Chapter Five. Bursting of the Storm.

A great, long, old-fashioned room with a rather low ceiling, across which ran black oaken-beams, around were lancet windows, high and narrow, with ancient leaded panes and green glass, the walls panelled with rare but faded tapestries, the carpet dull and also faded, and the heavy furniture genuinely Flemish of the sixteenth century.

On a long, padded seat in the recess of the central window, the depth of which showed the great strength of the walls, Aimée de Neuville sat, her white pointed chin resting upon her hand, gazing away over a marvellous panorama of winding river and wooded slopes, the deep beautiful valley of the Meuse, which lay far below that high-up château, once the fortress of the robber-knights of Hauteroche.

The splendid old Château de Sévérac, standing as it did half-way between quaint old-world Dinant, the resent of British tourists, and the French frontier at Givet, commanded a wide sweep of the beautiful valley with the blue, misty high-lands towards Luxembourg. The great place with its ponderous three-foot-thick walls, its round towers with slated roofs, and its deep, cavernous dungeons with inscribed stones, dated from the twelfth century, a fine feudal castle, which had played a leading part in the history of the Meuse valley—indeed, in the history of Europe. Built high upon its steep limestone cliff, around which the river swept suddenly in a semicircle, it had, in the days of its builders, been a fortress impregnable. Its private chapel bore the arms of the Knights-Templars, and in that very room, where the pale-faced young girl sat, the Emperor Charles V had sat, after the capture of Metz in 1552. A place full of historic memories, for the very walls spoke mutely of those turbulent times, when that valley was the chief theatre of all the fierce wars in Western Europe.

But the Knights of Hauteroche had defended it always from the attack of their bitterest foes, until, in 1772, it had passed from their hands, and having fallen to ruin, had, in the last days of the nineteenth century, been acquired by the rich Baron de Neuville, who was reputed to have spent half a million sterling upon its restoration, and a similar sum in furnishing it just as it had been in the sixteenth century.

Few such splendid strongholds existed in Europe. For years the Baron’s agents had travelled up and down the Continent with open commissions to purchase antique furniture, tapestry, and armour of the period, with the result that the castle was now unique. Inside its courtyard one was at once back in the days of the Emperor Charles V, the illusion being complete, even to the great kitchen of the robber-knights, where, upon the huge spit, an ox could be turned and roasted whole, so that the retainers—the bowmen of the forest—could be regaled and rewarded after their doughty exploits.

From every corner of the world, tourists—many of them loud-speaking Americans with their red-bound Baedekers—craved of the Baron’s major-domo, a vinegar-faced Frenchman, permission to pass through the splendid apartments, and when “the family” were not in residence, permission was generally accorded, for—as with all financiers, from Twickenham to Timbuctoo—the Baron, in secret, liked to be talked about. Indeed, the late King Leopold, who had on several occasions stretched his long legs in that room wherein Aimée now sat, had declared that the view from the window up the river to be one of the finest in all Europe.

Looking up the peaceful valley, where the Meuse wound far below in the August sunshine, there lay on the right bank grey rugged rocks descending sheer into the water green and deep, making a sudden bend; while on the left lay green pastures and spreading woodlands, with range upon range of hills away to the blue haze of the frontier of France. Beside the river, the road followed like a white ribbon along its bank, and upon it the dusty old post-diligence, with its four weedy horses and its jingling bells, was travelling, just as it had travelled for two centuries past. Truly that reach of the Meuse was the most rural, peaceful, and picturesque spot in all the Ardennes, and little wonder was it, indeed, that the Baron de Neuville, when the great ruined castle had been offered for sale, had immediately purchased it, and renovated it to its present perfect state.

“I can’t think why father should have made us come here just in these troublous times,” the girl exclaimed petulantly to her mother, a grave, white-haired, well-preserved lady in black, who, seated at the farther end of the room, was busy with her fancy needlework. And then the girl beat an impatient tattoo upon one of the small leaded window-panes with the tips of her slim white fingers.

“Your father thinks it is more pleasant for us here than in Brussels just now, with all the silly excitement in progress, my dear,” the Baroness replied. “I have just had a telegram. He will be here to-night.”

“Does he give any further news of the situation?”

“None.”

“But when we left in the car yesterday, it was believed that we might be at war at any moment,” the girl said.

