Croquier listened with arrested breath. To him, every word of the prophecy was a gospel. "Then America will come to the aid of Belgium, Madame?" the boy queried, eagerly. The woman did not reply. She tottered back and rested her hand heavily upon the window-sill, as though her strength were spent. Horace moved restlessly, with a certain disquieting fear of the supernatural, although his heedless American nature disregarded superstition. Could it be true that one might look into the future? The woman spoke again. "Croquier," she said, "you are a Frenchman. Take you the captive Kaiser with his withered pinion. See that it does not escape. You understand? It must never escape. Look you! Never!" "Never!" said the hunchback, in a deep solemn voice that registered a vow. Horace hesitated. A boyish pride held him back. The bird was his prize. He wanted to show his captive to the school, and, perhaps, brag a little of his exploit. Suppose Croquier should let the bird escape! Then he remembered the hunchback's phenomenal strength and felt a momentary shame at his own desire to boast. "You may not keep the bird, American boy," said the woman, "it is not for you. To win, but not keep, so runs the future." "Give me the bird!" The hunchback's voice was rasping and authoritative. Horace turned and held out the eagle. The hunchback took it in his iron grip, catching the boy's hand with it. The clench was like a vise. "You've my hand!" the boy cried out. The grip relaxed. Horace withdrew his fingers. They were bruised as though he had been caught in a closing door. "You'll kill the bird," said Horace, "if you grip it that way." "I shall not kill the bird," boomed the hunchback. His tones became sinister, "And it shall not escape!" There was a gripping prescience in the scene: in the figure of the master's wife, all in black, standing by the window, the light just catching the side of her chalk-white face; in the twisted shoulder and large head of the powerful hunchback; in the evil glitter of the eagle's amber eyes which, despite the change of owners, had not wavered from their intent malevolence upon the woman's face; in the overtones of sullen wrath vibrating from the cannonade. The silence became unendurable and Horace, uncomfortable in the tension, blundered into the breaking of it. "Madame," he hazarded, "about Deschamps?" She turned her head slightly to listen. The boy had a sudden plan. "If you could come with me to tell his folks?" he pleaded timidly. The expression and manner of the master's wife changed on the instant. From the personification of vengeance, she turned to tenderness and sympathy. "Dear lad," she said, at once, "it is a hard thing for you to do, is it not? I will come at once. Shall I tell them, or will you?" "If, Madame," begged Horace, "you could speak. I--I--" he broke off, with a lump in his throat. "You see, Madame, Deschamps and I were chums."