"Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling his nervous voice with an effort.
"Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now, Maryette, put one arm around my neck, and me and the Kid will take you down them stairs, because you look tired—kind o' peeked and fussed, what with all this funny business going on——"
"Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, mon ami, Steek!"
She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked her up in his arms.
"What you need is sleep," he said very gently.
But she shook her head: she had business to transact on her knees that night—business with the Mother of God that would take all night long—and many, many other sleepless nights; and many candles.[pg 350]
She put her left arm around Smith's neck and hid her tear-wet face on his shoulder. And, as he bore her out of the high tower and descended the unlighted, interminable stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against his breast and softly asking intercession in behalf of a dead young man who had tried to be to her a "Kamerad"—as he understood it—including the entire gamut, from amorous beast to fiend.
There was a single candle lighted in the bar of the White Doe. On the "zinc," side by side, like birds on a rail, sat the two muleteers. In each big, sunburnt fist was an empty glass; their spurred feet dangled; they leaned forward where they sat, hunched up over their knees, heads slightly turned, as though intently listening. A haze of cigarette smoke dimmed the candle flame.
The drone of an aëroplane high in the midnight sky came to them at intervals. At last the sound died away under the far stars.