinda with me or knowin' that she was all right and safe."

Frank Sanderson's anxiety, based on something deeper than this, led him
to "raise heaven and earth," as Captain Dexter suggested, to obtain
news of the missing nurse. Although communication, even official
communication, between the opposing armies is more infrequent in
this war than in any other modern struggle, through influence at the
army corps headquarters and because of his record and that he was an
American, rules were set aside and a direct request for information
regarding Belinda was made to the German staff commander.

Several days elapsed before the reply reached Sanderson and Captain
Dexter, and this reply was both discouraging and terrifying to the two
Americans. No nurse or other person by the name of Melnotte had been
found at the abandoned French hospital station when it was taken over
for the German army. Nor was there any record of a person by that name
found within the district.

"Something has happened to her--something serious," the young aviator
said. "I am sorry she ever came over here. She had no right to risk her
life on these battlefields."

"Perhaps she had more right than you have to risk yours," the captain
interposed, sharply scrutinizing his young friend's countenance. "At
least, she is independent in her domestic relations. She has nobody
nearer to her than Mam'selle Roberta."

"But to throw herself away for strangers! They are not even her own
people, these French."

"You are doing your bit for them, just the same," Captain Dexter again
reminded him.

"Ah, my case is different," Sanderson declared. "I felt that some of us
Americans should do something for France--if only in gratitude. And why
not I?"

"And why not Belinda?" returned the old shipmaster with sadness. "Ah,
my boy, this enthusiasm and recklessness--it burns up youth! Better
we old fellows to give our lives than the young. But, by Hannah!" he
added, with disgust, "they refuse to use us. Want to put us on the
shelf. Lay us by in drydock. Why, my three darters----"

"I know, Captain," interrupted Sanderson, foreseeing a long monologue
if once the Yankee shipmaster got well into this theme. "But what can
we do about finding Miss Melnotte?"

Every time they came around to that question it looked like facing a
blank wall. Belinda was inside the enemy's lines--where and in what
circumstances they could not imagine. They were not even sure that she
still lived.

Nor was Sanderson's anxiety for Belinda the greater because he
remained idle or took no chances himself during these stormy days. No
twenty-four hours passed in which he did not flirt with death.

While the Nieuport he was using was being repaired, he requested work
in the bombarding squadron and sailed back of the enemy's lines on two
nights for the purpose of cutting railroad communication to the German
front.

With their usual thoroughness and efficiency the enemy was thrusting a
railroad line along the wedge they had driven into the French front.
They assumed that they had gained another bit of France and would
remain fixed there.

On the first night the bombardment was unsuccessful. Sanderson had been
on several such errands before, but usually as a pilot of a guarding
battleplane. The actual dropping of the bombs became his duty on this
occasion, and likewise upon the following night.

He left Captain Dexter fuming and fussing at the aviation quarters
because he could not go with the flying squadron. The shipmaster had
actually learned a good bit about aviation and only his age kept him
from volunteering for work at the front as a pilot.

Indeed, his age had not deterred him from volunteering, only it had
caused the authorities to refuse his services. When Mademoiselle
Roberta Melnotte heard of his attempt to enlist in the Flying Corps she
was vastly perturbed. She was almost ready to put on her hat and rush
to the authorities to oppose his enlistment, believing that he surely
would be accepted.

"He is a so-brave man, that Monsieur le Capitaine Dexter," she
explained to a friend in the American embassy. "He has the spirit of a
boy. He has already learned--_ma foi!_--to pilot an aeroplane. Next, I
suppose, he will seek to be commander of a submarine. He declares he
did not promise his three daughters, Mesdames Prudence, Patience and
Penelope, not to sail either in the air or beneath the sea."

Captain Dexter had presented two fully equipped aeroplanes to the
Lafayette Escadrille, and they would soon be shipped to the front.
Frank Sanderson was to pilot one of them when it arrived. He was now,
however, engaged with the bombarding unit and was bomb-dropper on a
machine the night that the attack upon the railroad line behind the
German battlefront was successful.

A man named Lefevre, an American, was with Sanderson and drove the
airplane. They got a flash signal from the captain of the squadron
about two o'clock in the morning that the railroad line had been found.

Having been flying high, they descended quickly, and, the night being
dark with a haze overhead that quite hid the stars, the pilot had to
depend almost entirely upon the indicating barometer for a knowledge of
their height above the ground.

"We're getting close to it, Lefevre, I believe," Sanderson urged. "I've
the feel of the ground in me. This wind has blown over a swamp--I can
smell it."

"Must be we're in a hollow between hills, then," rejoined the pilot.
"Look at the barom," and he flashed a tiny spark of light upon the face
of the altimetre.

"Go easy, then----"

At the moment there spread a sudden rosy glow directly below them.
Both aviators thought they were over an exploding shell, although the
vicinity had seemed altogether quiet.

There followed no explosion and the light winked out immediately. The
roaring motor of the aeroplane drowned ordinary sounds, but Sanderson
made his solution of the mystery plain to his mate.

"It's below us--the railroad bed. That's a locomotive. The fireman
opened the draft and the flames shot out of the stack. Quick! We'll
have to risk it! I'll put a bomb down that stack, if I have luck."

The aeroplane swooped. The bark of an anti-aircraft gun sounded above
the noise of their motor. The train was an armored troop train bound
for the front and the motor of the swooping aeroplane had been heard.

The flash of the shot, however, gave the pilot the course of the train.
"The gun, Sandy!" shouted Lefevre. "I got a flash at the road. It's
straight. We can rake every car. Surer than the bombs."

The advice seemed good. The explosions of the German gun fixed on the
roof of a forward car was a decided help to the attacking airplane.
Lefevre drove only a few yards above the ground and parallel with the
flying train. The aviators were taking a great risk, for a pole or
other obstruction might wreck them at any moment. But the opportunity
to do serious damage to the enemy was not to be neglected. Sanderson
turned the crank of the mitrailleuse, raking the train from the rear
car to the locomotive as their aeroplane passed.

The rain of bullets did fearful havoc, even destroying the gun-crew on
the car-roof, the Americans being untouched. But the train rolled on
and the machine gun fouled.

Lefevre had driven so swiftly that they were now up with the
locomotive. Unhooking his belt, Sanderson threw himself to the end of
the seat nearest the thundering train, and with his automatic pistol
shot both the engineer and the fireman, as well as the armed guard on
the tender-tank.

The train ran wild as the airplane soared upward again. A few hundred
yards further on there was a sharp curve in the road and Lefevre had
caught sight of it in time by the dim beam of the locomotive headlight.
The locomotive and every car left the rails at that curve and piled up
in the ditch.

The horror of this wreck, the effect of their bombardment, shook Frank
Sanderson more than he would have been willing to own.

This was war, and he had volunteered for just such work. But it was the
first time he had ever seen such a holocaust.

As they mounted higher in the aeroplane he saw flames leaping from the
wreck. The loss of life would be fearful. He sickened at the thought of
how this incident and others like it were multiplied every day along
the battlefront.

Their work was not done for the night, although they were headed south
once more. Until the last bomb they carried was dropped Lefevre did not
rise to a proper height for rapid flying.

They had lost the other members of the squadron while chasing the troop
train, and winged their way back alone over the German lines, flying so
high at last that, in the gray dawn, they were not seen by the watchful
German airmen.

As they neared their camp and Lefevre was about to spiral down for the
landing, Sanderson looked out to see if everything was in good order.
He was amazed to glimpse an object caught in the running-gear of the
airplane.

At first he could not imagine what it was. Then, with a shock that
chilled the blood in his veins, he saw that it was an unexploded bomb.

Unreleased before the aeroplane descended, in all likelihood there
would be nothing to mark their landing place but a deep crater in the
earth.

The situation appalled him. Already the aircraft was descending. Not
only their own lives, but those of others, would be sacrificed if the
bomb exploded when they landed.




                              CHAPTER XX

                               THE DUEL


Every time Frank Sanderson soared upward in an aeroplane he fully
realized that danger rode with him. That was why he was so successful
as a pilot. The "ace" is not the man who refuses to recognize the
imminent peril of his calling. Sanderson merely did not allow this
knowledge, this realization of danger, to influence him in the
performance of his duty.

Besides, the young American possessed a quick mind. In connection with
his work as an aviator his brain was always alert. He was ready for
anything at any time.

This accident, however, was entirely outside the realm of the usual
perils of his calling. The unreleased bomb, entangled in the wires of
the airplane's chassis, offered a problem that even Sanderson's brain
could not instantly solve.

The machine was but a few hundred feet above the ground. Below was the
French aviation camp. In a few moments, if Lefevre proceeded, they
would make their landing--and then----

Sanderson tapped the pilot on the shoulder. "Wait!" he shouted. "Take
a sweep around before you land. There's something we must do first."

"What's that?" demanded Lefevre.

The aeroplane was shooting along on a level again before Sanderson
ventured to tell him. The pilot was quite as cool an airman as
Sanderson himself, but he, too, was startled.

"Good-_night_!" he ejaculated. "A bomb caught? Who ever heard the like
of that? Why--Sandy!--we're up in the air for good!"

"Looks so," agreed Sanderson, jerking it out, "unless we can make our
landing on a nice, soft cloud."

"Humph! And they'll have hard work serving us breakfast up here."

"Quite so, old scout," declared Sanderson. He felt easier now that
Lefevre was taking it calmly.

"Well," the latter added, "my will's in father's safe. Willy may have
my skates and my red mittens. By Jove, Sandy, it'll be some finish!"

"Not _our_ finish," declared Sanderson vigorously. He thought of
Belinda. If she had fallen a victim to the Prussians he would not have
cared much what became of him; but he was optimistic enough to believe
that both Belinda and he would finally escape from their perils.

"What shall we do?" staccatoed Lefevre.

"Be Flying Dutchmen, and roam about the air forever more," suggested
Frank.

"Like Noah's first dove--not finding any rest for the soles of our
feet. But our gas is going to give out some time, if nothing else."

"Our patience is going to give out first," declared Frank.

These opinions had been shouted, of course, for the roaring of the
motor and the wind whining through the stays of the aeroplane made an
ordinary tone of conversation impossible.

"See here!" exclaimed Lefevre at last. "Isn't there anything you can
reach it with and unhook the bomb?"

"Of course. Mother's clothes pole. Wait till I get it," scoffed
Sanderson. "And if it could be unhooked, what then? It wouldn't do a
bit of good down yonder," and he gestured toward the aviation camp in
plain view. "Dropping bombs on one's own camp isn't done, you know,
Lefevre--it really isn't done!"

"No. Quite true," and the pilot nodded. "But what----"

"Just one thing to do. Hold steady and don't rock the boat. I'm going
over the side, Captain," and Sanderson unhooked his belt.

"Great heavens, Sandy! You can never do that!" yelled the pilot.

"Don't--tell--me--what--I--can't--do," was the reply as the young
American clambered out on the wing.

Lefevre almost held his breath. He dared not look around again. To
climb down and unhook the bomb was like mounting to the main truck of a
ship in the teeth of a hurricane.

From the wing Sanderson swung himself down upon the running-gear. He
held on with one hand and carefully loosed the bomb. To drop it might
cause disaster below. He had, therefore, to climb back to his seat with
the explosive projectile, which was a greater task than getting down
into the chassis, for he had to hang on literally with one hand and his
teeth.

But he did it! He came in safely to his seat in the rocking aeroplane
and again Lefevre spiraled earthward. As they drifted over a hollow in
the hillside beyond the camp, Sanderson dropped the bomb where it would
do no harm as it exploded.

"Some boy!" was Lefevre's only comment when they landed. Nor did either
of the young men talk much about the adventure. There are too many
hair's-breadth escapes in flying for one peril to be marked much above
another.

From Captain Dexter, Sanderson heard that the army corps headquarters
had again sent out feelers to learn, if possible, Belinda Melnotte's
fate. On his own part the shipmaster had communicated with the American
embassy in Paris, and efforts would be made through friendly sources at
Berlin to trace the lost Red Cross nurse.

Diplomatic relations had been recently broken between the United States
and the German Government and the two countries, it was believed, were
verging toward war. The threat of unrestricted U-boat warfare had
roused a fever of indignation in America. Germany might intern any and
all Americans found within her lines--Red Cross workers not excepted.
Her friends, however, desired to be assured of Belinda's safety, if
nothing more.

"I'm havin' the devil's own time, and that's a fact, stavin' off
Mam'selle Roberta's inquiries," Captain Dexter declared. "I write such
poor French and she such poor English that it gives me a chance to
dodge a lot of her questions. But, by Hannah! she isn't goin' to be
fended off for long, boy. You can bet your last dollar on that."

Sanderson went back to piloting his repaired Nieuport within a day or
two after the successful bombarding of the railroad, and almost his
first assignment was to transport a man for reconnaissance to a certain
point behind the enemy's lines. He had done such work before, and with
success, recovering his man at the place and time appointed.

He was returning from dropping the spy, without rising very high, for
he was above the wedge in the battlefront, and the danger point was
several miles ahead--or so he thought.

His intention was to pass over the locality of the hospital station
where Belinda had served before the retreat of the French.

Not that he could hope to see her or learn anything about her while
crossing this territory. That was too great a miracle to expect. He
knew the Germans held all this land now. Indeed, he could glance down
and see the supply trains and marching columns on their way to the
front. He was so much interested in what went on below, in fact, that
he forgot to keep a sharp outlook for what might be in the air.

It was an unpardonable error. He had swooped to a level little more
than five hundred feet above the earth. He knew the country thoroughly
and saw that the grove of open timber ahead was the small wood which
stood to the northeast of the hospital station.

He meant to ride over it, swoop low over the abandoned station to see
what was going on there, and then rise a couple of thousand feet before
risking the passing of the battleline.

On his mission to leave the spy he had been relieved of his
mitrailleuse, for the Nieuport was not supposed to carry more than
two hundred and twenty pounds, and his passenger, Renaud, was a heavy
man. Therefore his only weapon at the moment was the automatic pistol
strapped at his side.

Suddenly the pop of a machine gun warned him of danger. It was not an
anti-aircraft gun shooting from the earth, but a weapon being used
above him! The bullets hailed all around his airplane.

Sanderson speeded up his motor before even looking to see whence the
bullets came. He hated to run away as much as would any man; but he was
not armed for a pitched battle with a German aviator.

The pursuer was swooping with determination. As Sanderson shot toward
the grove of timber he realized that the enemy was coming down upon
him so swiftly and with such recklessness that collision was almost
inevitable, unless he mounted higher and at once.

The German was evidently willing to accept death himself if he could
but bring the American to earth.

The rain of bullets soon ceased, but Sanderson realized that his
propeller was riddled as though by a hailstorm. He felt a smart along
one cheek, where a bullet had plowed, and there were innumerable shot
holes in the wings of his biplane.

He started to mount. The shadow of the enemy aeroplane fell across his
own. It was near sunset, and the shadow was huge. It was as though he
were being smothered by a giant blanket dropping from the skies.

Sanderson was inured to peril, but he suddenly felt that he was in a
very serious situation. A minute more and his course on earth, as well
as in the air, might be run. His brain worked alertly. He used a trick
he had learned and practised often while over the aviation field on
Long Island.

Raising the nose of the Nieuport, he began to climb sharply, intending
to loop the loop and so, if possible, pass over his enemy.

The German was right at hand. The two aeroplanes passed each other
like veritable coursers of the air--the one soaring upward, the other
swooping downward. Sanderson and his enemy opened fire simultaneously
with their pistols.

What damage, if any, he did the German aviator the American did not
know, but before he had accomplished the upward curve of his loop he
saw that a bullet had punctured his gasoline tank.

Flames burst forth, fanned by the swift passage of the air. Sanderson
righted his machine quickly. He knew he would be _grille_, as the
French flying men call it, before he could arrive at any safe anchorage.

Shifting the nose of his airplane swiftly, Sanderson plunged directly
upon the German, who, likewise, had changed his course. The two
machines rushed together at frightful speed--a speed of nearly two
hundred miles an hour.

No wonder the spectators in the hospital enclosure, of whom Belinda
Melnotte was one, cried out in their horror as they beheld this duel to
the death.

Sanderson whispered the name of the girl who was, by chance, watching
him. Perhaps a woman's name was on the German aviator's lips. But
neither man faltered.

The two machines interlocked and fell through the treetops. Sanderson
kept his head, although expecting an instant and awful death. He
unhooked his belt and was flung from his seat into the top of a low,
well-branched evergreen. It was his salvation.

The wreck of the two aeroplanes reached the ground, his brave
antagonist in the midst of the ruin. Flames sprang up and threatened to
destroy the wreckage at once.

Wounded and bruised as he was, Sanderson hurried to reach the ground.
He hoped to save the German aviator; but when he drew the man out of
reach of the flames he was dead.

Night had fallen. No searchers came to the spot. Sanderson, far from
friends and in the enemy's country, realized that he was in serious
danger. In spite of a shoulder that pained him frightfully and his many
bruises, he managed to disrobe, strip the dead man, and garb himself in
the German's uniform. Then, with horror at the necessity for the act,
he thrust the dead body and his own garments into the burning wreck of
the two aeroplanes.

He could not travel. Indeed, it would aid him not at all to leave the
vicinity of the fallen machines, for he could not pass the enemy's
lines even in the borrowed uniform.

He sank, in the darkness, upon a bed of leaves. He had but a dim
remembrance of that night, or of being found in the morning by the
searchers and his transportation in the ambulance to the hospital
station.

When he really awoke it was to a belief that he was again in the
hospital back in New York. He opened his eyes to see the Herr Doktor
Franz Herschall standing beside him and Belinda Melnotte leaning
solicitously over his cot, saying in German:

"Doctor, here is one who has just been brought in. A very brave man,
they say. He fell last night in a duel in which he destroyed his
antagonist, a French flying-man."




                              CHAPTER XXI

                         ACROSS BURNING SANDS


When one has long expected a certain disaster, even though it be one
that can be averted by no act of the victim, a reprieve can scarcely
be a greater relief than the shock of another, and utterly unexpected,
catastrophe.

Belinda, day after day, had looked forward to the fatal moment when
Doctor Herschall should stalk into her ward and discover with his
piercing black eyes that "Nurse Genau" was Belinda Melnotte, who he
must certainly know had left New York to be a Red Cross nurse in France.