Her mother, a calm-faced, rather stout woman, and typically Belgian, sighed deeply.

“What will happen we cannot tell, my girl.”

“But if the Germans come, what shall we do?” queried Aimée, for she was thinking of Edmond, from whom she had had a hastily scribbled letter that morning. He had rejoined his regiment as sous-officier, and he said they expected to leave that day for the frontier.

“Do?” echoed the Baroness. “Why, nothing. They will simply march along the valley down yonder, and we shall be quite safe up here. The Germans are, after all, men of culture. They are gentlemen.”

As she spoke, Mélanie, Aimée’s French maid, entered the room, saying:

“A gentleman wishes to speak to M’sieur le Baron on the telephone. Will you speak, Mademoiselle?” she asked.

“Who is he?”

“The name he gave was Huart, Mademoiselle.”

“Huart,” exclaimed the Baroness. “That is surely the name of the manager of the Sirault Ironworks at Liège. Go and speak to him, Aimée.”

The girl descended to her father’s small business-room situated in the base of one of the round-slated turrets of the castle, and took up the telephone-receiver from the table.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Is the Baron there?” demanded a man’s rough voice.

“No, m’sieur. But I am Mademoiselle de Neuville. Can I give him any message? He is in Brussels, and will, I think, be here this evening.”

“I am Huart, speaking from the works at Liège. War has broken out.”

“War?” gasped the girl, holding her breath.

“Yes. Eighty thousand Germans are advancing towards the river, and we are already defending Liège against them. Terrible fighting is taking place. Hark! Listen to our forts! Can you hear?”

The girl listened, and for the first time heard the thunder of war—a dull, low roar in the receiver.

“That was one of the big guns in Fort Loncin, General Leman is defending the city, but the Germans are burning all the villages around. From my window here I can see the smoke across the river.”

“Oh! this is awful!” the girl cried. “I will telephone to my father and tell him—if I can find him.”

“Yes, Mademoiselle—tell him that I fear the worst. The first reports of the enemy reached here at dawn, and Liège seems to swarm with German spies. A dozen or so were caught signalling to the enemy with flags from the tops of high houses. They have all been shot—outside here, against the wall.”

“They were not Belgians.”

“They posed as such. One of them was one of my foremen. I always believed him to be a Belgian. It is a revelation, Mademoiselle.”

“But can the Germans enter the city?”

“No, Mademoiselle. Last night all the bridges over the river were destroyed.”

And then, even as she listened, a dull roar fell upon her ear. It was Fort Loncin speaking again with its steel throat.

“Please tell the Baron that I shall remain here pending further instructions from the company. We shall hold out here. Soldiers are pouring into the town. The first regiment of the Guides, and the second, fourth, and eighth Chasseurs-à-pied passed here early this morning, having come poste-haste from Brussels. They have gone along the river-bank. Liège will not suffer much, but the country around is already in flames. It is terrible, Mademoiselle—terrible!”

The eighth regiment of Chasseurs-à-pied! Then Edmond Valentin was already at the front! He was with them, along the river-bank!

“But are they killing people?” asked the girl, in frantic excitement.

“I fear they are, Mademoiselle,” replied the voice, dying away slowly, and being succeeded by a loud electrical buzzing. “Reports have just come in that at Visé and Argenteau some townspeople fired at the soldiers, and in consequence the Germans are killing them, and burning down the houses. It is awful.”

“But that can’t really be true,” she cried, “The Germans are surely not savages like that!”

“I fear that the reports are only too true, Mademoiselle. One came over the telephone from the Burgomaster of Cheratte, close to Argenteau. As an eye-witness of fearful atrocities, he reported them to the Préfect, with a request that they be immediately transmitted to the Minister of Justice, in Brussels.”

“But it seems utterly incredible,” the girl declared. “As incredible as the swarms of spies here in the town. To-day, one does not know enemy from friend! But please tell your father that I will speak to him this evening—if the wires are not cut. They are already cut to Maastricht, Verviers, and Aix.”

“Yes, do ring us up, m’sieur, and tell us what is happening,” implored the girl. “Tell me what the Eighth Chasseurs are doing, and where they are. Will you, please? I have a friend in them—an officer.”

