cing his sack of
bombs on the pavement under the parapet. "Come, little bell-mistress, take
me to see your keyboard."

"It is below--a few steps. This way--if you will follow me----"

She turned to the stone stairs again, descended a dozen steps, opened a
door on a narrow landing.

And there, in the starlight, he saw the keyboard and the bewildering maze
of wires running up and branching like a huge web toward the tiers of
bells above.

He looked at the keyboard curiously. The little mistress of the bells
displayed the two wooden gloves with which she encased her hands when she
played the carillon.

"It would be impossible for one to play unless one's hands are armoured,"
she explained.

"It is almost a lost art," he mused aloud, "--this playing the
carillon--this wonderful bell-music of the middle ages. There are few
great bell-masters in this day."

"Few," she said dreamily.

"And"--he turned and stared at her--"few mistresses of the bells, I
imagine."

"I think I am the only one in France or in Flanders.... And there are few
carillons left. The Huns are battering them down. Towers of the ancient
ages are falling everywhere in Flanders and in France under their shell
fire. Very soon there will be no more of the old carillons left; no more
bell-music in the world." She sighed heavily. "It is a pity."

She seated herself at the keyboard.

"Dare I play?" she asked, looking up over her shoulder.

"No; it would only mean a shell from the Huns."

She nodded, laid the wooden gloves beside her and let her delicate hands
wander over the mute keys.

Leaning beside her the airman quietly explained the plan they were to
follow.

"With dawn they will come creeping into Nivelle--the Huns," he said. "I
have one of their officers' uniforms in that bundle above. I shall try to
pass as a general officer. You see, I speak German. My education was
partly ruined in Germany. So I'll get on very well, I expect.

"And directly under us is the trench and the main redoubt. They'll occupy
that first thing. They'll swarm there--the whole trench will be crawling
with them. They'll install their gas cylinders at once, this wind being
their wind.

"But with sunrise the wind changes--and whether it changes or not, I don't
care," he added. "I've got them at last where I want them."

The girl looked up at him. He smiled that terrifying smile of his:

"With the explosion of my first bomb among their gas cylinders you are to
st