At the alarm from the watchful Jacob that the Herr Doktor approached,
the girl discovered that the long-expected peril was dwarfed by danger
that threatened from another point.

The unconscious man on the cot, the wounded aviator just brought into
the ward, was Frank Sanderson.

Belinda's thoughts fastened to this amazing discovery, and much that it
might portend of peril to them both flashed through her mind.

She was not stunned, but was keenly alert in every sense. It impressed
her instantly that she alone could shield Sanderson from discovery.

For recognition by Doctor Herschall would bring disaster to the young
American aviator. He had been found within the enemy's lines and in
German uniform. The ignoble death of a spy could scarcely fail to be
his portion if his identity was revealed to the Germans.

The thought of Sanderson's plight dwarfed the sense of her own danger.
Here approached--even now he was entering the door--the surgeon who
had treated the aviator in the New York hospital eight months before.
Belinda hoped that Doctor Herschall would not recognize the unconscious
airman.

"Is this hope based upon a foundation of sand?" she asked herself.

Sanderson had been clean-shaven when Doctor Herschall had treated him.
With this ragged growth of beard he scarcely looked the same, save to
such eyes as Belinda possessed. For hers was the gaze inspired by love.

She had to admit this now. The shock of seeing him lying so wan and
ill forced the acknowledgment of her love to the surface of the girl's
mind. Whether he was deserving or not, Frank Sanderson had conquered
her affection to the very last barrier.

He was in peril--dire peril. She was inspired to fight for his
salvation with all the wisdom and all the art at her disposal.

She brushed a lock of his long hair over the old scar on his brow and
turned swiftly to meet the black-browed surgeon.

The latter looked much the same as he had the day he arrived at the
hospital station and had so brutally ordered the burial of the kindly
_médecin chef_, its former head.

The military carriage of the Herr Doktor had always been marked. Now,
with the helmet and long cloak he wore, and his stern air, he might
have been an army corps commander instead of merely a medical officer.

Belinda could not show fear of him at this crisis. All her loathing
of the man and of his gallantries for her rose in her mind, but she
trampled these thoughts down. She hoped to save Frank Sanderson. She
must save him!

She met the Herr Doktor at the head of the ward, and not even Jacob
suspected that the pulse of fear beat in her throat. Belinda looked
straight into the black, beady eyes of the great surgeon, and raising
her pink-tipped finger placed it on her lips to enjoin silence.

As though a man like Franz Herschall ever could be startled!

He bowed formally before her, his eyes glittering, and asked in his
peculiarly harsh voice:

"Are you, Nurse Genau, in charge of this ward, Fräulein?"

"Yes, Doctor," she managed to say calmly.

"I have a report on Case Seventeen. That case should go back to the
operating table."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Well!" ejaculated Doctor Herschall. "Lead on. Let me see him."

Not a word or look betrayed his recognition of her. Belinda's fears
were a veritable whirlpool in her mind. What was his determination? How
would he treat her in the future? Her brain revolved these questions
until she was dizzy; but she turned and led the way down the ward.

The Herr Doktor glanced keenly at the patients as he passed. One took
the opportunity of begging for something for which he had already asked
the visiting physicians and had been refused.

"Who am I to tell you offhand what you may eat?" barked Doctor
Herschall. "For all I know of your case you may eat _Schwarzsauer und
Kartoffel klösz_. It is the visiting physician who knows your case. Be
still."

The man sank back cringing like a whipped dog. Belinda's limbs
trembled. She had often heard him speak in the same harsh tone in the
New York hospital, but it shocked her now as though she heard it for
the first time.

"He is a beast!" she thought.

And seeing the still form of Frank Sanderson at the bottom of the ward
she renewed her secret determination to save the American aviator from
"the beast."

The surgeon halted beside Number Seventeen and examined him with his
quick, sure touch. The wonderfully supple fingers seemed to have
retained all their skill. The man tried to tell the doctor something.

"Be still!" commanded the Prussian. "Do you suppose you can tell me
anything about your case that I do not already know? _Dummkopf!_"

His diametrically opposed statements regarding these two cases merely
displayed the bullying, dogmatic mind of the man. Belinda had often
observed it before, and scorned Doctor Herschall for it. The Prussian
_ego_ was as hateful in her eyes now as ever.

"Soh!" he said to her suddenly, in English and speaking so that nobody
but the girl herself could hear. "I find you here, Miss Belinda? What
does it mean--this masquerade? Surely you are not fool enough to be a
secret agent for the French?"

Fortunately his tone and words angered her, and in her wrath she found
strength to face him. She ceased to tremble, and in brief, brusque
sentences explained how she came to be in her present equivocal
situation.

"Hum! I see," he muttered. "I recognized your handwriting on the chart
of this case, which the doctor brought me," Doctor Herschall said with
a careless gesture toward Number Seventeen. He neglected to state that
the inquiry from the French corps commander for news of Mademoiselle
Melnotte, referred to his attention, had already aroused his curiosity
and suspicion.

"I had seen your writing too many times before," pursued the surgeon,
eying Belinda with narrowing gaze, "to be mistaken, despite the
difference in the writing of English and German. Oh, yes, I should know
your chirography under any circumstances, Miss Belinda. The vision
of--hum!--admiration is never blinded. Hum! So you were left behind
when the crazy French retreated? And you have two young cousins to
defend you--no?"

"Yes," she said doubtfully.

He flashed another of his penetrating sidewise glances at her
half-averted face. She saw his hands working in that spasmodic way of
his--the long, sinister fingers which she had watched perform such
surgical marvels. But she would not shudder, not even when he added:

"Well, let us see if these cousins can save you when trouble arises,
Fräulein. You have laid your intentions open to serious question by
giving the military authorities but part of your name. Unwise--unwise.
But fear not because of me, my dear Fräulein," he added in German. "I
am your friend."

"Now let us look at the rest of these wounded," he pursued roughly,
passing on to Number Nineteen.

He was approaching the aviator. Belinda, now a step behind the surgeon,
watched Sanderson's face with anxious eyes.

Was there a change coming into the pallid, bearded countenance? Could
it be possible that Doctor Herschall would recognize the aviator in his
present guise?

Sanderson's lips trembled. Color was rising in his cheeks. The anxious
girl knew what the change meant.

Suppose, in the moment of coming back to consciousness, the aviator
should cry out--should speak in English--should utter something in the
surgeon's hearing that would betray his identity?

The girl hurried forward. As Sanderson's eyes opened with that look of
perplexity in them that is usually their expression when the patient
comes out of syncope, Belinda was saying in German:

"Doctor, here is one who has just been brought in--an aviator. He fell
last night in a duel, in which he destroyed a French flying-man and his
machine."

"Hum! Indeed? I heard of that," the Herr Doktor said, showing some
interest. "One of my assistants set his shoulder. Hum! As long as he
goes on all right he'll not need my attention."

He moved on carelessly. Sanderson, recovering his senses slowly, began
to realize where he was.

Inside the enemy's lines! In a German field hospital! He, flying and
fighting for France, was in the power of the Germans! Then over his
awakening mind came the remembrance of what had brought him here.

His fight in the air with the aviator. When found he had been garbed in
the dead German's uniform. They had picked him up for a wounded hero of
their own race and brought him here. And--startling him into complete
appreciation of his situation--Belinda Melnotte was in attendance!

He half raised on his good elbow and watched her with the Herr
Doktor returning slowly up the ward. Belinda! Doctor Herschall, the
black-browed surgeon from the hospital in New York! Both in this field
station of the German hospital corps.

Sanderson could not understand it. The mystery was too much for his
weakened mind and he fell back with a groan.

"Brother, are you in pain? Can I help you?"

The bearded, ugly face of Jacob bent above him. Frank suddenly shook
with weak laughter.

"The man who kept the delicatessen store on the East Side," he
murmured.

"_Ach Himmel!_" gasped Jacob. "How did you know, _mein Herr_? Who told
you?"

Fortunately Sanderson had spoken in German. His wits came to his rescue.

"It is common property, old man," he said. "They told me I should be
nursed in this ward by a man who owned a delicatessen business in New
York. Is it not so?"

Jacob wagged his head. "_Ach_; it is a wonder how gossip gets around
this hospital," he grumbled.

Sanderson lay silent but wakeful. Indeed, now that he had come
completely to himself and the ether fumes were out of his brain he
suffered too much pain in his broken shoulder to sleep. And his mind
was very active.

What troubled him the most was the association of Belinda and the
Prussian surgeon in this field hospital. It was a mystery that fed his
old jealousy of the Herr Doktor.

Just now his peril, as an enemy found in disguise within the German
lines, did not greatly oppress him. There was something in connection
with his situation, however, that keenly stabbed his mind and was
uppermost in it when Belinda returned.

He saw her coming down the ward. The light in her eyes could be for
nobody but him--the trembling smile upon her sweet lips drove all
jealous thoughts away. She could not have turned from the surgeon to
him with this look on her face if her affection was given to the
black-browed Prussian.

"Frank!" she breathed, kneeling quickly beside him that her lips might
be close to his ear. She took his good hand in her own. The aviator's
heart was for the moment too full for him to utter an intelligible
word, but his eyes spoke his thoughts.

"Frank," she went on, "I must not be caught speaking to you--especially
in English. You can only be one of my _Verwundete_, my poor boy! Oh, if
you had been killed! And I watched you fall without knowing!" She tried
to turn her eyes away, but his gaze held her.

"Belinda!"

"Hush! I must appear German. So must you. My cousins, Carl and Paul,
are here. They have saved me from any questioning thus far. But now
that Doctor Herschall knows----"

"Is his presence here a surprise to you likewise?" Sanderson managed to
ask.

"Yes. Although I knew he had left the hospital in New York. But his
appearance here amazed me----"

She was about to add "frightened me"; then she felt that Sanderson
should not be needlessly alarmed. And the Herr Doktor had promised to
say nothing. Sanderson's thought had leaped to another topic, and one
that had before smote upon his mind. Belinda suddenly whispered:

"Oh, Frank, you are in such great danger here! How shall I get you
away from these Germans?"

"Listen! Never mind me at present, Belinda. I am safe for a while at
least. But there is another who is not--who is in deadly and hourly
peril because of my accident."

"Who?" she asked in surprise.

"I left him--when was it? Yesterday afternoon? I was to meet him at a
certain place at daybreak to-morrow morning. The spot is all of twenty
kilometres from here. He must be warned. He will have to make his way
as best he can through the German lines and to the French forces. But
if he waits for me he is sure to be caught."

"A spy?" she gasped.

"Yes. Renaud. A really wonderful man, for years a detective of the
metropolitan police--one of the shrewdest they say in Paris. He would
be a distinct and an irreparable loss to the French cause. He must be
warned, Belinda! He must be warned!"




                             CHAPTER XXII

                              LOVE AT WAR


Without a pang--without the first compunction of conscience--Belinda
had shown the wounded aviator her heart. Nor had he accepted the
revelation with any question.

This was no time for qualm or quibble. They had come to a vital grip
with a horrid and scarcely-to-be-averted peril.

Sanderson flung to the winds the caution and hesitancy that had marked
his attitude in the first of his intercourse with Belinda. Now he even
ignored his brother Jim's advice.

Upon Belinda's part there was no question as to whether the aviator was
deserving or not. _She loved him._ Therefore she must save him.

"How can we get word to this Renaud?" the nurse asked softly, her
glowing eyes devouring the face of the aviator.

"Oh, Belinda! how lovely you are!" he whispered. Then: "Isn't there a
faithful Frenchman left about the place? Were you alone of all the old
corps of attachés abandoned when the Germans advanced?"

"My little _infirmier_ would not desert me. They have made a cook of
him--these Germans."

"The man with the lame foot and the harelip?"

"Erard. Yes."

"Send him to me. Some way must be found to save Renaud."

"But you will be risking your own safety," she warned him. "Oh, Frank,
I am at my wits' end to think how to get you free."

"Never mind me, Belinda," he said. "Renaud comes first. He will carry
important papers and much information of value to the French commander."

"But--but," stammered the girl, "this is only to help the French. And
you risk your safety. You are an American, Frank!"

"That I am an American makes it all the more necessary that I should
help France," he whispered. "My heavens, girl! didn't we both come over
here for that purpose? At any rate I feel myself to be one of those
Americans who are helping uphold the hands of France while my people
are awakening to the peril of an autocracy that menaces the world. No,
Belinda, I must do my part though the heavens fall!" and once more the
old-time smile overspread his countenance and mirth again danced in his
eyes.

"Oh, Frank----"

She was forced to leave him suddenly, for there was a call for her
at the other end of the ward. Their conference had been brief but
illuminating.

As the aviator turned his head on the pillow he saw fixed upon him
a pair of hungry eyes from a cot across the aisle. The face was
emaciated, and a silky yellow fuzz of whisker the patient wore betrayed
his youth.

This was Ernest, Belinda's single unruly patient. Frank was conscious
that this youth fixed him with an attention that seemed almost uncanny.
Had the American, easily wearied in his weakened state, not dropped
asleep almost immediately he might have been made anxious by the glare
of the young German.

Meanwhile Belinda looked for somebody to carry a request to Erard.
Courteously as she had been thus far treated by the Germans, she had
noted even her Cousin Carl's evident determination to give little Erard
and herself small opportunity for private conversation.

It was possibly not founded upon any suspicion of herself, but the
_infirmier_ was a Frenchman and had been an attendant at the station
under the former administration. The Prussian military mind overlooks
nothing. The lame man might have been left behind to spy upon the
conquerors.

Erard was used to helping Belinda when she did dressings of importance,
and if she insisted they sent him to her, as Jacob could not do
everything. She asked a passing private to send her Corporal Baum, her
cousin; but Sergeant-major Genau appeared instead.

"How now, Cousin Belinda?" he greeted her gaily. "It strikes me that I
have not seen you for some time and that Carl is getting an advantage
over me. It will never do--never do at all! I'll never allow another
man--let alone a _dumme Esel_--get the inside track of me with any
pretty Fräulein."

"I wish you would stop your nonsense, Paul," returned the girl
scornfully. "Will you never grow up?"

"Indeed, ancient dame? So you look upon me as unfledged, do you? Carl
is that."

"And you are quite as bad--quite," she declared. "Remember, at least,
that we are cousins. If these others hear you flout me so they can have
no respect for me. Your comrades, I mean."

"_Ach!_ you wrong me, sweet Cousin."

"No more, Paul. Find me my little _infirmier_, Erard. I must have
somebody who knows how to assist at a dressing. You are wasting my
time."

"Ah, Belinda, why are you so cross?" cried the sergeant-major, with a
pleading note in his voice. "Why so harsh with one who admires you so?"

"Tut, tut, Paul! Save your love making for village maidens," Belinda
told him tartly. "Nor are we rehearsing a scene from a comic opera.
This is serious business, this hospital work----"

"And I'd have you know," said Paul with sudden fierceness, "that I am
serious, too, Cousin Belinda. I presume that _Schafskopf_, Carl Baum,
has poisoned your mind against me. The scum! I hate a backbiting dog.
You surely cannot let any person like him form your opinion of a man
like me."

"Certainly not, Paul. I am forming my own opinion of you right now--as
you talk. Go find Erard. Do not delay," she said sternly, "or I shall
be forced to appeal to your Herr Lieutenant."

"_Tausend Teufel!_ and what if I told him you were a Melnotte instead
of a Genau?" hissed the suddenly enraged sergeant-major, his choler
rising.

Belinda was just now menaced by greater peril (or so she thought) than
any with which this angry boy could threaten her. She retorted sharply:

"And so put yourself, too, under the lash? I have the writing in which
you advised me to make the change in my name. Forget not that, _mein
Knabe_."

He tramped away angrily enough, but Erard soon came limping up the yard
to the door of Belinda's ward.

The nurse stood in the open doorway that she might be sure nobody
within or without would overhear her first words to the Frenchman.

"Erard! Stoop down and fix your shoe. There is something the matter
with it."

"_Oui, oui, Mademoiselle! Ça y est!_ What is it?" and he stooped
without a glance or start of surprise and fumbled with his shoestring.

"The aviator who was brought in this morning--who fell last night in
the grove yonder. You know?"

"_Oui_, Mademoiselle. I saw the fight. Glorious!" he murmured.

"He is not German," whispered Belinda. "It is the German who died."

"_Nom de Dieu!_ Is this one then the French brave?"

"American. You saw him when he visited the hospital before--with the
old sea captain."

"_Oui!_ Your young man, Mademoiselle," he said, simply. "I quite
remember. Good! We will save him from _les Boches_."

"It is more than that, Erard," she told him softly. "We have to save
another man--a spy. Monsieur Sanderson left him at a place--he will
tell you. To-morrow morning Monsieur Renaud will be waiting the return
of the airplane."

"Monsieur Renaud?" repeated Erard. His face suddenly expressed some
emotion that Belinda could not understand. "The great Renaud of the
detective police?"

"I believe so. He must be warned. It is most important that he should
get through the German lines as soon as possible."

"For France!" gasped Erard, suddenly drawing himself erect.

"For France," repeated Belinda softly. "Now you will help me. I shall
be called away while we are with Monsieur Sanderson. He will then tell
you all. Be circumspect."

"_Oui!_ For France," agreed the _infirmier_. Then, in a lower tone
unheard by the nurse: "_Le bas Renaud!_"

Erard assisted at the important dressing, as was his custom. Really,
he acted as orderly while Jacob performed some of the duties of
_infirmier_.

Sanderson's shoulder was immovable in plaster. There really was nothing
of consequence to be done for him; but the nurse ordered Erard to bathe
him while she went about other duties.

Erard set up the screen and brought the water grumblingly. Oh, Erard
was a good actor!

Sanderson had awakened from his sleep refreshed and buoyantly hopeful.
Naturally of a sanguine temperament, the American was inspired by
Belinda's present attitude toward him with roseate visions upon other
subjects. He believed Erard patriotic and trustworthy, as well as
shrewd.

The lame man's, "Oh, yes, Monsieur! I can escape from the enclosure and
return drunk in the morning. It is not an uncommon practice and will
yield me but a six-day march perhaps up and down the yard here between
the huts," wholly satisfied the aviator.

