The Forest of Swords by Joseph A. Altsheler

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THE FOREST OF SWORDS

BOOKS BY JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR SERIES

The Hunters of the Hills The Shadow of the North
The Rulers of the Lakes The Masters of the Peaks
The Lords of the Wild The Sun of Quebec

THE YOUNG TRAILERS SERIES

The Young Trailers The Free Rangers
The Forest Runners The Riflemen of the Ohio
The Keepers of the Trail The Scouts of the Valley
The Eyes of the Woods The Border Watch

THE TEXAN SERIES

The Texan Star The Texan Triumph
The Texan Scouts

THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

The Guns of Bull Run The Star of Gettysburg
The Guns of Shiloh The Rock of Chickamauga
The Scouts of Stonewall The Shades of the Wilderness
The Sword of Antietam The Tree of Appomattox

THE GREAT WEST SERIES

The Lost Hunters The Great Sioux Trail

THE WORLD WAR SERIES

The Guns of Europe The Hosts of the Air
The Forest of Swords

BOOKS NOT IN SERIES

Apache Gold A Soldier of Manhattan
The Quest of the Four The Sun of Saratoga
The Last of the Chiefs A Herald of the West
In Circling Camps The Wilderness Road
The Last Rebel My Captive
The Candidate

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

New York London

[Illustration: "He heard a shock near him and, ... saw a huddled mass
of wreckage."]

WORLD WAR SERIES

THE FOREST
OF SWORDS

A STORY OF PARIS
AND THE MARNE

BY

JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

AUTHOR OF "THE GUNS OF EUROPE,"
"THE STAR OF GETTYSBURG," ETC.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1928

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

FOREWORD

"The Forest of Swords," while an independent story, based upon the World
War, continues the fortunes of John Scott, Philip Lannes, and their
friends who have appeared already in "The Guns of Europe." As was stated
in the first volume, the author was in Austria and Germany for a month
after the war began, and then went to England. He saw the arrival of the
Emperor, Francis Joseph, in Vienna, the first striking event in the
gigantic struggle, and witnessed the mobilization of their armies by
three great nations.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. IN PARIS 1
II. THE MESSAGE 30
III. IN THE FRENCH CAMP 53
IV. THE INVISIBLE HAND 76
V. SEEN FROM ABOVE 99
VI. IN HOSTILE HANDS 121
VII. THE TWO PRINCES 146
VIII. THE SPORT OF KINGS 167
IX. THE PUZZLING SIGNAL 186
X. OLD FRIENDS 209
XI. THE CONTINUING BATTLE 231
XII. JULIE LANNES 247
XIII. THE MIDDLE AGES 268
XIV. A PROMISE KEPT 291
XV. THE RESCUE 311

THE FOREST OF SWORDS

CHAPTER I

IN PARIS

John Scott and Philip Lannes walked together down a great boulevard of
Paris. The young American's heart was filled with grief and anger. The
Frenchman felt the same grief, but mingled with it was a fierce, burning
passion, so deep and bitter that it took a much stronger word than anger
to describe it.

Both had heard that morning the mutter of cannon on the horizon, and
they knew the German conquerors were advancing. They were always
advancing. Nothing had stopped them. The metal and masonry of the
defenses at Liege had crumbled before their huge guns like china
breaking under stone. The giant shells had scooped out the forts at
Maubeuge, Maubeuge the untakable, as if they had been mere eggshells,
and the mighty Teutonic host came on, almost without a check.

John had read of the German march on Paris, nearly a half-century
before, how everything had been made complete by the genius of Bismarck
and von Moltke, how the ready had sprung upon and crushed the unready,
but the present swoop of the imperial eagle seemed far more vast and
terrible than the earlier rush could have been.

A month and the legions were already before the City of Light. Men with
glasses could see from the top of the Eiffel Tower the gray ranks that
were to hem in devoted Paris once more, and the government had fled
already to Bordeaux. It seemed that everything was lost before the war
was fairly begun. The coming of the English army, far too small in
numbers, had availed nothing. It had been swept up with the others,
escaping from capture or destruction only by a hair, and was now driven
back with the French on the capital.

John had witnessed two battles, and in neither had the Germans stopped
long. Disregarding their own losses they drove forward, immense,
overwhelming, triumphant. He felt yet their very physical weight,
pressing upon him, crushing him, giving him no time to breathe. The
German war machine was magnificent, invincible, and for the fourth time
in a century the Germans, the exulting Kaiser at their head, might enter
Paris.

