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 start these bells above us. Are you afraid?" "No." "You are to play ’La Brabançonne.’ That is the signal to our trenches." "I have often played it," she said coolly. "Not in the teeth of a barbarian army. Not in the faces of a murderous soldiery." The girl sat quite still for a few moments; then looking up at him, and very pale in the starlight: "Do you think they will tear me to pieces, monsieur?" He said: "I mean to hold those stairs with my sack of bombs until our people enter the trenches. If they can do it in an hour we will be all right." "Yes." "It is only a half-hour affair from our salient. I allow our people an hour." "Yes." "But if, even now, you had rather go back----" "_No!_" "There is no disgrace in going back." "You said once, ’anybody can weep for friend and country. Few avenge either.’ I am--happy--to be among the few." He nodded. After a moment he said: