"Now," said Andrew, standing a few paces off the other two, "let us see a little skilful fence," and, his own rapier in hand, though with the point resting on the stones of the court, he looked on as amaître d'escrimemight gaze upon two pupils practising with the foils.
"Gently, gently," he said quietly to the young fellow who was lunging furiously at his adversary, "you will lose your breath else." And, still with what seemed to that adversary, as he fought wildly, infernal calm, he added, "thrust a little lower, otherwise you may break your sword against his breast-bone. Thus you will find a better entrance. Pass through him easier. So, so. That's better"; and he stepped back and, looking on still with an easy approval, watched the encounter.
But there was no heart left in the ruffian now; moreover, he knew he was doomed, and he uttered, therefore, a piercing shriek for mercy to which his opponent, his blood well up, answered with another angry lunge.
"Well, then," exclaimed Andrew, "make an end of it. The people above are opening their windows--the watch will be here next--prick him and have done with it. Take him in the shoulder, he is not worth killing. Good! that's it. A pretty thrust."
The lad had followed his instructions perfectly, and, beating down the other's guard, had driven his point two inches into the fellow's right deltoid, which he received with a yell, his blade clattering on to the stones as it dropped from his wounded arm.
"Well done," said Andrew, "now come along." And, picking up first the rich laced beaver, which had fallen off the young fellow's head in the encounter, he took him by the arm and led him out into the Rue Richelieu.
"A little breathless, eh?" he asked, as he heard the boy's lungs working heavily. "A little blown! No matter, you fought a good fight--though they might have beaten you in the end. I see," he added, "you know something of the science."
"Yes," the other answered, while--they being now some distance from the place where he had been attacked--he leant against the wall to recover his breath. "Yes, I know something of it. And I could have done better had I not drunk that last accursed bottle. But I was athirst, as, indeed, I am now."
"Well. Well. Come into the nearest tavern and we will have another--now is the time when a cup will do you good. Yet, arrange yourself first, you are a little dishevelled, and your hat is dirty."
"Nay," said the other with a laugh, "no more taverns for me to-night. But I live hard by, was taking a short way home when those fellows set on me; come with me. There is some good wine at our house."
"Humph!" said Andrew, "the night is late--hark! there is St. Roch striking midnight now--too late for wassailing! And--you do not know me--yet you ask me to your house!"
"Not know you! St. Denis! I do, though. I know enough to see what you are. First, an Englishman--good as you have the French your accent tells that. I wonder," he interjected, "if you are going to join Turenne? There are hundreds of your countrymen with him. Then next----"
"Ay, next?" asked Andrew, not heeding the remark about Turenne. He was going to join Turenne, or, at least, proceed to where his army was, but he had seen the boy's eyes open when the name of one was mentioned who was already with the great marshal, and, at present, he held his peace. "What next?"
"Next, you areun brave homme. You saved my life--certainly saved me from getting a bad wound--and prevented those vagabonds from pillaging me; they saw this, I suppose," and he touched lightly with his fingers a thick gold chain round his neck to which a medallion hung, "and wanted it. And, if you had desired, you could have slain all three of us," he continued, with another laugh that so touched Andrew's sense of humour that, scarce knowing why, he laughed too. Then the boy added, "Come, come! I must know more of you. You are a soldier, anyone can see that; well, so am I. Come, I say."
"So you are a soldier, eh?" Andrew said, taken with a liking for the young fellow and his frank open manner, and walking unresistingly now by his side towards the house he was leading him to. "A soldier. A young one, though you understand swordplay, or will later, as well as many an older man."
"We are all soldiers in our family," his companion replied. Then he looked proudly at the great form beside him, and said, "I have made two campaigns, though I am but seventeen."
"Ay," replied Andrew, "no doubt. You French gentlemen go to the wars early, I know. I have served with many such; younger, too, than you. There was, now, at Choczim--so!" he broke off as the lad halted at a great wooden door that doubtless opened into a large courtyard, "is this your house?"
"It is," the other answered, kicking meanwhile against the lower part of the huge door, as though, thereby, to summon someone from within. "The fiend take old Pierre, he is again asleep." And he kicked once more and hammered with his fist. Then, at Andrew's thoughtful suggestion that the noise might wake his father or his lady mother, he replied:
"Never fear! My lady mother, as you politely term her, sleeps at the back looking over the garden, and my lady sisters above, while as for my father--God rest his soul!--he has been dead these twelve years.Ciel!Must I beat down the door!"
Even though it had been possible for him to do so, there was now, however, no necessity, since it opened a few feet at this moment, and an elderly man peering out, and seeing who was there, instantly pulled it further back to admit the young man and his companion. An elderly man who shook his head a little--perhaps from oncoming age or, maybe, from disapprobation of such hours--but who still stood aside very respectfully. Yet, from a corner of his eye, he shot a glance up at the big frame of the man who accompanied his master.
"Pierre, you sleep atrociously," that master replied. "Every night I have to hammer and bang in the same way. However, in with you and fetch a good bottle of the Muscadel from the cellar. Quick, hurry, I say. We are athirst." Then, turning to Andrew, said, "Come, sir, I am on therez-de-chaussée. It suits my habits best, my mother says. We shall not have far to go."
