The Hosts of the Air

John had seen such luxurious camps as this in the Adirondacks in his own country, and there were many others scattered about the mountains of Europe, but he was very grateful now to find such a refuge for Julie. Again he realized how fortunate they had been to arrive so early. As he looked from an upper window he saw that the storm was driving with tremendous fury. Even behind the huge logs he heard the wind roaring and thundering, and now and then, through the thick glass of the windows, he caught a glimpse of a young pine torn up by its roots and whirled past.

Where was Muller, the forester, who had charge of the lodge and who lived there, and what kind of a man was he? It was the only question that was troubling him now. If he did not come soon he could not come that night, nor perhaps the next day. The snowfall was immense, with every sign of heavy continuance, and by morning it certainly would lie many feet deep on the mountain. Traveling would be impossible. He heard the distant sound of a bell, and knowing that the telephone was calling, he ran down the stairway to the great room. Julie had risen and was looking at the instrument with dilated eyes, as if it sounded a note of alarm, as if their happy escape was threatened by a new danger. John believed that she had fallen asleep before the heat of the fire, and that the ring of the telephone had struck upon her dreaming ear like a shell.

"It's he! It's the terrible prince himself!" she exclaimed, her faculties not yet fully released from cloudy sleep.

"Very likely," said John, "but have no fear. Zillenstein is only six leagues away at ordinary times, but it's six hundred tonight, with the greatest storm that I've ever seen sweeping in between us."

He took down the receiver and put it to his ear.

"Who is there?" asked a deep voice, which he knew to be that of Prince Karl.

"Castel, Your Highness."

"You arrived without accident?"

"Wholly without accident, Your Highness. We reached the lodge a few minutes before the storm broke."

"The lady, Mademoiselle Lannes, is safe and comfortable?"

"Entirely so. Your Highness. The maid, Suzanne, is preparing her room for her."

"You found Muller there waiting for you according to instructions?"

Some prudential motive prompted John to reply:

"Yes, Your Highness, he had everything ready and was waiting. I presented your letter at once."

"You have done well, Castel. Keep the lady within the house, but the storm will do that anyhow. Do not under any circumstances call me up, but I will call you again when I think fit. Bear in mind that the reward of both you and Muller shall be large, if you serve me well in this most important matter."

"Yes, Your Highness. I thank you now."

"Keep it in mind, always."

"Yes, Your Highness."

His Highness, Prince Karl of Auersperg, replaced the telephone stand upon the table in his bedroom at Zillenstein, and John Scott hung up the receiver in the hunting lodge on the mountain.

"It was Prince Karl," he said to Julie, who still stood motionless looking at him. "He wanted to know if you were safe and comfortable and I said yes. He said he would call us up again but he won't."

He lifted a chair and shattered the telephone to fragments.

"It might afford a peculiar pleasure to talk with him," he said, "but it's best that we have no further communication while we're here. An incautious word or two might arouse suspicion and that's what we want most to avoid. When he fails to get an answer to his call he'll think that this huge snow has broken down the wire. Most likely it will do so anyhow. And now, Miss Julie, Suzanne has your room ready for you. If you wish to withdraw to it for a little while you'll find dinner waiting you when you return."

"And the day of the abandoned hotel in Chastel has come back?"

"But a better and a longer day. We're prisoners here together on the mountain, you and I, and your chaperon, servant and sometime ruler, Suzanne Picard, who I find is not as grim as she looks."

There was a spark in his eyes as he looked at her, and an answering fire leaped up in her own. He was in very truth a perfect and gentle knight, who would gladly come so far and through so many dangers for her and for her alone. He was her very own champion, and as her dark blue eyes looked into the gray deeps of his her soul thrilled with the knowledge of it. Deep red flushed her from brow to chin, and then slowly ebbed away.

"John," she said, putting her hand in his, "no woman has ever owed more gratitude to a man."

"And I am finding repayment now for what I was happy to do," he said, kissing her hand again in that far-off knightly fashion.