The Emperor himself might be nothing, mere sound and glitter, but back
of him was the greatest army that ever trod the planet, taught for half
a century to believe in the divine right of kings, and assured now that
might and right were the same.

Every instinct in him revolted at the thought that Paris should be
trodden under foot once more by the conqueror. The great capital had
truly deserved its claim to be the city of light and leading, and if
Paris and France were lost the whole world would lose. He could never
forget the unpaid debt that his own America owed to France, and he felt
how closely interwoven the two republics were in their beliefs and
aspirations.

"Why are you so silent?" asked Lannes, half angrily, although John knew
that the anger was not for him.

"I've said as much as you have," he replied with an attempt at humor.

"You notice the sunlight falling on it?" said Lannes, pointing to the
Arc de Triomphe, rising before them.

"Yes, and I believe I know what you are thinking."

"You are right. I wish he was here now."

John gazed at the great arch which the sun was gilding with glory and he
shared with Lannes his wish that the mighty man who had built it to
commemorate his triumphs was back with France--for a while at least. He
was never able to make up his mind whether Napoleon was good or evil.
Perhaps he was a mixture of both, highly magnified, but now of all
times, with the German millions at the gates, he was needed most.

"I think France could afford to take him back," he said, "and risk any
demands he might make or enforce."

"John," said Lannes, "you've fought with us and suffered with us, and so
you're one of us. You understand what I felt this morning when on the
edge of Paris I heard the German guns. They say that we can fight on,
after our foes have taken the capital, and that the English will come in
greater force to help us. But if victorious Germans march once through
the Arc de Triomphe I shall feel that we can never again win back all
that we have lost."

A note, low but deep and menacing, came from the far horizon. It might
be a German gun or it might be a French gun, but the effect was the
same. The threat was there. A shudder shook the frame of Lannes, but
John saw a sudden flame of sunlight shoot like a glittering lance from
the Arc de Triomphe.

"A sign! a sign!" he exclaimed, his imaginative mind on fire in an
instant. "I saw a flash from the arch! It was the soul of the Great
Captain speaking! I tell you, Philip, the Republic is not yet lost! I've
read somewhere, and so have you, that the Romans sold at auction at a
high price the land on which Hannibal's victorious army was camped, when
it lay before Rome!"

"It's so! And France has her glorious traditions, too! We won't give up
until we're beaten--and not then!"

The gray eyes of Lannes flamed, and his figure seemed to swell. All the
wonderful French vitality was personified in him. He put his hand
affectionately upon the shoulder of his comrade.

"It's odd, John," he said, "but you, a foreigner, have lighted the spark
anew in me."

"Maybe it's because I _am_ a foreigner, though, in reality, I'm now no
foreigner at all, as you've just said. I've become one of you."

"It's true, John, and I won't forget it. I'm never going to give up hope
again. Maybe somebody will arrive to save us at the last. Whatever the
great one, whose greatest monument stands there, may have been, he loved
France, and his spirit may descend upon Frenchmen."

"I believe it. He had the strength and courage created by a republic,
and you have them again, the product of another republic. Look at the
flying men, Lannes!"

Lannes glanced up where the aeroplanes hovered thick over Paris, and
toward the horizon where the invisible German host with its huge guns
was advancing. The look of despair came into his eyes again, but it
rested there only a moment. He remembered his new courage and banished
it.

"Perhaps I ought to be in the sky myself with the others," he said, "but
I'd only see what I don't like to see. The _Arrow_ and I can't be of any
help now."

"You brought me here in the _Arrow_, Lannes," said John, seeking to
assume a light tone. "Now what do you intend to do with me? As everybody
is leaving Paris you ought to get me out of it."

"I hardly know what to do. There are no orders. I've lost touch with the
commander of our flying corps, but you're right in concluding that we
shouldn't remain in Paris. Now where are we to go?"

"We'll make no mistake if we seek the battle front. You know I'm bound
to rejoin my company, the Strangers, if I can. I must report as soon as
possible to Captain Colton."

"That's true, John, but I can't leave Paris until tomorrow. I may have
orders to carry, I must obtain supplies for the _Arrow_, and I wish to
visit once more my people on the other side of the Seine."

