"Everything, of course."
"Everything?"
She looked at him, but did not answer.
Then he deliberately sat down and made love to her, not actual, open, unblushing love—but he started in to win her, and what his tongue refused to tell, his eyes told until trepidation seized her, and she sat back speechless, watching him with shy blue eyes that always turned when they met his, but always returned when his were lowered.
It is a pretty game, this first preliminary of love—like the graceful sword-play and salute of two swordsmen before a duel. There was no one to cry "Garde à vous!" no one to strike up the weapons that were thrust at two unarmoured hearts, for the weapons were words and glances, and Love, the umpire, alas! was not impartial.
So the timid heart of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that, if not utter treachery, was giving aid and encouragement to the enemy.
Besieged, threatened, she sat there in the arm-chair, half frightened, half smiling, fearful yet contented,alarmed yet secure, now resisting, now letting herself drift on, until the result of the combination made Jack's head spin; and he felt resentful in his heart, and he said to himself what all men under such circumstances say to themselves—"Coquetry!"
One moment he was sure she loved him, the next he was certain she did not. This oscillation between heaven and hell made him unhappy, and, manlike, he thought the fault was hers. This is the foundation for man's belief in the coquetry of women.
As for Lorraine, she thrilled with a gentle fear that was the most delightful sensation she had ever known. She looked shyly at the strong-limbed, sunburned young fellow opposite, and she began to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head, every gesture, every change in his face she knew now—knew so well that she blushed at her own knowledge.
But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not, although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then—But it is always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love. So the morning wore away.
The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying onthe lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy to sleep.
He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.
"Dear Jack,—I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to come back. You're the only person on earth I can write this to."Faithfully yours,Molly Hesketh."
"Dear Jack,—I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to come back. You're the only person on earth I can write this to.
"Faithfully yours,Molly Hesketh."
Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could read between the lines—a man in love is less dense than when in his normal state—and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing amid a shower of bricks and bursting shells, staring at war through a monocle.
"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment, that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to the 11th Uhlans.
"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this war lasts."
Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered whether any other troops were between him and Saarbrück. The truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the Germans should pass that way; not at all likely—but suppose they should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No, he could never go away and leave Lorraine—that was out of the question.
He lighted a match and moodily burned Molly's letter to ashes in the fireplace. He also stirred the ashes up, for he was honourable in little things—like Ricky—and also, alas! apparently no novice.
Dorothy's letter lay on the table—her third since she had left for Paris. He opened his knife and split the envelope carefully, still thinking of Lorraine.
"My Own Dear Jack,—There is something I have been trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so if you do not read carefully between every line, you may not find it, after all."I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and ill—the excitement in the city and that horrid National Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald is away on business, she says—where, I forgot to ask her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday. Some ragamuffins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her. Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the Englishpapers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear."The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there? Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren. Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and write meat once. Don't forget—the11th Uhlans. Oh, Jack, darling! can't you understand?Your loving sister,Dorothy."
"My Own Dear Jack,—There is something I have been trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so if you do not read carefully between every line, you may not find it, after all.
"I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and ill—the excitement in the city and that horrid National Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald is away on business, she says—where, I forgot to ask her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday. Some ragamuffins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her. Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the Englishpapers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear.
"The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there? Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren. Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and write meat once. Don't forget—the11th Uhlans. Oh, Jack, darling! can't you understand?
Your loving sister,Dorothy."
"Understand? What?" repeated Jack. He read the letter again carefully.
"I can't see what the mischief is extraordinary in that," he mused, "unless she's giving me a tip about Sir Thorald; but no—she can't know anything in that direction. Now what is it that she has hidden away? Oh, here's a postscript."
He turned the sheet and read:
"My love to aunt and uncle, Jack—don't forget. I am writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out. There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to theBerlin Postand theHamburger Nachrichtenand theMunich Neueste Nachrichten, but the horrid creature at the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her place. I hope theHeraldwill give particulars of losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?"Dorrie."P. P. S.—Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."
