Annie Vivanti - The Outrage

"What have you done to him?" she said, turning fiercely on Von Wedel.

He laughed. "Well, well, what a little vixen!" he said. Then he added, "You can take the dog away. I don't like dogs." Chérie moved at once towards the staircase, but he stopped her again. "No, no; give the dog to the vixen. You stay here."

Chérie obeyed, shrinking away from him to Louise's side, while Mireille ran upstairs with Amour and took him to Chérie's room. She kissed him on his rough black head and patted his poor paws and put him down on a cushion in a corner. Then she ran down again to see what was going on. Amour left alone whined and howled in hideous long-drawn tones of indignation and suffering. When a few minutes later Captain Fischer, followed by Lieutenant Glotz and the two soldiers on his round of inspection, came downstairs, he stopped on the landing.

"What is that noise? Who is crying?" he asked.

"The dog, sir," said Glotz, "whom you kicked downstairs before."

"Hideous sound!" said Captain Fischer; "stop it."

And one of the soldiers went in and stopped it.

Captain Fischer went downstairs, followed by Glotz. When they entered the room Von Wedel turned away from Chérie and stood at attention.

Outside the boom of the cannon had ceased, but there were loud bursts of firing in the distance, sudden volleys which ceased as abruptly as they began. The three officers seemed to pay no heed to these sounds; they stood speaking together, the captain issuing brief orders, Von Wedel asking a question or two, and Glotz saying " Ja, Herr Kapitän—ja, Herr Leutnant " at brief intervals, like a mechanical toy. Glotz was round-faced and solemn. He never once looked at Louise, Chérie, or Mireille, who stood in a corner of the room watching the men with anxious eyes.

"What are they saying?" asked Louise in an undertone.

Chérie listened. So far as she could understand they were making arrangements as to where they should sleep.

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