“They are doing what we should have done an hour ago—they are having their breakfasts, my child. Let us go home and imitate them. The sun does not shine any longer upon us. It will be a long time before the sun shines upon France again, dear Madame.”
She saw that he was very thoughtful, and the sense of unrest and of danger on the road returned to her. If there were Prussian lancers at Niederbronn, would there not be others at Wörth and Hagenau? In that instant the great truth that this war might, indeed, come to the homes of France was realised by her. Fear for Edmond, a fear she had not known before, began to possess her, and would not be quieted. She asked herself what she was doing there, so far from the châlet, when he might have need of her or even have sent a second message.
“Oh! let us go,” she said, urging her pony to the road again; “our place is at home, Monsieur Picard.”
He followed her reluctantly, and wished to allay her fears.
“Chut, Madame—I would not have missed the spectacle for a bucket full of francs. We must get used to it. There will be Germans upon this road every day before the summer is gone. They will not often be so fortunate as those fellows là-bas, who have just seen my little English friend in her pretty habit. And there will be others who will have something to say to them. My word—hark to that. The watch-dogs understand the German language, eh! Do they not speak it beautifully?”
He halted his horse again and listened to the strange sounds of mingled voices and the baying of hounds. Those troopers, then, were arguing with the people of the house! He thought that he could see the horses of some of them through the network of leaf and branch. The road itself was deserted, and the rain began to fall again in heavy drops, which glistened upon the flat leaves and gave waves to the puddles. Beatrix herself could not understand his curiosity, but she feared now to be alone upon the road.
“Oh, Monsieur Picard,” she said at last, “if I were not so cold—”
He sighed at her impatience, and was about to ride on, when the report of a rifle shot rang out above the silence of the woods and the patter of the rain. Birds went winging from the trees as the echoes rolled from hill to hill and glade to glade. A loud shouting was heard at the farm—the cries of men who found themselves face to face with death. Two Uhlans came galloping wildly up the pass, with five horsemen pressing close upon them. They went by, a flash of blue and silver; but one of those who rode after them had a sabre in his hand, and he struck at the trooper before him.
It was the vision of an instant: the vision of faces set in anger and ferocity; of eyes staring horribly at the images of death they saw; of horses foaming and accoutrements glittering and mud splashing. Yet so real was it that Beatrix cried out when the men passed her. She tried to hide the vision from her eyes, but could not. She feared to see the shining blade fall upon the neck of the Uhlan, who rode as though he raced with Death. No murder committed, there, at the roadside, could have filled her with a greater horror.
“Oh, my God, he will kill him!” she cried again and again.