Again the red tide in her cheeks and then she swiftly left the room, but John threw himself in a chair before the great fire and gazed into the coals. Wide awake, he was dreaming. He knew they would be days in the lodge. The storm was so great that no one could come from Zillenstein in a week. Providence or fortune had been so kind that he began to fear enough had been done for them. Such good luck could not go on forever, and there, too, was the man Muller who might make trouble when he came.

Nevertheless his feeling was but momentary. The extraordinary lightness of heart returned. The storm roared without and at times it volleyed down the chimney, making the flames leap and dance, but the sense of security and safety was strong within him. The war passed by, forgotten for the time. History, it was true, repeated itself, and this was the abandoned hotel at Chastel over again, but they were in a far better position now. No one could come against them, unless the man Muller should prove to be a foe. And he resolved, too, gazing into the flames, that they should not steal Julie from him here, as they had taken her at Chastel.

Darkness, save for the gleam of the snow, came over the mountain, but the flakes were driving so thick and fast that they formed a white blanket before the window, as impervious as black night itself. It reminded him of a great storm he had seen once on his uncle's ranch on the high table land of Montana, but to him it came that night as a friend and not as an enemy, cutting them off from Zillenstein and all the dangers it held.

He lighted candles and lamps in the great room and all the smaller rooms clustering about it. He would have everything cheerful for Julie when she returned.

He had seen Suzanne take several heavy packages from the automobile and he had no doubt that they had come amply provided with clothing, that for Julie, belonging doubtless to a young cousin or niece of the prince who stayed sometimes at Zillenstein.

As for himself, if they remained long he must depend upon the spare raiment of the forester, and, remembering suddenly that he might effect his own improvement, he hunted for Muller's room and discovered it on the second floor. Here he found shaving materials, and rapidly cleared his face of the young beard that he despised. Muller's clothing was scattered about, and he judged from it that the forester was a man of about his own size. After some hesitation, he took off his own coat and put on a brilliant Tyrolean jacket which he surmised the owner reserved for occasions of state.

"If you come, Mr. Muller, I'll try to explain to you why I do this," said John aloud. "I know you'll forgive me when I tell you it's in honor of a lady."

Then he laughed at himself in a glass. It was a gorgeous jacket, but one could wear more brilliant clothes in Europe than in America, and his appearance was certainly improved. He returned to the great room and someone sitting in the chair before the fire rose to receive him.

It was Julie all in white, a semi-evening dress that heightened in a wonderful fashion her glorious, blond beauty. He had often thought how this slender maid would bloom into a woman and now he beheld her here in the lodge, his prisoner and not Auersperg's. A swift smile passed over her face as she saw him, and bowing low before him she said:

"I see, Mr. John, that you have not wasted your time. You come arrayed in purple and gold."

"But it's borrowed plumage, Miss Julie."

"And so is mine."

"It can't be. I'm sure it was made for you."

"The real owner wouldn't say so."

"You will forgive me if I tell you something, won't you?"

"It depends upon what it is."

The red in her checks deepened a little. The gray eyes of John were speaking in very plain language to Julie.

"I must say it, stern necessity compels, if I don't I'll be very unhappy."

"I wouldn't have you miserable."

"I want to tell you, Julie, that you are overwhelmingly beautiful tonight."

"I've always heard that Americans were very bold, it's true."

"But remember the provocation, Julie."

"Ah, sir, I have no protection and you take advantage of it."

"There's Suzanne."

"But she's in the kitchen."

"Where I hope she'll stay until she's wanted."

She was silent and the red in her cheeks deepened again. But the blue eyes and the gray yet talked together.

"I worship you, your beauty and your great soul, but your great soul most of all," said the gray.

"Any woman would be proud to have a lover who has followed her through so many and such great dangers, and who has rescued her at last. She could not keep from loving him," said the blue.

Suzanne appeared that moment in the doorway and stood there unnoticed. She looked at them grimly and then came the rare smile that gave her face that wonderful softness.