"My love to aunt and uncle, Jack—don't forget. I am writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out. There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to theBerlin Postand theHamburger Nachrichtenand theMunich Neueste Nachrichten, but the horrid creature at the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her place. I hope theHeraldwill give particulars of losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?
"Dorrie.
"P. P. S.—Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."
"Now, what on earth interests Dorrie in all these battle statistics?" he wondered; "and what in the name of common-sense can she find to interest her in the 11th Uhlans? Ricky? Absurd!"
He repeated "absurd" two or three times, but he became more thoughtful a moment later, and sat smoking and pondering. That would be a nice muddle if she, the niece of a Frenchman—an American, too—should fix her affections on a captain of Uhlans whose regiment he, Jack Marche, would avoid as he would hope to avoid the black small-pox.
"Absurd," he repeated for the fourth time, and tossed his cigarette into the open fireplace. And as he rose to go up-stairs something out on the road by the gate attracted his attention, and he went to the window.
Three horsemen sat in their saddles on the lawn, lance on thigh, eyes fixed on him.
They were Uhlans!
For a moment he recoiled as though he had received a blow between the eyes.
There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points, schabraques edged with yellow—aye, and tunics also, yellow and blue—those were the colours—the colours of the 11th Uhlans.
Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done—death even though the man he had shot were not dead—death though he had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its most awful form—hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian, foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling, informing, or otherwise, was hung—sometimes with a drum-head court-martial, sometimes without.
Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he leaned back against the table, cold with fear.
This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the needle-guns sent a shower of leadover his rocky observatory; the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle horsemen.
Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did not understand ropes.
He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back from the open window. Had they seen him?
All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans, plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were gone.
Utterly unnerved, Jack sank into the arm-chair. What should he do? If he stayed at Morteyn he stood a good chance of hanging. He could not leave his aunt and uncle, nor could he tell them, for the two old people would fall sick with the anxiety. And yet, if he stayed at Morteyn, and the Germans came, it might compromise the whole household and bring destruction to Château and park. He had not thought of that before, but now he remembered also another German rule, inflexible, unvarying. It was this, that in a town or village where the inhabitants resisted by force or injured any German soldier, the village should be burned and the provisions and stock confiscated for the use of King Wilhelm's army.
Shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he sprang to his feet and walked hastily to the terrace. Nothingwas to be seen on the road, nor yet in the meadows beyond. Up-stairs he heard Lorraine's voice, and his aunt's voice, too. Sometimes they laughed a little in low tones, and he even caught the rustle of stiff silken embroidery against the window-sill.
His mind was made up in an instant; his coolness returned as the colour returns to a pale cheek. The Uhlans had probably not seen him; if they had, it made little difference, for even the picquet that had chased him could not have recognized him at that distance. Then, again, in a whole regiment it was not likely that the three horsemen who had peeped at Morteyn through the road-gate could have been part of that same cursed picquet. No, the thing to avoid was personal contact with any of the 11th Uhlans. This would be a matter of simple prudence; outside of that he had nothing to fear from the Prussian army. Whenever he saw the schapskas and lances he would be cautious; when these lances were pennoned with black and white, and when the schapskas and schabraques were edged with yellow, he would keep out of the way altogether. It shamed him terribly to think of his momentary panic; he cursed himself for a coward, and dug his clenched fists into both pockets. But even as he stood there, withering himself with self-scorn, he could not help hoping that his aunt and uncle would find it convenient to go to Paris soon. That would leave him free to take his own chances by remaining, to be near Lorraine. For it did not occur to him that he might leave Morteyn as long as Lorraine stayed.
It was late in the afternoon when he lighted a pipe and walked out to the road, where the smooth macadamno longer bore the slightest trace of wheel or hoof, and nobody could have imagined that part of an army corps had passed there the night before.
He felt lonely and a little despondent, and he walked along the road to the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn and sat down at her naked stone feet. And as he sat there smoking, twirling his shooting-cap in his hands, without the least warning a horseman, advancing noiselessly across the turf, passed him, carbine on thigh, busby glittering with the silver skull and crossbones. Before he could straighten up another horseman passed, then another, then three, then six, then a dozen, all sitting with poised carbines, scarcely noticing him at all, the low, blazing sun glittering on the silver skulls and crossed thigh-bones, deep set in their sombre head-gear.
