Page:Wounded Souls.djvu/40

 them, stare at him with hate in their eyes? The French people were all devils, proud as devils.

Another figure stood on the landing. It was Edouard—a tall, slim figure with a white face and burning eyes, in which there was a look of fury.

"What is happening, maman?" he said coldly. "What does this animal want?"

Madame Chéri trembled with a new fear. If the boy were to kill that man, he would be shot. She had a vision of him standing against a wall

"It is nothing," she said. "This gentleman is ill. Go back to bed, Edouard. I command you."

The German laughed, stupidly.

"To bed, shafskopf. I am going to open your sister's door. She loves me. She calls to me. I hear her whisper, Ich liebe dich!"

Edouard had a stick in his hand. It was a heavy walking-stick which had belonged to his father. Without a word he sprang forward, raised his weapon, and smashed it down on the German's head. It knocked off Schwarz's helmet, which rolled from the top to the bottom of the staircase, and hit the man a glancing blow on the temple. He fell like a log. Edouard smiled and said, "Très bien." Then he rattled the lock of his sister's door and called out to her:

"Hélène Have no fear. He is dead. I have killed him."

It was then that Madame Chéri had her greatest fear. There was no sound from Hélène. She did not answer any of their cries. She did not open the door to them. They tried to force the lock, as Schwarz had done, but though the lock gave at last the door would not open, kept closed by some barricade behind it. Edouard and his mother went out into the yard and the boy climbed up to his sister's window and broke the glass to go through.