Following his new friend, Andrew glanced at the paved stone courtyard across which they went, the old man, Pierre, preceding them with a flambeau which he took from a socket by his lodge door and ignited. Whereby the visitor saw that he was in the house of some great family, great, possibly by rank, and undoubtedly so by wealth. The old pieces of armour hanging on the courtyard walls, burgonets, coats of mail, gambesons, scaled or of chain, lances, and swords--all symmetrically arranged--seemed to prove the former, while, as they reached the door giving entrance to the house itself, the flickering light of the torch confirmed the fact that this was no home of a mushroom family of large means, or of a rich merchant, since it shone upon a great gilt coronet above the door, and, above that, upon armorial bearings which none but nobles could possess.
Pierre, changing the flambeau for a huge wax taper, led the way down a narrow passage giving off the hall, and, throwing open a polished chestnut door over which some arras hung, ushered them into a large, comfortably furnished apartment, though, like all theentresolsof the period, low-roofed. Then, after lighting a dozen other wax candles which stood in lustres and sconces, he withdrew, saying he would fetch the wine.
"And quickly, too," said Andrew's host. "Dost hear, Pierre? Quick, quick."
"Si, Monsieur le Marquis," the old fellow muttered, and so went off.
"Now," said the young man, "be at your ease. Take off, your sword, unlace your jacket, and repose. Here is a couch on which I have slept many an hour; there a fauteuil which no soldier need despise. My doting mother chose it specially. I beg you to use as much freedom as you would in your own house."
Andrew Vause accepted the gracefully proffered hospitality in the same spirit that it was offered, and sank into the luxurious fauteuil, while his eye, roaming round the room, observed with approval several of the objects in it. For they all corroborated what his new acquaintance had stated, that he was a soldier--nay, more, that he was a soldier either on active service or about very soon to proceed on such service. In one corner of the apartment was a bundle of swords of the military type--spadroons and two or three heavy broadswords; in another, hanging over a chair, was a passemented justaucorps, with military gold braid and embroidery--an almost certain sign of the owner's nobility, since scarcely any but officers of high social rank were permitted to wear this garment; also a new bridle, some horse fittings, and other things pertaining to a soldier, were strewn about.
"Now," said Andrew's host again, when Pierre had brought the wine, which, as the former held it before one of the wax lustres, sparkled like amber through its dusty, cobwebby encasing--"Now, we will drink a toast to our better acquaintance. And, first, let us know each other's names. Mine is Valentin Debrasques, commonly called the Marquis Debrasques." And as he spoke he poured out the first glass of wine, carefully following the old custom of emptying a spoonful from the top into his own glass, and passed it over to Andrew.
"And mine," replied Andrew, "is Vause. The Captain Vause late serving in the English Regiment, in Flanders and elsewhere, and to which one of our soldiers, a Lieutenant-Colonel John Churchill, has recently been appointed colonel by our King. Monsieur le Marquis, I drink your health and to our future comradeship," and he raised his glass.
Debrasques had been filling his glass as Andrew spoke, yet, by some clumsiness scarcely to have been expected from him, at the moment the latter mentioned his name, the bottle slipped in his hand, and, clinking on to the long glass beneath, broke it, while the outrunning wine deluged the tablecover. "Peste!" He exclaimed, his face scarlet, "I am a clumsy fellow. If I were older, one would say my hand was no longer fit to grasp a sword since it cannot hold a bottle." Then, going over to a huge buffet, on which stood several silver and parcel-gilt cups, he took down one, blew the dust out of it, and, after wiping it with his lace handkerchief, poured out some of the wine left in the flask, and, touching Andrew's glass with it, drank to him.
"So," he said, though now his face had somewhat lost its colour, and, as Andrew thought, looked white and drawn, "you belong to our auxiliary force supplied by your King, Charles. And--and--do you proceed to join The English Regiment?"
"Yes," replied the older soldier. "Yes. Charles has given me a letter to Colonel Churchill--he is ten years younger than I, but such is fortune! Yes. I quitted the army to go home on some affairs connected with my family. Now those affairs are arranged, and I go back to serve under Turenne."
He spoke easily, yet all the time Debrasques knew that he was watching him, perhaps considering why he had been so clumsy with the bottle, and, because he himself knew what had caused him to drop it, he was far from being at ease.
"I am about to set out too," he said, after a moment's pause. "I am sent to Listenai's Dragoons. I depart on Monday next."
He still seemed, however, as he spoke, to be suffering from the nervousness which had attacked him from the time of breaking the glass and spilling some of the Muscadel; nor was that nervousness decreased by the fact that the great bronzed cavalier sitting in his fauteuil evidently perceived his state. Yet the latter, beyond keeping his dark eyes fixed on him, gave no other sign that he noticed anything.
Presently, after again filling Andrew's glass and his own goblet, which brought the contents of the flask to an end, and for which the young Marquis was profuse in apologies, offering to call Pierre and bid him fetch another bottle--which hospitality his guest declined, vowing he would drink no more that night--he said:
"I owe you a great debt, Captain Vause, for saving me from thosefilousthis evening."
"Nay, nay," interrupted Andrew, with a twirl of his black moustache, though still, as the boy saw, with his eyes upon him. "Nay, comrade for comrade, that is all. I could not hear the scraping of steel without being in the fray, and two to one was foul play. 'Tis nought."
