The Son of Clemenceau | Page 3

prolific centenarians, truly a mother of the
tribe, a gypsy queen to whom allegiance went undisputed and who
rules the subterranean strata of society with fewer revolts against them
than their sister rulers know, who sit on thrones in the fierce white

light?
In any case, he was given no leisure for deciding the question, for an
active urchin had whispered a word of caution which led the feminine
general to direct a piercing glance toward him, and hasten to conclude
her arrangements. The line broke up into little groups, though most of
the men went singly, and all tramped over the little foot-bridge, which
swung under the unusual mass.
Left alone, the vagrants' queen, placing her yellow and skinny hand on
a weapon, perhaps, among her rags, resolutely moved toward the spy.
He expected to be interrogated, for an attack was unlikely from a lone
old woman; but he grasped his cane firmly.
Luckily, a noise of steps at the other end of the street checked the hag;
she thrust back out of sight what had momentarily gleamed like the
steel of a knife or brass of a pistol-barrel; listened again and stared;
then, muttering what was probably no prayer for the stranger's welfare,
she crossed the street with amazing rapidity. The student, hearing a
heavy military tread at the mouth of the street, expected to see her
vanish down her burrow, but, to his astonishment, she proceeded
toward the new-comer.
"The Schutzmaun," muttered he, as there loomed into sight a decidedly
soldier-like man in a long cloak, thrown back to show the scarlet lining,
and dragging a clanking sabre.
Relying on her good angel, apparently, the witch boldly passed him,
and it seemed to the watcher that a sign of understanding was rapidly
exchanged between them. Baboushka seemed to enjoin caution for the
stranger hooked up his trailing sabre, wrapped his cloak around him
and came on less noisily. Certainly the old hag did not beg of him, but
hastened to leave the street.
If the new-comer had been the night guardian coming on duty, the
student might have lost any misgiving about the vagrants or their ruler;
but he was not sure that in him was a friend.

This was an officer, not a gendarme or military policeman. Cloak and
uniform were dark blue and fine. He bore himself with the swagger of a
personage of no inconsiderable rank, and also of some degree in the
nobility. Tall, burly, overbearing, the stranger took a dislike to him
from this one glance, and would have hesitated to appeal to him for
assistance had he felt in danger.
But the beggars had flocked into the rich quarter, and their chieftainess
vanished. He allowed the military gentleman to pass, and was not sorry
to see him cross the bridge with a steady, haughty step, which made his
heel ring on each plank. But, on reaching the farther end, to the surprise
of the watcher, his carriage immediately altered; his step became
cautious and, like the other whom he had not noticed, he skulked in a
doorway. He might have been thought a visitor there, but, at the next
moment, his red whiskers reappeared between the turned-up collar of
his mantle as he showed his head under the cornice of oak.
For what motive had the officer and nobleman stooped to skulking and
prying. One alone would amply exonerate the son of Mars--devotion to
Venus. And the architectural student, not fearing to pass the soldier in
his excusable ambush for a sweetheart, since his route over the bridge
into the new city, and not wishful to spoil the lover's sport, since he was
of the age to sympathize, prepared to leave his nook.
But it was fated that continual impediments were to be thrown in his
path on this eventful night. He had hardly taken two steps out of his
covert, which kept him hidden from the officer but revealed him to any
one approaching in the street, before a third individual of singular mien
caught his view and transfixed him with a thrill so sharp, poignant and
profound that a stroke of lightning would not have more dreadfully
affected him.
And yet, it was a woman--young by her step, light and quick as the
antelope's, graceful by her movements, charming by her outlines which
a poor, thin woolen wrapper imperfectly shrouded. She enchanted by
the mere contour; it was her weird burden which appalled the watcher.
In one hand, suspended horizontally, lengthwise parallel to her course,
she held what seemed by shape and somber hue to be an infant's coffin.

Her dark and brilliant eyes had descried him from the distance, but, in
an instant recognizing that he was neither one of the usual nocturnal
denizens nor another sort of whom she need