yellow tassels hanging gaily from the front of their caps, while ever and anon there lumbered past, in the dim light, great grey-painted siege-guns, long trains of ammunition-wagons, Red Cross motor-ambulances, and endless lines of transports of all sorts.
Squads of infantry marched gaily to martial airs, or the men sang the latest popular songs of the café-chantant, while there also passed several machine-guns drawn by their dog-teams.
Presently Aimée joined three tearful, homeless women, one of whom trundled an old rickety perambulator filled with her household goods. They had come from Rossignol, forty miles distant, which had been sacked and burned by a Uhlan patrol, and they described to her the terrible scene. Therefore, in company, the trio pushed forward until at length they entered a long dark street of shattered houses, which Aimée recognised, to her amazement, as that of Anseremme. Yes! There was the little Hôtel Beau Séjour where she and Edmond had spent so many sunny hours in secret together, but alas! its walls were now gaunt and roofless. It had been gutted by fire, while the pleasant little terrasse beside the river was heaped with the débris of fallen walls.
She sighed as she passed the place which held for her so many fond memories, and again pressed forward with blistered feet, on past that great high split rock, through which the road runs beside the river, known as the Roche Bayard, until at length she found herself in the long dark street of half-ruined houses that led straight into the little Place at Dinant.
Arrived there, she halted aghast. The long bridge had fallen, a wreck, into the river, and there were signs everywhere of the ruthless bombardment a week before, when happily the Germans had been driven out and had retired. But at that hour, about half-past ten o’clock, the place was as silent as the grave. Everywhere was ruin and desolation, while in the air was still the pungent odour of burnt wood, the woodwork of houses set on fire by the German shells.
There being neither gas nor electricity, an oil lamp had been hung upon a nail on a wall, and it was near this that the girl was standing. She was well known in Dinant as daughter of the Baron who held the purse-strings of Belgium, and, with her mother, frequently came to the little town in their car.
She stood hesitating as to whom she should ask a favour and allow her to telephone to Brussels, when she was suddenly startled by a familiar voice behind her, and holding her breath, she faced the man who had addressed her.
It was a Belgian soldier.
It was Edmond Valentin!
Chapter Thirteen
Before the Storm
“Aimée?” he gasped. “You!”
“Dieu! Edmond. You! — fancy you here, just at the moment when — ”
“When — what?” he echoed. “Tell me, why are you here — in this place? Why are you not in Brussels? It is not safe for you here, my darling!”
And he placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder and, in the dim light of the lantern, looked straight into her dear face.
She gazed at him. He was in his heavy military overcoat, with a rifle slung upon his shoulder, for he had come down into the town from the fortress above, where his machine-gun was posted, in order to take a message from his captain to the captain of infantry holding the head of the wrecked bridge close by.
A few brief, hasty words sufficed to explain the terrible scene at Sévérac; how she and her mother had fled, and the reason of her long tramp to Dinant. There, in that dark, silent little square before the ruined church, with the high ruined old fortress on the cliff above, he drew her weary head down upon his breast, imprinting upon her white brow a long, passionate kiss, and murmuring:
“Ah! my darling, I have prayed to God that I might be spared to see you once again — if only just once — for the last time!”
“No, no,” she cried, lifting her lips to his, and kissing him long and fervently. “No. We shall win, Edmond, and you will live. Right and justice are, surely, upon our side, and we shall vanquish this German enemy of civilisation. Brute force can never win in the face of Providence and God’s good-will.”
“True, darling. But you must save yourself,” he urged. And, hastily, he told her of the attack upon Liège, the retreat to the Meuse, the bombardment of Dinant, and the valiant manner in which the defenders had fought and retaken the citadel.
In those five minutes in which the devoted pair stood together in the dim, flickering light, he held her in his strong embrace. Their affection was a fierce and passionate devotion, the fire of a love unquenchable. He repeated in her ear his fervent love for her, and then he added in a hard voice:
“Aimée, if in this terrible fight for life I fall, and we do not meet again, I want you to promise me one thing. Will you, darling?”
“Of course, Edmond. What is it?”
“That you will never consent to marry that man, Arnaud Rigaux — our enemy?”
“I will never marry him, Edmond. I would rather die first?”
“You promise me that?” he asked eagerly.
“I promise you. Before I consent I would rather take my own life. I swear to you that I will never be the wife of Arnaud Rigaux.”
“Bien! Remember always that he is our mutual enemy — yours and mine,” he said in a hard, determined tone. Then he again kissed her, reassured by her fervent promise.
As they stood beneath the lamplight, a sentry passed them, his bayonet gleaming beneath the fitful light. But they were both in ignorance that, away in the shadow of a doorway, a man who had just entered the square had withdrawn to watch the affectionate pair — out of curiosity perhaps.
Lovers are always interesting to the curious, yet this man who had hitherto walked very briskly, had suddenly stopped and withdrawn to the shadow, so suddenly indeed, that the heavy-footed sentry had not detected his light steps.
Had Edmond Valentin known that he was being spied upon, then woe-betide the watcher! The Belgians were again in occupation of the town, and any suspicious character was at once arrested as a German spy, of whom there were so many hundreds swarming all over the country.
As it was, the pair stood in utter ignorance of the sharp watchful eyes upon them, and in the silence of the night, continued in low undertones their assurances of affection.
Away across the river — beyond the ruins of the old Château of Crève-Coeur — a fierce red light rose until it glared in the night sky, the toll of war paid by the poor defenceless peasantry, to those barbaric hordes of “kultur” who were sweeping across Belgium with rapine, fire, and sword. At no crime or outrage, torture or desecration, were those hirelings of the Master Criminal of Earth now hesitating. The modern Judas, who had stretched out the hand of friendship to Great Britain, to Russia, to France and to Belgium, falsely proclaiming himself the Apostle of Peace, and endeavouring to blind the world to his true intentions, had now revealed himself as the world’s bitterest, most dastardly, and most low-down enemy, who was making what he was pleased to term “frightful examples” in an endeavour to terrify and to stagger humanity.
“I
