"But!" the latter ejaculated curtly; "what then? How is this place secure? Tell me," he asked anxiously; for indeed he had observed much coming and going of American soldiers, had seen staff cars arriving bearing French and British officers, and, though that was no unusual occurrence, he could guess from the bustle which he could see and note from his peep-hole, that something unusual was happening.
"But——" began Alphonse again, crouching beside the spy, his huge knuckles taut as he clenched his fists, "but——" and then cackled once more, so that Heinrich could have hit him so great was his vexation.
"But—you fool! Go on!"
"S—sh! Steady! Men down below, I hear them."
Heinrich had heard not so much as a sound, but the crafty villain beside him had spent years in eavesdropping—in listening and avoiding people whom it was undesirable he should meet—and now, above the gentle rustle of the straw in which he lay, he heard the distinct murmur of voices, the slip and slither of booted feet, the sound of men in the body of the church. He lifted a finger to his lips, and, turning silently with a snake-like movement, bent over the square opening leading to the loft. Lights were flashing down below. He could see men walking about, catching only a glimpse of them as the flash of an electric torch settled upon their figures. He heard steps on the broken and wrecked stone stairs which led to the chamber down below, and then he became active. Those powerful if attenuated arms of his were stretched out, the two hands gripped the rickety ladder by which he had ascended, and swiftly, yet with the utmost care and silence, he drew it upward. To cover the opening with some straw was an easy matter, and presently, long before the American soldiers arrived in the chamber referred to, the square through which Alphonse had entered Heinrich's hiding-place had been, as it were, obliterated. So much so, that though the light was cast upward, the broken boards above, the wisps of straw dangling through the crevice, the wrecked appearance of the place, in fact the very stars visible through the shattered tiles above, and the lack of all means of reaching this aerie, persuaded the searchers that no spy could be lurking there.
"Empty—sure!" came a voice. "'Taint likely that he's here. Looks as though the tower might fall to pieces any moment. So down we go! Easy with it, boys, those stairs take a lot of climbing."
Sounds receded. Footsteps were heard again in the body of the church. Lights flashed hither and thither and then disappeared. Silence followed, except that from outside came again the murmur of voices as the soldiers departed. Heinrich breathed freely once more, while Alphonse gave vent to a deep-throated, husky cackle.
"And so I cheated 'em time and again," he breathed, his eyes riveted now to a crevice between the tiles through which he could see the search-party of the Americans receding, "cheated 'em—these fools of French peasants—same as I'll cheat the soldiers down below, and help Germany to gain Paris—to gain Paris," he repeated, this time with something approaching a hiss, his eyes flashing. "Paris, my friend Heinrich!"
His companion, who a little while before had shrunk from contact with this bony, attenuated scoundrel, and who, to speak the truth, was half fearful of him, now actually put up with a grip of his fingers as they closed round his arm, and, crouching on his knees, Heinrich Hilker repeated that word.
"Ah!" he said, "Paris! Paris!—ah! that is the aim we have! But listen, Alphonse! We failed to drive a wedge between the British and the French, we failed to reach the Channel ports, but there is always Paris—the heart of France and the French people. Let us but reach it, let us but get our fingers about it, and—ah!—and we will strangle the life out of these Frenchmen."