They were Black Hussars.
A distant movement came to his ear at the same time, the soft shock of thousands of footfalls on the highway. He sprang up and started forward, but a trooper warned him back with a stern gesture, and he stood at the foot of the shrine, excited but outwardly cool, listening to the approaching trample.
He knew what it meant now; these passing videttes were the dust before the tempest, the prophecy of the deluge. For the sound on the distant highway was the sound of infantry, and a host was on the march, a host helmeted with steel and shod with steel, a vast live bulk, gigantic, scaled in mail, whose limbs were human, whose claws were lances and bayonets, whose red tongues were flame-jets from a thousand cannon.
The German army had entered France and the province of Lorraine was a name.
Like a hydra of three hideous heads the German army had pushed its course over the Saar, over the Rhine, over the Lauter; it sniffed at the frontier line; licked Wissembourg and the Spicheren with flaming tongues, shuddered, coiled, and glided over the boundary into the fair land of Lorraine. Then, like some dreadful ringed monster, it cast off two segments, north, south, and moved forward on its belly, while the two new segments, already turned to living bodies, with heads and eyes and contracted scales, struggled on alone, diverging to the north and south, creeping, squirming, undulating, penetrating villages and cities, stretching across hills and rivers, until all the land was shining with shed scales and the sky reeked with the smoke of flaming tongues. This was the invasion of France. Before it Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet of the Garde Impériale.
On the hill-sides of Lorraine were letters of fire, writing for all France to read, and every separate letter was a flaming village. The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards Châlons; Bazaine read it and said, "There is time;" MacMahon, Canrobert, Lebœuf, Ladmirault read it and wondered idly what it meant, till Vinoy turned a retreat into a triumph, and Gambetta, flabby, pompous, unbalanced, bawled platitudes from the Palais Bourbon.
In three splendid armies the tide of invasion set in; the Red Prince tearing a bloody path to Metz,the Crown Prince riding west by south, resting in Nancy, snubbing Toul, spreading out into the valley of the Marne to build three monuments of bloody bones—Saint-Marie, Amanvilliers, Saint-Privat.
Metz, crouching behind Saint-Quentin and Les Bottes, turned her anxious eyes from Thionville to Saint-Julien and back to where MacMahon's three rockets should have starred the sky; and what she saw was the Red Prince riding like a fiery spectre from east to west; what she saw was the spiked helmets of the Feldwache and the sodded parapets of Longeau. Chained and naked, the beautiful city crouched in the tempest that was to free her forever and give her the life she scorned, the life more bitter than death.
Something of this ominous prophecy came to Jack, standing below the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn, listening to the on-coming shock of German feet, as he watched the cavalry riding past in the glow of the setting sun.
And now the infantry burst into view, a gloomy, solid column tramp, tramp along the road—jägers, with their stiff fore-and-aft shakos, dull-green tunics, and snuffy, red-striped trousers tucked into dusty half-boots. On they came, on, on—would they never pass? At last they were gone, somewhere into the flaming west, and now the red sunbeams slanted on eagle crests and tipped the sea of polished spiked helmets with fire, for a line regiment was coming, shaking the earth with its rhythmical tramp—thud! thud! thud!
He looked across the fields to the hills beyond; more regiments, dark masses moving against the sky, covered the landscape far as the eye could reach;cavalry, too, were riding on the Saint-Avold road through the woods; and beyond that, vague silhouettes of moving wagons and horsemen, crawling out into the world of valleys that stretched to Bar-le-Duc and Avricourt.
Oppressed, almost choked, as though a rising tide had washed against his breast, ever mounting, seething, creeping, climbing, he moved forward, waiting for a chance to cross the road and gain the Château, where he could see the servants huddling over the lawn, and the old vicomte, erect, motionless, on the terrace beside his wife and Lorraine.
