“Mowbray—Mowbray—don't forget the name, General—”
“Good-night.”
“Good-night.”
Boylan put his soul in it. He loved the Russians. It was far this side of midnight, but he smelled the dawn.
Back in his own quarters, as he yawned largely at the flickering shadows of the freshly-lit candle, he noted Peter's saddle bags on the floor, and considered that it might be well to get them over to-night.
Chapter 8
Peter walked the room, a changing star or two in the windy skylight; a candle in the center by the stair-door where the sentry stood; Berthe watching him steadily from her chair. The others at the far end looked up occasionally. They were talking low-toned. Poltneck had been singing folk-songs—pure spirit of the boat and cradle, of the march and the marriage and the harvest, of the cruel winter and the pregnant warmth again; songs that had come up from the soil and stream and the simple heart of man, older than Mother Moscow, old beyond any human name to attach to them. True and anonymous, these songs. The lips that first sung them never knew that they had breathed the basic gospel which does not die, but moves from house to house around the world. Indeed, the melodies were born of the land and the sky, like the mist that rises from the earth when the yellow sun comes up from the south, and the “green noise” of spring breaks the iron cold.
The moment had come when Peter could not sit still. Berthe was never so dear, but he could not stay. He held the three men in true full comrade spirit, but he could not sit with them now. He had nothing to fear; all was quite well.