"Are you a thief, or an assassin?" demanded St. Udo, releasing him as unworthy of his wrath, in his age and weakness.
"I—I thought you were dead, colonel," stammered the wretched old creature. "You lay so still that I—I felt your heart to find if it beat."
"Another lie, you old fool," mocked St. Udo. "What did you want with my private album? Answer me, sir."
The old man's speechless look of mock wonder at the album lying upon the ground, his thin, gray locks damp with perspiration, his abject terror and abject helplessness, all appealed to the haughty St. Udo's forbearance. He pushed him contemptuously away with his foot.
"Get up; you are merely a skulking villain. You are not worth my ire!" exclaimed St. Udo. "And mind that you never approach me again, on peril of your life."
"Don't—don't order me away. Let me stay near to watch—to save you!" whined the miserable Thoms.
"Confound safety! if I am to get it at the hands of a worm like you!" shouted St. Udo. "Why do you haunt me day and night? Why do you run upon my trail like a sleuth-hound? The next time I detect anything like this, by all the gods, I'll shoot you down!"
Away stole the trembling Thoms, and was met and stared at by the little chevalier, coming to have an early breakfast with his friend.
"Another raid into Thoms,mon ami?" questioned he, anxiously.
"Who is that devil?" cried St. Udo, passionately.
"Heaven knows!ma foi. I wish we did," quoth the chevalier.
The letter of St. Udo Brand astonished the executors of Ethel Brand's will; and their chagrin was intense when Miss Walsingham decisively informed them that they must find means to convey the property to the rightful heir, as she would never become mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste. They earnestly tried to combat her "quixotic" resolve. But she remained immovable. She would, she said, become a teacher, a companion in some family, or even a stewardess aboard ship—anything but the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste.
And so, at an early hour next morning, Margaret Walsingham, with all her worldly possessions in a small valise, and bearing letters of unmeasured recommendation from Dr. Gay and Mr. Davenport, entered a railway carriage. She was on her way to London, in the hope of getting a situation that would take her out of the country.
She sat absorbed in reverie until the train passed at a village station, and a lady, escorted by a young naval officer, entered the car and took the seat opposite Margaret. Then with a shriek the train dashed on again.
Margaret's eyes lingered wistfully on the blooming face, the sylph-like form, the pure golden hair of the beautiful and bright young being before her. How she loved beauty, and for its sake loved this rare creature. She gazed through a mist of admiring tenderness, and forgot her troubles.
And then a piercing shriek of engines filled the air; a few seconds' hard snorting and unsteady jolting, a mighty crash, a sense of being hurled against the sky, utter chaos and oblivion.
A bricklayer, clad in a stained smock, the color of mud, was placidly eating his dinner in the midst of his family, when a scared face appeared at the open door, and a woman in torn black garments beckoned to him.
"Please come immediately," panted the woman at the door. "Life or death depends upon your haste."
She sped away at that, and the bricklayer followed her rapid feet which scarce seemed to stir the dust of the road and breathed as if he carried his load full on his back.
They had a quarter of a mile to go before they reached the scene of disaster, and on the way John Doane elicited the following particulars from his excited guide.
The up train from London and the down express had run into each other by a few seconds on the part of one of the conductors. She knew nothing beyond the crash of the engines meeting, until she found herself upon a bank—some fifty feet upon the upper side of the track uninjured, though at first stunned. In looking for her fellow-passengers she found the carriage in which she had been, lying at the foot of the bank, bottom up, and she supposed the train had hurled on for some distance with the other carriages.
By the time she had explained thus far they had arrived upon the scene. It was melancholy enough to warrant the woman's white looks and faltering tongue.
Here and there a figure half raised itself and sank to the ground again with rolling head and helplessly outstretched hands. Detached pieces of wheels, and windows and twisted frames, and shattered roofs strewed the line. A first-class carriage lay upside down, its wheels idly revolving in the air, and a mass of golden curls were clustered on the broken frame of one of the windows.
"Force open the door if you can; that lady is crushing to death," said the young woman kneeling by the golden mass and raising a heavy head, which they shrouded.
The man found a beam and began methodically to batter in the door. It was done, the strange jumble of crushed and sleeping humanity were unlocked from their prison, and the two succorers made their way in, treading warily upon the gayly-painted ceiling, and both bent over a figure clad in silken draperies of diaphanous sheen.
"Lift that crushing head gently. Ah, it must be too late. There, there she is free. Put her head upon my shoulder—so. Now I will carry her myself; clear a way for me that I may not trip and fall with her. Spread that cloak upon the grass—so. Ah, is she dead?"
The Samaritan under orders assisted to lay the burden down, and then ran for some water, with which he quickly returned, and began to sprinkle copiously the insensible lady.
The young naval officer, who looked rather ghastly, now approached Margaret.
He knelt down and gazed with horror upon her set face.
"Good gracious! I am afraid she's gone, poor girl," he ejaculated. "Julie—Cousin Julie! Do you think she is dead, madam? Oh, Julie, dear, speak to me!"
"She is not dead," answered Margaret. "If we could have her removed to some house, there might be some help for her."
"A poor man's hut ain't for such as her," said the bricklayer, drawing his hand over his heated face; "but she's welcome to the best bed in it."
"Thank you. We shall convey her there at once," replied the young man.
They constructed a hasty litter of branches, and, calling a brawny-armed boy, Doane set off with his burden.
In a few minutes they reached the bricklayer's cottage, and a clean bed was hastily prepared for the victim of the disaster.
The young gentleman waited in the little kitchen until Margaret could give him a report of the lady's state. In a very short space of time she joined him.
"Lady Juliana is still insensible. I fear her injuries are dangerous, but I can only use my best skill until some physician comes," she said, trying to speak cheerfully.
"I will send the best one I can find from Lynthorpe, and telegraph immediately to the Marquis of Ducie. He could reach us to-night, I think. May I ask the name of the lady under whose kind charge I leave Lady Julie?"
Margaret crimsoned, and drew back. Until then it had not struck her that she would stand a better chance of getting rid of the old life by taking an assumed name.
"Margaret Blair," she faltered, at random.
"Miss Blair?"
She bowed.
"I cannot express my admiration of Miss Blair's brave conduct," said the young gentleman, with a return bow. "But my uncle, the Marquis of Ducie, shall hear that it was through you that his daughter is saved, if she should recover. Allow me to introduce myself."
He handed her a daintily embossed card, with a coat of arms upon which was engraved,
"Lieutenant Harry Faulconcourt,H. M. S. Utopia."
"Lieutenant Harry Faulconcourt,H. M. S. Utopia."
With another profound bow he left her.
It was long before Margaret could hope that her prayer was to be answered; the beautiful face of the lady showed no ripple of consciousness, and the heart beat with muffled and uncertain throbs.
A physician called in on his way to the scene of the accident, but his examination was hurried, and his directions brief, for others were waiting, with broken limbs to be splintered, and gaping wounds to be sewed up. So Margaret and the bricklayer's wife did what they could alone.
And the first beam of the full moon stole through the cracked window pane, and silvered over the pale, set countenance until it gleamed with lustrous purity, and the faint breath of returning life parted the marble lips, and Margaret saw that Heaven had consented to her prayer.
Lady Juliana looked up fixedly, and saw a tender face bending over her, with gray eyes glimmering in the moonlight, through their burden of glad tears. Lady Juliana, in her pain and weakness, wondered what heavenly countenance this was which soared above her, and smiled in answer, thinking at first—poor little soul!—that she was with her mother in heaven.
"How did I come to be here? Tell me about it."
"There was a railway accident, you remember? Everybody was more or less hurt—I excepted—so I am taking care of you. Mr. Faulconcourt has gone to the village of Lynthorpe to telegraph for your papa. He will perhaps be here to-night."
"And who are you?" asked the innocent voice again.
"Margaret Blair," she stammered, turning away.
"Do you belong to Lynthorpe?"
"No. I was on my way to London. You remember the person who sat opposite you in the cars?"
"Oh, yes. When I began to scream and jump up, you held me, didn't you?"
"I was afraid you would dash yourself out at the door. Are you in pain?"
My lady's pretty face was a net-work of petulant lines.
"I have such a weary, crushed feeling," she complained; "and I don't like lying here in this odd place without my maid to take care of me. Of course you will be going away in the morning?"
"Not unless your father arrives to-night to take charge of you."
"Don't then, there's a dear Miss Blair," murmured the lady, coaxingly.
Margaret bent over my lady with a rush of tenderness in her manner. What would she not give to win the sweet girl's love? The innocent blue eyes seemed to hold in their depths such guilelessness; the beauty was so perfect which Heaven had bestowed upon her, that beauty-loving Margaret yearned to have her cling to her thus forever.
"I will stay with you as long as you want me," she whispered, kissing the pellucid brow of Lady Julie.
The fair dawn slid with crimson ray under the yellow mist; the breath of morning stirred the pendant leaves, and on its wings it bore the tramp of a host.
In a moment the loudreveillewas sounding, the thundering camp was alive with voices, every man was on his feet.
"A surprise!" shouted St. Udo, marshaling his company. "Be ready to meet them! Form, men!"
The soldiers under Colonel Brand's command had come straight from their pleasant homes among the Green Mountains. Untried and but freshly trained, one might have doubted their stability in a moment like this.
Not so their colonel; he had carefully studied these intelligent faces, and he had read both sense and spirit there. His ringing voice carried confidence and enthusiasm to its utterances, and was met by a cheer from his men which reverberated from the distant forest like an echo of the sea. In a few moments the tents were struck, the baggage vans were loaded, and the small army was in rapid motion toward the point from which the alarm had sounded.
In the midst of the plain they halted; their flashing arms were presented to the wall of foliage behind which lurked the foe. They stood there awaiting the onset, motionless as if they had sprung up from the earth and been petrified in the first instant of their resurrection.
Then a roar of musketry broke from the emerald wall; a storm of lead swept into the human ranks; a wild huzzah burst from the invisible enemy, and the battle had begun. The fight was fierce and long—courage and daring were exhibited on both sides—but when it was over, St. Udo Brand and his brave band were famous forever. They were the victors.
The two colonels were smoking together before St. Udo's tent, enjoying an hour's chat, as usual, before they parted for the night, and in the welcome absence of Thoms, were served by a fine fellow from Vermont, who almost worshiped his colonel.
As the friends joked and laughed with all the reckless abandon of soldiers, a pistol-shot was heard, and simultaneously a pistol ball whistled past their ears and buried itself in the earth at a few feet's distance.
Both sprang to their feet, and rushing round the tent, came upon two men in deadly strife—one in gray, the other in blue. They rolled on the ground; each held the other's throat in a deadly grasp. It seemed impossible to decide upon which side the victory would turn, and their continual writhings and contortions rendered interference impossible. But at last the struggle ended in the Federal soldier succeeding in drawing a dagger from his breast and plunging it into his opponent's side.
The wounded man's hold relaxed from the other's throat; he fell back heavily with a stifled groan, and the victor rose and turned round his haggard, white face to the brother colonels.
"Morbleu!it is Thoms!" cried Calembours, in accents of incredulity.
"Well fought, gray-beard," chimed in St. Udo, in equal amazement. "You deserve promotion. What was this Confederate soldier about?"
Thoms glared at the two colonels like a tiger, then down at his vanquished enemy, from whose side the blood poured hotly.
"He pretended that he wanted to offer himself as a guide to the grand army," muttered Thoms, "and we passed the pickets and came straight to your tent to speak about it. But he tried to pistol you when he came in sight of you, and I had just time to dash his arm up."
"Brave Thoms!" applauded Calembours. "Good Thoms!"
"What is it, Reed?" demanded St. Udo of the soldier, who was kneeling by the fallen Confederate.
"He is trying to speak," answered Reed. "He is saying, 'No, no.'"
Thoms bent eagerly over him, with murderous look in his eyes.
The man was dying; his half-closed eyes were glazing fast, but his bloodless lips moved convulsively, and though his life-blood welled forth at every effort, he still strove to utter some frantic word.
"No!—he—lies!" muttered he, at last.
Thoms' trembling fingers were at his throat in a moment—Thoms' tigerish eyes flashed out their rage.
"Let him alone," expostulated Reed. "Let the poor wretch speak."
"Off, Thoms!" thundered St. Udo, with a terrible frown.
Both colonels stooped over the Confederate soldier. St. Udo put his ear close to the twitching lips.
"He shot the pistol off himself," muttered the man. "Before Heaven, I swear it! He stabbed me to save himself. He did—he did!"
The life-blood oozed into his lungs and choked him; he clasped his hands and threw them up toward Heaven, as if he called on his creator to witness his innocence, and immediately expired.
The two friends rose and looked at Thoms.
