E.F. had
long since said farewell to the shores of France, while the Tarn
country seemed a far cry from the banks of the Rhine, in those days
still under occupation by forces of the United States Regular Army.
Then, too, it was a fact within the knowledge of Monsieur Duchemin that
the uniform of the Americans had more than frequently been used by
those ancient acquaintances of his, the Apaches of Paris, as a cloak
for their own misdoings. So it didn't need the air of stealth that
marked this business to persuade him there was mischief in the brew.
But indeed he got in motion to investigate without stopping to debate
an excuse for so doing, and several seconds before he heard the woman's
cries.
Of these the first sounded, shrill with alarm, as Duchemin turned the
corner where the prowlers had gone from sight. But a high wall of rock
alone met his vision, and he broke into a run that carried him round
still another corner and then plumped him headlong into the theatre of
villainy.
This was open ground, a breadth of turf bordering on one of the great
cirques--a rudely oval pit at a guess little less than seven hundred
feet in its narrowest diameter and something like four hundred in
depth, a vast black well against whose darkness the blue-white
moonglare etched a strange grouping of figures, seven in all.
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