A couple of peasant hand-carts
were tilted on end, and the flooring sodded like the barrels.
"Look who's coming," pointed Rossiter, swiveling his lens sharply
around.
Steaming gently into our narrow street from the Grand Place came a great
Sava mitrailleuse--big steel turret, painted lead blue, three men
sitting behind the swinging turret. One of the men, taller by a head
than his fellows, had a white rag bound round his head, where a bullet
had clipped off a piece of his forehead the week before. His face was
set and pale. Sitting on high, in the grim machine, with his bandage
worn as a plume, he looked like the presiding spirit of the fracas.
"It's worth the trip," muttered Romeyn, grinding away on his crank.
There was something silent and efficient in the look of the big man and
the big car, with its slim-waisted, bright brass gun shoving through.
"Here, have a cigarette," said Rossiter, as the powerful thing glided
by.
He passed up a box to the three gunners.
"_Bonne chance_," said the big man, as he puffed out rings and fondled
the trim bronze body of his Lady of Death. They let the car slide down
the street to the left end of the barricade, where it came to rest.
Over the canal, out from the smoke-misted houses, came a peasant
running. In his arms he carried a little girl. Her hair was light as
flax, and crested with a knot of very bright red ribbon.
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