art these bells above us. Are you afraid?"

"No."

"You are to play 'La Brabanconne.' That is the signal to our trenches."

"I have often played it," she said coolly.

"Not in the teeth of a barbarian army. Not in the faces of a murderous
soldiery."

The girl sat quite still for a few moments; then looking up at him, and
very pale in the starlight:

"Do you think they will tear me to pieces, monsieur?"

He said:

"I mean to hold those stairs with my sack of bombs until our people enter
the trenches. If they can do it in an hour we will be all right."

"Yes."

"It is only a half-hour affair from our salient. I allow our people an
hour."

"Yes."

"But if, even now, you had rather go back----"

"_No!_"

"There is no disgrace in going back."

"You said once, 'anybody can weep for friend and country. Few avenge
either.' I am--happy--to be among the few."

He nodded. After a moment he said:

"I'll bet you something. My country is all right, but it's sick. It's
got a nauseous dose of verbiage to spew up--something it's
swallowed--something about being too proud to fight.... My brother and I
couldn't stand it, so we came to France.... He was in the photo air
service. He was in mufti--and about two miles up, I believe. Six Huns went
for him.... And winged him. He had to land behind their lines.... In
mufti.... Well--I've never found courage to hear the details. I can't
stand them--yet."

"Your brother--is dead, monsieur?" she asked timidly.

"Oh, yes. With--circumstances. Well, then--after that, from an ordinary,
commonplace man I became a machine for the extermination of vermin. That's
all I am--an animated magazine of Persian powder--or I do it in any handy
way. It's not a sporting proposition, you see, just get rid of them any
old way. You don't understand, do you?"

"A--little."

"But it's slow work--slow work," he muttered vaguely, "--and the world is
crawling--crawling with them. But if God guides my bomb this time and if I
hit one of their gas cylinders--_that_ ought to be worth while."

In the starlight his features became tense and terrible; she shivered in
her threadbare jacket.

After a few moments' silence he went away up the steps to put on his
German uniform. When he descended again she had a troubled question for
him to answer:

"But how shall you account for me, a French girl, monsieur, if they come
to the belfry?"

A heavy flush darkened his face:

"Little mistress of the bel