Suddenly the officer raised his pistol. Something was coming through the brushwood; but he lowered it with a grim smile as a shaggy head, followed by a shaggy body, made its appearance. There was a bound, and Le Muet felt himself tumbled to earth under the impact of a clumsy body. A rough tongue was licking his face. His dog had found him.
Nothing else mattered now, and with strange, uncouth murmurings he clasped the shaggy body to his own again and again. He did not see that the officer’s face had grown dark with anger or that he had raised his pistol again only to slip it back into the holster as the peddler touched his arm and cautiously pointed through an opening in the bushes. A man in a blue uniform had just risen to his feet on the path, and was looking about him with a searching glance. Nothing stirred in the thickets, and he walked on.
Le Muet saw the figures beside him stiffen, and rifles raised. Suddenly the dog moved uneasily and gave a low whimper. With a savage indrawing of his breath the officer turned sharply and, shortening his sword, drove it into the body of the dog. A whispered command, and a heavy rifle butt fell upon its head.
Le Muet sat upright, staring, confused. He held the quivering body close against him, dead to all thought but that of this strangely cruel deed. What was it all about? In a flash it came to him. Those about him were lying in wait to kill, and those whom they would kill were his own: Frenchmen like himself, like the man who had risen in the clearing and walked on unconscious of danger.
With a mighty effort he held himself from flinging his weight upon the officer. He was not afraid now. They had killed his dog. They might kill him, only there were others coming, unwarned, and he without voice to warn them: those others who were also of France.
Oh, if only Monsieur the curé were with him. The curé had shown him pictures of miracles wrought by God, the blessed mother and the saints: miracles wherein the sick were healed, the blind were made to see, the dumb to speak. Perhaps, if he tried, words would come to his lips, words would come in time to save those who were about to come into this trap. Bending his head low, he filled his lungs, he felt the muscles about his abdomen tighten. His mind was surging with desire, he was about to speak at last; and then the breath he had sucked within him filtered through the passage of his throat in harsh and broken gasps.
A buffet on the mouth from the officer threw him on his back, and for a moment he lay stunned, but for a moment only; then bounding to his feet, with a desperate leap that cleared the brush he was out and upon the path. Through the trees in front of him he saw the glint of bayonets. They were coming, coming into the trap. He must run to them.
All at once he felt arms about his knees. Two of the Germans had crept out from the other side of the path and were holding him by the ankles. With a wrench of his strong legs be loosened himself from the hold: two swift kicks, and he was free. To run—he did not notice the rope stretched across the path at the level of his ankles and with a jerk he fell upon his face. At once they were upon him. He felt a writhing hand that tore at his throat and, bending his chin, he bit savagely at it with his firm teeth. It seemed to him as if he had superhuman power, and that he had but to open his mouth to send forth a ringing cry.
He was on his knees now, a man upon his back, and bending forward suddenly he swung the clawing thing over his shoulder to the ground. His hands sought the throat. Then came a sharp, agonizing pain. The other had stabbed him in the back, with a wrench and a twist of the bayonet blade.
He rose to his feet as if by a miracle, one foot uplifted to step forward, then set his foot down upon the ground. The earth was trembling and swaying beneath him. With his lacerated hands he tore at his throat as if to pluck the useless vocal cords from their covering of flesh. A strange bellowing came from his lips,—now red with a bloody foam,—growing in volume, and then, as he strained at his throat with compressing hands, he felt a great joy and triumphant peace come upon him. He was speaking—no, it was a shout—so clearly—so easily: