Paris enjoyed the adventure, the thrill of romance in the mystery of darkness, the weird beauty of it.  The Tuileries gardens, without a single light except the faint gleams of star-dust, was an enchanted place, with the white statues of the goddesses very vague and tremulous in the shadow world above banks of invisible flowers which drenched the still air with sweet perfumes.  The narrow streets were black tunnels into which Parisians plunged with an exquisite frisson of romantic fear.  High walls of darkness closed about them, and they gazed up to the floor of heaven from enormous gulfs.  A man on a balcony au cinquieme was smoking a cigarette, and as he drew the light made a little beacon-flame, illumining his face before dying out and leaving a blank wall of darkness.  Men and women took hands like little children playing a game of bogey-man.  Lovers kissed each other in this great hiding-place of Paris, where no prying eyes could see.  Women’s laughter, whispers, swift scampers of feet, squeals of dismay made the city murmurous.  La Ville Lumiere was extinguished and became an unlighted sepulchre thronged with ghosts.  But the Zeppelins had not come, and in the morning Paris laughed at last night’s jest and said, “C’est idiot!”

But one night—­a night in March—­people who had stayed up late by their firesides, talking of their sons at the front or dozing over the Temps, heard a queer music in the streets below, like the horns of elf-land blowing.  It came closer and louder, with a strange sing-song note in which there was something ominous.

“What is that?” said a man sitting up in an easy-chair and looking towards a window near the Boulevard St. Germain.

The woman opposite stretched herself a little wearily.  “Some drunken soldier with a bugle. . . .  Good gracious, it is one o’clock and we are not in bed!”

The man had risen from his chair and flung the window open.

“Listen! ...  They were to blow the bugles when the Zeppelins came...  Perhaps...”

There were other noises rising from the streets of Paris.  Whistles were blowing, very faintly, in far places.  Firemen’s bells were ringing, persistently.

“L’alerte!” said the man.  “The Zeppelins are coming!”

The lamp at the street corner was suddenly extinguished, leaving absolute darkness.

“Fermez vos rideaux!” shouted a hoarse voice.

Footsteps went hurriedly down the pavement and then were silent.

“It is nothing!” said the woman; “a false alarm!” “Listen!”

Paris was very quiet now.  The bugle-notes were as faint as far-off bells against the wind.  But there was no wind, and the air was still.  It was still except for a peculiar vibration, a low humming note, like a great bee booming over clover fields.  It became louder and the vibration quickened, and the note was like the deep stop of an organ.  Tremendously sustained was the voice of a great engine