Already in the meadow behind him the first bivouac was pitched; on the left stood a park of field artillery, ammunition-wagons in the rear, and in front the long lines of picket-ropes to which the horses were fastened, their harness piled on the grass behind them.
The forge was alight, the farriers busy shoeing horses; the armourer also bent beside his blazing forge, and the tinkling of his hammer on small-arms rose musically above the dull shuffle of leather-shod feet on the road.
To the right of the artillery, bisected as is the German fashion, lay two halves of a battalion of infantry. In the foreground the officers sat on their camp-chairs, smoking long faïence pipes; in the rear, driven deep into the turf, the battalion flag stood furled in its water-proof case, with the drum-major's halberd beside it, and drums and band instruments around it on the grass. Behind this lay a straight row of knapsacks, surrounded by the rolled great-coats; ten paces to the rear another similar row; between thesetwo rows stood stacks of needle-guns, then another row of knapsacks, another stack of needle-guns, stretching with mathematical exactness to the grove of poplars by the river. A cordon of sentinels surrounded the bivouac; there was a group of soldiers around a beer-cart, another throng near the wine-cart. All was quiet, orderly, and terribly sombre.
Near the poplar-trees the pioneers had dug their trenches and lighted fires. Across the trenches, on poles of green wood, were slung simmering camp-kettles.
He turned again towards the Château; a regiment of Saxon riders was passing—had just passed—and he could get across now, for the long line had ended and the last Prussian cuirassiers were vanishing over the hill, straight into the blaze of the setting sun.
As he entered the gate, behind him, from the meadow, an infantry band crashed out into a splendid hymn—a hymn in praise of the Most High God, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
And the soldiers' hoarse voices chimed in—
"Thou, who in the hollow of Thy Hand—"
And the deep drums boomed His praise.
The candles were lighted again in the ballroom, and again the delicate, gilded canapés were covered with officers, great stalwart fellows with blond hair and blue eyes, cuirassiers in white tunics faced with red, cuirassiers in green and white, black, yellow, and white, orange and white; dragoons in blue and salmon colour, bearing the number "7" on their shoulder-straps, dragoons of the Guard in blue and white, dragoons of the 2d Regiment in black and blue. There were hussars too, dandies of the 19th in their tasselled boots and crimson busby-crowns; Black Hussars, bearing, even on their soft fatigue-caps, the emblems of death, the skull and crossed thigh-bones. An Uhlan or two of the 2d Guard Regiment, trimmed with white and piped with scarlet, dawdled around the salon, staring at gilded clock and candelabra, or touching the grand-piano with hesitating but itching fingers. Here and there officers of the general staff stood in consultation, great, stiff, strapping men, faultlessly clothed in scarlet and black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms. The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals, some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little even when questioned. Thehuge Saxon officers, beaming with good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men and the stiff-necked Prussians.
In the long dining-room dinner was nearly ended. Facing each other sat the old Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, he pale, dignified, exquisitely courteous, she equally pale but more gentle in her sweet dignity. On the right sat the Red Prince, stiff as steel, jerky in every movement, stern, forbidding, unbending as much as his black Prussian blood would let him; on the left sat a thin old man, bald as an ivory ball, pallid, hairless of face, a frame of iron in a sombre, wrinkled tunic, without a single decoration. His short hawk's nose, keen and fine as a falcon's beak, quivered with every breath; his thin lips rested one upon the other in stern, delicate curves. It was Moltke, the master expert, come from Berlin to watch the wheels turning in that vast complicated network of machinery which he controlled with one fragile finger pressing the button.
There, too, was Von Zastrow, destined to make his error at Gravelotte, there was Steinmetz, and the handsome Saxon prince, and great, flabby August of Würtemberg, talking with Alvensleben, dainty, pious, aristocratic. Behind, in the shadow, stood Manstein and Goben, a grim, gray pair, with menacing eyes. Perhaps they were thinking of the Red Prince's parting words at the Spicheren: "Your duty is to march forward, always forward, find the enemy, prevent his escape, and fight him wherever you find him." To which the fastidious and devout Alvensleben muttered, "In the name of God," and poor, brave Kamecke, shuddering as he thought of his Westphaliansand the cul-de-sac where he had sent them on the 6th day of August, sighed and looked out into deepening twilight.
