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The blond youth had a box on his knees into which he was intently peering. The girl came to the river wall and seated herself at her father’s feet. The Belgian refugee student had already risen to attention, his heels together, but Maryette signed him to be seated again. "What have you found now, Karl?" she inquired in a cautiously modulated voice. "Ah, mademoiselle, fancy!
"From Fontanes corral," they replied, surprised to hear their own tongue spoken. "Do you know Jack Burley, one of your people?" "Sure. He’s just been winged bad." "The Huns done him up something fierce," added the other. "Very bad?" Maryette came back with a loaf and two bottles. "I seen him at Fontanes," replied the muleteer, taking the provisions from the girl.
Bring Steek to the bell-tower half an hour after you hear the carillon end. You will hear it end; you will hear the quarter hour strike presently. Half an hour later, after the third quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring pistols. Do you promise?" "Sure! What’s the row, Maryette?" "I don’t know yet. I think we shall find a spy in the tower." "Where?" "In the belfry, parbleu!
"Nobody uses them here, do they?" "Here? No, it wouldn’t be allowed. A spy could send a message by one of those toy balloons." "Oh," nodded Maryette thoughtfully. Smith shook his head: "No, children wouldn’t be permitted to play with them things now, Maryette." "Then there are not any toy balloons to be had here in Sainte Lesse?" "I rather guess not! Farther north there are." "Where?"
As for Maryette Courtray, called Carillonnette, she mounted the bell-tower once every hour, from six in the morning until nine o’clock in the evening, to play the passing of Time toward that eternity into which it is always and ceaselessly moving.
Promise, Maryette!" "And sit up there alone with you in the dark for an hour? Ma foi! How amusing!" She laughed in pretty derision. "I shall not even be able to blow bubbles!" Watching her pouting face intently, he said: "Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you to fly from the clock tower? Would that amuse you you beautiful, perverse child?" "Little toy balloons!" she echoed, enchanted.
The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the gendarme gently forced her back into her seat and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman he growled: "I did not tell this poor child to hope; I merely informed her that her friend yonder is still breathing. But he’s as full of holes as a pepper pot!" He frowned at Maryette: "Allons! My comrade here goes to Sainte Lesse.
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."
Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the head of the stairs, reaching the platform at one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as she realized that this man had arrived too early for her friends to be of any use to her. He had lied to her. And now she must take him unaided, or kill him there in the starlight under the looming bells. "Maryette!" he called. She did not stir. "Maryette!" he whispered.
"Carillonnette!" he called out joyously. "Maryette! C’est je!" The girl, astonished, turned her head, and he spurred forward on his wall-eyed mount, evincing cordial symptoms of pleasure in the encounter. "Wee, wee!" he cried. "Je voolay veneer avec voo!"
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