"Suppose you go now, and I'll meet you this afternoon in the Place de
l'Opera."

"Good. Say three o'clock. The first to arrive will await the other
before the steps of the Opera House?"

John nodded assent and Lannes hurried away. Young Scott followed his
figure with his eyes until it disappeared in the crowd. A back may be an
index to a man's strength of mind, and he saw that Lannes, head erect
and shoulders thrown back, was walking with a rapid and springy step.
Courage was obviously there.

But John, despite his own strong heart, could not keep from feeling an
infinite sadness and pity, not for Lannes, but for all the three million
people who inhabited the City of Light, most of whom were fleeing now
before the advance of the victorious invader. He could put himself in
their place. France held his deepest sympathy. He felt that a great
nation, sedulously minding its own business, trampled upon and robbed
once before, was now about to be trampled upon and robbed again. He
could not subscribe to the doctrine, that might was right.

He watched the fugitives a long time. They were crowding the railway
stations, and they were departing by motor, by cart and on foot. Many of
the poorer people, both men and women, carried packs on their backs. The
boulevards and the streets were filled with the retreating masses.

It was an amazing and stupefying sight, the abandonment by its
inhabitants of a great city, a city in many ways the first in the world,
and it gave John a mighty shock. He had been there with his uncle and
Mr. Anson in the spring, and he had seen nothing but peace and
brightness. The sun had glittered then, as it glittered now over the Arc
de Triomphe, the gleaming dome of the Invalides and the golden waters of
the Seine. It was Paris, soft, beautiful and bright, the Paris that
wished no harm to anybody.

But the people were going. He could see them going everywhere. The
cruel, ancient times when cities were destroyed or enslaved by the
conqueror had come back, and the great Paris that the world had known so
long might become lost forever.

The stream of fugitives, rich and poor, mingled, poured on without
ceasing. He did not know where they were going. Most of them did not
know themselves. He saw a great motor, filled high with people and
goods, break down in the streets, and he watched them while they worked
desperately to restore the mechanism. And yet there was no panic. The
sound of voices was not high. The Republic was justifying itself once
more. Silent and somberly defiant, the inhabitants were leaving Paris
before the giant German guns could rain shells upon the unarmed.

It was three or four hours until the time to meet Lannes, and drawn by
an overwhelming curiosity and anxiety he began the climb of the Butte
Montmartre. If observers on the Eiffel Tower could see the German forces
approaching, then with the powerful glasses he carried over his shoulder
he might discern them from the dome of the Basilica of the Sacred
Heart.

As he made his way up the ascent through the crooked and narrow little
streets he saw many eyes, mostly black and quick, watching him. This by
night was old Paris, dark and dangerous, where the Apache dwelled, and
by day in a fleeing city, with none to restrain, he might be no less
ruthless.

But John felt only friendliness for them all. He believed that common
danger would knit all Frenchmen together, and he nodded and smiled at
the watchers. More than one pretty Parisian, not of the upper classes,
smiled back at the American with the frank and open face.

Before he reached the Basilica a little rat of a young man stepped
before him and asked:

"Which way, Monsieur?"

He was three or four years older than John, wearing uncommonly tight
fitting clothes of blue, a red cap with a tassel, and he was about five
feet four inches tall. But small as he was he seemed to be made of
steel, and he stood, poised on his little feet, ready to spring like a
leopard when he chose.

The blue eyes of the tall American looked steadily into the black eyes
of the short Frenchman, and the black eyes looked back as steadily. John
was fast learning to read the hearts and minds of men through their
eyes, and what he saw in the dark depths pleased him. Here were cunning
and yet courage; impudence and yet truth; caprice and yet honor. Apache
or not, he decided to like him.

"I'm going up into the lantern of the Basilica," he said, "to see if I
can see the Germans, who are my enemies as well as yours."

"And will not Monsieur take me, too, and let me have look for look with
him through those glasses at the Germans, some of whom I'm going to
shoot?"

John smiled.

"If you're going out potting Germans," he said, "you'd better get
yourself into a uniform as soon as you can. They have no mercy on _franc
tireurs_."

"I'll chance that. But you'll take me with you into the dome?"

"What's your name?"

"Pierre Louis Bougainville."