Outside a Saxon infantry band began to play a masterpiece of Beethoven. It seemed to be the signal for breaking up, and the Red Prince, with abrupt deference, turned to Madame de Morteyn, who gave the signal and rose. The Red Prince stepped back as the old vicomte gave his wife a trembling arm. Then he bowed where he stood, clothed in his tight, blood-red tunic, tall, powerful, square-jawed, cruel-mouthed, and eyed like a wolf. But his forehead was fine, broad, and benevolent, and his beard softened the wicked curve of his lips.
Jack and Lorraine had again dined together in the little gilded salon above, served by Lorraine's maid and wept over by the old house-keeper.
The terrified servants scarcely dared to breathe as they crept through the halls where, "like a flight of devils from hell" the "Prussian ogres" had settled in the house. They came whimpering to their mistress, but took courage at the calm, dignified attitude of the old vicomte, and began to think that these "children-eating Prussians" might perhaps forego their craving for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to their own plumpness and possible desirability for ragoûts.
The old marquis himself received his unwelcome guests as though he were receiving travelling strangers, to whom, now that they were under his roof, faultless hospitality was due, nothing more, merelythe courtesy of a French nobleman to an uninvited guest.
Ah, but the steel was in his heart to the hilt. He, an old soldier of the Malakoff, of Algeria, the brother in arms of Changarnier, of Chanzy, he obliged to receive invaders—invaders belonging to the same nation which had lined the streets of Berlin so long ago, cringing, whining "Vive l'Empereur!" at the crack of the thongs of Murat's horsemen!
Yet now it was that he showed himself the chivalrous soldier, the old colonel of the old régime, the true beau-sabreur of an epoch dead. And the Red Prince Frederick Charles knew it, and bowed low as the vicomte left the dining-hall with his gentle, pale-faced wife on his arm.
Jack, sitting after dinner with Lorraine in the bay-window above, looked down upon the vast camp that covered the whole land, from the hills to the Lisse, from the forest to the pastures above Saint-Lys. There were no tents—the German army carried none. Here and there a canvas-covered wagon glistened white in the moonlight; the pale radiance fell on acres of stacked rifles, on the brass rims of drums, and the spikes of the sentries' helmets. Videttes, vaguely silhouetted on distant knolls, stood almost motionless, save for the tossing of their horses' heads. Along the river Lisse the infantry pickets lay, the sentinels, patrolling their beats with brisk, firm steps, only pausing to bring their heavy heels together, wheel squarely, and retrace their steps, always alert and sturdy. The wind shifted to the west and the faint chimes of Saint-Lys came quavering on the breeze.
"The bells!" said Jack; "can you hear them?"
"Yes," said Lorraine, listlessly.
She had been very silent during their dinner. He wondered that she had not shown any emotion at the sight of the invading soldiers. She had not—she had scarcely even shown curiosity. He thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated, at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen, trampling the meadows of the province that he loved—the province of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of those whom she has sheltered.
So Jack felt the shame and humiliation as though a blow had been struck at his own home and kin, and he suffered the more thinking what his uncle must suffer. And Lorraine! His heart had bled for her when the harsh treble of the little, flat Prussian drums first broke out among the hills. He looked for the deep sorrow, the patience, the proud endurance, the prouder faith that he expected in her; he met with silence, even a distrait indifference.
Surely she could comprehend what this crushing disaster prophesied for France? Surely she of all women, sensitive, tender, and loyal, must know what love of kin and country meant?
Far away in the southwest the great heart of Paris throbbed in silence, for the beautiful, sinful city, confused by the din of the riffraff within her walls,blinded by lies and selfish counsels, crouched in mute agony, listening for the first ominous rumbling of a rotten, tottering Empire.