"Let me try in some way to show, at least, that I recognize the service. Now, how do you proceed to join Colonel Churchill?"
"Humph! In the soldier's way. I have a good horse, and I must find a servant and a horse also for him. 'Tis easy. Also, I know the route. From here to Metz, then through the country of Mont Tonnerre, and so on to Heidelberg. There we shall come upon Turenne's outposts, a day later reach the main army. Is it not so?"
"That is the road. Yet, Captain Vause, let me, at least, proffer this much. You speak of a servant; 'tis not necessary. I set out on Monday, as I say; to-day is Thursday. Now, with me there go six troopers from our estate by Evreux. Till they take their place in my troop in Listenai's they will act both as escort and servants. Sir, will you not ride in my company; be my guest? 'Tis but little beyond good fellowship."
Andrew reflected a moment--strange thoughts revolving in his mind as he did so; thoughts that two incidents of the evening had given birth to--then he spoke frankly, and said:
"Mon brave gar, I will. We go together."
"Good!" exclaimed Debrasques, "good! I thank you." And at last he looked once more like himself, the colour returning to his cheeks and his eyes sparkling. "Good!" Then, speaking very earnestly as Andrew rose to go--for, borne on the soft air of the night as it came through the open windows, were heard the chimes of St. Roch ringing out one o'clock--he said:
"And we are comrades--sworn? Is it not so? Whatever may--can--befall in the future, friends and comrades?"
"Why not, Monsieur Debrasques?" asked Andrew, looking down at the slight young figure before him.
"Oh! I know not. But say it, say it. Comrades and friends, no matter what befall."
"I say it," the other answered. "Comrades and friends," and he put out his great sunburned hand and took the lad's delicate one in his, while he saw the latter's fair complexion suffuse again, this time with pleasure.
The Marquis did not summon Pierre to escort his visitor to the courtyard door, but, instead, conducted him out himself, carrying in his hand a candelabra of three branches from which the candles therein threw forth a bright light. And by that light Andrew saw far better than he had seen by the taper the serving-man had earlier exchanged for the smoking flambeau, how the great square hall, with its staircase on either side, was filled with paintings of men of various periods--armed and looking, as the boy had said, as if all had been soldiers in their day--and also with pictures of many well-favoured women in whom he seemed to trace something of a likeness to the bright grey eyes and soft complexion of Debrasques. Also he saw a nearly new full-length portrait of a man--the oils were quite fresh, he noticed, and not laid on the canvas many months--a man young and good-looking, though the hair inclined to red, while the eyes, a bright blue, had a steely, menacing glance in them, that gave to their owner a forbidding look which seemed to warn those who gazed at the portrait to take heed how they trusted him whom it depicted.
"Who is that, if I may be so bold as to ask?" inquired Andrew, pausing a moment before this painting. "One of your house, I should suppose, from its being honoured here."
"That!" said the Marquis, "that! Oh! 'tis a cousin of mine on my mother's side. She cared for him--that is why he hangs here."
And, looking down at his host, Andrew saw by the light of the candles that once more the young man's face was deathly pale.
* * * * * *
"What have I stumbled on?" he mused as he sought at last his inn, after having paid the postponed visit to his horse and seen that all was well with it. "What? What? Let me reflect. In the tavern this young Marquis was startled at hearing the name of De Bois-Vallée--that beyond all doubt; in his own house he was even more startled at hearing mine--in his agitation his hand shook so that the glass was broken by the bottle he held in it. There is some connection here! Then the picture of that crafty-looking, blue-eyed cousin whom his mother cared for--cared for! Is he then dead? And if not, who is he? Well, we will see. Time will show. 'Twixt here and Heidelberg is a long ride."
And musing still, and trying to piece one thing with another, Andrew went at last to bed.
"Sound! Sound!" said the Marquis Debrasques, addressing two of his troopers who carried long, slim trumpets over their shoulders, "Sound, I say, and let these slumberers know that two gentlemen set forth to join the army and fight the King's enemies. Sound to let them know that, in spite of Brandenburg and Zell, Swabia and Franconia, and a dozen other petty principalities under their chief, Austria, France is not afraid!"
He spoke vauntingly this fine summer morning as, it being almost four o'clock, the sun sent a thin slanting ray down the narrow street and illuminated the great carved coat of arms that stood out over the doorway of the Debrasques' house, while it lit up the archways andruelleshard by; and, perhaps, the vaunt was pardonable. For above, at a heavily grilled window, his mother--who had folded him to her arms again and again through the greater part of the night, which they had spent together--looked forth, and by her side stood his two child-sisters. Also, he was going to maintain as best he might the honour of all the dead and gone Debrasques who had followed their kings and generals for centuries, and had either returned victoriously to this old house or left their bones to whiten where they fell.
Close by, his hat in hand, because of the presence of the Marquise at the window above, and with a quiet smile upon his dark, handsome features, sat Andrew upon his great horse; himself ready to set out. Once more he had donned the buckskin tunic now, putting off for the time being his suit of velvet mourning; but, since active service would soon be near at hand, he wore his gorget. Otherwise, he carried no body armour, though in his necessaries borne by one of the pack horses which was to accompany them, was his steel back-and-breast, and also his headpiece. The fighting would not begin till the Rhine and Neckar were in sight--no need yet to encumber himself with superfluous weight!