"Come, Mademoiselle Julie and Mr. John," she said. "Dinner is ready and I tell you now that I've never prepared a better one. This prince has a taste in food and wine that I did not think to find in any German."

"And all that was his is ours now," said John. "Fortune of war."

Suzanne's promise was true to the last detail. The dinner was superb and they had an Austrian white wine that never finds its way into the channels of commerce.

"To you, Julie, and our happy return to Paris," said John, looking over the edge of his glass. Suzanne was in the kitchen then and he dared to drop the "Mademoiselle."

"To you, John," she said, as she touched the wine to her lips—she too dared to drop the "Mr."

And then gray depths looked into blue depths and blue into gray, speaking a language that each understood.

"We're the chosen of fortune," said John, "The hotel at Chastel presented itself to us when we needed it most, and again when we need it most this lodge gives us all hospitality."

"Fortune has been truly kind," said Julie.

After dinner they went back to the great room where the fire still blazed and Suzanne, when she had cleared everything away, joined them. She quietly took a chair next to the wall and went to work on some sewing that she had found in the lodge. But John saw that she had installed herself as a sort of guardian of them both, and she meant to watch over them as her children. Yet however often she might appear to him in her old grim guise he would always be able to see beneath it.

Now they talked but little. John saw after a while that Julie was growing sleepy, and truly a slender girl who had been through so much in one day had a right to rest. He caught Suzanne's eye and nodded. Rising, the Frenchwoman said in the tone of command which perhaps she had often used to Julie as a child:

"It's time we were off to bed, Mademoiselle. The storm will make us both sleep all the better."

"Good night, Mr. John," said Julie.

"Good night. Miss Julie."

Once more the stern face of Suzanne softened under a smile, but she and her charge marched briskly away, and left John alone before the fire. He had decided that he would not sleep upstairs, but would occupy the gunroom from which a window looked out upon the front of the house. There he made himself a bed with blankets and pillows that he brought from above and lay down amid arms.

The gunroom was certainly well stocked. It held repeating rifles and fowling-pieces, large and small, and revolvers. One big breech-loader had the weight of an elephant rifle, and there were also swords, bayonets and weapons of ancient type. But John looked longest at the big rifle. He felt that if need be he could hold the lodge against almost anything except cannon.

"It's the first time I ever had a whole armory to myself," he said, looking around proudly at the noble array.

But he was quite sure that no one could come for days except Muller, and the mystery of the forester's absence again troubled him, although not very long. Another look at the driving snow, and, wrapping himself in his blankets, he fell asleep to the music of the storm. John awoke once far in the night, and his sense of comfort, as he lay between the blankets on the sofa that he had dragged into the gunroom, was so great that he merely luxuriated there for a little while and listened to the roar of the storm, which he could yet hear, despite the thickness of the walls. But he rose at last, and went to the window.

The thick snowy blast was still driving past, and his eyes could not penetrate it more than a dozen feet. But he rejoiced. Their castle was growing stronger and stronger all the time, as nature steadily built her fortifications higher and higher around it. Mulier himself, carrying out his duties of huntsman, might have gone to some isolated point in the mountains, and would not be able to return for days. He wished no harm to Muller, but he hoped the possibility would become a fact.

He went back to his blanket and when he awoke in the morning the great Alpine storm was still raging. But he bathed and refreshed himself and found a store of clothing better than that of the forester. It did not fit him very well, nevertheless he was neatly arrayed in civilian attire and he went to the kitchen, meaning to put himself to use and cook the breakfast. But Suzanne was already there, and she saluted him with stern and rebuking words.

"I reign here," she said. "Go back and talk to Mademoiselle Julie. Since we're alone and are likely to be so, for God knows how long, it's your duty to see that she keeps up her spirits. I'd have kept you two apart if I could, but it has been willed otherwise, and maybe it's for the best."

"What has happened shows it's for the best, Suzanne. And, as you know, you've never had any real objection to me except that I'm not a Frenchman. And am I not becoming such as fast as possible?"

"You don't look very much like one, but you act like one and often you talk like one."

