CHAPTER XVII.

HOW THE RAID FAILED.

Flossie had spoken. Silent resentment, obdurately nursed for quite two days, had given place to voluble reproaches. He was naughty, she told her father; never before had she known him quite so naughty. Why! he had hardly opened his lips for days and days; he had not taken her out, nor brought things home, or done anything. Waking that morning very early and very hungry, she had found nothing--not a thing--under her pillow--no, not even a lump of sugar; and he knew perfectly well that there were always lumps of sugar in the sideboard. No! he had forgotten. He did not love her, that was quite clear. His head was fuller than ever of that horrid Fort. If he did not look out he would go there and get killed himself presently, and that would be a nice thing to happen, wouldn't it?

Under the shower of these reproaches, Major Wardlaw hung his head. His silence and submissiveness slightly mollified the stern young lady. Like many others of her sex, Flossie must needs scold and then be sorry for the object of her reproaches. To-night there was something in her father's looks and bearing that arrested her vehemence. Why! goodness gracious! what was the matter?

"You know," she said shrewdly, looking at him as she stood between his knees with that steady gaze of youthful eyes that is often so disconcerting, "You know, if you weren't a great big man, I should say you were going to cry."

"Nonsense, nonsense," her father answered, and hugged her closely in his arms.

"Mind my hair," said Flossie sharply, "I'm very tired and I'm going to bed. I hope you won't be naughty any more. Promise!" He nodded with a queer look in his eyes. "_You_ look tired, too! come up early. To-morrow we'll be just the same as ever, won't we? You shall be very nice, and I shall forgive you, because, after all, I do love you, don't I?"

"That's right," he said gravely.

"Yes, but you're not right. I've never seen you quite like this. I'm sure there's something. Where's my book?"

He picked up the story-book and she tucked it under her arm, smothering a yawn that suffused her blue eyes and showed all her pretty teeth.

"Good-night; be good," she said, and kissed him.

"Yes! But you've forgotten your hymn."

The child looked at him searchingly. His manner puzzled her more and more. His voice seemed hardly natural; he was grave, intensely grave, yet trying to cloak his seriousness by speaking in ordinary tones.

"Must I, to-night?" she asked, half closing her sleepy eyes.

"Yes, dearest, please, to-night."

She glanced down at the story-book under her arm, and her father understood the look. Flossie wanted to reserve her few mental energies to finish a chapter in bed. But with a little sigh of resignation, she began in drowsy tones the recitation of the hymn. The theme was resignation. Wardlaw seemed to hang upon the well-known words:

"If Thou shouldst call me to resign What most I prize, it ne'er was mine; I only yield Thee what is Thine; Thy Will be done."

He bowed his head.

Flossie, too heavy-eyed to notice, turned away. Her father looked up quickly.

"Kiss me again, darling."

He held her by the arms in front of him, firmly but lightly.

The child roused herself to sudden alertness.

"One for you, and one for me, and one for both together. That's three!" she observed after the third kiss--"Just for a treat."

His eyes followed her as she crossed the room. At the door, she turned and nodded warningly.

"Something nice to-night, mind, and don't stay up too late."

Wardlaw held his breath and kept his seat while Flossie went slowly, languidly, up the stairs. Then, with clenched hands and tortured eyes, he started to his feet.

The last time! God in heaven, could it be truly that?

Never to know the kiss of her childish lips again, never to feel her warm, clinging little arms around his neck!

With bloodshot eyes and still clenched hands he paced the room.

Away in the distance the booming guns broke out again with their dreadful monotone, recalled inexorably the work he had to do. He had weighed it well, pondered it, as he told himself, too long already. The Fort must fall! All other means had failed. Blood had been poured out like water, and to no purpose. Yonder on the hill, thousands of men, obedient unto death, his brothers in arms, had braved the weapons which he, Wardlaw, had stored within those impregnable defences, weapons which had been turned against his own country and his own people with such terrible results. England could not wait while the foreigners were starved into surrender. The Fort must fall without delay. He, Wardlaw, knew the master-key of the position, and also knew that he who used it must be prepared to lose his life. Why had he not used it before?