Whispering in French they made final arrangements and Frank trusted
the little man with the password that should identify him to Renaud.

At the other end of the ward Belinda busied herself with little duties
which enabled her still to see that nobody approached the screen about
Sanderson's cot. Ernest was restless and got half out of bed before the
nurse swooped down on him like a hawk.

"You are getting very lively indeed, my boy," she told him. "I shall
speak to the doctor about you. You would better be in some convalescent
hospital, where you will be made to knit or to roll bandages until you
are fit to go back to the trenches."

Ernest showed his teeth.

"There are ways of escaping the trenches, Nurse," he declared. "Am I a
dog?"

"An ungrateful boy, at least," she returned sharply.

The man on the next cot admonished the troublesome one. "The least you
can do is to be quiet when the good Fräulein has so much to do," and
Ernest subsided, muttering.

The incident, small in itself and seemingly unimportant compared with
the greater things that troubled her, remained in her thought. It was
as though, in passing along a rocky way, a serpent had coiled and
struck at her. Ernest's nature was treacherous; she felt it.

Carl Baum, relieved of duty, put his head in at the door. His face was
flushed and his eyes angry.

"Do you want me _now_, Cousin 'Linda?" he asked.

"'Now'?" she repeated, forgetting at first that she had sent for him.

"_Ach_, that Paul Genau! _Der schlaue Fuchs_ gets the better of me
always. He heard the man ask where I was and he comes first, after
shutting the messenger's mouth. But I heard of it and came as soon as I
was off duty. When I next meet that Paul Genau----"

"Hush!" commanded Belinda. "Do not make a mountain of a molehill,
Cousin Carl. I merely sent him on an errand."

"What right has he to run errands for you, Cousin 'Linda?" cried the
excited young fellow. "Am I not your servant? I will not endure his
interference. No!"

"But he is our cousin. You boys must not fight," Belinda said
soothingly, yet suddenly feeling that this rivalry between her cousins
was no longer a matter to laugh at. "Remember, you have your corporal's
stripes to lose. And if Paul is such a sly fox as you say, he would put
you in the wrong light if you attacked him. Besides, it is wrong to
fight."

"_Donnerwetter!_" gasped Carl, suddenly bursting into laughter. "And
here we are at war!" He recovered his temper quickly. "A small pot
soon hot," his Cousin Paul called him. "Ah, but Cousin 'Linda, I am a
jealous one."

"You should not be," she told him rather absently.

"Yes! But you do not tell me that you care for me at all."

"I care for you a great deal, Cousin Carl, but not in the foolish way
you suggest."

"Foolish!"

"Yes. We are too much like brother and sister. I could not by any
possibility love you in the way you suggest," she said with sudden
frankness.

"_Ach!_ that Paul----"

"Hush! I love him not at all," she cried. "He is simply my cousin--as
you are."

"Ah, 'Linda," the boy pleaded, "take time to think of it. Of course,
any day I may be shot----"

"God forbid, Carl!"

"Then you _do_ care?"

"As your cousin--yes. As your sister, if you will have me----"

"That Paul!" he began again heatedly.

"You have heard me say it is _not_ Paul," she declared.

He grasped at her unintended hint. His eyes actually clouded with mist.
He said huskily:

"But there is somebody? You have a lover? Somebody you have long known?
Somebody in America?"

She bowed her head in silent affirmation. But Carl suddenly propounded
a question she had not expected:

"But if that's so, why did he let you come over here to work in this
horrid war?"

"Suppose--suppose he came, too?" she said hastily, almost recklessly.
"Suppose----"

"To fight for Germany?" gasped Carl. "And _you_ were in a French
hospital?"

"He is an American."

"_Ach_, those accursed Americans! Do they not all fight against us? If
they dared they would go to war as a nation against us."

"Carl! you must not talk so. You offend me. I have confided in you and
I expect you to treat my confidence as a gentleman should."

Erard brought away the screen and bucket from Sanderson's cot.

"No more now, dear Carl," she said hastily to the downcast young
fellow. "Another time. And you will remain my friend, Cousin Carl?"

"Soh!" Carl blew a mighty sigh. "Well, as long as it is not Paul
Genau!"




                             CHAPTER XXIII

                               BECLOUDED


Erard disappeared suddenly. Nobody saw him go, but he was not to be
found.

Of course, it was his time for sleeping. His hours off duty were short
enough at the best. Somebody had gone to his cot to call him and he was
not there. The bed had not been slept in.

"_Ach!_" raved Corporal Baum. "What a pig it is! The crazy Frenchman is
not to be trusted. And you said he was faithful."

He said this to Belinda just before she left her ward for the night.

"He has been faithful to me," she told him. "If he has made one misstep
you must forgive him for my sake, Carl."

"_Ach!_ The drillmaster's whip should feel his back. Now I have to
detail one of my men to do his work."

"The night nurse is coming. See that you get a good man to help her."

Belinda went through the ward again to make sure all was right with
each of her wounded for the night, and found opportunity of whispering
to Frank, as she squeezed his hand under the blanket:

"'All quiet along the Potomac.' He's gone."

Carl had gone fuming back to his duty; but as Belinda came out into the
chill dusk of the March evening a cloaked figure awaited her.

"Paul!" she ejaculated, rather startled.

"It's I. And waiting for a girl like any yokel," and he laughed
bitterly--a laugh Belinda did not like to hear. It was so dark she
could not see her cousin's face; but she felt that he looked at her
strangely.

"I want you to walk with me, 'Linda," he said suddenly, coming closer
to her. "I wish to talk with you."

"On what subject, Paul? And where shall we walk? I am tired now and
am ready for my tea and bed. There are no 'lovers' lanes' or other
romantic walks about here."

"You laugh at me!" he ejaculated fiercely. "_Ach!_ when did I let a
girl laugh at me before? _I_ did the laughing."

"Possibly they all laughed at you," she said, much amused.

"_Ach!_ I left some of them in tears."

"I shall not weep, Cousin Paul, if you leave me now and let me go to my
waiting tea."

"You do not know what you are doing to me," he cried under his breath,
seizing her arm roughly. "I tell you, Belinda, I never met a girl
before who so moved me. I--I am a cold-heart. No woman before ever
mastered me as you have."

"Pooh, Paul! you have been aping your betters--or think you have. You
have thought it smart to go about making love to village flirts. I know
your kind. You have never _loved_ anybody."

"I tell you----"

"Be calm. You have never yet loved, I tell you; you have only played at
love."

"I love _you_," he said doggedly, almost as his cousin, Carl, would
have said it.

"You only think so," repeated Belinda. "You do not know yet what true
love means."

He halted, seizing her arm again and looking at her suspiciously. "Do
_you_?" he demanded.

"Yes," Belinda told him calmly, exultantly, her face raised to the
darkening sky. "I love, and am loved in return, Paul. Your tawdry
passion for every pretty face you see has nothing to do with love."

A heavy tread came close behind them. A harsh voice said:

"Nurse Genau, I require your presence in the operating ward--a serious
case. I cannot trust these other women in anything so delicate."

Paul had sprung to attention. Belinda's manner changed suddenly. Her
cousin noted it as she faltered:

"Very well, Herr Doktor."

Doctor Herschall gave the young man a harsh look as he strode past.
Belinda hurried to get certain necessary articles. Paul muttered:

"Can it be that black-looking surgeon? _Herr Gott!_ he spoke as though
he owned her. He has spent years in New York, they say. Belinda was in
a hospital there, she told me. Have they known each other before?

"_Tausend Teufel!_ I believe the girl is in love with somebody.
Certainly not with that blockhead, Baum. With whom, then? With the Herr
Doktor? _Ach!_ How foolish! One could not love the Herr Doktor more
than one could a stick or a stone. It must be somebody else and"--he
asked the same question Carl Baum had asked--"if she loves and is so
beloved, why did he let her come over to France to do this dangerous
work in the hospitals?"

Meanwhile Belinda had reached the receiving ward and was ready at
the operating table when Doctor Herschall arrived. There were other
surgeons to help him, for there was no rush of new cases at present;
and there were other nurses, too, if he needed them. Belinda knew it
was merely a crotchet upon the part of the Herr Doktor to demand her
presence here--especially after her long day's work in her own ward.

It was to show his authority--his power--over her that he had done
this. Or was it pique because he had seen her talking familiarly with
her cousin?

In any case it was out of the question for her to object. She knew that
well. It was in Franz Herschall's power to crush her utterly with a
word.

And not so much for her own safety did Belinda Melnotte bear this hard
duty with patience, but because of the young aviator lying helpless in
her ward--the man she loved and the man she must aid to escape from the
deadly peril that menaced him.

"Soh!" said Doctor Herschall with satisfaction, but speaking aside to
the nurse, when he had performed another surgical miracle, "this is
like many old occasions, Miss Belinda, is it not? Hum! I shall call on
you frequently hereafter. These other nurses are cows! If you like you
may give up your ward entirely. I can easily place another day nurse
there."

"Oh, no, Doctor!" she begged hastily. "I prefer to be busy. And my
wounded would miss me."

"What? Those beasts? They would miss their sausage and beer--nothing
more," he answered in contempt.

Belinda was as wearied as usual that night; she slept, however, but
little. How much had happened within twelve hours! Never in her life
had she passed so exciting a day.

Threatened from all sides with a danger that might at any time become
of deadly import, the Red Cross nurse had gone about her duties with
an apparently unshaken demeanor. And yet she was no braver than the
ordinary girl of her age and with her experience.

She remembered well one Red Cross nurse, martyred by the Prussians
in Belgium, for just what she was doing--indeed, for less! A vile
imprisonment, or the firing squad, might be just ahead of her.

Yet Belinda Melnotte glowed and was glad all through her being at the
thought of Frank's presence near by and what they now were to each
other!

She had utterly cast aside all her former doubts and prejudices. The
love to which she had finally given speech crowded down the warning
word of conscience.

No longer did Belinda Melnotte ask herself whether or no she was good
in thought as well as act. She was a loving woman--loved and beloved!
And nothing else in the world mattered.

She slept fitfully, but was up at dawn. During the night she had
worried much about Erard.

Had he been able to travel as far as Sanderson said the rendezvous with
Renaud was, and without being apprehended? And when would he return? If
the man did not come back, how would they know if he met the French spy
or if the latter was safe? All that forenoon she kept a watch upon the
entrance gate of the hospital enclosure.

"The guardhouse for that harelipped rascal of yours when he does
come," Carl Baum promised Belinda. "I cannot save him--nor can that sly
fox, Paul Genau. If he is only sent back to a detention camp he will be
lucky."

The nurse had but little opportunity to speak in private with Sanderson
during the morning, for Jacob was her principal assistant. But their
stolen glances told each other much.

There was a little bustle at the gate about noon. Belinda, watchful as
ever, ran out of her ward.

Into the enclosure staggered the recreant Erard, a wine bottle in one
hand and a dead pullet by the legs in the other. Ah, but he was the
very picture of a devil-may-care fellow, roaring drunk!

Carl Baum made a rush for him, sputtering maledictions in
German--threatening the little lame man with dire punishment.

"Hold!" commanded Erard pompously. "This," and he held up the scrawny
pullet, "is for the Herr Lieutenant. Touch it at your peril!"

"_Schweinhund!_" thundered Carl.

"Who are you?" demanded Erard scornfully. "A soldier--therefore a
slave. _I_ am a free man. _Vive la_----" He tipped the bottle to
his lips and swallowed some of the _vin ordinaire_. "Have a drink,
brother?" he added, holding the bottle out to Carl with tipsy
hospitality.

The corporal broke the bottle and seemed about to break the
_infirmier's_ head as well. Belinda ran out to save him. "You must not
ill-treat the poor fellow, Carl," she declared.

"A wonderful tenderness you have for this drunken little beast,"
growled her cousin. "Come on! You go to the Herr Lieutenant," he added
roughly to Erard.

"_Oui, Monsieur!_ Here is the fine _poulet_ for that same Herr
Lieutenant." He bowed low before the troubled nurse. "But yes," he
said boldly. "I am a man, _me_! I am no slave of a soldier. I have
accomplished all that I set forth to do."

Belinda caught her breath. She knew the man was speaking directly
to her--was reassuring her; although what he said seemed merely the
vaporings of wine.

"Come!" cried Carl again.

"Pardon, Monsieur," said Erard politely. "Is that the way to leave a
lady? I kiss your hand, Mademoiselle. I am relieved of that so-dirty
work of the ward for a season--is it not?"

He spoke French. He bowed low before her and carried literally into
action his words by raising her hand to his lips.

Swiftly he pressed a bit of paper between her fingers. She held it
tightly--breathless, shaken--while Carl marched the staggering little
man away.

She went slowly back to her ward. Secretly she looked at the tiny note.
The envelope was of rice paper--two cigarette papers sealed together
with green wax. It seemed to her as she examined it, that the seals
had been tampered with; yet if so, the note had been reinclosed.

Within was written in pencil on a third paper folded so that it could
not be read through the envelope, a single line in English:

"Trust not Rabbit-mouth too far."

It was a warning--a warning referring to Erard, but brought by the
_infirmier_ himself! Although it was not signed, the line must have
been written by Renaud, the spy.

Erard had tried to read it, too. But Belinda was well aware the lame
man could not read English. The mystery troubled her exceedingly.

Erard had met the spy and certainly must have told Renaud of
Sanderson's plight. The spy's peril was imminent. His task of getting
out of the enemy's country was enormous. And yet he considered it
necessary to warn the American airman against trusting Erard too far!




                             CHAPTER XXIV

                        HER FEARS ARE SHARPENED


Most of the communications between Belinda and Frank Sanderson during
this forenoon had been of the most casual kind--a glance, a whispered
word, a sly pressure of the hand. But now she must give the strangely
worded note, presumably from Monsieur Renaud, to the wounded aviator.

There were cases being removed from the ward each day and fresh ones
being brought in; so the work of temperature taking, wound dressing,
chart writing, and all the other routine duties, went on much as they
had when Belinda's ward was part of a French field station.

She was fully as busy now as she ever had been, save that she did not
have so many serious cases at one time as she had had when the great
battle began in the winter. The Germans had brought another hospital
unit into this field; and although the guns poured their iron hail into
the lines of living men, day and night, this particular hospital unit
to which Belinda was now attached was not over-worked.

The girl was being worn out, however, physically and mentally. After
six months of work under the rules of the French _Croix Rouge_ she had
been entitled to a furlough, and _Madame la Directrice_ had urged her
to take it.

"One can never tell when one's chance may come again. Besides, it is a
good rule to take all one is entitled to in this world--and a little
bit more!"

Belinda now saw the wisdom in this very practical and particularly
French observation. Two weeks in Paris with Aunt Roberta would have
been heavenly! So the exhausted Red Cross nurse thought as she went
about her duties on this day. And if she could only have Frank there,
to nurse him properly!

She slipped the paper Erard had given her, with a whispered word, into
Frank's hand. Then, at another time, there was opportunity to discuss
it.

"Do you suppose it _is_ from that Monsieur Renaud?" Belinda asked.

"Undoubtedly. It would be like him to use just such means of
communication--to warn me against the very man who bore the note,"
Frank returned, chuckling. "Ah, Renaud is a sharp one."

"But to suggest poor Erard is not to be trusted!"

"Perhaps I understand better than you do. Do you know much about Erard?
About what he was before the war?"

"Why--no. He has never been communicative. I do not know, even, that
he has a family. I am sure he never receives mail. But I believe him to
be utterly and abandonedly French. And how he does hate the Kaiser!"
Belinda whispered.

"It may be. Even the _joyeux_ of the _Bataillon d'Afrique_ are good
patriots--and, as the whole world knows, they are convicts," Sanderson
told her.

"Renaud was attached in the days before the war to that section of the
Paris police that has intimately to do with the apaches--the dwellers
in that underworld of Paris that everybody writes about and so few
really know anything about.

"Renaud became somewhat communicative with me. This was the third time
I had taken him across the lines."

"But to accuse poor Erard!" protested Belinda, who felt personally hurt
by the fling at her _infirmier_.

"The hero's coat is not always white," Sanderson reminded her. "At
the last gasp it was the denizens of the Paris underworld that held
back the Germans until the British could get over. Ordinary thieves,
beggars, blackguards of every type, filled those thousands of taxis
that were the last resort of the brave defenders of the city, when
the government had already left. And they fought like rats in a pit,
because they _were_ rats--the gutter-rats of Paris--the apaches.

"It might be that our Erard may have had a much worse reputation
before the war than he has gained here in this hospital."

"Oh, I cannot think of him so! He is so unselfish, so kind to me, so
thoughtful."

"And who wouldn't be to you, sweet Belinda?" murmured Frank in English.
"Who indeed could be unkind to you?"

There was no time to explain to Sanderson who might be--who was,
indeed!--very unkind to her. Nor did she wish to worry him if she could
help it about Doctor Herschall, save to warn him that if the surgeon
came through the ward, to do nothing or say nothing to arouse suspicion
in the Prussian's mind.

"Oh, I am German," the aviator told her, laughing lightly. "I learned
that poor fellow's name by the light of the burning aeroplanes. So I
am August Gessler--some Swiss blood in me supposedly, from the name
I bear. Ah, we are both sailing under false colors, it seems, Nurse
Genau."

But Belinda could not take the matter lightly.

Doctor Herschall showed the cloven hoof again that day. He sent for
Belinda to come to the operating ward and kept her there for several
hours to aid him in certain delicate operations. She really had very
little to do but to hand him instruments and the like, as she was wont
to do in the New York hospital.

Doctor Herschall gave her a shock--as he intended, of course--just
before she went back to her hut.

"Hum! I was told you crossed on the _Belle o' Perth_, Miss Belinda," he
said in English. "And Sanderson, who was attempting to fly and came to
the hospital to be patched up, was in your party. Your little friend,
Miss Blaine, told me," he added maliciously.

"Mr. Sanderson was aboard, yes," answered Belinda, secretly shrinking
from him. "He was not of my party. Only Aunt Roberta traveled with me."

"Hum! What became of him? Did he attempt to join the French Flying
Corps?"

"He told me in Paris," said the girl honestly, and in full command of
herself now, "that he expected to go to an aviation school."