Whiter in his grave he would never be. The veins stood out on his damp forehead like whipcord, but he returned their fierce gaze with a dogged firmness.
"What do you say to this charge?" demanded St. Udo.
"I say nothing," mumbled Thoms, showing his long, cruel teeth. "If you're ready to believe a rebel against your own servant, I needn't expect much fair play. What else would he say to revenge his death, I'd like to know? Of course, if you're a-going to shoot me, nothing that I can say will stop you—you're master here, as well as everywhere else."
He ground the last words out through his teeth with a venom, a fury which belonged more to a madman than to a man supposed to be in possession of his ordinary sanity, and he addressed them to St. Udo exclusively.
"You deserve to die," said St. Udo, "if you have attempted our lives."
"By gar! ve vill court-martial the rogue!" cried Calembours. "He shall be shot, the traitor!"
"If you shoot me, you shoot an innocent man," protested the old man. "Surely Colonel Brand will give me fair play? I swear I never attempted your lives!"
St. Udo scrutinized the eager face doubtfully, and frowned.
"You say that the Confederate, not you, fired that pistol-shot?" he demanded.
"I do say so," answered Thoms, firmly.
"Then we give you the benefit of the doubt this time," said St. Udo, "but warn you that you shall be well watched in future. Be off now, and beware of treachery, for you shall not escape a second time."
The haggard face lit up with evil exultation; but Thoms cringed before the haughty colonel, and muttered his gratitude in abject terms.
"No more need be said," cried St. Udo, with a cold sneer, "except this—if either Colonel Calembours or I meet death treacherously, you will be a suspected man, and will not escape, I promise you. Now, go."
Away slunk Thoms, with his head down on his breast, and the friends' eyes met significantly.
"There goes von rascal unhung," said the chevalier.
"He's mad, Calembours—mad as Malvolio," said St. Udo. "Don't annoy yourself over his vagaries. Ugh! how I detest his presence near me."
Reed, the soldier, filled the camp with whisperings against Thoms; over and over the black story was repeated by a thousand camp-fires, and wherever the wretched man slunk, he was met by suspicious looks and loathing hatred.
He saw that everybody believed in his guilt, notwithstanding Colonel Brand's clemency, and he quailed before the terrible position, and shrank into himself in dumb patience.
Some hours later the command was once more on the march, and at the dawn of day it came upon a plantation with a magnificent mansion set in the midst.
A murmur of satisfaction ran through the weary men as a halt was ordered, and ere long the verdant plain was white with tents, and the lambent air was rife with the rattle of the breakfast preparations, and fragrant with the odor of coffee and frying steaks.
Colonels Brand and Calembours looked anxiously at the pretty mansion which peeped from foliage of the jasmine, oleander, and magnolia, and in its spacious rooms they mentally saw their brave boys properly cared for and nursed by the negroes of the plantation.
"We can ask for room for our wounded here until we get a chance to send them to Washington," said St. Udo, "and leave a guard with them. Come, Calembours, let's reconnoiter."
"With all my heart," quoth the chevalier. "I like the outside of themaisonbetter than the inside of my tent, and, by gar! comrade, what then will the inside of themaisonbe? Come, then."
And with this brief prologue the quaintest performance was ushered in which Colonel Brand had yet witnessed in his acquaintance with the sprightly Chevalier de Calembours.
The two colonels approached through beds of sweetest flowers, and tinkling fountains, and garden houses—the loveliest residence imaginable, swathed in roses and creamy jasmine cups, girdled with balconies in highest tracery, embellished with a row of pillars in front upholding a gilded piazza roof, and entered through an imposing portal of richest design.
There was no sign of life, however, apparent, although the upper windows were opened to their widest extent, and the snowy curtains waved out on the wall among the climbing roses; and St. Udo's peremptory rap upon the door only received an answer from its echo in the sounding hall.
"Encore!" cried the cavalier, "they sleep soundly! Again,mon ami, don't despair."
A shrill cry interrupted the little man, and sent his dilated eyes up to the window above, from which it had proceeded.
"A woman in terror!" whispered he. "Morbleu!I long to greet the owner of such a voice. So clear, so fresh. Sweet madam. I pray you shriek again!"
St. Udo knocked louder.
"Go, go, Vinnie," uttered a frantic voice. "It is a band of Northern soldiers. They will blow up the house if you don't let them in!"
"Milles diables!" muttered the chevalier, in a startled tone. "Who speaks with these accents?Ma foi!I want the eclaircissement."
The door grudgingly opened, and a pretty quadroon girl looked out.
"Bring your mistress," ordered St. Udo.
She fearfully retreated, leaving the door open, and rushed up a broad staircase, down which was wafted the hurried tones of a terrified consultation.
Then she reappeared and conducted the officers into a magnificent drawing-room assuring them that her mistress would see them in a few moments.
"Machere, whose house is this?" demanded the chevalier.
"Colonel Estvan's," whispered the quadroon.
"Where is he?" asked St. Udo, sharply.
She turned pale.
"Pouf!do not affright this pretty one," interposed the gallant chevalier. "Monsieur Estvan is fighting like the devil against the Northerners, is he not,pauvrette?"
"Yes," faltered she; "but madam forbade me to tell it."
"Ouais, madam is shrewd," laughed Calembours. "Now,mon enfant, where is madam?"
"She has not arisen yet," said the trembling maid, "but will come soon to speak with you. Madam asks will you have refreshments?"
"Ten thousand thanks. Yes, yes,machere, and make haste," said the hungry Hun, with alacrity.
No sooner was the girl gone when Calembours turned his attention to the examination of the elegantly embellished apartment, and, with an ejaculation of delight, extolled the pictures, statuettes, andbijouteriewhich were scattered about with such profusion; and then he burst into a gay old French song.
St. Udo, being seated within view of the hall, which he could see through the half-open door, was the sole witness of what followed, however.
A woman floated down the staircase and approached the door. Her demeanor was expressive of the wildest emotion. She clung to the door-handle, half-fainting, and listened breathlessly to the chevalier's song. She seemed a vision of wonderful grace, with her rich dressing-robe huddled up in her arms, and her long, light tresses sweeping over her shoulders, and, with her soul standing in her passion-darkened eyes, and her scarlet lips apart, she embodied the spirit of a Sabrina listening to the voice of the gods.
Suddenly the fire died out of her face, and a weary change came over it—fear, anger, and doubt struggled for the mastery—and at last she dropped her hand, wrung it in its lovely fellow, and swiftly fled up stairs again.