There were reasons which would satisfy reasonable people: the surprise of the situation, the slowness of the military authorities in inviting his assistance, the probability that, finding themselves without support in a hostile country, the invaders would throw up the sponge. But none of these probabilities had been verified. The Fort was still held by the foreigner; and the Fort must fall!

Edgar Wardlaw was a scientific soldier--not one of those men of bull-dog courage who, obedient to orders, would hurl themselves without thought into a bloody struggle. The mind that can devise and perfect death-dealing armaments is not necessarily, or even probably, a mind that inspires and braces the fighting quality of the every-day soldier. The red badge of courage can indeed be won by men of high-strung nerves and delicate organisation, but it is won at most tremendous cost. Wardlaw had been slow in coming to his resolution, but he would never recede from it. They were arms of love that had enchained him, at the last--the arms of a little child. But now he was breaking even those fond links asunder. He was ready--almost ready.

Pacing the room, he glanced at his watch. It was nearly ten o'clock. Soon she would be asleep. He went over to the sideboard and made a quick yet careful search, finding a small fancy cake, some fruit, and sugar; as Flossie had said, there was always sugar, though other things might fail.

He must delay no longer. Carefully and on tiptoe he went up the creaking stairs. The servants were chattering and laughing in the kitchen, but in the child's bedroom there was not a sound. He entered cautiously. Yes, she was asleep, long lashes resting on the delicately flushed skin, lips slightly parted, one arm thrown out upon her open book.

Wardlaw moved cautiously across the room and stood looking down upon the sleeping child. He looked long, and who shall say with what poignant and unutterable agony of spirit. Then he slipped the paper bag containing what he had brought with him under the pillow, and gently moved the book, lest it should fall upon the floor and wake her. The volume contained two stories, bound up together--"Sintram and his Companions," and "Aslauga's Knight," stories whose leaves come out of the old Saga-land, bringing with them the romance and adventure that charm the children, while also they reveal to older folk the mystic conflict of the human soul. Sintram's Companions, as Wardlaw knew, were Sin and Death, Companions of us all. With Death by his side, Sintram had to ride amid the terrors of the narrow mountain gorge--just as the Pilgrim of the immortal Progress had journeyed through the Valley of the Shadow.

His eyes rested on the open page of the story-book:--

"When Death is coming near, When thy heart shrinks in fear And thy limbs fail,

Then raise thy hands and pray To Him who smoothes the way Through the dark vale."

He bowed his head and closed the book quietly, placing it near the child's pillow. Downstairs the clock chimed a quarter after ten--cheery little chimes, ticking off the flight of time as if endless days and years still remained for all who heard them.

And yet for him who listened only a few hours of life remained. Death called him--not in the heat and excitement of battle, but in this still hour of cool blood and calm reflection. It made it vastly harder to obey.

Never again would he hear those familiar tinkling chimes. This was his last farewell to all that he held dear. Death coldly beckoned him, as Sintram was beckoned at the entrance of the gorge. His hour had come to pass into the Shadow. The stern implacable demand of duty was ringing in his soul, and he dared gaze no longer on his sleeping child. If she should wake and look into his eyes, courage, honour, duty, all that makes man obedient unto death, might fail him even now. He dared not press his lips upon her cheek; he dared not even touch her hand.

She stirred and muttered something in her sleep. He quickly raised and kissed a few strands of her lovely hair; it was the last touch, the final leave-taking!

The father turned away. The child slept on.

* * * * *

A hundred yards from the bungalow--appointed to stay there, so that Flossie should not hear and wonder--a motor-car awaited him. The chauffeur belonged to his own corps--the Engineers. The man saluted him and looked anxiously at the drawn--white face, on which the lamp-light fell. Not a word was spoken. Wardlaw took his seat, and immediately the car, like a sentient thing let loose, sped swiftly on the road to Dover.

It was a night of starshine and soft breezes. As they climbed the rising ground, the pure air from the sea grew stronger. Bracing, health-giving, breathing life, it fanned the face of the silent man who was rushing towards his self-appointed doom. Stiff and rigid, he sat, staring into the night, but conscious of nothing around him or before him. All his thoughts were of what was left behind--the dainty bedroom with the shaded light, the rosy sleeping child, the delicate dimpled face that he should see no more, his one ewe lamb of all the world.