"Hum! Playing--playing. Always playing, these rich young Americans,"
said Doctor Herschall scornfully. "I do not presume even the
inefficient French would trust a fellow like Sanderson with any real
work over the lines. Hum!

"Now, there is that brave chap you have in your ward, Miss Belinda,"
he pursued. "Gessler is his name? Yes. August Gessler. I have looked
up his record. One of our bravest airmen, with many adventures to his
credit.

"How does he mend, Fräulein?" he asked her suddenly.

"Very well indeed, Doctor," replied Belinda composedly. The more anger
she felt beneath the surface because of his slighting way of speaking
about Frank Sanderson, the cooler she grew outwardly.

"Bring him along, Nurse--bring him along," urged the Herr Doktor. "He
is needed. Those in high places have already inquired kindly for Herr
Lieutenant Gessler. By the way, was he in uniform when he was brought
to your ward?"

"No, sir," Belinda said distinctly. "I--I suppose his uniform must have
been destroyed in the accident."

"Soh? Hum! I will make inquiries. There might be something of value
belonging to the brave aviator at the spot where he fell with the
Frenchman. Hum! Remind me, Nurse. I will have the matter looked into."

She fled from him then and reached her ward just as darkness was
falling. With an effort she recovered her calm and walked down the
aisle, speaking to each of her charges kindly--even to Ernest. The
latter sulkily turned his back upon her and would not reply.

Kneeling swiftly beside Sanderson, she put her lips close to his ear.

"Frank! Frank! could there be anything left at the place where you fell
with the German that could identify you?"

He asked no question, alert on the instant.

"I burned all my outer clothing; even my brass badge went into
the fire. And, of course, I carried nothing in my pockets of an
incriminating nature."

"All were burned?"

"I believe so. With the body of the poor German. Poor fellow. Hold on!
Just one thing that might not be destroyed--melted down. My canteen."

"Oh!"

"My name is painted on it: 'Frank Sanderson--Pilote Aviateur.' If the
fire was hot enough it would burn off the enamel."

He asked her why she was so suddenly anxious about this matter and she
was obliged to tell him.

"Then this Herr Doktor is not your friend, but your enemy?" Sanderson
asked.

"And your enemy," she was forced to say. "A deadly enemy if he learns
who you are. Oh, Frank, this is a dreadful situation! A word from him
and we are utterly lost."

Sanderson smiled grimly.

"And a word from your Cousin Carl, or your Cousin Paul, or from Erard,
it seems, and we are lost. Pshaw! Let us not lose our courage. We are
Americans, Belinda."

"Oh!" cried the Red Cross nurse under her breath, "I wish we were back
in dear America again! I--I am frightened, Frank."

She had to leave him then. She feared some of the others had noted her
special attentions to the wounded aviator. Jacob said:

"_Ach_, Fräulein, it warms my old heart to see your kindness to that
brave man. He flies and fights for the Fatherland. He is worthy of any
good woman's love."

"I am afraid you are an impudent old man, Jacob," she told him, yet
smiling. "You are as bad as my cousins, Carl and Paul. They think of
nothing but love making."

"_Ach, diese Kinder!_ But, Love and War--they always go hand in hand."

Belinda must learn what had been done to Erard in way of punishment
for his escapade before she sought her bed that night. Carl Baum was
disgusted regarding the affair.

"What do you suppose the Herr Lieutenant did?" demanded the corporal
of his cousin. "_Der schlaue Fuchs_ recited the Marseillaise for the
Herr Lieutenant and--_Herr Gott!_--with that harelip of his, it was the
funniest thing I ever listened to," admitted Carl.

"He presented that ancient hen to the Herr Lieutenant, too. Then he
danced--as he swore they do in the sewers and cesspools of Paris.
_Ach!_ that Erard of yours is a fine fellow. He knows all the thieves
and blackguards in Paris, I have no doubt. You should see him act when
he is drunk. The Herr Lieutenant laughed."

This report made Belinda very serious for more than one reason.
What Sanderson had told her of Renaud's knowledge of the underworld
characters of the French capital and this talk of Carl, seemed to
dovetail to make the _infirmier_ a very different person from what she
had supposed Erard to be.

However, she felt it her duty to do what she could for him. She went
to the Herr Lieutenant Count von Harden to beg the favor of Erard's
release.

"And by my life, Fräulein!" declared the count, "I know not what to do
with him unless it is to let you have him. He is no good as an ordinary
prisoner to us, that is certain. He can neither dig nor fight.

"But he must not be allowed to escape again at night. I tell you! He
shall be made to sleep in the guardhouse. He is not to be trusted to
watch your ward. You may have him to assist you during the day. At
night he must be a prisoner. But let him sleep off his potations now."

"Many thanks, _gnädiger Herr_," Belinda said.

"The pleasure is mine," the young nobleman replied, his mean little
eyes devouring the figure of the nurse in her neat uniform.

She had come to his quarters outside the hospital enclosure with a
permit from the Herr Doktor. The lieutenant had established himself
royally in what had been the village inn, and because of his wealth
and station had half a dozen orderlies and servants at his call.

"Is there nothing more I can do for you, my pretty Fräulein?" urged
the lieutenant, rising to approach her. "Life is none too gay in this
forlorn spot, but a bottle of good wine helps one to forget these
horrors of war," and he laughed. "Have you supped, Mademoiselle?"

"Thank you sir," she said quietly. "We nurses are forbidden any gaiety
while on duty."

"Soh? Even the French nurses?" he inquired slyly.

She laughed as lightly as she could under the circumstances. Yet she
well understood that he hinted of secret information regarding her true
identity. "I am scarcely French, Herr Lieutenant. I am of American
birth and partly German ancestry. I could not sup with you in any case.
The Herr Doktor would forbid it, I am sure."

"Poof! for the Herr Doktor," cried the lieutenant.

"Not so," and she laughed again, evading his out-stretched hand, while
she approached the open door swiftly. "He knows where I am, for I had
to state my desire to obtain permission to leave the hospital."

"Pshaw! these regulations are accursed," he cried. Then, glancing
through the window: "It is quite dark, Mademoiselle. Let me escort you,
at least." He seized his helmet and tossed his cloak over his shoulder.

"Oh, do not bother, pray, Herr Lieutenant!" she exclaimed.

"It is a pleasure, I assure you," he said, and tramped out of the room
and down the echoing stairway after her.

Belinda felt like fleeing. But the way truly was dark, and if she ran
she might anger the Herr Lieutenant. Also, how undignified to run
through the deserted village with this tall Prussian officer in hot
pursuit!

"Really, sir," she begged, turning toward him at the street door, "I
wish you would let me go alone."

A dark figure stood at attention on the porch.

"Who have we here?" demanded Count von Harden coolly.

"Sergeant-major Genau, Excellency," announced the hoarse voice of Paul.
"To attend the nurse to her quarters."

"Ah! The good Paul!" said the lieutenant, chuckling. "And dost thou so
carefully watch over thy pretty cousin? _Ach!_ perhaps it is as well.
My service, Fräulein. Good-night."




                              CHAPTER XXV

                    PAUL IN THE WHIRLPOOL OF DOUBT


After Belinda's first astonishment at Paul Genau's timely appearance,
she felt only gratitude for his presence.

"Ah, I am so glad you came as you did, Paul," she said, tucking her
hand into the crook of his arm.

She felt his arm tremble and knew that Genau had difficulty in speaking
calmly.

"What--what did he want of you?"

"Why, I went there to ask----"

"I know what you went for," Paul interrupted. "Begging off that
wretched Frenchman. I know that. But what did--did the Herr Lieutenant
mean by wanting to escort you--and where?"

"Back to the hospital," said Belinda, answering his last question
first. "You Germans seem to be obsessed by a desire to make love to
me," she added scornfully.

Paul uttered an oath that made her cringe and drop his arm.

"Why should he try to smear _you_ with his filth?" he exploded
savagely. "He knows you are my cousin and under my protection.
_Schweinhund!_"

"Hush! Somebody will overhear you, Paul."

"Yes! And then I will 'get mine,' eh? I know it," he snarled. "These
officers--these dastardly nobles--demand everything of us--our women,
too. I hate them!"

"And yet you fight for them?" she whispered, close to his ear.

"No! _Gott!_ No! I fight for the Fatherland," declared Paul proudly.
Then he suddenly drew her arm into his again, saying: "Pardon, Cousin.
But keep away from the Herr Lieutenant's quarters. The fool thinks all
is fish that swims near his net. When I learned where you had gone I
hurried over to escort you. But there was another thing. I went into
your ward to have a look at the wounded airman. The Herr Doktor takes
an interest in him."

Belinda trembled suddenly, but she could not easily withdraw her arm
now.

"Are you cold?" he asked her solicitously.

"I have thought it best to abandon my warm cape," she replied. "It has
the French insignia on it."

"Demand a cloak of our quartermaster, Belinda." He swiftly unhooked the
chain of his own enveloping cloak and wrapped it about her.

"Ah! How kind, Paul."

"Not so. But I would be kind to you, Belinda," he said quickly and
earnestly. "It is for this I would warn you."

"Of what?" she asked.

"Of that flying-man, perhaps."

"Oh!"

"He was asleep when I went into the ward--Herr Lieutenant Gessler, as
they call him. So I did not speak to him. But you have a boy across the
aisle from the Herr Lieutenant--Ernest Spiegel."

"Yes?"

"_That_ is a poison-tongue!" exclaimed Paul angrily. "I do not know
whether to believe him or think him altogether a liar."

"What--what does he say?" asked Belinda. "He gives me much trouble.
But, poor boy----"

"Waste no sympathy on him," growled Paul. "He is a treacherous little
beast. Whether it be true or not----"

"Whether what be true, Paul?" demanded Belinda, unable to smother her
impatience, and shaking his arm in the grip of both her hands. "Tell
me! Is there something wrong? What has Ernest said to you?"

"That the flying-man talks other languages than German. That he speaks
French to that harelipped Erard. That they have long conferences
together."

"Why, how ridiculous!" Belinda said, as though relieved. "Of course the
Herr Lieutenant speaks French. Does that make him a traitor to the
country he flies for?"

"And that he speaks still another language to you," Paul went on
doggedly. "That must be English. The boy has never heard it much
before."

"Ah!"

"He says more, Cousin Belinda," the young man continued, and she knew
he was watching her face keenly as they came under the radiance of the
lantern at the gate of the hospital enclosure. "He says he remembers
seeing in an old magazine since he has been in this hospital a picture
of August Gessler, the flying-man; and that the Herr Lieutenant is a
very different looking person from the man that photograph portrayed."

"Why----" Belinda could go no farther, neither in speech nor literally.
She leaned so heavily on Paul's arm that he halted. But he did not aid
her to recover her self-possession, saying hoarsely:

"The Herr Doktor has ordered me to send a squad to search the vicinity
where the two airplanes fell, to recover anything of value belonging to
the Herr Lieutenant."

"I know it, Paul!" she gasped. "He told me he would."

"Are you so in the Herr Doktor's confidence?" the young man demanded,
both surprised and suspicious.

"He knew me in New York," the girl whispered. "In the hospital there."

"And has said nothing?"

"Hush! No. But he could ruin me--and you, too--with a word."

"Why doesn't he?" her cousin asked sternly.

"Oh, Paul! I seem to be bewitched. They all want to make love to me."

"The Herr Doktor?" he growled. "_Herr Gott!_"

"He is worse than any of you," she almost sobbed. "He haunted me at the
hospital in New York. I was _so_ glad to escape him when I got through
there. And I confess one reason why I came to France was to escape
Doctor Herschall's attentions. And here he is!"

"Ah!" said Paul morosely. "And this dog of a flying-man, Gessler. Has
he fallen before you, too?"

"Hush, Paul! You make me feel horrid. Can I help it if all of you men
are children? The wounded aviator is a gentleman. He does not offend
me, at least."

"No?" and he watched her gloomily as they walked on.

Belinda was recovering from her sharper fear. Her brain began to
consider this new peril.

"Who will go to search the place where the airmen fell, Paul?" she
asked.

"Oh, I shall send a file of men with a corporal."

"Send Carl, Cousin Paul," she said quickly. "Will you--for my sake?"

"_Herr Gott!_" he muttered. "Then there _is_ something wrong with that
flying-man?"

"Why should you think there is anything wrong with him?" she retorted.

"You have some interest in him, Cousin Belinda."

"It seems the Herr Doktor has, too," she said significantly. "Send
Carl--do. You can trust Carl."

"_Ach!_ Baum is too great a blockhead to be anything but trustworthy,"
growled Paul, leaving her at the door of the women's sleeping hut.

Belinda crept to her bed that night in such a state of nervous
apprehension that she could not hope to sleep. Hourly the surrounding
dangers threatening Frank Sanderson and herself came closer. From all
sides it seemed their safety was menaced. Whichever way she looked she
could see nothing but difficulties.

The most threatening seemed to be the possibility of something
abandoned by Sanderson being found at the place where the two airplanes
had been burned. Doctor Herschall's preternatural shrewdness would lead
him to suspect the truth, she felt sure, if anything was brought to him
which he could identify as belonging to the American aviator.

Sanderson's name on his canteen, for instance, if brought to the
attention of Doctor Herschall might urge the Prussian to begin an
investigation sure to bring disaster to the American aviator. The Red
Cross nurse determined to learn early in the morning if Carl Baum was
detailed to head the searching party to the grove. If he was, she would
find some way of making her cousin aid her in destroying or overlooking
anything in the nature of incriminating evidence.

As long as the American aviator could play the part of August Gessler
unsuspected there was a chance of his escaping destruction. As soon
as his shoulder had knit so that it could be taken out of plaster
Sanderson would be up and about. Then, the girl had faith to believe, a
way for his escape would be opened.

Lying so long awake during the early hours of the night caused Belinda
to oversleep. When, after a hurried toilet, she reached the guardhouse
at the gate of the hospital enclosure and asked for her cousin, Baum,
she learned that he with a file of privates, had already departed upon
some detail.

Belinda was much disturbed and blamed herself heartily for the fault as
she went to breakfast. What would happen now?

Erard, looking much subdued, yet with a sly twinkle in his eyes, was
sweeping out the entrance to her ward when she reported a little later
for duty.

"Well! a pretty figure you cut," she said to him with much sternness.
"And you might have gone to a detention camp for your folly had I not
pleaded for you."

"_Oui_, Mademoiselle," he said humbly. "I suppose I should thank you
for getting the Herr Lieutenant to send me back to this vile work. _Ça
y est!_ All I get is a head like a _chevaux de bois_ for my fun."

Then, softly, and watching her sharply: "Did the Mademoiselle deliver
the message from M. Renaud to that brave _aviateur_?"

"Yes."

"M. Renaud seems very anxious regarding your young man," murmured
Erard, but boldly. "He will attempt his rescue--yes!"

"Attempt to rescue Mr. Sanderson?" exclaimed the nurse. "From this
hospital?"

"Yes. He asked many questions--all about the situation of this ward,
and of the hole in the hedge through which I made my escape," and
Erard's sudden grin was all mischief. "These _Boches_ would like to
know that."

"He--he would not come here--not really--to help Mr. Sanderson get
away?"

"Who knows?" returned Erard. "That Renaud--he is a devil! You do not
measure that child in a pint cup," he added, as though he were forced
against his will to admire the ex-member of the detective police. "At
least, he pumped me dry about the place, even to the situation and
number of _Monsieur le Aviateur's_ cot."

At a moment when she chanced to look forth later from the door of the
hut Belinda spied Paul Genau and beckoned to him. He did not smile, nor
did he seem so debonair as had been his wont; but he approached at her
bidding willingly enough.

"Did Carl go?" she whispered anxiously. "Did you detail him on that
errand?"

"As you requested, Cousin Belinda," he said gravely. "And I shall make
it a point to see anything they may pick up before it goes to the Herr
Doktor," he added significantly.

He startled her. "I--I----Oh, Paul! what shall I say to you?" the girl
suddenly cried.

"Say nothing to me!" he interrupted fiercely. "I know there is some
mystery--some treachery it may be--regarding this wounded airman that
it is my duty to expose. But you--_you_, Cousin Belinda!--stand between
me and my duty."

He gave her no opportunity to reply, leaving her abruptly. The Red
Cross nurse was suddenly conscience-stricken. In her selfish desire to
save Sanderson and herself from the coil of circumstances in which they
were nipped, she had heretofore given no thought at all to the web in
which she might entangle her cousins.

She had been determined, if she might, to use them in aiding Frank
and herself. But how about Paul Genau and Carl Baum? What would be
their punishment if they were discovered assisting in the escape of the
American aviator?

"Oh!" she told herself, in self-accusation. "I did not know I could be
so wicked--so utterly, utterly selfish! The poor boys! And yet--Frank
must escape! And who else is there but Paul and Carl to aid me?"




                             CHAPTER XXVI

                             TOUCH AND GO


When Belinda finally found time to speak at length to Sanderson he had
already received from Erard a full account of the lame man's meeting
with the French spy, Renaud.

"We shall hear from Monsieur Renaud again," the aviator said
confidently. "He is a really wonderful man, Belinda--a man of countless
disguises and subterfuges. When I set him down in that field four days
ago he drew on a peasant's smock, put his feet in sabots, and before I
got my plane in the air again he was hobbling toward the village, the
true picture of one of these old peasants, so decrepit and lame that
even the Prussians fail to set them to work.

"I must get out of this bed and get my shoulder out of its plaster-cast
as soon as possible. For in some way, by some means, I believe Renaud
will give me a chance to escape. And with me, you, of course, Belinda.
You must not remain longer in this perilous situation."

The nurse did not share in his sanguine feelings. But she hid her fears
as best she could and, leaving the bedside of the wounded aviator,
busied herself as usual about the ward.

She had spoken to the visiting physician previously about Ernest
and that very morning the order came for the boy's removal to the
convalescent camp. Jacob told him, and the unfortunate Ernest gave
way to a violent fit of temper just as the Herr Doktor unexpectedly
appeared on a round of visits.

Fortunately everything in Belinda's ward was in order. The Herr Doktor,
in helmet, boots and cloak, and with his shining ebony cane, strode
down the ward in his usual masterful manner. He asked a question here
and there, but at the empty cot numbered seventeen he did not halt.
That case had gone back to the operating table and was recorded in the
annals of the hospital as one of the most successful operations of the
Herr Doktor Herschall. But the patient had died.