"Now, who is this woman?" mused St. Udo, "and what does she know of my friend, the chevalier? Shall I interfere? No—I think he would scarcely brook my meddling. In his place, I should not."
He made no remark, therefore; and when the chevalier's song came to an end, Madam Estvan entered the room.
What a transformation!
St. Udo stood in speechless surprise.
A woman with a stout figure, keen, dark face, and pale, green eyes.
Where were the graceful, lissome figure, the dainty complexion, the passion-darkened eyes.
And madam's hair was gray as Thoms' grizzly locks—no waving tresses of serpentine gold saw he. Madam's lips were blue with fright, no longer thin, scarlet beauty-lines with a string of pearls between. Madam was old, awkward, and spoke nothing but French.
Puzzled in the extreme, St. Udo was obliged to content himself by watching the next incident of interest, Madam Estvan's behavior to Colonel Calembours.
They met—he with round, suspicious eyes snapping with eagerness, she with downcast lids and brassy brow, and each performed a charming obeisance.
"Le Chevalier de Calembours," says he.
"Madam Estvan, at your service, messieurs," returns she.
They bow again, retire a pace, their eyes meet—they both smile a little; but Calembours' color fades to a sickly yellow, and madam's face reddens under the brown.
"We are forced to request your house for a temporary hospital," remarks St. Udo, breaking the utter silence.
The spell dissolves—they both turn to him, and both become natural, and that is all St. Udo can discover in the meeting.
Madam Estvan immediately set her house at their disposal. Nothing would give her more gratification than to be of use to the Federal soldiers, for that she was not of the South they both must see.
She led them through the whole house, assisting them with charming graciousness to select the most suitable apartments, and bewailing the meagerness of her domestic force which would compel the soldiers to wait upon themselves. But do what she would, St. Udo could not divest himself of the conviction that she and the fair Sabrina figure were identical.
At last they returned to the lower hall and essayed to depart.
Madam Estvan accompanied them to the door with bland courtesy.
St. Udo was already opening the door, when a rattle of shot against the roof of the piazza startled him, and a cannon-ball immediately followed and crashed in the side of the doorway.
A fearful shriek burst from Madam Estvan; she rushed forward and clung to the little chevalier's arm.
"Mon Dieu!woman, let me go!" hissed he, with an ominous scowl.
"No, no, Ladislaus, save me, your poor Alice, who ever loved you! Don't desert me again!" wailed the woman, frantically.
Her voice rang out pure and flute-like in the English language; her terror tore aside the cunning mask, and plainly revealed to St. Udo the lovely vision he had seen before.
"Sacre!I suspected as much!" swore the chevalier, shaking her roughly off. "Away, traitress!"
He sprang across the piazza, followed by St. Udo, and the wretched woman sank, a helpless heap, upon the floor.
Looking back, each from his post, at the fairy palace, the two colonels saw a stream of fire running along the piazza roof, licking the airy balconies up, creeping serpent-like around the pillars, and so through smoking portico to the senseless woman lying on the hall floor where she had fallen.
The last train from London brought a physician to Lynthorpe, dispatched by the Marquis of Ducie to attend his daughter, who brought a polite message from his lordship to Miss Blair, that an important engagement prevented his accompanying Dr. Trewin, but that he would be at Lynthorpe by the morning train.
The physician examined his patient and pronounced her severely but not dangerously injured, and proceeded to make her as comfortable as circumstances would permit, after which she ate a little, and fell into a placid slumber—Margaret keeping faithful watch, while Dr. Trewin dozed in his chair.
At ten o'clock next morning a carriage and four drew up before John Doane's humble house, and two gentlemen, a man servant, a busy-eyed young woman, a coachman and groom in magnificent liveries of gray and bronze, appeared upon the scene. These were the Marquis of Ducie, an extra physician in case Trewin should not understand his duty, a valet, my lady's maid, and the servants.
His lordship asked where his daughter was stowed, and was forthwith ushered into the bed-closet where she lay, by Margaret Walsingham.
"Haw! By Jove, this is very awkwardfaux pas! Might have been killed by these rascally railway managers! Confoundedly awkward mistake! Howdo, Julie?"
"Oh! bad enough, papa!" responded the patient, receiving the careless paternal embrace as indifferently as it was given. "I might have died ten times over before you would come. Why didn't you come to me immediately, papa?"
"Couldn't, my dear—was at Millecolonne's to meet Prince Protocoli—a political dinner which could not be avoided—sent Trewin in my place, and brought Sir Maurice Abercroft with me, so you can't complain for want of medical or paternal attention either."
His lordship, after patting her cheek, went out, saying with comfortable imperiousness that she must be ready to start in two hours—Abercroft would set her up for the drive.
Forthwith Sir Maurice Abercroft came in and minutely examined Lady Juliana on her injuries. The result was as might have been expected, considering his lordship's wishes, a decision in favor of the proposed removal; and the lady's maid was sent in to do her mistress' toilet.
Apparently my lady stood in some little awe of her father, for she submitted without further question, though a petulant cloud was on her beautiful face, as she said,
"I would rather stay in this quiet little room, with that solemn Miss Blair, if she would stay, than go home to the Park. This is a new sensation, at the least."
Margaret drew nearer and tenderly smoothed the hair back from my lady's brow.
"Dear me!" cried Lady Juliana, looking at her, "how pale and exhausted you look, Miss Blair. Why, of course you must feel so—you have been up with me all night, and—good gracious!" becoming suddenly filled with compunction, "how coolly I have taken your great service!"
Her ladyship sat upright, flushed by a sudden impulse of gratitude.
"Who are your friends?" she asked, with a bright look.
"I have none, Lady Juliana. I am looking for some situation by which to be independent of friends."
"Oh, how fortunate for me! Would you like—but perhaps you are not qualified. Are you well educated? I think you are."
"I have been eight years at a boarding-school, my lady."
"Good gracious! I suppose you are as learned as Socrates. I never was at school in all my life! I was kept with Aunt Faulconcourt and beasts of governesses. But here comes papa."
The marquis re-entered with a bow, the consolidation of courtly etiquette.
"Papa. I was too stupid before to introduce you to Miss Blair. She is the young lady who saved my life. I wish to do something for her."
His lordship advanced and held out two fingers.
"How can I most suitably thank Miss Blair for her services to my daughter?"