Ringing down the length of the street, waking sleepers in their beds and causing many to leap from them and run to the windows to see what brave show was taking place beneath, was heard the blare of the two trumpets, and so, amidst their noise, the little cavalcade set forth, the young Marquis waving and kissing his hand until a turn in the narrow winding road between the houses hid those he loved from his view, while Andrew bowed again and again to the ladies.
And, still, they woke the echoes as they went on and on till the East Gate was reached and passed, and more people left their beds to peer at them and point with approval to the two cavaliers who rode ahead of the troop--the one so young and fair and debonair, the other so large and bronzed, and looking like some paladin of old, without his armour--and at the pennons which fluttered from the lances of the two foremost dragoons.
Behind them came the led horses, extra chargers for the Marquis and for Andrew, each suited to the weight of their riders--Andrew had had a difficulty to purchase one suitable to his requirements!--with other animals carrying the baggage necessary for all--changes of raiment and accoutrements for the backs and breasts of gentlemen and troopers alike, as well as spare arms and powder and ball that might--who knew!--be wanted in the enemies' neighbourhood if they missed Turenne's army. Also--this principally owing to the forethought of Madame la Marquise and an antique housekeeper who had served the Debrasques since she was a child--two other animals carried great wicker panniers in which were many things that the poor and overtaxed inns on the road (for from all parts of France reinforcements were marching to Turenne's army, sometimes, even, in whole regiments) were not likely to be able to provide. Flasks of good wine, carefully preserved meats, fine chipbread, pressed poultry and conserved fruits; all were there, as well as many other things in the way of medicines and styptics and balms for wounds. Likewise there was much provision for the animals--which Andrew had superintended--and which was perhaps the most necessary of all, for on every one of the principal roads leading to the seat of the great war now raging in the Palatinate there was scarcely any forage to be obtained, the passage of battalions and regiments having swept bare the country round.
* * * * * *
"Peste!" exclaimed the Marquis as, on the tenth day, they found themselves more than half-way between Metz and Spires, and knew now that they were within measurable distance of the army, "Peste!there is nothing left, not so much as a drop of wine in the bottles nor a drumstick of a fowl.Madame ma mèreshould have had one more pannier packed, whereby we should have done well enough, or, better still, we might have economized our resources. And the country is as clean swept of everything as this high road. What is to become of the animals?"
"Have patience," replied Andrew, "we are now part of Turenne's force. Therefore, we must take what we can. And we have already passed baggage vans going and coming for provisions; the next must be requisitioned. That is, unless at to-night's halt we find the wherewithal."
They had by now become fast friends, sworn comrades, as they had agreed to be, and Andrew had told Debrasques much of his early days of campaigning, and how he had first joined the French army with James, Duke of York, then an exile with his brother Charles. Never once, however, had he referred to Philip and the blight that had fallen on his life, nor the reason why he was now with Debrasques on the road to join Churchill's regiment under Turenne.
"For," he pondered to himself over and over again in those ten days, "silence is best. Also, why tell him that until I had learnt of the whereabouts of this rogue, De Bois-Vallée, it had not been my intention to repair here--but only to seek him high and low until he was found, and then stand face to face with him?"
Yet there was one thing that troubled him even as he went to seek his quarry; the recollection of one thing that might step in between him and De Bois-Vallée and rob him of that which he had come to consider would be a righteous vengeance.
"Suppose," he had mused to himself more than once, "suppose that, when he is at last before me, I discover that he never knew of Philip's existence, knew nothing of the wrong he had done him. It might be so, might well be. Although Philip was at court sometimes they seem never to have met and, if the woman he loved was a giddy, wanton thing, whose fancy turned lightly from one to another, she may never have told this Frenchman of the man she had betrayed."
Yet, even as he so meditated he put resolutely away from him the thought that this could be the case; refused to believe, or to let the belief creep into his mind, that the crafty, discarded lover of De Kéroualle did not know of the robbery he was committing. "And," he meditated also, "even should that be the case, there is still the woman to make my account with. She, at least, knew the wrong she was doing. I must find her." But, when he arrived at this point, he had to cease his self-communing, for he knew not in what way vengeance could be wreaked on her. The rapier by his side was powerless against a woman--some other form of punishment must be sought for!
Once on their long ride--nay, more than once, indeed half a dozen times--he had turned over and over again in his mind the Marquis's strange agitation in connection with all that was of so much importance to him--the manner in which he had opened his eyes in the tavern, the startled look in them when the spy had mentioned De Bois-Vallée's name; also he recalled again and again the lad's start when he told his own name; his pallor and nervousness before the picture of that cousin whom he spoke of as having been "cared" for by his mother. "Cared for," Andrew Vause mused again, "cared for. In the past, not now!" And he asked himself: "What had that red-haired, blue-eyed cousin done to cease to be cared for by his kinswoman any longer? Unless he were dead!"
At last he could refrain no more, and as, one day, they were passing through the soft rolling country between Verdun and Metz he spoke to Debrasques, saying:
"The cousin whose portrait I saw in your hall in Paris on the night when first you welcomed me, and, afterwards, when Madame la Marquise made me an honoured guest, ere we set forth on this journey--is he dead, Debrasques? You spoke of him as one for whom her ladyship had cared. Was it death that put an end to that care? It must be so, I should suppose," and as he uttered the question he turned his eyes on the boy by his side.