“Certainly, Mademoiselle, I will do what I can, and—Mon Dieu!”

The voice broke off short.

“M’sieur! M’sieur Huart! Hello!—hello?” cried the girl in wonder and apprehension.

There was no response, only a slight buzz. She replaced the receiver upon the Instrument, and turned the handle quickly. Then she listened again. All was silence.

“Hello! hello?” she called. “Hello, Liège! Hello, Liège!”

The wire was dead—cut, perhaps by a German shell!

Again and yet again she tried to obtain response to her call.

Their nearest exchange was that at Dinant.

“Hello, Dinant! Dinant!” she kept repeating. “Hello, Dinant!”

But from Dinant there was no reply.

Upon her the blow had fallen. Edmond, so manly and brave, was already at the front—one of the first to go forth against the giant invader of their gallant little nation. Those words from her father’s employé in Liège had conveyed volumes to her.

War was no longer an eventuality. It was a fact. Already the Kaiser was hurling his legions of Pikelhauben westwards towards the sea. The Teutons had burst their bonds, and Edmond’s prophesy had, alas! proved only to be true. The ambitious Kaiser meant war—war at all hazards and at all costs, in order to retain his imperial crown, and in order to justify, with his clamorous people, his title of the great War Lord of the twentieth century and ruler of the world.

But there had been many War Lords in the world ages before him—Rameses, Herod, Caesar, Attila, and Napoleon. After all, the Kaiser, surrounded by his disgracefully degenerate camarilla, was but a pinchbeck edition of Bonaparte; a monarch who, while holding the outstretched hand of friendship to Great Britain, had been hourly plotting to conquer her. The quintessence of treachery, the zenith of personal egotism existed, with the wildest dreams of avarice, in the heart of that deformed monarch, who was as warped in his brain as in his body. In his gaudy tinsel, and in all his panoply of uniform, and his tin crosses which he believed to be iron, he was but the pliable puppet of the degenerates of Potsdam. He believed himself to be the Sword of God—as he had insanely declared to his troops—and stood as the idol of the people of “kultur” yet tottering upon his pedestal.

His fierce antagonism towards civilisation, as opposed to the Prussian militarism, had been betrayed by his undying words, which would live in history through the ages. The fierce War Lord, in his pitiable arrogance, had actually incited his troops to murder and debauchery by the words he had spoken—words that would be for ever registered against him upon his downfall:

“When you meet the foe you will defeat him,” he had said. “No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Gain a reputation like the Huns under Attila.” That reputation was, apparently, what his hordes were achieving in the burning of Visé and Argenteau. Attila, in his expedition across Greece, reduced seventy of the finest cities to smoking ruins and shambles. He was the black demon of ruin and destruction, and this modern murder-Monarch of the Huns, if that report over the telephone be true, was emulating the blood-guilty ruffian.

Pale and breathless, Aimée de Neuville rushed up the great staircase to relate to her mother the appalling news that Germany had, at last, swept down upon peaceful little Belgium with fire and sword.

The war-cloud had burst! The Kaiser, in his eagerness to plunge Europe into blood, had not waited for Great Britain’s reply. His lustful, grey-coated hordes of braided Uhlans, infantry and artillery, with all their endless streams of lumbering guns, heavy waggons, motor-cars, and loaded motor-lorries, had crossed the frontier, and with the fierceness of hell-hounds let loose, were already sweeping the valley of that peaceful-flowing river which wound below the great Château de Sévérac.

War! War! WAR!

The girl, pale and excited, held her breath as she placed her thin, trembling fingers upon the handle of the door of that room wherein her mother sat in calm ignorance of the awful truth.

War! War! WAR!

And Edmond, the man whom she loved, the man whose last final kiss she still felt upon her brow, had marched into Liège with his regiment, to face the treacherous Germans, to fight for home and freedom, and to stem the great oncoming Teuton tide.

Should she tell the Baroness the truth?

For a second the girl, pale with agitation, hesitated. The awfulness of such sudden news might unnerve her. She had a weak heart.

No. She would conceal her knowledge of the awful fact.

She drew a deep breath and, opening the door, entered smiling, as she exclaimed with a wonderfully careless and nonchalant air:

“Oh! the man only wants to talk to father on business, I told him he would be here to-night to dinner.”