“It’s all right,” Roy said, trying to control his jerky, nervous speech.
“Where’s Warde?”
“Shh, he’s all right–Blythe–Blythe is up there–he’s in a kind of fit–he’s crazy–he’s the–he’s the one, all right–he’s Darrell–shh, wait–don’t go up. Do you see this? It’s one of those banshees Harry Donnelle told us about–the kind the soldiers used to put up in the windmills in Flanders. That’s what’s been making the noise. It sort of–you know–spoke to him–that’s what I think....”
If Roy had remembered some of the sprightly tales which their friend Lieutenant Donnelle had brought from France, he might have saved himself and his companion much fearful perplexity on that dark momentous night.
Or if they had ever been in Holland or Flanders they might have known of those novel toys, the handiwork of ingenious youngsters, that moan and wail and even pour forth their uncanny laughter when strategically placed on the tops of windmills. American soldier boys, chafing under enforced idleness in trenches and dugouts, would often beguile their time making these miniature calliopes to catch the wind. And it is not out of reason to surmise that many a warrior in the war-torn regions was startled and confounded by the aerial lamentations of these harmless little boxes of wires and crude whistles.
A cigar box, a few strips of wire, and some odds and ends of willow wood suffice for the manufacture of the Flanders banshee. There is now an American banshee with all modern improvements (patent not applied for) invented and controlled by Pee-wee Harris. But that is not a part of the present story.
CHAPTER XXIII
AFTER THE STORM
The expected difficulty of getting Blythe down from his strange refuge was much simplified by his own demeanor. When his agitation subsided he became as docile as a lamb, seeming quite willing to place himself in the scouts’ hands. He seemed utterly exhausted and bewildered. With this exception he showed no trace of what he had been through, and appeared not to remember it.
When they asked him to get up, he stared at Roy’s flashlight for a moment as if puzzled, then rose saying not a word. In the glare of the light one of the scouts lifted a small locket that dangled on a cord around Blythe’s neck, and several of the boys looked at it. Blythe either did not know what they did, or he did not care. At all events he did not object. This seemed odd to them considering how he had clutched the thing before.