Yet only to see again the look he had seen before--half terror, half supplication!--in the other's face; to note also that the bright boyish colour, beneath the brown which had come on his cheeks during their long march, paled and disappeared at once as on that night. Wherefore Andrew cursed himself for his ill-bred curiosity as he witnessed its effect.
"No," Valentin Debrasques said, after a moment's pause, during which he leant forward and busied himself about something with his charger's bridle. "No. He is not dead."
"Forgive me," said Andrew gently. "Forgive me. I have pained you."
"Nay. Nay. Never! But--but--he is a villain, and that picture should not be there, would not be there, an I had my way. But my mother still believes, hopes--tries to believe he is not so; therefore it has not been removed."
"I am sorry," Andrew answered. "Sorry my impertinent curiosity----"
"Nay," Debrasques said. "Surely you--but--no matter." Then he exclaimed, "How good you are!"
"Good!" said Andrew, looking at him again, and wondering what he meant; pondering, indeed, whether some stroke of the sun that had beaten fiercely on them since they left Paris had not touched his brain. "Good! Good!"
"For--for--your forbearance, I mean." Yet, as he spoke, there was a look of bewilderment on the young and troubled face that mystified the other. And doubly mystified him because he had seen it there before, on the night when first the portrait met his view; also he had seen it on the face of the Marquise as he had spoken in courteous, easy tones to her during the intermediate days ere they set out. A look of bewilderment on both their faces, as though expressing surprise that he should be invariably so much at his ease and so gentle with them. At least that was how he had read those looks, and, reading them thus, had found further proof for wonderment.
"My forbearance!" he exclaimed.
"Yes," the other stammered, evidently much distressed, though still with the perplexity growing greater in his face. "Yes, I mean to refrain from questioning further. We--I--never mention him. I hate him and despise him. I wonder you----"
"I will never," said Andrew, "wound you on that score again, at least. Henceforth I am dumb." And, to his surprise, as he spoke Debrasques put out his gauntletted hand and grasped his own with a glance of unspeakable gratitude.
Which only added further to Andrew Vause's mystification and caused him to ride on still more deeply wrapped in meditation.
And now as they drew near Neustadt at nightfall and began to speculate on what accommodation might be obtained at the inns, if any--since they knew that two regiments of Dragoons, "the King's" and "The Queen's" were marching ahead of them to reinforce Turenne, who had suffered heavily at Sintzheim--they observed that the whole heavens appeared on fire and were suffused with a bright red colour. Also, into the vast vault thus tinged, there shot up great flecks of flame of a deeper, more crimson hue, with sometimes amid them saffron-coloured ones, while, plain against the still lingering remnants of daylight, great masses of dun-coloured smoke arose.
"Grand Dieu!" exclaimed Debrasques, while all, including dragoons and those who attended to the led horses, looked on amazed. "It must be the city of Spires in flames. Who has done it--Turenne or De Bournonville, who commands against him?"
"Nay," said Andrew, "no city that, in flames, my lad. Rather a dozen--if there were so many around! No city, I say. See where the flames themselves fly up to the reddened sky; observe. They rise from all points ahead of us, and, in some cases, are miles apart. Debrasques," he added solemnly, "I have seen such as this before. It has been done here before, too, I know; Tilly did it fifty years ago, and----"
"What--what--what is it?" the boy asked, the two campaigns he had followed never having shown him aught of this nature.
"This. One of the two armies has withdrawn--it must be the Imperialists, since Turenne beat them at Sintzheim--the other is destroying the land, so that no more shall his enemy find shelter nor food enough for a grasshopper. That is what it means. Yet," he exclaimed, as now the flames and the dun-coloured smoke mounted more fiercely still into the crimsoned vault above, "it is horrible, awful! My God it is awful!"
As he spoke, there soon followed confirmation of his words. Down the poplar-fringed road along which they were proceeding, there came towards them in the night the sound of many horses' hoofs rushing madly, swiftly; and in an instant Andrew had warned Debrasques to draw aside his dragoons and followers. "We know not yet who or what they are," he said; "best stand aside and see."
On came the others even as the suggestion was followed, and--although in the gloom of the night that had closed in under the trees--they knew at once by the voice of the leader that they were of their own side. Then an officer, followed by two dozen soldiers, would almost have passed them when, beneath the poplars, he saw the headpieces of the dragoons and the glisten of their trappings, and, as he did so, he roared an order to his own men to halt, after which, amidst the rattle and clang of bridles and of scabbards against spurs and horses' flanks, he called out in French:
"Speak--what troops are those?" while, as he did so, Andrew felt Debrasques' hand clutch his arm convulsively--felt, too, that hand tremble on his sleeve.
"Answer him, answer him," he said, "or he may charge us. They are treble our number."
And from the Marquis's lips there came, in response to the demand, the words:
"A detachment of Listenai's dragoons and an English officer about to join the Marshal."
"Whose voice is that?" called back the other in a tone of astonishment.
"The voice of Valentin, Marquis Debrasques."
"Ha! I thought so. So you are here, are you? Well, I have no time to waste on you. Where are the dragoons of the 'King's' and 'Queen's' regiments?"
