Читать книгу The Gypsy Shawl: Mystery Stories for Girls - Roy J. Snell - Страница 6

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“That,” said Patrick O’Farrel, “is my iron hat. I lost it on the battlefield ten years ago.”

“That hat?” Florence stared at the one-legged soldier in unfeigned surprise as he set the steel helmet at a jaunty angle on his head. Had he said, “You have found my long lost leg; let me have it,” she could scarcely have been more astonished. That the steel helmet which Florence had found in the black old forest, filled with growing flowers, one helmet among thousands that had been lost, should prove to be the very one their wandering friend had lost seemed incredible.

“Still,” she told herself, “stranger things than that have happened in war-ridden, battle-torn France.”

Three weeks had glided by since she had found the iron hat and made the acquaintance of the one-legged soldier.

Quite uneventful weeks they had been, but filled with priceless discoveries in this wonderland of France. They had left Domremy, the birthplace of Joan of Arc, with reluctance, and that not until they had visited the imposing castle on the distant hillside, had wandered through the oak forest that in Joan’s time was supposed to be infested by a dragon, and had listened to many enchanting stories told of the immortal Joan.

They had ridden over the rougher hill where grape arbors were turning purple and green, had wandered along the ancient walls of Toul, one of the few walled cities still standing, then had turned their pony down the slopes to richer fields and fairer lands.

Nowhere had they met with the blonde gypsy. Patrick O’Farrel and his story of the statue of gold had all but faded from their memories. The spring flowers in the iron hat had bloomed and wilted as spring flowers will. Florence had removed the living plant from the iron hat and had set it in rich soil at the foot of a great oak by the roadside that it might gladden some heart when spring came round again.

For some reason she could not quite explain, she had kept the iron hat. And now here again was Patrick O’Farrel, who had come upon their camp quite suddenly at eventide, saying, “That is my hat. I lost it on the battlefield ten years ago.”

“That sounds like a fairy story,” Florence said.

“It does indeed,” replied the wandering soldier, dropping to a place beside the fire. “For all that, it’s true enough. I’ll prove it to you. See,” he said, drawing a long knife from its sheath.

Florence shuddered. It was the very knife that had been struck from the angry gypsy woman’s hand three weeks before.

“See,” Patrick repeated, “I scratch away the rust on the top, and there you have my initials. P. O. F. Could anything be sweeter? I did it with a hand drill, so every dent that helps form a letter was cut deep. Rust and time could not efface it. Yes,” he said musingly, “it’s my hat. It was on the battlefield I—

“S-s-say!” he stuttered, breaking short off. “Where did ye find this hat?” He leaned forward, staring at the girl as if he would look into her very soul.

“Wait,” said the girl. “Let me think. It was not far from a small village. The name of the village—” she hesitated, trying to recall the village.

“The name of the village,” O’Farrel repeated, his breath coming short and quick. Florence thought him out of his head. Then like a flash the full meaning of it all came to her.

“The name of the village was Morey,” she said.

“Morey,” he exclaimed, gripping his crutch and struggling to his feet. “I have been there many’s the time since the war. Morey. That’s the place! A tiny village with a few farmers’ homes, two shops, a cobbler, and rough hills behind. There’s a church with a slim spire, and a graveyard near. Some of the tombstones were shattered by shell fire. I know the place.

“And that,” he said, coming into a quieter mood, “is the place where I was wounded and saved by two aged peasants. It is on that rugged hill that the German dugouts were hidden. That’s the place where the art treasure is buried, and the statue of gold.

“I must go,” he said, starting forward. “I will go to-night.”

“You must not,” said Florence. “Not to-night. It is too far. Sit down here by the fire. Madame and Betty will soon be back from the village. They are due here at any time. You must tell us the story all over again. We believe you. We’ve learned that your story is true. I am sure Madame will consent to our driving you to Morey. We will be up and away with the dawn.”

An hour later, after a supper of dark French bread and cocoa, with potatoes baked in hot ashes and veal steak broiled over the coals, the two girls and Madame settled back in their places by the fire to hear once more the story of the statue of gold from Patrick O’Farrel’s lips. It had already been agreed that with next day’s dawn they should be away on their strange treasure hunt. Madame Strossor was most eager of all. This was not strange, for was not France her native land? And had not the Maid of Orleans been her idol from childhood?

“War,” Patrick O’Farrel began, “is a terrible thing. It takes men’s lives, destroys their homes and breaks their children’s hearts.”

“And yet,” said Madame, “there are worse things can happen to a man than that he be sent to war.”

“What can that be?” said Patrick, sitting up quickly.

“He may be cheated.”

“Cheated?” The girls joined Patrick in his shout of amazement.

“Many wars,” said Madame, “have been fought because men have been cheated out of that which rightfully belongs to them. When the time comes that the weak and the poor are so ground down by the powerful and the rich that they know not where their next day’s food is coming from, then they rise to fight for their rights. What was it,” she asked, “that gave Joan of Arc her great power? Her purity, her trust in God, and her love of France, to be sure. But back of that lay the grim fact that the poor of France were starving.

“But now,” she continued, “the rich and powerful ones are learning, I hope, that their own security and happiness depends upon the comfort and happiness of all. If this is true we will have no more war.

