ards or so
they stopped in their tracks, as by a common impulsion, and were
momentarily lost to time in a passionate embrace.

Neither Susan nor I spoke of these lovers, who turned aside to pass
under the black arches of the Institute, into the Rue de Seine....

As we neared the Pont du Carrousel the _barrage_ began, at first distant
and muffled--the outer guns; then suddenly and grimly nearer. An
incessant twinkle of tiny star-white points--the bursts of
high-explosive shells--drifted toward us from the north. So light was
the mist, it did not obscure them; it barely dimmed the moon.

"Hold on!" I said, checking Susan; "this is something new! They're
firing to-night straight across Paris." The glitter of star-points
seemed in a moment to fill all the northern sky; the noise of the
_barrage_ trebled, trebled again.

"Why, it's drum fire!" cried Susan. "Oh, how beautiful!"

"Yes; but we'll get on faster, all the same! I'll help you! Come!"

I put my arm firmly about her waist and almost lifted her along with me.
By the time we had reached the Pont Royal, the high-explosive bursts
were directly over us; the air rocked with them. I detected, too, at
intervals, another more ominous sound--that deep, pulsing growl which no
one having once heard it could ever mistake.

"Gothas," I growled back at them, "flying low. They've ducked under the
guns!"

And instantly I swung Susan across the open _quai_ to the left and
plunged with her up an inky defile, the Rue du Bac.

"Where are you taking me?" she demanded, half breathless, dragging
against my arm.

"To the first available _abri_," I cried at her, under the sky's
reckless tumult. "Don't stop to argue about it!"

But she halted me right by the corner of the Rue de Lille. "If it's
going to be a bad raid, Ambo, I must get to Jimmy's baby--I _must_!"

"Impossible! It's at least two miles--and this isn't going to be a
picnic, Susan! You're coming with _me_!" I tightened my arm about her;
every instant now I expected the shattering climax of the bombs.

Then, just as we crossed the Rue de Lille, something halted me in my
turn. About a hundred yards at my right, down toward the Gare D'Orsay,
and from the very middle of the black street-chasm, a keen, bladelike
ray of light flashed once and again--sharp, vertical
rapier-thrusts--straight up through the thin mist-veil into the
treacherous sky. Followed, doubtless from a darkened upper window, a
woman's frantic shriek: "_