" From the air. They may pass over, but there are
twelve iaubes, and they are circling overhead."

The first bomb dropped then in the street. It was
white moonlight and tfie Germans must have seen that
there were no troops. Probably it was as Henri said
later, that they had learned of the little house, and
since it brought such aid and comfort as might be it
was to be destroyed.
The house of the mill went witfi the second bomb.
Then followed a deafening uproar as plane after plane
dropped its shells on the dead town. Marie and Sara
Lee were in the cellar by that time, but the cellar was
scarcely safer than the floor above. From a bombard-
ment by shells from guns miles away there was protec-
tion. From a bomb dropped from the sky, the floors
above were practically useless.
Only Henri and Rene remained on the street floor.
Henri was extinguishing lights. In the passage Rene

Digitized by CjOOQ IC



228 THE AMAZING INTERLUDE

stood, not willing to take refuge until Henri, whom
he adored, had done so. For a moment the uproar
ceased, and in a spirit of bravado Rene stepped out into
the moonlight and made a gesture of derision into the
air.
He fell there, struck by a piece of splintered shell.
''Come, Rene!" Henri called. "The brave are
those who live to fight again, not '*

But Rene's figure against the moonlight was gone.
Henri ran to the doorway then and f oimd him lying,
his head on the little step where he had been wont to
sit and whittle and sing his Tipperaree. He was dead.
Henri carried him in and laid him in the little passage,
very reverently. Then he went below.