“Excuse me,” she said to the soldier, “I interrupted your story.”

For a time Patrick ignored the suggestion that he continue the story of the statue of gold, but sat there in silence, head on one side, listening.

“I thought I heard something moving back there in the brush,” he said in a low voice.

The girls stared at him in astonishment. They had heard nothing. So they looked at the low bushes that surrounded their camp on three sides, then back at Patrick.

“You must have very sharp ears,” said Betty.

“Yes,” said Patrick, “ears made sharp by many, many nights in the trenches. When some slight sound from before you in No Man’s Land, unheard, means death, you develop a hearing that you never before have known. But let us return to the art treasure, the statue of gold,” he said, moving closer to them. “That was something to see, not to hear. And we saw it. It was in a dugout, an enemy’s dugout, on that rugged hillside just beyond the village of Morey. I remember now. It all comes back to me. Below us were shattered homes and the graveyards with tombstones all smashed. And directly before us was the church. The hand of God had preserved it. There was not a scratch upon it, and is not to this day. We had been in that dugout for more than a day, resting, when word came—”

He broke short off to seize his crutch and beat the bush directly behind him.

Did Florence catch the sound of stealthy movement behind the bushes? She thought so.

“Someone’s prowling about,” said Patrick. “Well, they’d better have a care!” He said this last in a rather loud voice. “I still have that gypsy knife and it’s a very good one, I can tell you!”

For a moment they listened. All was quiet.

“We had seen the statuary,” O’Farrel went on after a moment, “the marble and the bronze and that matchless thing of pure gold. Then, of a sudden came the word to turn out. The enemy was coming back.

“We came out armed to the teeth. I stumbled over a dead man and went down. Before I could get on my feet a shell burst above me. It knocked off my iron hat and my senses as well. It must have got my leg too, for when I woke up, hours later, it was gone. So was my iron hat.

“But you found it.” He turned to Florence. “You found it on the hillside. Had it been moved from the spot where it fell? Not likely. And back of it, just a few yards, is the entrance to that enemy’s dugout, sealed by shell fire, hiding the treasure.

“To-morrow,” he said impressively, “we will dig, dig as we never dug before, not even in the war.”

Two hours later, when Patrick had gone to the village for the night and Florence was tucked snugly in her strange bed, she wondered who could have been prowling about their camp, and why.

It was an eager and excited little party that mounted the two-wheeled cart at break of dawn. They had not paused for breakfast; this they would have an hour or two later at some village inn. Madame and Patrick mounted upon the seat. Patrick, being a man, took the reins. Florence and Betty piled in behind and came to rest on a soft cushion of bedding.

For Patrick the day’s adventure promised to fulfill a dream of years standing. He hoped to restore to the village he had learned to love its long lost treasure. To Florence, and to Betty, the thing they were about to do took on a highly romantic aspect. The Maid of Orleans had long held a place of great honor in their hearts. Now to be bringing to light the most priceless statue of her that had ever been created was like liberating an angel, or Joan herself, from a dungeon.

Their joy in the beginning was short lived. Hardly had they covered a hundred yards when with a grinding crash the cart tilted sideways and upset. Spilling the two girls out, it piled the greater part of their luggage, bedding, pans and dishes, upon them. At the same time, the right wheel went rolling down the hill before them.

The whole affair would have been highly amusing had they not been in such a great hurry.

The girls were not hurt, and few dishes were broken. They laughingly made the best of it.

“Burr’s gone from the axle,” said Patrick. “Now where can it be?”

After a half hour’s search, they found it just where the cart had stood the night before.

“That burr,” said Patrick, “did not come off. It was taken off by someone with a purpose.” His brow was wrinkled in thought. Florence knew he was thinking of the mysterious sounds behind the bushes the night before.

Once more they were on their way. But not for long. Two miles had been covered when, as they mounted a steep hill, one of the traces broke. Quick action by Florence, who leaped to the ground and choked the wheel with a stone, saved them from a spill.

“Cut,” was Patrick’s verdict as he examined the trace. “Cut half in two, that’s what it is.”

Again Florence thought of the eavesdropper and wished more than ever for haste.

Because of these unfortunate delays, darkness was upon them before they reached the spot where the party had camped on that other night when Florence had found the iron hat.

“We’ll go look at the place to-night,” said Florence. “Right away. We have a flashlight. I remember the way, I can find the very spot.”

“Lead on,” said Patrick, unconsciously gripping the handle of the gypsy knife.

“I shall guard the cart,” said Madame.

It was with a strange feeling that Florence marched straight up the narrow road to the hillside where hundreds of America’s best had died.

Her nerves were on edge. Here a twig snapped. She jumped. There a rabbit leaped up before her. She sprang back with a suppressed scream.

Still she marched on. “Here,” she told herself, “I found the gypsy shawl. Wonder where the blonde gypsy is now.

“Here I rounded a curve. There I found wood. And here—here is the very tree,” she said aloud. “And there is the hole in the sod from which I took the iron hat.”

“The dugout,” said Patrick, a bit unsteadily, “should be right up that rocky ridge.”

Without another word, they began to climb.