"Bougainville! Bougainville! It sounds noble and also historical. I've
read of it, but I don't recall where."

The little Frenchman drew himself up, and his black eyes glittered.

"There is a legend among us that it was noble once," he said, "but we
don't know when. I feel within me the spirit to make it great again.
There was a time when the mighty Napoleon said that every soldier
carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack. Perhaps that time has come
again. And the great emperor was a little man like me."

John began to laugh and then he stopped suddenly. Pierre Louis
Bougainville, so small and so insignificant, was not looking at him. He
was looking over and beyond him, dreaming perhaps of a glittering
future. The funny little red cap with the tassel might shelter a great
brain. Respect took the place of the wish to laugh.

"Monsieur Bougainville," he said in his excellent French, "my name is
John Scott. I am from America, but I am serving in the allied
Franco-British army. My heart like yours beats for France."

"Then, Monsieur Jean, you and I are brothers," said the little man, his
eyes still gleaming. "It may be that we shall fight side by side in the
hour of victory. But you will take me into the lantern will you not?
Father Pelletier does not know, as you do, that I'm going to be a great
man, and he will not admit me."

"If I secure entrance you will, too. Come."

They reached side by side the Basilique de Sacre-Coeur, which crowns the
summit of the Butte Montmartre, and bought tickets from the porter,
whose calm the proximity of untold Germans did not disturb. John saw the
little Apache make the sign of the cross and bear himself with dignity.
In some curious way Bougainville impressed him once more with a sense of
power. Perhaps there was a spark of genius under the red cap. He knew
from his reading that there was no rule about genius. It passed kings
by, and chose the child of a peasant in a hovel.

"You're what they call an Apache, are you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Well, for the present, that is until you win a greater name, I'm going
to call you Geronimo."

"And why Zhay-ro-nee-mo, Monsieur?"

"Because that was the name of a great Apache chief. According to our
white standards he was not all that a man should be. He had perhaps a
certain insensibility to the sufferings of others, but in the Apache
view that was not a fault. He was wholly great to them."

"Very well then, Monsieur Scott, I shall be flattered to be called
Zhay-ro-nee-mo, until I win a name yet greater."

"Where is the Father Pelletier, the priest, who you said would bar your
way unless I came with you?"

"He is on the second platform where you look out over Paris before going
into the lantern. It may be that he has against me what you would call
the prejudice. I am young. Youth must have its day, and I have done some
small deeds in the quarter which perhaps do not please Father Pelletier,
a strict, a very strict man. But our country is in danger, and I am
willing to forgive and forget."

He spoke with so much magnanimity that John was compelled to laugh.
Geronimo laughed, too, showing splendid white teeth. The understanding
between them was now perfect.

"I must talk with Father Pelletier," said John. "Until you're a great
man, as you're going to be, Geronimo, I suppose I can be spokesman.
After that it will be your part to befriend me."

On the second platform they found Father Pelletier, a tall young priest
with a fine but severe face, who looked with curiosity at John, and with
disapproval at the Apache.

"You are Father Pelletier, I believe," said John with his disarming
smile. "These are unusual times, but I wish to go up into the lantern. I
am an American, though, as you can see by my uniform, I am a soldier of
France."

"But your companion, sir? He has a bad reputation in the quarter. When
he should come to the church he does not, and now when he should not he
does."

"That reputation of which you speak, Father Pelletier, will soon pass.
Another, better and greater will take its place. Our friend here, and
perhaps both of us will be proud to call him so some day, leaves soon to
fight for France."

The priest looked again at Bougainville, and his face softened. The
little Apache met his glance with a firm and open gaze, and his figure
seemed to swell again, and to radiate strength. Perhaps the priest saw
in his eyes the same spark that John had noticed there.

"It is a time when France needs all of her sons," he said, "and even
those who have not deserved well of her before may do great deeds for
her now. You can pass."

Bougainville walked close to Father Pelletier, and John heard him say in
low tones:

"I feel within me the power to achieve, and when you see me again you
will recognize it."

The priest nodded and his friendly hand lay for a moment on the other's
shoulder.

"Come on, Geronimo," said John cheerfully. "As I remember it's nearly a
hundred steps into the lantern, and that's quite a climb."

