Part 5 (1/2)

But instead of stopping, she pa.s.sed by and continued down between the rows of cotton, avoiding as much as possible the lights that dotted the field about her.

”Oh, G.o.d!” she repeated under her breath; ”Oh, G.o.d! I can't go! I won't go!”

For some time she walked on briskly trying to calm her feverish mind and reason out a sane course of procedure.

She was pa.s.sing thus where the lights of two planes glowed fifty meters at either side, when she stumbled heavily over some dark object between the cotton rows. She turned to see what it was; and, bending forward, discerned in the starlight the body of a man. She started to run; then, fearing pursuit the more, checked her speed.

As she did so some one grasped her arm and a heavy hand was clapped over her mouth.

”Keep quiet,” commanded her captor hoa.r.s.ely. In another instant he had bent her back over his knee and thrown her--or rather dropped her for she did not resist--upon the soft earth beneath.

”If you make a sound, I'll have to shoot,” he said, resting a heavy knee upon her chest and clasping her slender wrist in a vise-like grip of a single hand.

The girl breathed heavily.

The man reached toward his hip pocket and drawing forth a bright metallic object held it close to her face. Her breath stopped short.

Then a flood of light struck her full in the eyes, as her captor pressed the b.u.t.ton on his flash lamp.

”G.o.d! a woman!” the man gasped. The exclamation and voice were clearly not j.a.panese.

Ethel felt the grip loosen from her wrists and the weight s.h.i.+ft from her chest.

”You're no j.a.panese!” he said under his breath, at the same time letting the glowing flash lamp fall from his hand.

Presently Ethel raised her head and reached for the lamp where it lay wasting its rays against the black soil. She now turned the glow on the other and saw kneeling beside her a young man in American clothes. He was hatless and coatless and his soft gray s.h.i.+rt was torn and mud bespattered. A ma.s.sive head of uncombed hair crowned a handsome forehead, but the face beneath was marred by a stubby growth of beard.

”Who are you?” whispered Ethel finding her voice.

”Put out the light,” he commanded, reaching forward to take it from her.

”Who are you?” he asked reversing the query as they were again in darkness.

”I'm a girl,” said Ethel.

The man laughed softly.

”I'm not,” he said.

Ethel drew herself into a sitting posture. ”Which side of this war are you on?” she asked.

The man was afraid to commit himself--then a happy thought struck him. ”The same side that you are,” he answered diplomatically.

It was Ethel's turn to smile.

”You are an American?” she ventured at length.

”Yes,” he said. ”So are you?”