"Ahead of us," answered the deep voice of Andrew, he noticing that Debrasques seemed more and more agitated--indeed, almost now unable to speak.
"Then they have missed their way. They should have joined by now. Have, perhaps, branched off at Kaiserslautern." Then he gave an order to the Marquis. "Ride forward at once with your party and endeavour to find them, and, if you succeed, send them on at once to Spires. There is the devil's work doing to-night."
"What work?" asked Andrew.
"Our men have lost all control of themselves and are burning the villages for miles round, while the country people are massacring all those whom they can catch alone, or in twos and threes. There is one of our soldiers hanging head downwards on a tree not half a league from here, riddled with a score of bullets, and, they say, some are being burnt if surprised when by themselves. Forward at once and find the Dragoons--they are not, at least, heated to boiling point!" and, as he spoke, Andrew heard the thud of his heels against his horse's flank and saw him rush on, followed by his men. And in the last rays of daylight, aided by the glow of countless fires, he observed that he was hatless and wigless, and that, behind him, streamed a mass of long, red-brown hair.
"Devil's work indeed!" said Andrew, turning to his companion, and in that same light observing that the young man was pallid and his face twitching.
"Heart up, heart up, my boy!" he exclaimed. "The horrors of war must not unseat a soldier thus"--but the other interrupted him, muttering huskily:
"You did not see--not recognize?" and as he spoke the astonishment on his face was accompanied by a look of almost awestruck unbelief.
"Not see--not recognize! Why, whom should I see, or recognize? 'Fore heaven! what I heard was enough for me."
"That man," Debrasques stammered. "The leader. You did not recognize him?"
"Not I. Debrasques," turning his gaze upon him swiftly, "who is he?"
"Your--your--I mean, my cousin. The man whose picture hangs in our hall----"
"And his name is--what?"
"Did he hear my question, or not?" asked Andrew of himself, as, leaving the baggage and its caretakers behind under the charge of two of the dragoons, they rode on swiftly in search of the "King's" and "Queen's" regiments which had been ahead of them all the way from Epernay, and which, since they had not kept in advance, must have branched off, as Debrasques' cousin had surmised, on the road to Kaiserslautern. "Did he hear it?"
It was impossible he should be able to answer his own question, for, even as he had asked that other one, "And his name is--what?" the Marquis had given his order to advance as well as another to those who were to remain with the baggage, and it was most probable that, in the rattle and clatter of their steeds' hoofs and their accoutrements, it had escaped the other's ears.
And now, as they again went forward--more swiftly than they had done as yet since quitting Paris--he knew that this was not the time for repeating his question. Moreover, had he not solemnly promised, all unasked though the promise had been by the Marquis, that never again would he mention his cousin? And, man of honour as he was, he knew that the promise bound him; that, even though his suspicions were growing hot and furious within him, he must be as dumb as he had vowed to be.
"Yet," he thought, "that cousin is evidently a man of mark and position in the army; soon I shall know if what my suspicions point to is the case. And then--well, there is time enough. At present our surroundings demand more than that which I seek to know and to unravel."
They did indeed! Since, as they advanced kilometre by kilometre, those surroundings became more awful. The sky was now one vast pall of fiery red stretching from horizon to horizon, yet spotted and blurred beneath in twenty different directions by dense, compact masses of flames enveloped in clouds of smoke--the flames and smoke of burning villages, homesteads, and châteaux. Also, the air rang with the sound of musket discharges, while shrieks were now and again borne to their ears by the soft wind that blew in their faces; rang with shouts and cries in French and German, and sometimes in English, and with the horribly piteous yells of horses shut in burning stables and forgotten.
Ere they had ridden a quarter of a league from where the officer who was Debrasques' cousin had passed them, they came across the body of the man he had spoken of, hanging, as he had described, head downwards from the branch of a tree, his body perforated by bullets that had evidently been fired into him after he had been strung up. That was undoubted, for beneath his head, which almost touched the ground, was a pool of blood that must have dripped from his wounds as he swung there, and which would not have been beneath him had he been shot ere hung; nor, it was certain, would he have been hung at all if already dead and no use as a living target.
"Your countryman," said Andrew to the Marquis, as they paused a moment to regard this awful spectacle. "See to his uniform--what it is I know not, except that it is not that which we wore in the old days, and I doubt if Jack Churchill has changed it."
"I know it," said Debrasques--who had recovered somewhat his calm, as well as his colour, since he was no longer in the vicinity of his cousin--peering down from his horse at the unfortunate body on which the rays of the rising moon now shone clear. "He is of Du Plessis' corps. Observe the boar stamped on his shoulder-piece. 'Tis Du Plessis' own cognizance."
As he spoke there rose upon their ears more shouting and roaring of voices than they had observed for some time--harsh voices close by bawling in German, then shouts of approval--once they heard a raucous, guttural laugh as from some deep, full throat--next an exclamation of rage in English, and a loud call in the same tongue. "Help, help!" they heard that voice cry--though Andrew alone understood it. "Help me, save me from these bloodthirsty dogs!" After which the cries were smothered with the German roars once more, and again that savage laugh rolled forth.
"A countryman!" exclaimed Andrew, "and in dire peril. And the voices are close by. Debrasques, as I helped you, help me, help him, now," and he gave the reins to his horse and clutched his sword firmly, while he headed for where the noise and that piteous call had come from. And, guided by him, Debrasques and the four remaining dragoons rode for the spot, being assisted to find it by a bright light that burned amongst a copse of young oaks.
Soon they reached it, crushing through saplings and great ferns and brushwood to do so, guided always by the roars of German throats, the shrieks of the Englishman, above all, by that wild, savage laugh. Reached an open spot, a grassy glade, some sixty feet square, in the middle of which stood a sturdy oak that had obtained perhaps one-half of what its full growth would be in days to come--and with, beneath its branches and piled against its trunk, a freshly-lighted fire already burning brightly; a fire composed of dry brushwood and two or three young trees hastily chopped into fagots and billets.
But it was above that fire that the real horror was, for there, swinging from the lowest branch of the young oak by a cord, head downwards, and perilously near the flames as they leaped up, was the body of the Englishman whose cries they had heard--that body being swung backwards and forwards by his struggles and convulsions, the arms thrown wildly about, and the hands clutching at space.
With a shout, Andrew, who led the way, was amongst some twenty wild Rhenish Bavarian peasants, the bright sword flashing now like a streak of phosphorus in the moonlight as it darted here and there--through one man's throat and another's breast--while the horse he bestrode flung the boors asunder as a ship's forefoot throws off the waves, and while behind him came Debrasques and the dragoons, themselves dealing blows right and left, and their steeds trampling down those who had fallen. Then, dropping the reins upon his horse's neck, Andrew's great left hand seized the swinging man by the belt and dragged him to one side of the flames, one touch of the rapier sundered the rope, and, a moment later, the Bavarians' would-be victim was lifted up in front of him and thrown across the animal's shoulder--he was saved.
Meanwhile, those of the avengers--for such, indeed they were--men driven to madness by the destruction of their homes and crops--who were not already on the ground and dead, or senseless from their wounds, had fled into the darkness of the surrounding woods, and Andrew and his party were left in possession of the glade.
"Speak, man," said he to the Englishman he had saved, while he cut away from his feet the end of the rope that bound them together, and Debrasques held to his lips a dram from a flask, carried by one of his followers, "speak! How came you to this pass; how fell into the hands of these crazed fiends?"
"I--I"--the soldier murmured, looking round wildly, and gazing up fearfully at the great cavalier--who now towered above him since he had been laid on the grass--as though he did not recognize him as his saviour, "I--I--Oh! save me, save me!"
"You are safe, my man. Yet speak, let us know what else is doing. Are there more being served as they nearly served you?"
"Worse," the man muttered, "if worse can be. There were two of us caught by them, we were sent out to seek for the incoming cavalry--oh! the other. The other! My comrade, Roger Bates!" And he raised his hands to his eyes, all smarting and burning with the smoke that had got into them, and rubbed the lids from which the flames of the fire had singed the lashes, as it had his eyebrows and hair. "My comrade!"
"What of him?" asked Andrew solemnly, knowing that some more fearful atrocity was to meet their ears, more fearful even than this their eyes had seen. "What of him?"
"They took us together, and he--he," turning his glance to the body of an enormous peasant lying close by, with his glassy eyes turned up to the sky, while in his throat was the great stab Andrew's rapier had made, "he who laughed so at our shrieks--directed our tortures. Listen. They dug his eyes out with their knives--they are lying somewhere about--then, blinded, they turned him into that wood to find his way back to the army as best he might, or stumble in the river, or fall down and die."
Swiftly Andrew translated to Debrasques this last horror--shuddering as he did so, and causing his hearers to shudder too, all soldiers as they were!--and soon the wood re-echoed with the cries of two of the troopers as they went forth to seek the mutilated man, and, haply, to find him if still alive.
But as they so went forth they heard from afar off more shouts and cries mingling with the humane calls of the dragoons--loud yells of triumph from some large body of men coming their way--and, not knowing what this might mean--perhaps more maddened inhabitants of the Palatinate with fresh victims!--they stood ready to either attack them or defend themselves. Yet, in an instant, Andrew Vause exclaimed, "More of my countrymen--some of Churchill's, or the Duke of Monmouth's, men--what brings them here?"
"Our countrymen are gone mad," the rescued soldier said, "mad! These Germans have illtreated us the worst of any when caught, they are all mad. Oh! if they can but catch those who blinded Roger! If they can."
As he spoke there burst into the grassy glade, directed thereto doubtless by the glimmering of the still burning fire, a score of English soldiers all in the trappings of "The English Regiment," some with their jackets torn, some with their heads bandaged up, each armed, and with their weapons bare, and some with torches in their hands. Then, seeing the group before them they rushed forward, though, on observing their comrade, they paused, astonished.
"Who are these?" one of the soldiers shouted, rolling his eyes over Andrew and Debrasques and the dragoons. "These are no Germans!"
"Nay," said Andrew, "no Germans. These are a French officer and some of his men, and I am about to join you under Colonel Churchill. What seek you?" Intuitively they all saluted him and the Marquis, then the foremost man said, "the lives of all those devils we can find, sir. They are killing, mutilating, burning all they can come across alone--they cut the throats of the wounded after Sintzheim as they lay on the ground. We seek revenge. God!" He exclaimed, starting back as he saw the bodies of the three Germans on the ground, "What is this?"
Briefly their comrade told them all that had happened to him and Roger Bates, and how, even now, two of the French dragoons were searching for the unhappy man, and as he did so their fury became terrible. They cursed aloud the Palatinate and its inhabitants, the Imperialists and the war itself; and then, suddenly from their midst, there were thrust forth into the open two peasants, whom they had captured and dragged along with them.
"An eye for an eye," roared the leader, "life for life. We will have vengeance--none shall stay us. Roger Bates has had his eyes dug out, therefore so shall this man have his," and he pointed to one of the shivering prisoners. "You were burnt head downwards, therefore so shall this man be," and he indicated the other. "My lads, to work. Out with the eyes, some of you, some blow up the fire."
"Stop," said Andrew, "not that. There shall be no more horrors of this sort. Take all men prisoners whom you find and bring them before Marshal Turenne, but not such revenge as this."
"Who shall prevent it?" the leader asked, forgetting all respect in his fury.
"We shall," Andrew said, nodding his head to those with him, "we shall," and at the same time he whispered to Debrasques to cause his dragoons who were searching for Bates to be recalled.
But at that moment the two troopers came back unsummoned, and between them they bore the dead body of Bates. They had found him in a brook in the wood, into which he had evidently stumbled, and from which, in his blindness, and being possibly weakened by other wounds, he had been unable to extricate himself.
Then his furious comrades, seeing the body, lost their last glimmer of reason--they were, in truth, maniacs now in their thirst for vengeance. And Andrew knew it. He whispered therefore a few hasty words to Debrasques, who divined, without knowing one word of their language, all that was occurring. After which he addressed the foremost soldier, saying:
"As I have told you, this shall not happen," and he leaped on to his horse's back as he spoke. "If you want vengeance seek it in a fitting manner from Turenne. Here it shall not be gratified. Attempt to mutilate that man or burn this one, and by the Heaven above us we will ride at and cut you down although most of us are fellow-countrymen. Now reflect." And looking at him in the moon's rays, the soldiers saw that this was one against whom they could not stand.
But at that moment there came an interruption which caused them to pause, even more than did the appearance of the fierce cavalier before them and the dragoons by his side.
Above the sound of swift-coming horses' feet there was heard a somewhat shrill, though musical, English voice, saying:
"At all hazards it must cease. Heavens! Turenne will string them up in dozens when he hears of it, as it is." And a moment later two English officers had ridden into the glade, though not before the soldiers had had time to cast dubious glances at each other, even while their fury still burnt within them, and to mutter, "the Colonel."
"Some of my men, fore gad!" the speaker said, as now the two officers were amongst the others; and he rode forward into the moonlight, his slight, active young form standing out plainly in its rays, and his handsome, youthful features being quite visible. Then, in the shrill-pitched, refined tones that had just before broken on their ears, he said:
"So you are marauding again, are you?" and, turning to his companion, he bade him take all their names. After which he ran his eyes over Vause and the Marquis, and, seeing that they were gentlemen, raised his laced hat most courteously while, bowing low over his horse's neck, he asked them in French if they were attached to the Army, and, if so, to whom he had the honour of speaking?
"I am," said Valentin with equal courtesy, "the Marquis Debrasques, on my way to join Listenai's dragoons, and have journeyed from Paris to do so. May I beg the honour of knowing to whom I am accounting for myself?"
Again the laced hat was doffed, while the speaker said:
"I am Lieutenant-Colonel John Churchill of King Charles's forces, and Colonel of 'The English Regiment,' under King Louis, forming part of the auxiliary forces sent from England. And you, sir?" turning to Andrew. "May I, too, beg your name by right of the position I hold in this campaign?"
"My name, sir, is Vause; Captain Vause, once of the regiment which you now command. I am on my way to present myself to you with a view of serving once more with my comrades, and am the bearer of a letter to you from King Charles himself."
"Sir, you shall be very welcome," Churchill said, "as all soldiers are here." And, after the exchange of a few more courtesies, he asked for some explanation of all that had taken place in the glade--the conversation on account of the Marquis being carried on in French. A few rapid sentences from both Debrasques and Andrew served, however, to explain what had happened since they arrived on the spot, while ever, as he heard of how the batch of English soldiers had forced their way to it with their two prisoners, Churchill's eyes turned to them.
Then he addressed his men, and, speaking in so quiet a tone that none could know what he was meditating, he bade them fall in and march back to their quarters, taking the Bavarians with them, but without doing them any injury.
"And you," he said, addressing the man who had been saved from burning, "can you march, too?"
"I think so, sir. Thank God I am little hurt."
"So be it. March all." Then, while he was informing Debrasques that the "King's" and "Queen's" Dragoons had found their proper route and that he would conduct him to where his own regiment lay, a thought seemed to strike him, and, turning to the rescued soldier, he said, "how came you here? Alone with Bates or in a party?"
"In a party, sir, before the French officer; but we missed them, and so those Germans caught us."
"What French officer?"
"I know not his name, sir." Then the man paused and hesitated, while Churchill looked calmly down at him; but after a moment he stammered, "the officer with the red hair, sir."
"Humph!" said the colonel, while in the now bright moonlight the others could see a gentle smile appear on his handsome face. "The French officer with red hair. True, he is scouting to-night." And, turning to the other who accompanied him, he said, "Without doubt, the Vicomte de Bois-Vallée."