“Don’t you cry, kitty darling, I won’t let them hurt you.”
Her people were dead. She was hurrying into the night alone. From every street came the shrieks of women dragged to their doom by beasts in uniform.
Vassar set his jaw and crept along the last hedgerow to the gate of the Holland home.
The lights were burning brightly. A sentinel stood at the steps of the porch, his burly figure distinctly outlined against the cluster of electric lights in the low ceiling.
A sentry was on guard at the gate not ten feet away. A battery of artillery rolled past, its steel frames rattling and lumbering.
Vassar saw his chance.
As the last caisson wheeled away beyond the flickering street lamps the guard turned into the hedge out of the wind to light his pipe.
With a tiger spring Vassar leaped on him, gripped his throat, pressed an automatic to his breast and fired.
He took the chance that the passing battery would drown the muffled shot. The sentry crumpled in his arms and he held his breath watching his companion at the house. The steady step showed that he had not heard.
He drew the dying soldier into the shadows inside the lawn and exchanged clothes. He threw the body close under the hedge, seized the rifle and took his place at the gate.