"Papa," interposed Lady Juliana, seeing Margaret stand pale and embarrassed before her pseudo-patron, "may she come to Hautville Park instead of Madam Beneant, whom I am so tired of? She would be a more suitable companion than that chattering widow—I am so sick of her flirtations! And I am sure I should be perfectly happy with the generous creature who saved my life."
"Shall you consider her ladyship's proposal?" asked the marquis, turning again to Margaret. "Madam Beneant has been my daughter's companion for a year and a half, but she is too old. Her salary was two hundred a year. Yon shall have two hundred and fifty if you decide to come. What do you say?"
She stood wavering between conflicting impulses. She longed to go with this dove-like creature whom she had saved from death; her heart clung to her—how could she leave her? But again, would she be concealed from the terrible St. Udo Brand's possible persecutions at the Marquis of Ducie's residence?
Who would think to look for her in Lady Juliana's companion? Her heart pleaded.
"Stay—oh, stay!"
So, all blinded to the future stealing surely on, Margaret flung herself back into the whirlpool which, gradually circling inward, would inevitably bring her face to face with that which she most dreaded.
"I will go with you, Lady Juliana," she said.
When the bricklayer came home to dinner he found the grand people all gone, after showing but meager gratitude for his kindness.
Hautville Park was near Lambeth, within pleasant distance of London; and in due time, in the dying crimson of departed sunlight, the carriage arrived at its stately gates, and Margaret found herself introduced as companion to its spotless mistress, Lady Juliana Ducie.
She had not been there more than three weeks, when one day the maid brought in a letter to my lady's boudoir. My lady was lyinga laconvalescent on her sofa, and Margaret was reading to her. My lady had taken her time to get over her railway fright, and had taxed her companion's strength considerably, by her exactions, but she professed herself very fond of Miss Blair for all her trouble, and they agreed excellently together thus far.
"Hand me that letter, Bignetta. No, give it to Miss Blair and go away, she can read it to me."
Margaret took the letter, inserted her finger to break the seal; glanced at the seal, and withdrew her finger as if it had been stung, glanced at the writing, and slowly became stern and pale.
"Why don't you open it and read its contents?" cried my lady. "Are you tired of reading all the condolence that comes to me, or do you think it is some insolent bill?"
"Lady Juliana," said Margaret, "I cannot read this letter. I—I know the writer."
She covered her face with her hands.
"Why, what can you mean?" exclaimed my lady, getting upon her elbows to possess herself of the letter, and to look curiously at her companion. "Who is it?"
She looked at her own name on the back, and gave a delighted cry.
"Captain Brand! So he deigns to remember me at last! Ah, won't I make him suffer, for being so derelict in his duty these last three weeks! Careless creature! he never thinks of me, except when he sees me."
She laid down the letter and returned to the charge.
"How came you, Miss Blair, to be so well informed about Captain Brand's writing?" she demanded.
Margaret was eyeing her in speechless consternation.
She had thought at first that this missive was an inquiry from the writer concerning herself; she had feared she was found out. But what darker suspicion was this which was entering her mind.
"Tell me first, dear lady Julie," she exclaimed, "if Captain Brand is a friend of yours?"
"Bring me that casket, if you please."
Margaret brought the casket and placed it before her.
"Do you see this ring," rapidly tossing rare chains, jewel cases and bracelets. "Yes, here it is. I am not superstitious about such things, but I don't like to be labelled 'out of the market,' so I do not wear it often; but it is my engagement ring—is it not magnificent? This ring was given to me by Captain St. Udo Brand six months ago, and some day I shall be mistress of Seven Oak Waaste."
Margaret clasped her hands and gasped.
To think of the hungry kestrel pouncing upon this innocent bird! To fancy the terrible Captain Brand wooing the affections of her Lady Julie!
"I did not know it," was all she could articulate.
"Of course you did not; how should you? But you have not told me how you came to know Captain Brand's writing?" insisted her ladyship.
Margaret saw that exposure was coming; she expected it to be in that letter.
"Read what your fiance says, and then listen to my explanation," she murmured, turning away.
My lady, slightly irritated, tore off the seal and began to skim over the contents.
"Heavens!" she ejaculated, "what is this? He writes from New York, saying that he has left England, he hopes, forever; that he is going to get a commission in the Federal army, and win his spurs, and he gives his reasons: 'At present, my Julie, your fiance is a penniless man, with only a pedigree, and it is to win something more substantial that I have left England. My grandmother has died, and contrary to all expectations, the estate of Seven Oak Waaste has departed out of the family and gone to my grandmother's companion. If I had been obedient to the injunctions of my hood-winked relative, Mrs. Brand, I would have married the clever adventuress, Miss Margaret Walsingham, who I firmly believe plotted to supplant me as she has done, and I would have thus shared the estate. But love, one thing held me back. I have pinned my faith in woman's purity to Juliana Ducie's sleeve, for I think, my child, you are about the best of your sex; and honor forbade me to retract my faith to you. So the future I offer you is this: Will you wait patiently and constantly for the man you swore to be true to forever? Don't say yes, without knowing your own strength. If you can be brave, patient, wise, unselfish, you will be the first woman I ever met who deserves the much travestied title of "woman." My little darling, you know that I love you, and that I would become a good man if your hands cared to beckon me, and I place my future life at your feet. Make it bright and pure by your constancy, or make it black and sullied by the universal peculiarity of your sex—treachery!'"
"What can he be thinking of?" cried the reader, with a burst of angry tears. "Why should he expect such an unheard of thing from me, if he has lost Castle Brand and Seven Oak Waaste?"
Margaret listened as in a dream.
This was a new light upon St. Udo Brand's movements. Did his character suffer by it? He had gone away and given up his lands to one whom he considered a greedy schemer; and he had flung himself into another life, for the sake of her whom he loved. How had she wronged him by her terror of him?
Quick as light her feelings underwent a change, and my lady gazed in astonishment as her quiet companion threw off the guise which she had worn for security.
"Dear Lady Juliana," panted Margaret, "do not blame Captain Brand, who has been honorable to his engagement with you where meaner men have failed. Perhaps—who knows? yours may be the hand which will lead him into a higher way. Oh, my darling, do not hold lightly your power."
"Why should you espouse Captain Brand's cause?" demanded my lady. "What can Miss Blair have to do with Captain Brand?"
Tears burst from the eyes of the quiet companion, and rushed in a volcanic shower down her cheeks, as she answered,
"I am Margaret Walsingham."
"You!" exclaimed my lady, after a stare of unutterable astonishment.