"Thanks, Suzanne. That's praise coming from you."

"Now be off with you. My mistress is surely in the great room, and if you care for her as much as you pretend, you will see that she is not lonely, and don't talk nonsense, either."

John, chuckling, withdrew. As Suzanne had predicted he found Julie in the large room, and she was quite composed, when she bade him good morning.

"I see that the storm goes on," she said.

"So much the better. It is raising higher the wall between us and our enemies. Our fire has burned out in the night, leaving only coals, but there is a huge store of wood in the back part of the lodge."

He brought in an armful of billets to find her fanning the coals into a blaze.

"You didn't think, sir," said she, "did you, that I mean to be a guest here, waited upon by you and Suzanne?"

"But Suzanne and I are strong and willing! Don't lean too near that blaze, Julie! You'll set your beautiful hair on fire!"

"And so you think my hair beautiful?"

"Very beautiful."

"It's not proper for you to say so. We're not in America."

"Nor are we in France, where young girls are surrounded by triple rows of brass or steel. We're in a snowstorm on top of a high mountain in Austria. There are no conventions, and Suzanne, your guardian, is in the kitchen."

"But I can call her and she'll come."

"She'd come, I know, but you won't call her. There, our fire is blazing beautifully, and we don't have to nurse it any longer. You sit here in this chair, and I'll sit there in that chair at a respectful distance. Now you realize that we are going to be here a long time, don't you Julie?"

"Miss Julie or Mademoiselle Julie would be better and perhaps Mademoiselle Lannes would be most fitting."

"No, I've said Julie several times and as it always gives me a pleasant thrill I'm sure it's best. I intend to use it continually hereafter, except when Suzanne is present."

"You're taking a high stand, Mr. John."

"John is best also."

"Well, then—John!"

"I'm taking it for your good and my pleasure."

"I wonder if Suzanne is ready with the breakfast!"

"You needn't go to see. You know it's not, and you know, too, that Suzanne will call us when it is ready. A wonderfully capable woman, that Suzanne. She didn't look upon me with favor at first, but I believe she is really beginning to like me, to view me perhaps with approval as a sort of candidate."

"Look how the snow is coming down!"

"But that's an old story. Let's go back to Suzanne."

"Oh no. She's coming for us."

It was true. The incomparable Suzanne stood in the doorway and summoned them to breakfast.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DANGEROUS FLIGHT

It snowed all that day and all the next night. The lateness of the season seemed to add to the violence of the storm, as if it would make one supreme effort on these heights before yielding to the coming spring. Many of the pines were blown down, and the snow lay several feet deep everywhere. Now and then they heard thunderous sounds from the gorges telling them that great slides were taking place, and it was absolutely certain now that no one from the valley below could reach the lodge for days.

The sight from the windows of the house, when the driving snow thinned enough to permit a view, was magnificent. They saw far away peak on peak and ridge on ridge, clothed in white, and sometimes they beheld the valley filled with vast clouds of mists and vapors. Once John thought he caught a glimpse of Zillenstein, a menacing gray shadow far below, but the clouds in an instant floated between and he was not sure.

Yet it was a period of enchantment in the life of John Scott. Their very isolation on the mountain, with Suzanne there in the double rôle of servant and guardian, seemed to draw Julie and him more closely together. The world had practically melted away beneath their feet. The great war was gone for them. He was only twenty-two, but his experience had made him mentally much older, and she, too, had gained in knowledge and command of herself by all through which she had passed.

She showed to John a spirit and courage which he had never seen surpassed in any woman, and mingled with it all was a lightness and wit that filled the whole house with sunshine, despite the great storm that raged continually without. In the music-room was a piano, and she played upon it the beautiful French "little songs" that John loved. There were books and magazines in plenty, and now he read to her and then she read to him. Sometimes they sat in silence and through the thick glass of the windows watched the snow driving by.