Forewarned, Frank Sanderson was his usual calm self when the surgeon
approached. But the aviator had his part to play. He sat up in bed and
punctiliously saluted with his left hand when the inspecting surgeon
drew near.

"Good day to you, Herr Lieutenant Gessler," said the surgeon
sonorously. "I have a good report of you."

"Thank you for your interest, Herr Doktor," Sanderson responded. "Yet I
shall not partake long of your hospitality here, I hope."

"No? That is a good word. Hum! I shall hope to see you----_Was zum
Teufel?_" He turned swiftly, roaring his annoyance. Ernest had tugged
at his cloak. "What do you mean, you young dog? Can you not wait your
turn?"

"They send me to the convalescent camp, Herr Doktor," the boy cried.
"Then it will be back to the trenches soon--_I_ know. I cannot stand
it. I will not----"

"Be still!" commanded Doctor Herschall with a sudden calmness that
should have warned even Ernest of his danger. "Can you not see I am
speaking with the Herr Lieutenant Gessler?"

"He? He?" repeated Ernest in his shrill voice. "He is no more the
flying-man than I am."

Belinda turned toward Sanderson, a look of terror in her eyes.

The Herr Doktor's heavy cane delivered two cruel strokes across the
boy's shoulders. Ernest shrieked, rolling on the floor. Belinda's
intake of angry breath at this brutality was unnoticed by the enraged
Herr Doktor as he wheeled and marched back up the ward.

The nurse, fearing the American would express in words the contempt and
anger his features showed for the man who had committed the cruel act,
sprang forward and placed her hand upon the aviator's lips, standing
there while Doctor Herschall strode out of the hut.

"Get up on your bed, you little fool!" growled Jacob to Ernest. "Will
you never learn to keep your mouth shut?"

But Belinda could not bear to see the boy suffer. She brought warm
water and a lotion and succeeded in bathing the cruel-looking welts
while Ernest continued to sob into his pillow.

"He does not deserve it, Fräulein," grumbled Jacob; but Sanderson
beamed upon her from across the aisle.

An orderly appeared and read at the head of the ward: "Case
Thirty-three to report in half an hour at the desk, for transportation
to the rear." Jacob got the weeping Ernest up and helped him to dress.

Glancing from the window Belinda saw Carl Baum coming across the
enclosure from the direction of the Herr Doktor's lodge--once the
office of the kindly _médecin chef_. Wrung by sudden anxiety the nurse
ran out to intercept the corporal.

"Good-morning, Cousin Belinda," was Baum's greeting, his round face
asmile. "Does all go well with you?"

"I fear all will soon go ill with me, Carl," she said, unable to
disguise her anxiety. "Where have you been?"

"The sly fox Paul sent me on a detail for the Herr Doktor, but told me
to report first to _him_. He wished as usual to take all the credit,"
and Carl chuckled. "But I am a step ahead of him for once."

"Oh! what did you do?" cried Belinda under her breath.

"I was ordered to search for any personal property of either of the
aviators abandoned there in the wood where they fell. It is a deserted
place; nobody had disturbed the ruins of the aeroplanes."

"What did you find, Carl?" she asked hurriedly.

"Why, nothing much, Cousin. Just some odds and ends. A belt buckle with
the Herr Lieutenant Gessler's identification badge upon it. A shoe that
must have been the Frenchman's, for it is American made. Oh, yes! and
his metal water bottle."

"Whose bottle?"

"The Frenchman's. It must be his. Here!" said Paul, showing her a
paper. "I copied this that was painted on it--a part of his name."

Belinda was for the moment speechless. Before Carl could comment upon
her troubled countenance Jacob called to her from the doorway of the
ward. Ernest was departing.

The orderly signed her book. Indeed, the boy went as a prisoner. Men
were too precious at this stage of the war for the Prussian military
system to mislay a single individual.

Carl waited, troubled by his cousin's evident distress. He strolled to
the door where she stood watching Ernest and the orderly depart.

"Is not all right, 'Linda? Are you worrying over that boy--where he
goes?"

"No, Carl, I am not worrying over Ernest. It is something of much
greater import."

"Your sweetheart!" murmured Carl. "Where is he? Is he in trouble? Does
he know you were left behind when the crazy French retreated?"

"He must know that," she said absently.

"Where is he, Cousin 'Linda?" asked the boy. "Is he a very fine young
man? One of those millionaires we have all read about as being so
plentiful in America?"

"I never thought to ask whether he was rich or not," Belinda confessed.

"No? _Ach!_ then you must love him indeed," Carl declared quickly. "I
wish I might know him, Cousin 'Linda," he added wistfully.

She turned to him suddenly. "Do you mean that, Carl?"

"Why not?" he repeated wonderingly. "If you love him----"

"Suppose he were here--in peril of capture? Suppose he might be
apprehended as a spy?"

"_Ach!_ Do not talk so crazily, 'Linda!"

"But if he were? Would you help me to save him, Cousin Carl?" Belinda
demanded recklessly.

"_Herr Gott!_ A spy?" repeated the corporal. "But that would be a bad
business. But for you, Belinda----_Ach!_ if you love him----Well,
perhaps I might be tempted for your sake to be so far untrue to the
Fatherland. _Gott!_ Who knows?"

Around the corner of the hut stormed suddenly Sergeant-major Genau.

"What are you lingering here for, Corporal Baum?" he demanded. "Were
you not to report to me immediately on your return?"

"It was a command of the Herr Doktor. I have reported to him already,"
growled Carl, but not forgetting to salute his superior.

"_Tausend Teufel!_ Did I not tell you to report first to me--to show me
all that you found? _Dummkopf!_ See, Belinda," he turned to address the
nurse, "what it means to trust this Baum with even a simple detail. And
it was for your sake I chose him to go, and told him what to do."

"Oh, Carl!" murmured Belinda reproachfully. "You might have saved----"

The corporal lost his temper completely. "What do you mean? What is
this secret? Something between you, Paul, and our cousin? And you blame
me if it has gone wrong, eh?"

"What if it were our secret? There are many matters past your
comprehension, Carl," retorted Paul bitterly. "It was for Belinda's
sake--at her request--I told you to report your success or failure to
me. Did you find anything belonging to the Herr Lieutenant or to the
other aviator?"

"Yes, yes! He found something!" broke in Belinda, unwisely. "He has
told me. A canteen, with a name painted on it."

"Here!" growled Carl, glowering at them both and thrusting the paper
under Paul's eyes. "Do you make anything of _that_? And what is it all
about?"

"Be still--fool!" commanded Paul, studying the paper.

"Oh, but Doctor Herschall will make something of it," the nurse broke
in once more, wringing her hands, quite beside herself with fear and
excitement.

"See, blockhead, what you have done," snarled Paul.

"Call me no more names, scoundrel!" roared Carl. "I have fought you at
school and beat you. And--_Herr Gott!_--I can do it again!"

He whipped out the saber he wore on duty and sprang at his cousin. Paul
drew his pistol from its sheath--a deadly weapon.

"For that you are a dead man, Carl Baum!" he vowed, and would have shot
his cousin through the heart on the instant.

Belinda, uttering a horrified cry, threw herself between the enraged
young men.

She was aroused as she had never been aroused before. These men bent
upon each other's murder were but boys in her eyes. She remembered them
as joyous playfellows in pinafores; later as promising youths who vied
for her favor.

Now she had been thrown in contact with them again and found them grown
men--full of the faults--perhaps of the virtues, too--of soldiers.

What this awful war had done to them, to change them so utterly, smote
upon Belinda Melnotte's mind with withering force.

"Boys! Boys!" she cried. "What would your mothers say? And you, who
have been companions and friends for so long--like brothers! What would
you do?

"_Kill each other?_ Is there not enough blood being shed? Are you not
at war with all the world? Is it not enough that torn and bleeding
bodies are brought into this hospital every day that you, Carl Baum,
and you, Paul Genau, must add to the awful sum of human misery?

"Stop! I will not have it. You rave of being fond of me--you two--and
then act like this? Oh, you wicked ones! How dare you call me your
cousin? Would I own you as cousins of mine, do you think, if you were
guilty of the crime you each contemplate?

"And this it is to be German. The thirst for blood has seized upon you,
as it has upon everybody entangled in this awful war.

"Thank God! I am an American!"

There was a sonorous shout from across the enclosure. The Herr Doktor
had appeared suddenly at the door of his lodge.

"Hi! Ho! Hold that convalescent, Ernest Spiegel, Thirty-three of Ward
Three. I want him. Do you hear, Sergeant Genau?" he added, catching
sight of Paul. "Bring that boy back. Bring him to my office here at
once."

Paul's left hand had been out-stretched to draw the girl aside. Carl
had given no sign in his face of a better intention. Belinda thought
with sinking heart that her pleading seemed to have made no impression
upon the young hot-heads.

But the voice of authority spoke in the Herr Doktor's command. The
young men came to attention. Carl's saber went back into its scabbard;
Paul's weapon into its sheath.

The sergeant-major wheeled and started instantly for the gateway.
Belinda staggered to the door of her ward, weeping in abandonment.

"Oh, Cousin! Cousin 'Linda!" begged the corporal, at length moved by
her tears. "I am sorry. To offend you so----"

She heeded him not at all, but went within and the door swung shut. She
crouched in her own little booth at the end of the ward, seeking to
recover her self-control before Sanderson should see her.

Belinda still sat there when a soldier brought Ernest Spiegel to the
hut from the Herr Doktor's office. The boy was very pale and subdued.
He had nothing to say for himself.

"It is an order, most gracious Fräulein," said the soldier, passing her
a paper.

The order read, in the Herr Doktor's chirography:

    "Put him back in Cot Thirty-three."




                             CHAPTER XXVII

                                RENAUD


Belinda saw no more of her cousins that day. Indeed, she felt that she
never wished to see them again.

And yet--Belinda was forced to confess it--the quarrel between Carl and
Paul had arisen because of her. She had brought their boyish bickerings
to this desperate pass.

This burden of anxiety in addition to all her other troubles broke down
even Belinda Melnotte's calm. She scarcely dared go near Sanderson
for more than a moment at a time during this day for fear he would
apprehend trouble from the expression of her countenance.

In her present state of mind, too, she began to chide herself for
imaginary faults and a lapse of morals which, at another time, she
would have been bold enough to ignore.

Were not these anxieties that so burdened her mind and humbled her
spirit the punishment, the logical and natural outcome of her wrong
doing? Had she not committed a sin against her higher nature in so
fully giving herself mentally at least to Frank Sanderson and in
allowing him to lavish his affection upon her when there was a barrier
between them which neither the laws of God nor man could ignore?

The memory of "Stella" and "the kiddies" which she had put aside so
determinedly arose again like a wraith in her secret thoughts.

The apparent cheerfulness of the American aviator seemed a mockery to
Belinda, knowing what she did. With Doctor Herschall in possession of
Sanderson's canteen, its inscription perfectly readable to anybody with
the knowledge the Prussian surgeon already had, the nurse expected the
blow to fall at any moment.

All that seemed to trouble the aviator, however, was the return of
Ernest Spiegel. "There is something behind that," he whispered to
Belinda. "The wretched boy thinks he knows something. Has he been put
back here to spy?"

The visiting physician seemed in no way suspicious of Sanderson. He
talked hopefully of the aviator's shoulder coming out of the plaster
soon. He had been patient and that virtue was to be rewarded, the
doctor said.

Evening came at length. At the calling of the roll Erard was supposed
to report at the guardhouse. But there was still much to do about the
ward and the orderly who was to take charge for the night had not
appeared.

With verbal permission from a passing officer, the harelipped man
remained to complete his duties and to help Belinda. But he went out
ahead of her.

It was already dark--a raw, cloudy spring night. There was a lull in
the booming of the guns and the horizon to the east, west and south
was streaked only intermittently with the glare of the flare-bombs and
rockets.

For forty-eight hours the battle seemed to have stood still. The two
armies, like two stags, had locked horns and neither seemed to be able
to push the other aside.

The raw wind that swept across the hospital yard had driven everybody
but the sentinels indoors. And none of them was stationed near the door
of Ward Three. The night orderly came in yawning. As there were no
serious cases at present in this hut there was no regular night nurse
assigned.

"That fellow will be asleep and snoring in half an hour," Belinda
thought. "However, there is Jacob, who may be awakened."

She stepped out and was about to hurry to the nurses' quarters when
something moving in the shadow of the hut startled her. Was it the
outline of a human figure, or----

"Erard!" she called in a low voice.

"_Oui_, Mademoiselle!" responded the _infirmier_.

"What is that?" she demanded. "What did you roll under the porch?"

"Sst! Mademoiselle will forget?" he begged, coming closer. "It is
perhaps the blanket-roll you mean--and it may yet be of use----"

An approaching step was heard.

"Good-night, Mademoiselle," Erard said clearly. "I am due at the
guardhouse--and a plank bed. Good-night."

He started away through the gloom, dragging his twisted foot. Belinda
hesitated a moment only. She did not wish to be questioned. And there
was possibly nothing wrong. Yet--"_Trust not Rabbit-mouth too far_."
Renaud's written warning returned to her mind with insistence as she
went her way.

Nor was all the nurse's fear unfounded. The lout of an orderly was
indeed asleep and snoring within half an hour of her departure. Ward
Three lay wrapped in gloom, for there was but a single shaded light on
the table at the head of the room. Sighs--a few low moans--then the
stertorous breathing of most of the occupants of the cots proclaimed
the fact that the orderly was not alone asleep. The rest of these
wounded and broken men were perhaps uneasy, for their dreams could not
be happy ones.

Separated from their families, from all they loved and held dear;
led by their overlords like sheep to the shambles; then, broken and
suffering, brought from the trenches to this makeshift hospital, here
to be made over into further food for the thundering cannon. Could men,
under such conditions, sleep peacefully?

Sighing, turning, sometimes crying out in the nightmare of a
remembrance of their wounds, the early hours of the night dragged by.
If they woke it was to groan, seek to turn to a more restful position
and then to sink back into troubled dreams again.

The swinging door of the ward was pushed quietly open. A figure crept
in--a hoop-shouldered, apparently emaciated figure. With dragging step
it shuffled down the ward past the sleeping orderly, who lay back in
his chair with his mouth wide open, choking and snorting in his heavy
sleep.

Dragging, dragging the step went down the aisle. It was a familiar
sound to any who might be awake.

At the bed of the aviator it halted. Sanderson was already awake.

"Erard!"

A sharp hiss closed Sanderson's mouth. Ernest, across the aisle, raised
cautiously from his pillow. He needed the use of both ears, for it was
too dark for his eyes to be of much value to him.

The boy lay thus listening to catch the murmured words. They were
neither German nor French phrases he overheard. He dared not betray a
more active interest in the secret conference.

Then the dragging step up the ward again. The retreating figure
appeared for a moment between the window and the gaze of the watching
boy. Did it seem larger--taller--than Erard's?

At the end of the room it stood for a moment in the dim glow of the
hooded lamp. The orderly sat up with a start and at a most inopportune
moment.

The marauder seemed suddenly to tower above him. The orderly's lips
opened to utter a cry of fear. The deadly weapon descended with awful
force while the marauder's left hand seized the loose shirt collar
of the stricken man to ease him back into the chair so that the body
should not fall to the floor.

From a distance the orderly seemed still to be sleeping. In a moment
the marauder glided through the door. Ernest, gasping, stifling his
sobs in his pillow, cowered on his cot.

When Belinda arrived at her ward in the morning the first excitement
was passed. Jacob had discovered the dead orderly in his chair, with
the terrible wound in his head and the blood congealed upon the floor.

Then Erard had arrived and he had called to a passing soldier. The body
was removed and Erard had wiped up the stains as well as he could.
When the nurse came she had to exercise all her authority to quiet the
patients. Only Ernest Spiegel, strangely enough, said not a word.

The mystery of the killing of the orderly had already been well
canvassed. Was he known to have an enemy who had crept in during the
night and had done the deed? For surely nobody within the ward could
have accomplished this murder.

Later Belinda served Frank Sanderson his breakfast. His look assured
her that he knew something about the mystery unrevealed to the other
patients.

Jacob called for Ernest to get up and lend him a hand about some of his
duties. The boy obeyed grumblingly. Erard was serving breakfasts at the
other end of the room.

"What is it, Frank?" the nurse whispered.

"Renaud."

She repeated the name of the spy wonderingly. "He was not _here_? He
did not kill that man?"

"Listen," Sanderson explained as she cracked his egg. "I thought it was
Erard when he came creeping down the ward. Ah! a wonderful man is that
Renaud. If the other wounded heard him they would not mind Erard. You
see?"

"And he dared come here?"

"Yes. Good fellow! He means to bring about our escape. He is already
assured of his own through the German lines to-day. We talked it all
over. Even the day and hour is set. I shall then be able to walk about
with my arm in a sling.

"I know the rendezvous. We shall escape together, Belinda--you and I,"
and he smiled upon her lovingly.

"Ah! but shall we?" she murmured, yet did not dare to put into words
her fear of Doctor Herschall.

The effect of the mysterious happening of the night upon Erard was to
make him for the first time since Belinda had known him quite silent.
And he kept away from Sanderson's end of the ward.

This was an occurrence--the death of the orderly--that must be
investigated by both the regimental commander and Doctor Herschall. But
the black-browed surgeon came into the ward alone.

He said not a word when he entered. His eyes glittered. His air seemed
more threatening as he passed down the aisle between the cots than it
had ever before seemed to Belinda.

The nurse, startled and afraid, stood suddenly beside Sanderson's bed.
It was as though she were attempting to shield the aviator from the
surgeon's baleful look.

With a stern hand Doctor Herschall put her aside, so that he might have
an unobstructed view of Sanderson's countenance.

"We are about to relieve you, Herr Lieutenant, of that uncomfortable
cast you wear," the surgeon said harshly. "Sit up."

The aviator, not at all prepared for what was to follow, obeyed the
order. Swiftly Doctor Herschall unbuttoned the loose shirt Frank wore
and stripped bare the young man's muscular shoulder. But it was the
left shoulder he uncovered!