God alone knows why he gave to France, in the supreme moment of her need, the beings who filled heaven with the wind of their lungs and brought her to her knees in shame—not for brave men dead in vain, not for a wasted land, scourged and flame-shrunken from the Rhine to the Loire, not for provinces lost nor cities gone forever—but for the strange creatures that her agony brought forth, shapes simian and weird, all mouth and convulsive movement, little pigmy abortions mouthing and playing antics before high Heaven while the land ran blood in every furrow and the world was a hell of flame.
Gambetta, that incubus of bombastic flabbiness, roaring prophecy and platitude through the dismayed city, kept his eye on the balcony of the particular edifice where, later, he should pose as an animated Jericho trumpet. So, biding his time, he bellowed, but it was the Comédie Française that was the loser, not the people, when he sailed away in his balloon, posed, squatting majestically as the god of war above the clouds of battle. And little Thiers, furtive, timid, delighting in senile efforts to stir the ferment of chaos till it boiled, he, too, was there, owl-like, squeaky-voiced, a true "Bombyx à Lunettes." There, too, was Hugo—often ridiculous in his terrible moods, egotistical, sloppy, roaring. The Empire pinched Hugo, and he roared; and let the rest of the world judge whether, under such circumstances, there was majesty in the roar. The spectacle of Hugo, prancing on the ramparts and hurling bad names at the Germanarmies, recalls the persistent but painful manœuvres of a lion with a flea. Both are terribly in earnest—neither is sublime.
Jack sat leaning on the window-ledge, his chin on both hands, watching the moonlight rippling across the sea of steel below. Lorraine, also silent, buried in an arm-chair, lay huddled somewhere in the shadows, looking up at the stars, scarcely visible in the radiance of the moon.
After a while she spoke in a low voice: "Do you remember in chapel a week ago—what—"
"Yes, I know what you mean. Can you say it—any of it?"
"Yes, all."
Presently he heard her voice in the darkness repeating the splendid lines:
"'In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and they that look out of the windows be darkened.
"'And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.
"'Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.
"'Because man goeth to his long home—'"
Her voice broke a little.
"'And the mourners go about the streets—'"
He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a moment her fingers touched his,moved a little, and were clasped close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression—a despair scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved. Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body. Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as yet by the keen shaft of grief.
He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him, perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.
Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!"—so he waited, there alone in the darkness.
The bells of Saint-Lys sounded again, scarcely vibrating in the still air; a bank of sombre cloud buried the moon, and put out the little stars one by one until the blackness of the night crept in, blotting out river and tree and hill, hiding the silent camp in fathomless shadow. He slept.
When he awoke, slowly, confused and uncertain, he found her close to him, kneeling on the floor, her face on his knees. He touched her arm, fearfully, scarcely daring; he touched her hair, falling heavilyover her face and shoulders and across his knees. Ah! but she was tired—her very soul was weary and sick; and she was too young to bear her trouble. Therefore she came back to him who had reached out his hand to her. She could not cry—she could only lie there and try to live through the bitterness of her solitude. For now she knew at last that she was alone on earth. The knowledge had come in a moment, it had come with the first trample of the Prussian horsemen; she knew that her love, given so wholly, so passionately, was nothing, had been nothing, to her father. He whom she lived for—was it possible that he could abandon her in such an hour? She had waited all day, all night; she said in her heart that he would come from his machines and his turret to be with her. Together they could have lived through the shame of the day—of the bitter days to come; together they could have suffered, knowing that they had each other to live for.
But she could not face the Prussian scourge alone—she could not. These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade, every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it nobly, who could have bidden her hope and pray and wait—he sat in his turret turning little wheels while the whole land shook with the throes of invasion—their native land, Lorraine.
The death-throes of a nation are felt by all the world. Bismarck placed a steel-clad hand upon thepulse of France, and knew Lorraine lay dying. Amputation would end all—Moltke had the apparatus ready; Bismarck, the great surgeon and greater executioner, sat with mailed hand on the pulse of France and waited.
The girl, Lorraine, too, knew the crisis had come—sensitive prophetess in all that she held sacred! She had never prayed for the Emperor, but she always prayed for France when she asked forgiveness night and morning. At confession she had accused herself sometimes because she could not understand the deeper meaning of this daily prayer, but now she understood it; the fierce love for native soil that blazes up when that soil is stamped upon and spurned.