"If Thou shouldst call me to resign...."

The burden of the hymn was ringing in his brain, insistent, agonizing.

On and on sped the car. Away to the South the flashlights were sweeping the Channel, and, ahead, the first outlying lights of Dover soon came into view. Every moment the dull, dogged voices of the guns grew louder.

Still Wardlaw remained rigid and voiceless, as one who is paralyzed by some dreadful nightmare, while ding-dong in his mind the words of the hymn persisted and repeated: "If Thou shouldst call me to resign.... If Thou shouldst call me to resign." ...

They were close to Dover now. The car sped down from the heights. Ahead of them on the hard white road a lanthorn was swinging to and fro, and the chauffeur slackened speed to answer the challenge of the guard. He gave the password, and again the car tore forward.

Houses on either side now were numerous. Presently the car wound down into the town. Silent, half-ruined, the unlighted streets gave an inexpressible impression of melancholy and disaster. Here and there the vibration caused by the passing car brought down loosened stone and brickwork with a sudden clatter. At one spot some fragments of mortar flew out and struck Wardlaw in the face. They pricked him into consciousness. He shook himself and gave a brief order to the chauffeur. The car turned down a side street, and presently drew up before a large house standing in the shelter of the Castle Hill.

There were lights in all the windows; shadows passed and repassed across the drawn blinds. A strained air of animation and activity pervaded the place. A group of orderlies stood about the entrance, and through the open doorway there were glimpses of officers hurrying from room to room with clank of spur and rattle of accoutrement. This house, the head-quarters of the military staff, contained for the time being the brain of the British Army--foiled, so far, but still feverishly bent on devising means for the expulsion of the obstinate invader.

As the car stopped, a tall officer hurried out and grasped Wardlaw by the hand. It was a grasp that told more than words could utter--a grasp that recognized the arrival of a supreme moment, at once the grip of friendship and the clasp of greeting and farewell.

"The General's expecting you. I'll take you to him at once!"

Wardlaw nodded, and, still as one that dreamed, followed the aide-de-camp into the house.

* * * * *

On the following day great news was wired throughout the length and breadth of England, and cabled far and wide throughout the civilised world.

The newspapers of London and the provinces, in eager competition, issued special editions in quick succession. Everywhere great placards announced in heavy type and infinite variety of colours, a gladdening fact: the Fort had fallen!

The hero of the hour was Major Wardlaw, but no sound of joy or triumph could ever reach his ears--Wardlaw was dead. The published particulars, though brief, were all-sufficient and convincing. The Major had calmly and deliberately laid down his life for his country and his comrades. What shot and shell and bayonet had failed to do, he, single-handed, had achieved. The episode was all the more tragic and impressive by reason of its great simplicity. A method was known to Major Wardlaw, as the designer, by which he could flood the Fort. The enemy would be drowned like so many rats in a gigantic trap. The master-key was in his hands, and though--high honour be to them--there were other volunteers for the fatal work, he had steadfastly refused to let another British soldier lose his life in that prolonged and dreadful struggle. He was prepared, resolved, to die--and death had come to him.

Single-handed he had gone into the heart of the hill. The furious inrush of the water stored in the reservoir, which his own hand had deliberately let loose, claimed him, as he knew it must, first victim of the overwhelming flood.

But the Fort was ours again! It was a counter-stroke with which the enemy had not reckoned; a danger which the invader was wholly unable to avert. As the waters of the Red Sea overwhelmed the Egyptian Warriors; as that ancient river, the river Kishon swept away the foes of the armies of Israel, so, in a new and terrible way, the water floods had destroyed the invaders of England.

With a dull, elemental roar, with a suddenness that allowed of no flight, and a force that admitted of no resistance, ton after ton of water poured into the interior of the Fort. The sealed fate of its occupants was almost instantaneous. Of the survivors barely twenty men escaped with their lives, and these immediately fell into the hands of the encircling troops, and became prisoners of war.