"Not for youth like ours," exclaimed Bougainville, and he ran upward so
lightly that the American had some difficulty in following him. John was
impressed once more by his extraordinary strength and agility, despite
his smallness. He seemed to be a mass of highly wrought steel spring.
But unwilling to be beaten by anybody, John raced with him and the two
stood at the same time upon the utmost crest of the Basilique du
Sacre-Coeur.

They paused a few moments for fresh breath and then John put the glasses
to his eye, sweeping them in a slow curve. Through the powerful lenses
he saw the vast circle of Paris, and all the long story of the past that
it called up. Two thousand years of history rolled beneath his feet, and
the spectacle was wholly magnificent.

He beheld the great green valley with its hills, green, too, the line of
the Seine cutting the city apart like the flash of a sword blade, the
golden dome of the Hotel des Invalides, the grinning gargoyles of Notre
Dame, the arches and statues and fountains and the long green ribbons
that marked the boulevards.

Although the city stood wholly in the sunlight a light haze formed on
the rim of the circling horizon. He now moved the glasses slowly over a
segment there and sought diligently for something. From so high a point
and with such strong aid one could see many miles. He was sure that he
would find what he sought and yet did not wish to see. Presently he
picked out intermittent flashes which he believed were made by sunlight
falling on steel. Then he drew a long and deep breath that was almost
like a sigh.

"What is it?" asked Bougainville who had stood patiently by his side.

"I fear it is the glitter of lances, my friend, lances carried by German
Uhlans. Will you look?"

Bougainville held out his hands eagerly for the glasses, and then drew
them back a little. In his new dignity he would not show sudden emotion.

"It will give me gladness to see," he said. "I do not fear the Prussian
lances."

John handed him the glasses and he looked long and intently, at times
sweeping them slowly back and forth, but gazing chiefly at the point
under the horizon that had drawn his companion's attention.

John meanwhile looked down at the city glittering in the sun, but from
which its people were fleeing, as if its last day had come. It still
seemed impossible that Europe should be wrapped in so great a war and
that the German host should be at the gates of Paris.

His eyes turned back toward the point where he had seen the gleam of the
lances and he fancied now that he heard the far throb of the German
guns. The huge howitzers like the one Lannes and he had blown up might
soon be throwing shells a ton or more in weight from a range of a dozen
miles into the very heart of the French capital. An acute depression
seized him. He had strengthened the heart of Lannes, and now his own
heart needed strengthening. How was it possible to stop the German army
which had come so far and so fast that its Uhlans could already see
Paris? The unprepared French had been defeated already, and the slow
English, arriving to find France under the iron heel, must go back and
defend their own island.

"The Germans are there. I have not a doubt of it, and I thank you,
Monsieur Scott, for the use of these," said Bougainville, handing the
glasses back to him.

"Well, Geronimo," he said, "having seen, what do you say?"

"The sight is unpleasant, but it is not hopeless. They call us decadent.
I read, Monsieur Scott, more than you think! Ah, it has been the
bitterness of death for Frenchmen to hear all the world say we are a
dying race, and it has been said so often that some of us ourselves had
begun to believe it! But it is not so! I tell you it is not so, and
we'll soon prove to the Germans who come that it isn't! I have looked
for a sign. I sought for it in all the skies through your glasses, but I
did not find it there. Yet I have found it."

"Where?"

"In my heart. Every beat tells me that this Paris of ours is not for the
Germans. We will yet turn them back!"

He reminded John of Lannes in his dramatic intensity, real and not
affected, a true part of his nature. Its effect, too, upon the American
was powerful. He had given courage to Lannes, and now Bougainville, that
little Apache of the Butte Montmartre, was giving new strength to his
own weakening heart. Fresh life flowed back into his veins and he
remembered that he, too, had beheld a sign, the flash of light on the
Arc de Triomphe.

"I think we have seen enough here, Geronimo," he said lightly, "and
we'll descend. I've a friend to meet later. Which way do you go from the
church?"

"To the army. I shall be in a uniform tonight, and tomorrow maybe I
shall meet the Germans."

John held out his hand and the Apache seized it in a firm clasp.

"I believe in you, as I hope you believe in me," said young Scott. "I
belong to a company called the Strangers, made up chiefly of Americans
and English, and commanded by Captain Daniel Colton. If you're on the
battle line and hear of the Strangers there too I should like for you to
hunt me up if you can. I'd do the same for you, but I don't yet know to
what force you will belong."

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