Belinda sprang forward with a muffled cry. The Herr Doktor's long digit
was planted firmly upon the puckered, red scar on the aviator's bared
shoulder--the mark of the wound treated in the hospital in New York
eight months and more before.

"_Ach!_" Doctor Herschall said. "So I thought." He turned and looked
at Ernest, who had come back to his cot and sat there, watching the
surgeon with frightened eyes.

"Well!" the Herr Doktor exploded, "what is it? What happened here last
night? What do you know of this murder?"

"He--he," stammered Ernest, pointing to the aviator. "A man came into
the ward when all were asleep. He came to Thirty-four and woke him.
They talked."

"In German?"

"No, Herr Doktor. Nor in French. In that strange talk they say is
_Amerikanisch_."

"Hum!" ejaculated the surgeon, working his fingers spasmodically. "What
more?"

"The--the man went back up the ward. The orderly awoke before the
man could escape. He sprang at the orderly and struck him down with
something in his hand, Excellency."

"Hum! Is that all?"

"All I heard and saw, Excellency."

"Could you see the murderer clearly? Would you know him again? Describe
him," commanded Doctor Herschall, while the intake of breath on the
part of the listeners was audible.

"I--I could not see the man clearly. But I know him," whispered Ernest.

"How do you know him? Are you positive?"

"Absolutely, Herr Doktor," said the boy with more confidence. "By his
step. I heard him clearly--it is not to be mistaken."

"Ah!" It was a chorused murmur from all over the ward.

Erard had come down the aisle. He stood in full view of the frightened
Ernest.

"That is the man!" shrilled the boy suddenly. "He drags his foot. He it
was who came here, and who killed the orderly to make his escape."

Belinda, recovering her speech; cried aloud:

"Wicked boy! It could not be Erard. He was in the guardhouse."

The little Frenchman raised his hand in salute as he stepped forward
a single pace, dragging that twisted foot, to face the scowling Herr
Doktor. He smiled at Belinda, saying:

"It is quite true, Mademoiselle. They are asleep, those _Boches_ at
the guardhouse. It was I who came here in the night. I knew the Herr
Lieutenant had money under his pillow and I tried to steal it. The boy
misunderstood the nature of our conversation. The Herr Lieutenant,
in his generosity, let me go; but I was observed by the orderly,
and--so----"

"Never!" gasped Belinda.

The Herr Doktor pounded upon the floor with his cane. A file of
soldiers entered with Corporal Baum at their head.

"Take this man to the cage, Corporal," commanded Doctor Herschall,
pointing with his stick to Erard. "And leave two men to escort the Herr
Lieutenant Gessler"--he lingered over the name in a sinister way--"to
the military court as soon as he is dressed."

Erard, smiling still, was close to Belinda as he turned to go with the
soldiers. His twisted lip writhed with the almost inaudible phrase:

"For France!"




                            CHAPTER XXVIII

                               THE HERO


This was a moment when the self-control of Belinda Melnotte came very
near to being utterly broken.

She had suffered so much anxiety, had carried such a burden of fear,
for so many days that overwrought nature was near to collapse.

And, oddly enough, it was Doctor Franz Herschall who saved her from a
mental breakdown at this time.

She turned from seeing Erard marched away guarded by the file of
soldiers, to face the Prussian surgeon. She realized that at last
Doctor Herschall had discovered all that she had sought to hide from
him. Frank Sanderson was at his mercy, and she herself was caught in
a web in the center of which the Herr Doktor crouched like a venomous
spider.

Next would be Sanderson's trial before the military court, the
discovery of his masquerade, and then the sentence due a spy.

Herself, she must likewise be entangled in the hateful coil and
dragged before the court. Her fate might be no less awful than that
confronting Erard and the aviator.

All hinged upon the word of the black-browed surgeon and the testimony
of his little spy, Ernest Spiegel. Belinda's eyes, staring into the
surgeon's glittering orbs, must have expressed some of the bitter,
bitter hatred she felt for him.

Doctor Herschall seemed to hesitate. For once, at least, he was not
quick of decision. He studied the pallid face of the young nurse
gloomily.

Jacob, at a gesture from the surgeon, had drawn a screen before
Sanderson's cot and was helping the aviator dress. The two soldiers
remaining of Carl's squad stood stolidly at the head of the ward. A
strained silence had fallen over all the wounded.

The girl's hatred of this domineering and egotistical Prussian was
almost overpowering.

For he was, she quite believed, the single element that would bring
about the destruction of the man she loved, and of herself. It would be
his evidence that convicted Sanderson of being a spy and would prove
her to be an aider and abettor of an enemy of the German Empire.

For who would believe the unsupported word of the weakling Ernest?
Belinda felt sure that in the pinch she might depend upon both her
cousins to keep their own counsel, even to help her if they could.

Belinda and Sanderson could not hope to aid themselves by putting
forth the claim of their American citizenship. In the eyes of the
Germans they had forfeited that by aiding France. Indeed, Germany and
the United States, if all reports were true, were on the verge of
hostilities.

Belinda and Sanderson were helpless.

Then, as the girl continued to stare into the glittering eyes of
Doctor Herschall, she realized that there was a new and inexplicable
expression dawning in them, and upon the countenance of the Prussian.

"Nurse Genau," he said suddenly, and with all the harshness of which
his voice was capable, "you are excused from duty in this ward for the
present. Report to me at my office after the meeting of the court, at
which the Herr Major Baron von Brandenburg will preside.

"Understand," he added, "you are in no wise to be held accountable for
any phase of this affair--as yet. Nor can we ask the Herr Lieutenant
Gessler"--he raised his voice that all might hear--"to attend the
court save out of necessity--that we may come at the truth of all this
trouble.

"As for you, _du kleine Erbärmlicher_, remain here and open not your
mouth! If you dare disobey you will find there is something worse than
the trenches."

He glared about the ward once more, ignoring Belinda, and taking his
departure before Sanderson was ready to go.

There was, nevertheless, no opportunity for the nurse and the aviator
to say much together in private. Besides, grasping a drifting straw
of hope, both saw that the Herr Doktor had not openly treated them as
enemies.

It was plain by their looks that the wounded men did not know what to
make of the affair. For all that the Prussian surgeon had said, Erard's
story of the night's tragic happening might be the exact truth.

If the Herr Doktor had been stern with the wounded aviator--even with
the nurse--it might be only his bullying way. They all knew what that
was.

Jacob wrung Sanderson's good hand as the American started up the aisle.
"_Gemüth, mein Herr!_ A brave man with your record of flying for the
Fatherland need have no fear of a drumhead court. _Viel Glück!_"

Belinda went with the aviator to the door. The two soldiers stepped out
first, one of them politely holding the door open for Sanderson. They
evidently did not consider him a prisoner.

"Don't lose your grip, Belinda," the young man whispered. "All is not
lost. And I believe that black-browed devil has it in his mind to save
you, at least."

"Oh, but I do not want to be saved without you, Frank!" she breathed.

"Don't fear. We'll pull through. And that plucky Erard----"

"He is a hero," murmured Belinda. "His lie may save you."

"And win him a martyr's crown," said Frank not irreverently.

They looked into each other's eyes. His were filled with the light of
courage; but Belinda's were misty with tears.

There was a whispering behind her in the ward as the girl stood alone.
Some of the weaker patients might be harmed by all this excitement.
Their temperature charts would tell the tale.

It suddenly smote Belinda Melnotte that in all probability temperature
charts or other matters connected with this ward in which she had
served so long, would mean very little to her in the future. Her
activities here were finished in any case.

Jacob touched her arm gently.

"Fräulein," he said.

"Ah, Jacob. What is it?"

"The boys--all your patients, Fräulein--wish to tell you that their
hearts are yours. You are in trouble. It may be that the Herr Doktor
merely bullies you--he is that kind. But fear not. There are others
higher than he who will see justice done."

"There is One Higher--I know," she said. "Thank you, Jacob."

She turned to face the ward. Every man who could was sitting or
standing erect. Even those on their backs who possessed a whole hand
saluted her.

"_Gesegnete Zukunft!_" they cried in unison.

Belinda's eyes overflowed. She could only kiss her hand to them and run
out. The relieving nurse was in sight.

The wet and windy night had rightly foretold a dreary day. How could
the sun have shone when all Belinda's hopes had fallen into such chaos?
Self-centered as her thoughts were--centered upon Frank Sanderson and
her own troubles--the Red Cross nurse felt as though the very world
itself were coming to its end.

There was a third person, however, whom Belinda considered with pity
and alarm--Erard. The little man with the harelip and twisted foot had
indeed "done his bit" for France.

He could do nothing, this lame Erard, as a soldier of the Republic!
Not for him the _Médaille Militaire_, or the _Croix de Guerre_, or
other honors of the brave _poilus_. But to save the American flying-man
who served under the tri-color, Erard was willing to stand before the
firing squad, and would stand there, it was to be presumed, with that
same twisted smile on his lips.

That, too, was "for France."

Belinda heard that the court martial would not sit till afternoon. It
was to her cousin, Carl, hurrying across the hospital enclosure, that
she put a question:

"Oh, Carl, where have they put Erard?"

"A fine little rat he is! What did I tell you?" growled the corporal.
"And he's come near getting your--I mean, the Herr Lieutenant
Gessler--into trouble by his lies. They have locked the wretched little
scoundrel into a room in that old château yonder."

"Is that the prison? Until the French left this neighborhood, the
family of the owner lived there. But they stripped it of much of its
best furniture when they went away. So it is a prison!"

"A detention house, yes. Even the flying-man is there until the court
convenes. But he is only a witness, of course," Carl said cheerfully.

"Carl," whispered the girl, "do you suppose I could speak to poor
Erard?"

"That rat?"

"Don't speak so of him. He has aided me for months--ever since I came
to the war zone to work. He has been my only help and comfort at times."

"I declare I believe him a gutter-rat from the sewers of Paris."

"I do not care. To me he has always shown his better nature."

"And he says he was trying to steal from--from the flying-man last
night before the orderly was killed."

"But I pity him so! And he will surely be shot! Do, Carl!"

"It might be done," said the good-natured fellow. "I can get you a pass
and take you to the château myself. It is true that there probably will
be no chance for you to see him after Herr Major Baron von Brandenburg
passes sentence. _Ach!_ he is a martinet, that old boy. Yes, it might
be done, by a shrewd fellow like me," and Carl winked at her.

It was done. The old château in question was less than half an hour's
walk from the hospital gate. The walls about it and the grounds had
been ruined by gunfire. However, all but one wing of the great building
remained in remarkably good condition.

In the main portion Major von Brandenburg had established his
headquarters with his staff housed in the rooms about him. But there
was room in the remaining wing of the château for prisoners. A
cell--originally a scullery--in the basement served Erard till such
time as the court might sit. Probably, as Carl Baum intimated, shortly
after the sentence was pronounced the Frenchman would not need a cell.

The corporal sent away the sentinel in the corridor on some errand and
allowed his cousin to go to the door of the cell. Heavy screening took
the place of glass in the upper half of the door.

Erard sat upon a bench, his chin in his palm. But when he looked up to
see who darkened the window opening, his twisted smile greeted the
nurse.

"_Ma foi!_ you are welcome, Mademoiselle, though I may not offer you a
chair in these, my poor quarters."

"Oh, my dear friend!" gasped the nurse. "This is a dreadful place, and
a dreadful pass you have come to, my poor Erard!"

"Weep not for me, dear Mademoiselle Belinda. Poof! what is a jail more
or less? I have often slept in worse cells. For sure! Half my boyhood
I was a guest of the so-good police," and his roguish look appeared
again. "Ask Monsieur Renaud. He knows me."

"Oh, Erard! I did not think it of you!" the girl sighed.

"No? I have made myself another reputation in the hospital--have I
not? It was a fancy of mine. All my life I have been quite bad. Oh,
yes, Mademoiselle; quite bad. And as they could not send me to the
_Bataillon d'Afrique_--I am not a marching man--I should kiss the sharp
knife in the end if it were not for _this_. I shall die a noble death,
Mademoiselle, _pour la patrie_."

"And to save Monsieur Sanderson," the girl whispered.

"So I may hope. A fine man," said Erard quite cheerfully.

"But you are dying without cause--without reason," Belinda declared.
"You did not kill the orderly. You were not in the ward last night."

"Sst! That was that sly Monsieur Renaud. You saw him dive under the
porch as you came out of the ward last evening, Mademoiselle."

"But they must know at the guardhouse that you were not out of doors."

"Ah! they are sleepyheads, _les Boches_. Only one knows I was in all
night--and him I have bribed."

"That Renaud deliberately imitated your step," she said with warmth.

Erard laughed.

"Ah! he is a knowing one. To think he should mock me so well--me, who
have so often mocked him for the laughter of my comrades.

"For know you, Mademoiselle, Rabbit-mouth is not so lightly considered
in Paris--among certain people, including the police. _Ma foi_, no!

"I have gained power by cunning--by shrewdness. Indeed, it was the only
way. Otherwise I would have been crushed--trampled upon long ago. You
see," he continued quite simply, "I was born to the dregs of life. The
first I can remember was of being driven out upon the streets to beg by
an old woman who had found me somewhere--devil knows where!

"My infirmity of the lip she thought would arouse the sympathy of those
from whom I begged. But it aroused their laughter. Ah, _ma foi_, yes! I
was meant to be a great comedian," and he shrugged his shoulders. "I
can always make people laugh.

"But their laughter did not bring the centimes to the itching palm of
the old woman. I was not pitiful enough with my rabbit-mouth. She had
a son, that old woman, and he was wise. He told her what to do. So--my
foot," and Erard thrust the crooked extremity forth.

"Oh, you told me it was run over by a farmer's wagon!" gasped Belinda.

"_Oui, oui!_ I am that wicked one," and he grinned. "I even lied to
you, Mademoiselle. But do I look like a _sale cultivateur_? _Non! Non!_

"I was a child. My bones were soft like gristle. They twisted my foot
and put it in plaster, then chained me to the old beldame's bedpost. We
lived deep in a cellar. Nobody could hear my cries.

"So," finished Erard, shrugging his shoulders, "after that, when I went
out begging, dragging this poor foot, the sympathetic gave me more
centimes for my old woman, until I could run away from her and steal
and beg for myself."

The story was a dreadful one--the cheap and pitiful tale of a Paris
gamin, drifting naturally into the underworld of the apaches--the
shrewd, sly cripple seeking his proper level in the sewers of the
metropolis. And yet Belinda could not dwell in her thoughts on that.
Not of what the little harelipped man had been. It was what he was now.

A hero!

She was in tears when Carl led her back to the hospital. She had not
dared to ask to speak with Sanderson. She dared not even show her fear
that he, too, would be made a prisoner instead of held as a witness.

Sanderson could do nothing for Erard when he told his story before the
major and the other officers, of whom Doctor Herschall would be one,
because of the very nature of the crime.

If the American denied the truth of Erard's tale of attempted robbery
he would merely put his own life in jeopardy without saving the
Frenchman; and perhaps endanger Belinda's safety as well. The testimony
of Ernest, whom Doctor Herschall had so well used, might convict the
young aviator and the nurse of a greater military crime than that to
which Erard confessed.

There seemed no way of helping the brave little harelipped man. He had
little chance to be a real man in his miserable, sin-warped life. But
he would go to a noble death--for France.

It was from Paul Genau that Belinda gained the first news of the
proceedings of the military court. The sergeant-major had attended, and
when he came into the hospital premises the Red Cross nurse saw that he
was very grave indeed.

"Paul, what did they do to him?" she begged in alarm. "What has
happened?"

"It is all over," declared her cousin. "Like that!" and he snapped his
fingers. "Ah! I tell you Herr Major Baron von Brandenburg never makes
two bites of a cherry."

"Oh, Paul!" wailed the girl, almost falling, "_not both of them_?"

"'Both of them?' What do you mean?" responded Paul. "There was but one
prisoner. He was tried, found guilty, sentenced, and taken out and shot
all in half an hour--like that! And by heaven! he was a cool one--that
harelipped man. He borrowed a cigarette of me!

"'I may not repay you till hereafter, Monsieur,' he said.

"Then he smoked it--and they shot him."

Belinda covered her face with her hands. From between her fingers she
sobbed another question.

"And the flying-man--Herr Gessler?"

"Ah, the Herr Lieutenant? Well," Paul replied slowly, "he does not
return to the hospital. He is a guest of the Herr Major."

"A prisoner!"

"That I would not say," her cousin replied. "He was scarcely a witness
at the trial. Indeed, witnesses were not needed--even that rat, Ernest
Spiegel, was not called. What need of any evidence when the Frenchman
confessed the crime? Besides, the Herr Lieutenant begged to be excused
from testifying against the accused."

"Then why--oh, why!--was he not released?" cried Belinda.

"That I do not know," Paul said. "It was because of something the Herr
Doktor said in confidence to the Herr Major, I believe, regarding the
flying-man. The Herr Major had dismissed the aviator; but after a brief
conference with Doctor Herschall, he called to the flying-man:

"'Remain, if you please, Herr Lieutenant. I find there is a point I
wish to speak with you upon. I hope you are comfortable here?'

"Ah, that Baron von Brandenburg!" finished Paul, with a sigh. "He
is a nobleman. He would be courteous if he were sentencing a man to
purgatory."




                             CHAPTER XXIX

                               AT LAST!


The uncertainties--the desperate peril--of the situation wrung Belinda
Melnotte's heart until it seemed that no longer drops could filter from
her eyes. She had wept all her tears away without assuaging either her
grief or her fears.

Erard's pitiful, yet noble, death was only the beginning of the
tragedy. Doctor Herschall would now glut his thirst for revenge with
Frank's blood--and with her own!

No other explanation could she imagine for the surgeon's delay in
revealing Sanderson's identity. He could easily prove that the
so-called Herr Lieutenant August Gessler was actually an American
aviator, flying for France.

His suspicion of the young man, perhaps previously aroused, had
become conviction when Carl had brought to him the canteen with Frank
Sanderson's partly obliterated name on it. He had then proved his case
by finding the old scar on the American's shoulder.

Both Belinda and the man she could not help but love were helpless in
the hands of the Prussian surgeon. And could mercy be expected of one
who did not know what mercy meant?