"My darling Lady Julie!" cried Margaret, catching my lady's hands and holding them in her own. "I am that unfortunate, that wretchedprotegeeof Mrs. Brand's unwise affection; but never think that I would accept the Brand estates when obtained in such a way, or that I would willingly defraud St. Udo Brand. I thank Heaven that these hands," proudly holding them out, "are yet unsullied by such sin."
"How is it that you are here under the name of Blair."
"I left Castle Brand to win my bread, and did not wish to be traced."
"How strange! Then the fortune will doubtless revert to the rightful heir if you are sincere in refusing it?"
"I fear not. The executors will hold it for one year: and if by that time Captain Brand and I," with a bitter tide of crimson in her face, "have failed to fulfil the conditions of the will—that is, to get married—and I still refuse the property, Seven Oak Waaste will probably go into chancery."
Lady Julie gave a cry as if after the vanishing estates, and covered her face with her hands, petulantly weeping.
"Then I am done with St. Udo," she cried. "What do I want of a man who is stripped of his position?"
"He has made a great sacrifice of wealth, and that letter says it is for love of you," said Margaret, coming and taking her lady-love in her arms; "and he is a nobler man than I thought. Surely you will be true to him. Will you not, Lady Julie?"
"You are the essence of simplicity, Miss Walsingham. You will laugh at your own folly, when I communicate all this to my father, and when you hear his verdict. Please leave me now, like a dear girl; I am overcome by this sudden change in my prospects, and must give way to my natural feelings for a while."
Margaret left her, as she sorrowfully believed, to the pangs of untoward love, and walked about the gay grounds of Hautville Park, weeping and praying for her sweet Lady Juliana.
Some hours later she returned, to find quite a metamorphosis in my lady's invalid room. My lady, in high spirits, was superintending, with gusto, her own toilet, as it progressed under the skillful hand of herfemme de chambre.
"An arrival at Hautville," she cried, turning to Margaret, "and at such an opportune time, when I am so bored. The young duke of Piermont has come from his Irish estates to see papa, and I am going to be introduced. I have heard that his wealth is enormous. His estates in the north of Ireland and west of Scotland are as rich as any in the three kingdoms. He has a rent roll of seventy thousand pounds, independent of a complete square of brick mansions in Cork. How would you like to receive letters from your Julie, sealed with a ducal coronet?"
"I don't expect to see that day," said Margaret, tenderly.
"Heigh ho! I am an unfortunate creature," sighed my lady, plaintively. "But, as I told you, my papa laughed at the idea of a further continuance of that arrangement, and he has written, and so have I, and the letter is sent. I never mentioned you in my note of dismissal."
"Dear Lady Julie, you are deceiving yourself. You think your pride will carry you through this thing, but your heart will break in the attempt."
"I suppose so. Well, it shall never be said that Ducie disobeyed her father. We are a gorgeous race, as you may have observed by the magnificence of this summer residence, so I will bury my pain and cheat my dear papa into believing I am resigned!"
The foe had stolen a march upon the weary encampment in the plantation. Calmly St. Udo Brand faced the coming legions, and bravely retreated in good order upon the main army, which was soon engaged in deadly conflict with Gen. Lee's forces. It is not our intention to dwell on the battles which ensued. They are a part of history now. We have to do with but a few more incidents in St. Udo Brand's career as a soldier.
One night Colonels Brand and Calembours were shivering over their smoky fire; it rained incessantly, the tent was soaked through, their clothing was soaked through, and their wretched provisions were, besides being scanty, almost uneatable with dust and rain.
"Sacre!" swore the chevalier, wiping his moist mustache with a brown, bony hand, whose only remnant of aristocracy was the magnificent solitaire which still glittered upon the little finger. "Sacre! mon comerade, this must end. What for we remain under fortune's ban? Jade! she laughs under the hood at our credulity in hoping for golden favors. I will snap the fingers in the tyrant's face and elope with chance, by gar! I will open the eyes and seek some better position where dollars are more plentiful and blows less!"
"Silence, you rascal! What better life does a brave soldier expect? Do your duty in the field and don't growl in the camp, and when good luck comes you will deserve it," replied St. Udo, laughing.
"Pardieu!I shall be too old to see him when he comes!" grumbled the chevalier. "Three months of glory without gold is enough for me."
"You are a mercenary dog," cried St. Udo; "and I know you are an implacable devil. I have not forgotten Madam Estvan."
"Diable!nor I," hissed Calembours. "Mon ami, let us forget her. La! there she has vanished forever. But, Monsieur St. Udo, I have not been mercenary with you, have I?"
"Never, chevalier."
"Know you why?"
"Not I, indeed."
"I love you,mon ami, by gar! I could not betray you for any sum."
"Generous man. But don't ruin your prospects for the sake of honesty, who is such a lax companion of yours that he is scarce worth such a sacrifice."
"Mon ami, my honor is unimpeachable."
"Doubtless, such as it is. By Jove! here come letters from home. One for you, Calembours, a budget for me. Huzzah!"
Yes, letters had reached the army, and many a poor fellow that night forgot the anguish of his wounds and the gloom of his prospects in glad perusal of his loved one's words of affection.
St. Udo, too, held an envelope in a tight hand, while he hastily scanned the other missives, eager to fling them aside and to devote himself without restraint to it.
He laughed with a kind of uncaring scorn at Mr. Davenport's stiff business letter, and he frowned at good little Gay's warm-hearted persuasions to hasten back to England and settle down in Castle Brand before the year was out. He glanced with abstracted eye over the notes of astonishment, reproach, and regrets which his movements had elicited from his brother officers in the Guards, and then he put them all away, and tenderly broke the seal of the hoarded envelope.
And as his darkening eye took in the meaning of its heartless words, and his heart realized the hollowness, the vanity, the treachery of the woman who had penned them, an awful scowl settled upon his brow, a demoniac sneer curled his fierce lip, and for a moment he lifted his blazing eyes to heaven, as if in derisive question of its existence when such an earth lay below.
"Farewell, doting fantasy!" muttered St. Udo, tearing Lady Juliana's letter in two, and casting the fragments into the flames. "So ends my faith in goodness, truth, purity, as held by women. Once, twice, have I madly laid my life under woman's heel, to be betrayed, my foolish yearning after a better belief to be laughed at, flouted at, scorned. I might have stuck to my only deity, Fate, and let these idle dreams go. I would not then have received this last sting. I was right at first—there is no created being so traitorous, so cold, so cruel and Judas-like as a woman, except the devil who fashioned her."
