Shelled by an Unseen Foe | Page 7

by seven o'clock, that's all."
"Very well," said the man. "I'll take you in then. I'm tired enough
myself tramping up and down here all night. That place is full of
recruits, and a lot of them are unwilling ones, I can tell you. But they
are under lock and key. They can't escape. All the air they get even is
from that crack in the door. A fly couldn't get out there." He was a fat
sentry, and he laughed. Zaidos joined his mirth.
"Perhaps a thin fly might," he said.
The man shrugged. "Perhaps!" he said. "Those recruits are raw, I can
tell you. You can be glad you are a trained soldier. I could tell it by
your walk, even in this dim light. The walk always tells."
Zaidos nodded and squatted down near the open door. Moment by
moment his danger was growing. The sentry turned and sauntered to
the end of the block. Zaidos counted slowly. Once the man turned and
nodded in a friendly fashion, then resumed his slow pace. Sixty steps.
He stood for a moment on the corner, then came back. "Not long now,"
he said, and smiled. Then he passed in the other direction. Eighty steps
that way. Zaidos counted. Again the man returned. Zaidos could feel
his muscles stiffening, as if about to spring. He cautiously shifted to a
position still nearer the partly open door and measured the opening. He
felt heavy and awkward. He studied the dark opening. It did indeed
look very narrow. He had squirmed through it without much trouble,
but that was in the densest darkness, and he had taken all the time he
needed. Now if the sentry should turn * * * Well, it would be the end of
Zaidos, and a most ignominious end at that. He was not a coward, but
he had no fancy to find himself against a wall with a firing squad
before him.
Sixty steps and back walked the sentry, and Zaidos, head against the
wall, body reclining close to the open door, seemed to be dozing. One,
two, three steps past him, went the sentry again--
With the quickness of a cat Zaidos ripped off his uniform blouse, thrust

it through the door, stretched his arms over his head, and with a mighty
shove of his strong young legs thrust himself into the opening.
There was a terrific struggle for a moment, a series of agile twists, and
Zaidos fell forward on the stone floor. Quickly he kicked away his
shoes and tumbled down on his pallet. After the gray dawn outside the
room was very dark. He heard the sentry outside come running to the
door, push it against its stout chain and stand thinking. Zaidos laughed
to himself. The opening, "too small for a fly," had swallowed him; and
the unsuspicious fellow outside was filled with almost superstitious
amazement. He knew that Zaidos could not by any possibility have
reached the corner without making the least sound, and the street was
absolutely silent. Zaidos, scarcely daring to breathe, smiled in the dark.
Then, fatherless and friendless as he was, and thrust by a strange fate of
birth into a war in which he had no part, Zaidos, exhausted by his
night's experiences, dropped asleep. About him men tired by a long
night spent on pallets as hard as the stone flooring tossed and groaned
or sighed wakefully. Zaidos slept on.
He was sleeping so heavily an hour later that he did not hear two
soldiers enter with a slender young fellow in civilian dress. He never
stirred as they went from pallet to pallet, scanning the faces as they
passed. When they reached his side the young man looked down at him
with an expression which might have been taken for startled
amazement if anyone had been watching. He nodded to the officers,
and spoke a word of thanks. "This is my cousin," he said in a low voice.
"With your permission I will sit here by him until he awakes. It would
be cruel to rouse him only to tell him of his father's death."
"Yes, you may stay," said the older soldier. "There can be no objection
to that."
They turned and soon the distant door closed behind them. Then the
newcomer did a strange thing. He cast a swift glance over the sleeping
faces, to assure himself that he was not watched, and with the
light-fingered stealth of the born thief, he slipped his thin hand into
Zaidos' breast pocket. Withdrawing it, he smiled wickedly at the sight

of what he held. He rose to his feet, hastily pocketed his find, and for a
moment stood looking down at Zaidos. With a noiseless laugh he
nodded sneeringly at the sleeping boy, picked his