Belinda expected at any moment to be sent for by the Herr Doktor for
the threatened interview in his lodge. Fate, however, intervened.

Since before noon there had been increased activity along the
battlefront. The British on one side, the French on the other of
the German wedge driven into this territory, were increasing their
pressure. They had brought up more heavy guns. The French 75s and the
British mortars were tearing great gaps in the new trenches of the
German line.

So, the ambulances rolled more frequently and the wounded began pouring
into this hospital station in such numbers as they had only once before
and under the French régime.

Doctor Herschall came directly from the château where the court had
been held to the operating ward. He threw off his helmet, cloak and
outer garments, got into a fresh smock, rolled the sleeves back upon
his hairy arms, bathed hands and arms in an antiseptic wash, and called
for his case of polished instruments.

He called, too, for Nurse Genau.

"Send her here at once," he commanded. "She is worth all these other
women put together. She knows what I want--and when I want it."

Belinda had already made herself useful. Her old ward was quite
filled, so no new cases were being entered there. But the hut the
women nurses had slept in was being hastily made ready for the freshly
wounded. Where the nurses would sleep thereafter was a question.

"But by the sound of those guns," said one phlegmatic German woman to
Belinda, "we shall have no time for sleep. Yes?"

Belinda shrank from obeying the surgeon's command. The horrors of the
operating ward seemed to her now more than she could bear. Yet there
was no escape. She was forced to join the black-browed Herr Doktor at
the chief table--the table to which most of the serious cases were
brought.

She worked far into the night--worked until she was so foot-weary she
thought she must drop beside the table.

The Prussian surgeon seemed tireless. Each fresh case renewed both his
vigor and his interest. Between operations he would stand, picking at
the long black hairs upon his arms, or exercising his already supple
fingers in that grim way which was his habit.

He was a marvel. In Belinda's mind, wearied and sick as she was, grew
the wonder again of this strange man. Seemingly without heart, without
conscience, a person apart from all humanity because he lacked humane
feeling--or the power of expressing it--this being performed the most
delicate operations with the sure skill of a master, in the same haste
that another surgeon might tie up finger wounds!

He turned with his usual harshness to Belinda at the end:

"You are excused, Nurse Genau. Report at nine-thirty again. There will
be some pretty cases by that time, I have no doubt."

The nurse could not reply had she wished. She almost staggered from the
ward. Where she would sleep she did not know. The whole hospital was
now crowded, and everybody working with might and main, while the guns
thundered closer--closer.

Belinda found Carl Baum awaiting her outside. His quick hand bore her
up or she would have stumbled and fallen.

"That beast!" the corporal muttered. "Has he made you work in that
shambles all this time? Paul said he would."

"Hush!" begged his cousin. "Then you and Paul are friends again?"

"_Ach!_" growled Carl, "we have arranged a truce. For one purpose only,
perhaps. But we will keep it. Never mind. You are under my care now,
Cousin Belinda."

"What do you mean, Carl?"

"I am to take you to a new lodging. You will be safe there and may
sleep soundly. Come."

It was to a cottage near by in which the wife of a brother corporal had
set up housekeeping amid the abandoned lares and penates of its former
French occupant. The woman had an honest face, and the Red Cross nurse
felt safe with her.

As for sleeping, that was another matter. Aside from the thundering
discharge of the heavy guns--seemingly at every round coming
nearer--which shook the atmosphere so that their eardrums seemed almost
to crack under the strain, the Red Cross nurse had a heart and mind too
full for slumber to be a welcome visitor.

Yet she could scarcely meditate consecutively in a single line
of thought as she lay on her mattress. So many, many topics--all
hateful--seemed scurrying through her mind. And between these rose
scenes of horror from her day's work.

She could not even cling to the thought of Sanderson's peril. For when
she considered him at all there seared her conscience the thought that
she had irrevocably given her love, her confidence, all that was best
and greatest in her, to a man who had no right to accept the sacrifice.

She did not blame him now. She was too fair to the facts, too honorable
by nature, to accuse Frank Sanderson of being the more guilty of the
two.

Indeed she knew that had she not flung herself and her all upon the
altar at that moment when he was brought wounded into her ward, Frank
would not have known her heart, or fully revealed his own.

No. She was the wicked one, and was not all this peril that threatened
them both, the punishment for their sin?

Ah, an uneasy mind is harder to bear than physical ills! Whether she
deserved it or not, Belinda Melnotte bore a burden on her heart that
seemingly nothing in the future could lift.

Save death. They could die together--she and Frank. Indeed, she felt
she should die if Sanderson were stood up and shot as poor Erard had
been. Without doubt she would have no choice in the matter. The Herr
Doktor's evidence against the aviator would convict her as well.

But to have the decision postponed--to wait in this wretched
uncertainty on the pleasure of the Prussian surgeon!

That is exactly what Belinda was forced to endure. She rose, coming
heavy-eyed and with dragging limbs to the operating ward at the hour
appointed. Doctor Herschall met her as though he saw none of the misery
in her face, and by no word or look displayed interest in anything but
the eternal operations.

The battle went on, and went on with unabated ferocity. The hospital
was crowded as it never had been crowded before.

Day after day dragged by. Belinda did not see her cousins. Few
able-bodied soldiers remained at the hospital. All were hurried to the
very front to stem the rising tide of British and French success. The
Allies' great push was going forward, causing the sacrifice of many
Germans, and that in spite of von Hindenburg's counter attacks.

Of Sanderson, interned in the château, she heard no word. She knew that
every wounded man in her old ward that could be moved, save Ernest
Spiegel, had been sent to the rear. The Herr Doktor evidently had use
yet for his spy.

Suddenly the burdened ambulances ceased rolling into the hospital
enclosure. They passed on to the rear. The cessation of new cases,
however, did not relieve the anxious expression upon the faces of most
of the surgeons.

Doctor Herschall stretched his bared arms above his head, working his
fingers spasmodically.

"Ho, ho! Soh! It's over? We may as well pack our kits, brothers. The
order to move will soon come."

He expressed boldly the thought they all had. This army corps was being
forced back. The territory gained for a few short weeks would soon be
lost to the German line. The hospital station would become untenable.

They had not come into this part of France, after all, to remain!

Belinda fled from the operating ward the moment the work there stopped.
The sentinel at the gate knew she now lodged outside the hospital
enclosure and allowed her to pass.

She observed, yet without the fact making any deep impression upon her
anxious mind, that the soldiers she passed, as well as the civilians,
wore a hurried and harried air.

She had seen the rout of the French; now was she about to behold the
falling back of a more sullen and more broken army?

From a soldier whose face she recognized she learned that Major von
Brandenburg retained his headquarters at the château. A part of her
cousins' regiment was still detailed there and she might find Paul or
Carl near by.

Through them she might be able to learn something about Frank. If he
was merely being detained at the instance of the Herr Doktor, with no
serious accusation made against him, she hoped to reach the aviator. It
seemed to Belinda as though she must see and speak to him. The several
days that had passed since they had parted had been a nightmare.

Nobody sought to interfere with Belinda on the road. Her Red Cross
uniform protected her even when she reached the château.

Of course, had she tried to enter the major's offices, the sentinel
would have stopped her. But that was not her object.

If Frank Sanderson was still here he must be somewhere in the wing of
the building in which poor Erard had spent a few brief hours in a cell.

The prisoners were down there. On the upper floors were offices and the
quarters of some of the baron's staff. One of these rooms was that, it
might be, in which Sanderson was detained until Doctor Herschall had
decided upon his case.

Necessity made Belinda bold. She selected a side entrance of this wing
well away from the main door of the château and approached quickly.
Soldiers and servants were hurrying about. Two great motor-trucks were
backed up here and into them the personal belongings of the staff were
being loaded.

Retreat was expected, if it had not already been ordered.

In the doorway stood a soldier, his back to the nurse as she drew near.

"Will you please tell me," she began softly, when he wheeled and she
beheld Paul Genau.

"Belinda!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, Paul! I am so glad to see you are safe. And Carl?"

"_Ach!_ You can't kill that thickhead," declared the sergeant-major.
"He and I were in a raid last night; just back from the front now. He's
gone to have his head sewed up. He led his squad in a charge and tried
to kill a Frenchman by butting him to death like a goat. And, _mein
Gott_! I believe Baum succeeded. He'll get the Iron Cross for it, I
have no doubt, _der Glückshund_!

"But you, Cousin? How have you done? I fancy the Herr Major smells
a change in the wind," and he gestured toward the lorries and the
hurrying servants.

"You will move back?"

"Or forward," declared Paul tartly. "A strategic retreat, dear Cousin,
is often the forerunner of a safe advance."

"But whichever happens," the nurse said earnestly, "I wish to know what
has become of--of the flying-man?"

"Ah! Is it so?"

"I have come to see him, Paul. You must help me!" she whispered. "Is he
still here?"

"The Herr Lieutenant August Gessler is here and very comfortably
entertained," Paul said. "Merely, for some reason best known to the
Herr Doktor, he is requested not to leave his room--in the rear on this
floor."

"Oh, Paul! I must see him," she repeated.

"Why?" asked the young man, his eyes averted from her face. "Why are
you so deeply interested in this flying-man?" he added.

"If you are my friend, Cousin Paul, you will not ask," she told him
softly.

He looked at her again and there was something in his countenance she
did not understand.

"Belinda," he said, "you evidently do not know what has happened."

"What is it? Not to Fra--to the flying-man?"

"_Ach!_ all you think of is this flying-man," muttered Paul. "No. It is
something of considerable more moment. You are an American, you say.
We can be no longer friends, for our countries--yours and mine, sweet
Cousin--are at war!"

"Oh, Paul!"

"So I have just learned. It is not our Kaiser who makes this war; it is
your President. War was declared by the United States yesterday. So, do
you expect me still to be your friend?"

She could not answer him. Something in her throat choked back any word
she might have uttered. Her cousins! Not only Paul, but Carl!--all her
mothers relatives in Germany--were now actually arrayed against her if
she was an American! She held out her arms to her cousin.

The young man took her hand and with no further word led her down a
corridor, across a great and almost bare room, and there knocked upon a
door.

"Come in," said a voice in German that made Belinda's heart leap. She
looked again at Paul, her gratitude in her eyes.

"This much I may do for you, Cousin Belinda," he whispered. He raised
her hand to his lips. But she impulsively put both arms about his neck
for a moment and her warm lips left their impress on his brow.

"Come in!" said the voice again.

Belinda pushed inward the door. Frank Sanderson sat with a book at the
table in the middle of the great chamber, the barred windows of which
looked out upon the deserted rear premises of the château.

"Belinda! My dear girl!"

An unseen hand drew the door close again. Paul shut out of his tortured
vision the sight of his cousin running hysterically into another man's
arms.

"At last!" murmured Frank, after a moment. "I feared----Do you
know what day this is? The date Renaud set for our rescue. But the
rendezvous is in that wood where I fell with the German--do you
understand? It was to be to-night or early to-morrow morning. How shall
we get there?

"I am practically a prisoner," continued the aviator. "And you,
Belinda?"

She told him swiftly, her head on his bosom the while, his good arm
encircling her. They stood thus when a sharp and sudden explosion of
voices arose in the anteroom. The door was flung open. Doctor Franz
Herschall stood confronting them.




                              CHAPTER XXX

                       "THOSE EYES--THAT HAND!"


"Soh! I find you thus?"

The words, the sneering lash of the Herr Doktor's tone, held the
American aviator and nurse silent.

"Treachery is afoot. These cousins of yours, Fräulein Belinda--the
sergeant-major and the corporal--they are in this conspiracy, too? I
have had my eye on them. The evidence I may put before Herr Major von
Brandenburg will be of a most convincing character."

He had entered and closed the door behind him. He stood with his cloak
thrown back and now counted off upon his fingers the points of his
case quite as though he were instructing a hospital class of fledgling
surgeons.

"First: An American aviator, flying for France--'Frank Sanderson,
_Pilote Aviateur_'--is found within our lines, dressed in the uniform
of a German officer, claiming the name and honors of the most
unfortunate Herr Lieutenant August Gessler. What is this American? A
spy! His punishment? Death!

"Second," pursued the sonorous if harsh voice of the Herr Doktor:
"Erard, a Frenchman, a party to this vile conspiracy, knowing the
American aviator; having already paid the just penalty for the murder
of the orderly Vontromp."

His words were punctuated by several dull but near-by explosions in
succession. Belinda shuddered and again cowered close to Sanderson's
side. The latter's arm supported her.

"Do not be so disturbed, Fräulein Belinda," Herschall said. "They are
only bombs being dropped by the dastardly French. An air attack is
being made in this direction. If they blow us all up in this château so
much the better. Yes?"

As Herschall spoke, he glanced from the high barred window as though to
sight the squadrons of the air.

It was what Renaud had promised. He thought he could bring it about. An
air attack in force in the vicinity to frighten the Germans and give
the aviator and the nurse a chance to make for the wood.

"Third and fourth," went on the doctor: "Two young fools whom you claim
as cousins, Fräulein. Whether your relationship to them is such or
not, you have evidently quite turned their heads. I caught one of them
just now standing guard at the door of this room. He dared even try to
forbid my entrance.

"They, too, are in this conspiracy. They lend their assistance to
enemies of the Empire. With this American, and the Frenchman already
passed on, I may include these young cousins in the category of my
accusation to the Herr Major.

"What say you, Fräulein Belinda. Shall I do this?"

He waited for her answer; but the girl could not speak. Sanderson's lip
curled with disdain as he gazed upon the Prussian.

"Why do you wreak your petty malice on a woman, mein Herr?" he asked.
"I have but one good arm, and that my left one. But it can hold a sword
or a pistol, whichever you may choose. Let us have it out like men."

"Oh, Frank!" gasped Belinda clinging more tightly to him.

"Fear not, Fräulein Belinda," retorted the surgeon, raising his right
hand and working the clever fingers as though they were clutching at
his enemy's throat. "These eyes of mine are not to guide a sword; that
hand wields more delicate instruments than a pistol. I enter into no
brawl with you, Herr Sanderson. Why should I fight? There is nothing to
fight for. I hold the fate of all of you in my hand," and he clenched
it in the empty air again.

Again a bomb exploded. This time it must have been within the premises
of the château.

"I will not fight Herr Sanderson," the surgeon said directly to
Belinda. "But you may save him, and with him your cousins, if you
choose."

"How?" the girl gasped.

"Pay no heed to the dog," said Sanderson quickly.

"And save yourself," pursued the Prussian.

Sanderson was silenced. Again the hysterical girl cried:

"How? Tell me how?"

"By leaving that man there," said the surgeon pointing. "By coming to
me. By showing me some favors, Fräulein Belinda.

"You well know my admiration for you, and of its duration you are
informed. A man like me loves but once; and if he loves, the object
of his affection cannot be denied him. I have been patient. I have
waited. You sought to escape me by leaving New York. But you see, it
was impossible. Fate--whatever you care to call it--brought us together
here.

"Ah, Fräulein Belinda! I am the man for you--your fit mate. No
weakling, who cannot help himself save by offering to fight. Pah! A
bully and a baby, both. The strong man takes what is his own--_and I
take you_."

"Not by threatening my life, nor those of her cousins--you dog!"
Sanderson broke in. "Pay no attention to him, Belinda. I would not
accept my life on such terms--nor would Paul and Carl, I feel sure,
accept theirs."

Doctor Herschall laughed. Again a falling bomb exploded, the shock of
it deafening them for a moment.

"The offer is not made to you, Herr Sanderson. Therefore you may not
refuse it," said the surgeon when he could be heard.

"Fräulein Belinda must choose. And forget not I have a fifth division
to my theme. A word from me and you, my fair Fräulein, will join that
man and your cousins before the military court. And we Prussians, _Gott
sei dank!_ give spies a short shrift."

"Now you over-reach yourself, Herr Doktor," Sanderson interposed with
an appearance of confidence he was far from feeling. "You can only
accuse Miss Melnotte of being a Red Cross nurse who bravely remained to
care for wounded Germans at that hospital station when the French fled."

"Under an assumed name," snarled Herschall.

"Using the German part of her name, which she was advised to do by a
German soldier. In addition, you who knew her at once, waited till now
to betray her to the military authorities.

"So, Herr Doktor," concluded Sanderson calmly, "whatever you may make
out against me or against her cousins, your case against Miss Melnotte
falls to the ground."

"Soh!" exploded the surgeon, glaring at them. "You think to flout me,
do you? What of _this_?"

He suddenly held forth for them to see the A. D. F. and bar of the
French army--the insignia it had been Belinda's right to wear.

"Found in her private locker in Ward Three," snarled the doctor. "Worn
continually as I can prove by at least one witness before we advanced
and seized the hospital station.

"You see, Herr Sanderson, Miss Belinda is an officer of the French
Army--rightfully a lieutenant. She is a spy, as you are a spy. And if I
recite these facts to the Herr Major, her fate will be your fate."

He had stunned them. All Sanderson's sophistry in striving to cheer the
nurse was borne down. She turned swiftly and placed her arms about his
neck and never while Frank Sanderson lived could he forget the look
glowing in her eyes.

"I do not care, Frank," she said softly. "I would rather die with you
than live alone!"

There was the sharp, shrill, growing whistle of a shell. The Herr
Doktor cried out hoarsely, wheeling toward the window.

At the impact of the aerial projectile just above the stone-encased
window, the château seemed to rock. Bursting inward broken stone and
twisted iron clattered to the floor of the chamber. A great gap was
torn in the outer wall.

Belinda and Sanderson were driven back into the far corner. The Herr
Doktor, facing the bursting shell, received a part of its scattering
contents in face and body.

He shrieked--an awful, soul-harrowing cry. Staggering backward, his
face was revealed again to the cowering aviator and the nurse.

Blood streamed from his eyesockets. His right arm, to which that
wonderfully clever hand with its dexterous fingers had been attached,
was merely a bleeding stump--severed by the shell below the elbow.

The horrified nurse could not utter a sound, but Sanderson leaped to
aid the falling surgeon. Herschall sank upon the American's left arm
and so, muttering and moaning, slipped to the littered floor of the
chamber.

"Gone! Gone!" Herschall whispered, and sank into unconsciousness.
Sanderson rose slowly from his knees and looked at Belinda.