He scanned the polite dismissal of the Marquis of Ducie and smiled with scoffing indifference, and folding his arms, stared into the hissing embers for a long time.
At sunrise six or seven detachments, among which were those of Colonels Brand and Calembours, received orders to march to the relief of an advanced post, and on their arrival, they were at once hurried into action.
St. Udo, on his maddened horse, was coursing before the serried ranks of his detachment, shouting his commands and cheering on his men to the attack, when a blaze of battery guns opened fire upon the rushing Federals, and, sweeping their lines obliquely, turned the sally into wild confusion.
Colonel Brand galloped along the broken line, calling them on, and waving his sword to the object of attack, the horse and his rider looming like spirits through the murk, and inviting the savage aim of a score of riflemen.
Heedless of the storm of red-hot hail, he pranced onward, inspiriting the quailing men by his fearless example, till his horse staggered under him, sprang wildly upward, then fell, with a crash, upon his side.
The colonel lay face up, stunned by the fall, and pinned to the ground by the limbs under his horse, and a host of the foe rushed down the slope and charged the wavering Vermont boys.
When St. Udo was able to look up, he saw a giant Southerner making toward him with clubbed musket. He was helpless, his men were everywhere grappling with their adversaries, and the colonel gave himself up for lost, when, lo! a tall figure darted from a neighboring thicket, the blue uniform of the Federal crossed the path of the Confederate giant, and with a furious lunge of the bayonet, he attempted to beat him back from his charge upon St. Udo.
The foe met him at first with a scornful cry, but, finding it impossible to escape him, turned and closed in desperate encounter. Hand to hand they struggled, now grappling with the fury of gladiators, now retiring and gazing in each other's faces with determination.
So well matched were they, that this terrible conflict lasted for full three minutes, and many stopped to gaze in wonder upon the desperate encounter; and St. Udo, dragged from under his dead horse and mounted upon another, paused to see the end.
The Federal soldier waited until the rush of a passing sally hampered his adversary's arm, and then, raising his clubbed gun on high, he brought it down with a crashing blow upon his head.
The giant threw up his arms, with a fearful cry, quivered from head to foot for a moment, and then fell backward, like a clod, dead.
The Federal hero turned to St. Udo with a grim smile.
Heavens! it was Thoms.
The next moment he had vanished in the whirl of battle, and was no more to be seen.
"Ye gods! he has saved my life!" cried St. Udo Brand. "Thoms, the despised—Thoms, the sleuth-hound—the old maniac! What can this mean? Have we used him badly?"
St. Udo, lying in his tent, mused deeply on the strange kindness which the man whom he had spurned had done him, when a shadow flitted near—Thoms, with his intent face and wary eye.
"Gad! I was looking for you to come, Thoms," cried St. Udo, getting up and extending his hand frankly. "I cannot express my thanks to you for your gallantry on my behalf to-day, but I am grateful for it, and there's my hand on that."
The long, brown fingers clutched his as if in a vise, and wrung them hard.
"Don't mention it, colonel. You was in danger, and I couldn't abear to have you killed yet," smiled the old man, grimly.
"By Jove! you make me ashamed of my suspicions of you," cried St. Udo, with ingenuous candor. "Let me say now that I am sorry for them."
"I knowed you would change your mind about me some day," muttered Thoms; "so I were contented to wait for the time, colonel."
"I was so sure you owed me some grudge, my good fellow," said St. Udo.
"No, Colonel Brand, I owe you no grudge as long as you trust me and don't treat me like a secret felon," exclaimed Thoms, in a hoarse voice. "And now that you treat me better, I'll never leave you as long as you live—I won't by Heaven!"
His sallow face, more ghastly than ever after the day's bloody toil, whitened in the lurid gloom of twilight, and a terrible smile played about the twitching corners of his mouth.
St. Udo placed a heavy hand upon his shoulder.
"Forgive me, my friend, for all my harshness to you," said he, earnestly. "I will not doubt your good faith again. Faith, man, you almost make me believe in disinterested goodness."
He turned away in deep emotion; he could say no more.
Was it an answering thrill which, stirring the secret heart of the strange old servant, sent his eyes, filled with such an unearthly glare, over the gallant colonel? He had saved him from a certain death, with mad bravery, that day; he had come to listen to his grateful thanks; yet, if ever the fires of Pandemonium blazed in human eyes, they blazed in his in that quiet, murderous look.
Steadily, surely, the man was creeping toward his secret purpose, and if St. Udo's entire trust removed another obstacle from his path, that obstacle was removed to-night, and nothing stood between him and the end.
"Eh bien!" chirped the chevalier, who had been an edified spectator of this scene. "Since we are all once more the happy family, let us be merry, let us sing, talk, and scare the blue devils away. Tell me the little history of your life in England,mon ami."
"England be hanged," returned St. Udo, returning to his gloom. "She gave me no history but the black records of vice, treachery, and disappointment. What do you want with such a history?"
"Amusement, instruction," yawned Calembours. "Something to make gray-bearded time fly quick."
"Very well, I accede for want of other employment. What shall I tell you of? My hours devoted to finding out the world, and presided over by idiot Credulity? Or my hours devoted to revenging my injuries upon the world, and presided over by the great Father of lies? What will you have?"
"Your life," breathed the chevalier, impressively.
St. Udo placed himself in a comfortable position and began with a smile of mockery. Calembours fixed his eager eyes upon him and listened intently; and Thoms crept into the shadow behind the tent, crouched there on his knees, and held his breath patiently.
So the story was told.
Every incident worthy of note in St. Udo's life was correctly narrated, every name connected with the characters involved stated, their portraits distinctly painted, their characteristics faithfully recalled, with many a reference to the pocket-album, between; clear as if he lived it all over again, St. Udo placed his past before the eyes of the Chevalier de Calembours.
And neither the chevalier nor St. Udo Brand saw the slow-match flickering over a tiny note-book behind the tent, or heard the stealthy scrape of a pencil as long, brown fingers took down, in phonetic characters, the words dropping lazily from the unconscious man's lips.
When St. Udo had finished, the chevalier rose and stretched his cramped limbs.
"Morbleu!Time has fled nimbly this night. I forgot everything in your recital,mon ami. Thanks for your amiable complaisance; and now I retire to follow you in dreams.Bon soir."
With a silent chuckle, he stepped from St. Udo's tent and disappeared to seek his own quarters.