The hours were too few for John. He served her as the crusader served his chosen lady. The spirit of the old knights of chivalry that had descended upon him still held him in a spell that he did not wish to break. Often she mocked at him and laughed at him, and then he liked her all the better. No placid, submissive woman, shrinking before the dangers, would have pleased him. In her light laughter and her banter, even at his expense, he read a noble courage and a lofty soul, and in their singular isolation it was given to him to see her spirit, so strong and yet so rarely sweet in a manner that the circumstances of ordinary life could never have brought forth. And the faithful Suzanne, still in her double rôle of servant and guardian, served and guarded them both.

John at this time began to feel a more forgiving spirit toward Auersperg. It might well be that this man of middle years, so thoroughly surrounded by old, dead things that he had never seen the world as it really was, had been bewitched. A sort of moon madness had made him commit his extraordinary deed, and John could view it with increasing tolerance because he had been bewitched himself.

He made another and more extended survey of their stores and confirmed his first opinion that the lodge was furnished in full princely style. They need not lack for any of the comforts, nor for many luxuries, no matter how long they remained.

On the morning of the third day the storm ceased and they looked out upon a white, shining world of snow, lofty and impressive, peaks and ridges outlined sharply against a steel-blue sky. John had found a pair of powerful glasses in the lodge and with them he was now able to make out Zillenstein quite clearly. Clothed in snow, a castle all in white, it was nevertheless more menacing than ever.

John believed that Muller would surely come, and many and many a time he thought over the problem how to deal with him. But the new, windless day passed and there was no sign of the forester. John himself went forth, breaking paths here and there through the snow, but he discovered nothing. He began to believe that Muller had been forced to take shelter at the start of the storm and could not now return. His hope that it was so strong that his mind turned it into a fact, and Muller disappeared from his thoughts.

The garage, besides the great automobile, contained a smaller one, but John kept the limousine in mind. He intended when the time came to escape in it with the two women, if possible. There might be a road leading down the other side of the mountain, and toward Italy. If so, he would surely try to get through when the melting of the snow permitted.

Meanwhile he devoted himself with uncommon zest to household duties. He cleared new paths about the lodge, moved in much of the wood where it would be more convenient for Suzanne, cleaned and polished the guns and revolvers in the little armory, inspected the limousine and put it in perfect order, and did everything else that he could think of to make their mountain castle luxurious and defensible.

Julie often joined him in these tasks, and John did not remonstrate, knowing that work and occupation kept a mind healthy. Wrapped in her great red cloak and wearing the smallest pair of high boots that he could find in the lodge, she often shoveled snow with him, as he increased the number of runways to the small outlying buildings, or to other parts of their domain. Thus they filled up the hours and prevented the suspense which otherwise would have been acute, despite their comfortable house.

She continually revealed herself to him now. The shell that encloses a young French girl had been broken by the hammer of war and she had stepped forth, a woman with a thinking and reasoning mind of uncommon power. It seemed often to John that the soul of the great Lannes had descended upon this slender maid who was of his own blood. Like many another American, he had thought often of those marshals of Napoleon who had risen from obscurity to such heights, and of them all, the republican and steadfast Lannes had been his favorite. Her spirit was the same. He found in it a like simplicity and courage. They seldom talked of the war, but when they did she expressed unbounded faith in the final triumph of her nation and of those allied with it.

"I have read what the world was saying of France," she said one day when they stood together on the snowy slope. "We hear, we girls, although we are mostly behind the walls. They have told us that we were declining as a nation, and many of our own people believed it."

"The charge will never be made again against the French Republic," said John. "The French, by their patience and courage in the face of preliminary defeat and their dauntless resolution, have won the admiration of all the world."

"And many Americans are fighting for us. Tell me, John, why did you join our armies?"

"An accident first, as you know. There was that meeting with your brother at the Austrian border, and my appearance in the apparent rôle of a spy, and then my great sympathy with the French, who I thought and still think were attacked by a powerful and prepared enemy bent upon their destruction. Then I thought and still think that France and England represent democracy against absolutism, and then, although every one of these reasons is powerful enough alone, yet another has influenced me strongly."