Retreating cries, hoarsely given commands, the tramp of men, the
rolling of wheels, the snorting of the motors sounded clamorously
outside the château. As Sanderson caught at the hand of the Red Cross
nurse a bandaged head and a full, red face was thrust in at the
aperture in the wall where the plaster was sifting down.

"Cousin Belinda! Herr Lieutenant! Paul told me you would be here.
Come quickly. The French are dropping bombs as thick as _Wurst im
Schornstein_. No time to lose. Come!"

"Carl! Cousin Carl!" cried the nurse, an expression of renewed hope in
her voice.

She and the aviator stepped over the mercifully unconscious man on the
floor. Frank, explaining in a few words Renaud's plans, helped the girl
over the broken masonry. There was nobody to halt them. The Germans,
panic-stricken, were fleeing from the front of the château.

Led by Carl, a comical enough looking figure with his bandaged head,
they escaped from the vicinity, reaching without mishap the road that
passed near the wood where Sanderson and the German airman had fallen.

The German troops chanced not to be following this road. But there were
many of them, stubbornly fighting the French between the Americans and
safety. Baum halted.

"I must return to my company, or be marked for punishment. Paul will
be able to save me from that if I report at once. He is as much your
friend as I am, Cousin Belinda, though our people are at war."

The boy was frankly weeping.

"If I take you with me, dear Cousin, I take you and your--your
sweetheart into deeper trouble. For you are both under suspicion."

"But you and Paul?" Sanderson asked quickly.

"Fear not for us, mein Herr," the corporal said. "We shall get out of
the scrape all right. Trust _der schlaue Fuchs_, Paul, for that. And
me--am I not sure to get the Iron Cross for last night's work? Or, so
they tell me," he added proudly. He thrust a pistol into the aviator's
hand. "Take this," he said. "It may be useful."

The aviator wrung his hand. Belinda kissed him warmly.

"I do not wish to know where you go or your plans," Baum added
hurriedly. "We retreat. It is a strategy of the great von Hindenburg
they say. However, our ways separate here. _Auf Wiedersehn!_"

The corporal wheeled abruptly and marched away. He did not again look
back at them--at his cousin and the man she loved standing at the
cross-roads, hand in hand.




                             CHAPTER XXXI

                              THE ESCAPE


There was an explosion. Sanderson urged Belinda on up the dusty road.

"Do not weep for them," he urged, knowing her tender heart was torn by
this parting from the cousins. "Believe all will come right in the end.
And they are brave boys."

"How do we know we shall ever see them or hear of them again?" she
sobbed. "Oh, Frank! this war--this war! And we are in it, too--we
Americans! The whole world seems mad!"

"We are in it the sooner to end it, let us hope," he muttered. Then:
"The wood yonder is the safest place for us. Let us hurry, dear heart.
Renaud will have arranged with the French airmen to drop no bombs
there."

They pressed forward, saying little for some time, for their peril was
great and fear drove them on. Along the battlefront the great guns
volleyed and thundered. It was growing dusk, but the glare from the
lines, the flare of bombs and exploding shells, flouted the falling
night.

Suddenly, in their rear, a great light burst skyward. The explosion
crashed in the ears of the fugitives and Belinda would have fallen had
her companion not held her up.

As they looked back the château from which they had so recently
escaped, seemed to rise heavenward. The vibration of the disintegrating
mass rocked the earth itself.

"The Germans had mined it. They are destroying everything as they
retreat," Sanderson said. "Ah, but this Northern France will be a
barren waste for years to come!"

Belinda clung to him in horror and alarm. "That unfortunate man--the
Herr Doktor?" she questioned. "Do you suppose they found him--that he
was removed? Even Carl did not seem to see him lying there."

"There were still soldiers searching the château as we escaped with
your cousin's aid," Frank declared. "A man of Doctor Herschall's
attainments and importance could not be overlooked. But, poor chap,
I wonder if he would not rather be blown up with that castle than be
brought back to life, blind and lacking that clever hand of his."

"One of his own 'surgical triumphs,'" shuddered the nurse. "Ah, Frank!
it is more than fate. There is the hand of God in it. Doctor Herschall
never used his wonderful eyes and hands to the glory of the Giver, but
for his own sole aggrandizement. But I would not have had him die that
way."

"Nor anybody else," added the aviator solemnly. "It touches us nearly,
dear girl. See! We might have gone skyward with that wreck," he went on
more lightly.

"Whereas," said Belinda, with a tremulous smile, "you intend taking me
skyward in an aeroplane. I--I----Suppose we should fall, Frank?"

He put his arm about her tenderly to help her over a rough place in the
road.

"At least we shall fall together," he responded. "Do not fear."

"Yes, let us go on," Belinda breathed. "We have each other--and nothing
else matters."

"You are right. I have you and you have me. Nobody can part us----"

"Frank! Frank!" she burst forth suddenly. "That is not true! Oh! I had
forgotten. I--I wish we had died back there in the château!"

"Belinda!" he cried, in horror.

"I am not yours! You cannot be mine! Between us is that other
woman--your children!" gasped the overwrought girl, and fell to weeping
wildly.

Amazed, he halted her, holding her firmly by both shoulders.

"Hush, dear girl!" he begged. "Belinda! Have you gone mad? What are you
saying?"

"Stella! Your 'kiddies'! I heard you and your brother speak of them."

"Jerry's widow!" uttered Frank as if stunned.

"Jerry's'?"

"Jerry Cameron. My best chum. He married a silly little fool of a woman
in his sophomore year. His father turned him adrift for it and Jerry
went to work. Sold autos. Plucky fellow after all. And the babies came
in plenty. Why is it, can you tell me, that women who shouldn't have
children always have a raft of 'em?"

"Go on!" commanded Belinda, in no mind for abstruse problems.

"The poor chap died. He left the little family something. I have
conserved it so it brings Stella in an income; and I'm the kiddies'
guardian. There'll be something for them from the grandfather some day.
Cute little beggars they are.

"Of course, I left the whole business in the hands of a capable lawyer
when I came away. But I had to run from Stella. Jove! she'd talk one
to death. And, to tell the truth, because Jerry left the kiddies in my
care she's inclined to think I ought to absorb her into the contract,
too. She even started a report that I was going to marry her, and some
of my old college chums thought we were married. But not much! Stella's
got no chance with me."

"Oh, Frank!" the Red Cross nurse breathed, with drooping head. "Oh! Oh!
Oh!"

His arm was around her again.

"What is it, sweet girl?" he asked anxiously. "Tell me, darling."

"I can't! I won't! I've been so wicked," gasped Belinda, sobbing again.
"I've thought such terrible things of you, Frank! Terrible things!"

"You couldn't!" he declared cheerfully. "At any rate, we understand
each other now."

"Yes. But--Frank----"

"What is it, Belinda?" drawing her still closer.

"Oh--nothing! Nothing! Only I--I----Oh, I'm so happy!" she replied with
a sigh of ecstasy.

The battle still raged as the wearied pair pursued their way to the
wood. Only once did they pass anybody to hold speech with, for this
road ran parallel with the battleline, rather than to it or away from
it.

A group of peasants huddled in a corner of a stone wall, over against
what might have been their ruined cottage--old men, women and children.
The latter cowered in their mothers' skirts and only jerked their tiny
limbs and moaned when the great shells burst. They would not speak.

"The continual explosions affect the children's nerves so that the
whole countryside suffers from an epidemic of St. Vitus' dance," the
nurse said. "Just think of the effect of this awful war upon unborn
generations!"

One of the silent men under the shelter of the wall rose when the
American passed and shuffled after them. Belinda glanced back at him as
they toiled on.

"What do you suppose he wants, Frank?" she whispered.

"We will see when we get to the wood," the aviator said.

In the shadow of the wood the peasant overtook them. "All from the air,
Monsieur," he said, and removed the ragged hat he wore, and which had
half concealed his features.

"Renaud!" ejaculated the aviator. "I was not sure of you until you
spoke."

"And I, Monsieur--I feared you had gone up in smoke with yonder château
till I descried you and Mademoiselle plodding along the road."

The safety of the Americans was assured with the appearance of Monsieur
Renaud. Yet Belinda could scarcely look at the man, she could _not_
touch his hand. She thought of Erard!

The French spy listened to the account of Erard's brave end with
reverence.

"Ah!" he said, "we French--even the dregs of us--are patriots. A fine
finish for Monsieur Rabbit-mouth. And a greater rascal in the old days
before the war never infested the skirts of Montmartre."

"Whatever he was," the aviator said warmly, "we know he passed out a
hero. I honor him."

"And I--and I!" murmured the nurse. "Oh, how much! Poor little Erard!
There was much to forgive in his life; but the germ of greatness lay
always hidden in his dwarfed nature."

"Mademoiselle is a philosopher," Renaud returned, with a kindly glow
upon his plain face.

He led them into the center of the wood where there was an open
lawn--not the clearing into which Sanderson had tumbled in his duel
with the German flying-man, August Gessler. Here the spy had hidden a
flash-signal which he recovered, and likewise some food and a bottle of
wine.

He advised, too, after they had refreshed themselves, that Belinda try
to sleep, and offered the peasant's smock which he had removed to cover
her. But the Red Cross nurse was too excited and anxious to close her
eyes. She sat leaning against a tree, listening to the talk of the
aviator and Renaud as the long hours of the night passed.

At dawn came the returning of a squadron of bomb-dropping machines
accompanied by several Nieuports. One of the latter descended swiftly
at Renaud's signal. As it volplaned and then was redressed with nicety,
Belinda seized Sanderson's arm in newborn excitement.

"Look! The flag!" she cried.

On the wings of the airplane, where before the tri-color of France
had been painted, the pilot of the Nieuport--himself in the khaki and
buttons of the United States Army--had repainted the wings of his
airplane with the Stars and Stripes. The first Yankee airman to carry
his country's flag over the German lines!

"The flag!" repeated Frank, his face aglow. Then he turned suddenly to
the girl and smilingly asked her:

"Have you learned yet that you are an American, Belinda--a real
American?"

The girl opened the bosom of her nurse's blouse with swift fingers.
From within she drew a folded silk American flag.

"Frank!" She kissed the bit of silk reverently. "Frank, I think I have
known that ever since Carl tore this from the wall of my ward."




                             CHAPTER XXXII

                           FROM WAR TO PEACE


A heavy flying Voisin sank to the earth following the _appareil de
chasse_. The bomb-thrower hopped out and ran to Sanderson to shake
hands.

"You are a sight for sore eyes, Sandy!" he declared. "When Renaud
brought back the news of your accident and that you were fooling the
_Boches_, we voted you the palm. But _now_----"

The volatile fellow turned to make Belinda a sweeping bow.

"And your story is not unknown along this sector, Mademoiselle
Melnotte. I pray you may have a safe voyage 'over the top,' as the boys
say when they mount the trenches for a bayonet charge."

"Ah, Renaud! The top of the morning to you! Now, let's aboard. We'll
have a gang of _Boches_ down upon us if we don't."

He ran to take the extra seat upon the Nieuport, waving his hand
cheerfully. His spirit of reckless courage seemed to inspire them all.
Sanderson helped Belinda to mount into the Voisin, which was able to
carry their weight besides that of the pilot and the machine gun.

Renaud remained behind as the aeroplanes ascended, one after the other.
He still had work to do within the enemy's lines. In the gray dawn he
stood, a dim figure in the clearing as the airplanes spiraled upward.

Yet somehow he seemed a dominating figure, too. It is by the work of
such men as well as the bravery of the aviator-observers that the
Allies are to conquer in this war.

The squadron of French airplanes had now drifted over the battleline
while up from the German camps had sprung _tauben_ and Fokkers in swift
pursuit.

The Voisin and its accompanying Nieuport rose higher in an attempt
to escape the observation of these enemy craft. Both Sanderson and
Belinda, unprepared for the aerial journey, soon began to suffer from
the cold.

Renaud had, in the end, forced his farmer's smock upon the girl. She
cowered under this, her teeth chattering, her extremities fast becoming
numb. The pilot saw their suffering and made himself heard above the
noise of the motor.

"Which shall it be, Monsieur and Mademoiselle? Frost or bullets?"

"It is a slim choice," groaned Sanderson. "But we _may_ escape shrapnel
and mitrailleuse pellets. The cold takes her breath, Monsieur. I beg of
you, descend!"

The great machine volplaned. It moved so slowly compared with the
Nieuport, that the latter craft winged circles about the Voisin, ready
to stave off attack.

They had, however, been discovered. Had not a fleet of battleplanes
risen to meet the Germans from behind the French lines, the two tardy
flying machines must have been swooped upon by a whole army of _Boches_.

As it was, three of the enemy machines attacked the Voisin and
accompanying Nieuport.

Sanderson left Belinda strapped to her seat and did good service with
the machine gun. He almost immediately got one of the three enemy
airplanes and the girl saw the aviator and his machine--the latter on
fire--go spinning down the airways to a dreadful fall.

She was in the midst of battle and sudden, awful death. This was far
worse than anything she had dreamed of in all her field hospital
experience.

The thundering of the trench cannon, the bursting of shells, the
results of the earth conflict, were dwarfed by what she now saw.

Men fighting, almost hand to hand, in the unstable air! It was the
conflict of a nightmare--not reality! The Red Cross nurse, used as she
had become to the horrors of warfare, had never seen anything like this.

The roaring of the motor drowned most other sounds. Yet there was
an insistent whining in her ears that could not be the wind singing
through the wires of the airplane.

A cable snapped, coiling in an ever-agitated, vibrating spiral. That
was no mere incident of flying! She saw the pilot's cap suddenly torn
open. A gory smear appeared along the side of his head above his
exposed ear!

The bullets were flying like gnats about them.

She beheld Sanderson, working madly the crank of the machine gun,
suddenly sway backward and clap his uninjured hand to his wounded
shoulder.

Belinda shrieked: "You are hit! Frank, they have shot you!" and she
flung herself along the seat to his side.

His lips moved:

"They've got me again, girl. But don't be alarmed. I could put that
fellow out of business with a few more shots."

She sensed his meaning, if she did not hear all he said. The large
enemy airplane was hovering overhead. Sanderson had aimed the gun at
the tail of the German craft.

Belinda seized the crank. Somehow she managed to throw in the clutch
and immediately began turning the crank steadily. She was cool despite
the roar and rattle of the spiteful gun.

"There! There!" shouted Sanderson. "Brave girl! _We've got him!_"

The enemy airplane "went off on the wing." As it passed the Voisin the
German pilot turned his pistol upon the three in the French machine.

Fearfully Frank turned to the girl as her head sank upon his shoulder.
Through the sleeve of the smock she wore he saw the spreading crimson
stain.

"Belinda! You are wounded!"

She sighed. Her eyes opened drowsily. He saw her lips move and read the
words they formed:

"I--love--you. Whatever comes, we have--each--other, dear."

He held her tightly, forgetting the sharp pain of his own wound. The
crippled Voisin drifted over the battleline and the pilot finally made
a safe landing within French territory.

       *       *       *       *       *

"By Hannah!" exploded Captain Raphael Dexter. "We'll do it
to-morrow--at the American embassy--the two couples of us! I'll stand
up with you, Frank, and you can stand up with me."

This was some days after the shipmaster had found the wounded couple
and had moved heaven and earth to bring them back to Paris on the
nearest thing to a special train that money and influence could buy in
the French Republic.

Captain Raphael Dexter had just come back to the hotel to Sanderson
from one of his frequent calls at the furnished apartment on the Rue
di Rivoli, where Miss Roberta Melnotte reigned supreme. For Belinda
was resting and recuperating and the small maid had little to do but
watch "Mam'selle" do the work.

"She's a mighty tidy craft," Captain Dexter pursued, in the honesty of
his heart. "And no Quaker, by Hannah! She just fizzes when she gets on
the subject of these Germans. I declare I do like a woman with spunk in
her.

"It's hard lines when a man has to go outside his own family and home
for excitement. I've always, Frank, been hampered by milk-and-watery
womenfolk. My wife and my darters--Prudence, Patience and
Penelope--never had enough life in 'em to keep a man awake.

"Now," went on the shipmaster, "if a man had such a wife as this here
Mam'selle Roberta would make, by Hannah! he wouldn't have to hunt
distraction all over the earth--not by a jugful!"

"If Mademoiselle Roberta and Belinda agree," said the aviator, "I don't
see why we can't do as you say, Skipper."

The old fellow grinned at him like a boy.

"That girl Belinda," he said, "would marry you in her cap and apron if
you said the word. By Hannah! boy, you don't realize yet what sort of a
woman you've got in her."

"Oh, _don't_ I?" the young man returned. "Don't you fool yourself,
Captain."

Captain Dexter's plan was carried out. The embassy was American soil.
They needed no special marriage license.

Even Aunt Roberta did not demand conformance with French custom. To
tell the truth, since Belinda and Frank had decided, because of their
wounds, to spend the furloughs granted them in New York, Aunt Roberta
had been only too anxious to depart from that "so-dear Paris." She did
not talk of it much, but after ten years in America, Paris had been a
distinct disappointment to the taut little Frenchwoman.

"Besides," she confessed to her niece, "I am anxious to see that dear
Old Saybrook--a spot _très charmant_, I am sure. _Ma foi, oui!_ _Le
capitaine_ wrote long ago to his three daughters, Mesdames Prudence,
Patience and Penelope, to tell them he would marry me. Though for my
part I do not see how he could know _that_, when at the time he had not
yet asked me," she added innocently. "But _le Capitaine_ Dexter is so
masterful.

"And so the Mesdames Prudence, Patience and Penelope have all written
to me asking me to visit them. _Ma foi!_ In marrying _le capitaine_ I
marry a family, do I not?"

To Belinda Frank said:

"I presume my brother Jim will rake me over the coals for enticing you
into matrimony. To be an airman's wife----"

"But you fly for our country, Frank--for America! She needs you, as she
needs me. We Americans have entered this war with noble intent. As our
forefathers fought for freedom and democracy for us in seventy-six, so
we must now fight for the same good gifts for all the world."

"I believe you _are_ an American, Belinda--the best of us all!" Frank
rejoined, gazing upon her earnest face tenderly.


                                THE END





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