Thoms, too, clasped up his tiny note-book, and creeping round the side of the tent, and observing that St. Udo sat absorbed in dark reverie, he wrapped himself in his blanket, and threw himself at St. Udo's feet, and soon fell asleep.
Then the night grew black and late, and silence brooded solemnly above the camp, broken only by the faint moan of the sleepless wanderer, or the picket's hollow tramp.
Twice the devoted preserver of St. Udo's life softly raised his head to look at Colonel Brand, and sank down again, and still the lonely man sat gazing into the lurid embers of the waning watch-fire, thinking his thoughts of gall.
Just before dawn he thought he heard a movement in the camp, a faint, uncertain tripping of a wary foot, a sly whistle, twice repeated.
Through the murky gloom St. Udo peered with languid interest at a spot of fire gently undulating toward his tent.
What could it be? A cannoneer's slow match! But what could bring a battery there—and at that hour?
Unwilling to alarm needlessly his slumbering command, he slid back from the glare of the camp-fire into the shadow of his tent, and rising, bent his steps to the neighborhood of the suspicious object.
A passing breeze, laden with the perfume of the familiar cigar, a brighter glow, revealing the drooping nose and pursed-up lips, declared the identity of the prowler.
"Pshaw, you Calembours again—what sets you prowling about again like a cat on the leads, or, rather a hungry jackal in a graveyard?"
"Mai foi!you wear your tongue passably loose,mon ami. A night cat? No, worse luck. No pretty little kittens to chase round here. A jackal amongles cadores? You have too many of that sort down there already, stripping the dead and the living, too. Still, let us not scandalize the profession, the calling of the jackal is a noble one when there is genius andfinesseto raise it from themetierto the art. But where the jackal points the lion pounces. You call me the jackal.Eh, bien j'accepte—it is mine to point, but it is for you, Monsieur le Lion, to take the leap."
"A truce to your riddles, and say what you've got to say—though why you can't come out with it openly, I can't conceive."
"Find, then, my little meaning," whispered the chevalier, impressively. "In two words, you shall beau courantwith the affair. We have come here to push our fortune, but the jade flouts us, and ranks herself under the standard of the foe. Let us follow her thither. For you and for me there is neither North nor South, Federal nor Confederate. Soldiers of Fortune, we follow wherever glory leads the way, and victory fills the pocket. What of this last bagatelle of a victory to-day? We have escaped with our skins to-day; to-morrow we will loose them. No,mon ami, the South will win the day; so join we the Southern chivalry as becomeschevaliers d'honneur."
"Why, you precious scoundrel! I always thought you somewhat of a puppy, but to propose this to me, an Englishman and a gentleman! Draw, you treacherous hound—draw, and defend yourself!"
And the steel blade glistened like the sword of the avenging angel before the eyes of the astonished Hun.
"Sacre, mon Dieu!Has he gone mad?" was his sole reply, as with the practical skill of an accomplishedmaitre d'armeshis ready rapier was set, and parrying the lunges of his vexed opponent.
Still, with muttered explanations, blaspheming ejaculations and apologies, intermingled with furious rallies, he sought to moderate the just wrath of St. Udo, till at last, hearing loud shouts and footsteps approaching, by a quick turn he evaded St. Udo's pass, and dashed his sword out of his hand high in the air. Ere St. Udo could stoop to recover it, the traitor dealt him a mighty blow over the head, which felled him to the ground, and the last remembrance he had was the taunting "au revoir" of the renegade as he plunged into the thicket and vanished from pursuit.
When St. Udo recovered, he found himself surrounded by eager faces, and Thoms kneeling in the attitude of anxiety beside him, staring at him with intentness.
"What's all this, colonel?" demanded an old officer.
"Ha, by Jove! the rascal has escaped, has he?" cried St. Udo, getting up stiffly by the help of Thoms' shoulder.
"Who—who? A Confederate?" was cried on all sides.
"No, indeed, not a brave foe, but our precious Colonel Calembours himself. He has deserted to Lee's army, and had the audacity to tell his scheme to me. Quick, Thoms, your arm, man! I must communicate with the general and set scouts on his track."
St. Udo hastened to the general's tent as speedily as his reeling head would permit him.
A pursuit was immediately made of the fugitive, and precautions taken to foil his intended treachery; but the pursuit was fruitless—Calembours had dodged misfortune successfully this time.
Lying face down in his tent, St. Udo Brand mused over the fleeting incidents of his late existence, and owned himself at fault.
He looked back upon the friends he had expected fidelity from—which of them had not betrayed his trust? Upon the humble worm he had crushed with scorning heel—his life-preserver—his only friend now.
The deserted man scanned his reckless life, and in its shapeless fragments began to find a plan, and wonderingly, as a child fits together the scattered sections of his little puzzle, St. Udo linked the parted sections of his existence into their possible plan—and lo! he discovered that Providence held the key!
The remorseful man rose, and found Thoms studying him with his uncanny stare.
"My kind fellow," said St. Udo, gently, "Since your master has left you on my hands, and since I can't forget the noble service you have done me, perhaps you had better enter my service and see me through the war?"
"That will I, colonel," answered Thoms, with a keen smile.
"You have been a good friend to me, and Heaven knows I have need of friends," said St. Udo, gratefully.
The glittering eyes watched him as intently as if the old man were learning a lesson.
"If there's anything I could do for you, Thoms, to mark my gratitude, I would like to hear of it," said St. Udo.
"Nothing, colonel, except to let me stay by you."
"You may get shot in battle, my man."
"So may you, colonel, and more likely."
"Well, we won't dispute about that," said St. Udo, sunnily. "But wouldn't you rather go North, out of the scrape?"
"I'll never leave you!"
St. Udo, glancing up gratefully, saw that in his eye, which chilled as with the finger of death, the warm words crowding to his lips; a thrill of mortal dread, a sure premonition of evil seized his soul, and he waited, with the words frozen, regarding the man with stony stare until he turned on his heel and shuffled out of sight.
That night, when Thoms ventured back to sate his gloating eyes again upon St. Udo Brand, he sought for him in vain—his sub-officer occupied his tent.
"Where is the colonel?" asked Thoms, turning sharply on the nearest soldier.
"Gone, two hours ago."
"Gone!"
How white the sallow face blanched. How the tones quavered.
"By Heaven, I have lost him," cried Thoms, vehemently. "Where did he go?"
"On a secret embassy somewhere."
"Without me!" groaned Thoms, with a wild flash of the wolfish eyes. "He has stolen away from me—he has found me out!"