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She made an effort to find her voice to control it. "I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse," she answered, trembling. "And this young man?" "They shot him the Prussians, monsieur." "My poor child! Was he your lover, then?" Her tear-filled eyes widened: "Oh, no," she said naïvely; "it is sadder than that. He was my friend."
"Explain to our little bell-mistress that we’re taking her friend to a place where they fool Death every day where to cheat the grave is a flourishing business! Good-bye! Courage! En route, brave Sister of the World!"
If their High Command keeps his nose out of this place! if he does! Look at the east, little bell-mistress! It’s all gold! There’s pink up higher. I can see a faint tinge of blue, too. Can you?" "I think so." A minute dragged like a year in prison. Then: "Try the wind again," he said in a strained voice. "North." "Oh, luck! Luck!" he muttered, slinging his sack of bombs over his shoulder.
Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and unable to move. After a few moments, opening his eyes again, he saw her standing on the roof beside him, looking down at him. And he whispered his appeal in the name of Christ. And in His name the little bell-mistress responded.
The airman, frozen to a statue, listened. Again and again he thought he could hear bugles, but the roar from below blotted out the distant call. "Little bell-mistress!" She turned her head, her hands still striking the keyboard. He spoke through the confusion of the place: "Sound the tocsin!" Then Clovis thundered from the belfry like a great gun fired, booming out over the world.
Little bell-mistress, arm your white hands with your wooden gloves and make this old carillon speak in brass and iron!" He caught her by the arm; they ran down the short flight of steps; she drew on her wooden gloves and sprang to the keyboard. "I’ll hold the stairs!" he cried. "I can hold these stairs for an hour against the whole world in arms. Now, then! The Brabançonne!"
So the wounded airman bent over and took the body by the shoulders; the gendarme lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed, holding to one of the sagging arms, as though fearing that these strangers might take away from her this dead man who had been so much more to her than a mere lover. When they laid him in the market cart she released his sleeve with a sob.
The airman swayed where he stood in the swirling smoke, lurched up against the stone coping, slid down to his knees. When his eyes opened the little bell-mistress was bending over him. "They got me," he gasped. All the front of his tunic was sopping red. "They said it meant the cross if I made good.... Are you hurt?" "Oh, no!" she whispered. "But you "
So mules might bray, and negroes fill the Sainte Lesse meadows with their shouting laughter; and the lank, hawk-nosed Yankee muleteers might saunter clanking into the White Doe in search of meat or drink or tobacco, or a glimpse of the pretty bell-mistress, for all it meant to her.
Who could refuse our wounded? There is no bell-master in our department; and only one bell-mistress.... To find anyone else to play the Nivelle carillon one would have to pierce the barbarians’ lines and search the ruins of Flanders for a Beiaardier a Klokkenist, as they call a carillonneur in the low countries.... But the Mayor asked it, and our wounded are waiting.
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