All the devotion, all the tender adoration, that she had given her father turned now to bitter grief for this dear land of hers. It, at least, had been her mother, her comforter, her consolation; and there it lay before her—it called to her; she responded passionately, and gave it all her love. So she lay there in the dark, her hot face buried in her hands, close to one whom she needed and who needed her.
He was too wise to speak or move; he loved her too much to touch again the hair, flung heavily across her face—to touch her flushed brow, her clasped hands, her slender body, delicate and warm, firm yet yielding. He waited for the tears to come. And when they fell, one by one, great, hot drops, they brought no relief until she told him all—all—her last and inmost hope and fear.
Then when her white soul lay naked in all its innocence before him, and when the last word had beensaid, he raised her head and searched in her pure eyes for one message of love for himself.
It was not there; and the last word had been said.
And, even as he looked, holding her there almost in his arms, the Prussian trumpets clanged from the dim meadows and the drums thundered on the hills, and the invading army roused itself at the dawn of another day.
For two days and nights the German army passed through Morteyn and Saint-Lys, on the march towards Metz. All day long the hills struck back the echoes of their flat brass drums, and shook with the shock of armed squadrons, tramping on into the west. Interminable trains of wagons creaked along the sandy Saint-Avold road; the whistle of the locomotive was heard again at Saint-Lys, where the Bavarians had established a base of supplies and were sending their endless, multicoloured trains puffing away towards Saarbrück for provisions and munitions of war that had arrived there from Cologne. Generals with their staffs, serious, civil fellows, with anxious, near-sighted eyes, stopped at the Château and were courteously endured, only to be replaced by others equally polite and serious. And regularly, after each batch left with their marching regiments, there came back to the Château by courier, the same evening, a packet of visiting-cards and a polite letter signed by all the officers entertained, thanking the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn for their hospitality.
At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the hills west of Morteyn, and the laststraggling Uhlan followed after, twirling his long lance.
Every day Lorraine had watched and waited for one word from her father; every day Jack had ridden over to the Château de Nesville, but the marquis refused to see him or to listen to any message, nor did he send any to Lorraine.
Old Pierre told Jack that no Germans had visited the Château; that the marquis was busy all day with his machinery, and never left his turret except to eat at daylight in the grand salon below. He also intimated that his master was about ready to make another ascension in the new balloon, which, old Pierre affirmed, had a revolving screw at either side of the wicker car, like a ship; and, like a ship, it could be steered with perfect ease. He even took Jack to a little stone structure that stood in a meadow, surrounded by trees. In there, according to Pierre, stood this marvellous balloon, not yet inflated, of course. That was only a matter of five seconds; a handful of the silver dust placed at the aperture of the silken bag, a drop of pure water touched to it, and, puff! the silver dust turns to vapour and the balloon swells out tight and full.
Jack had peeped into the barred window and had seen the wicker car of the balloon standing on the cement floor, filled with the folded silken covering for the globe of the balloon. He could just make out, on either side of the car, two twisted twin screws, wrought out of some dull oxidized metal. On returning to Morteyn that evening he had told Lorraine.
She explained that the screws were made of a metal called aluminum, rare then, because so difficult to extractfrom its combining substances, and almost useless on account of its being impossible to weld. Her father, however, had found a way to utilize it—how, she did not know. If this ascension proved a success the French government would receive the balloon and the secret of the steering and propelling gear, along with the formula for the silvery dust used to inflate it. Even she understood what a terrible engine of war such an aërial ship might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from the clouds.
On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the marquis—for Lorraine's sake.
He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.
"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working for France."
He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long as she lived. He said, too, that the marquis was labouring for France. So he was; but France would never see the terrible war engine, nor know the secrets of its management, as long as Napoleon III. was struggling to keep his family in the high places of France.
"Good-by," he said again. "I shall be back by sundown."
Lorraine leaned over the terrace, looking down at him with blue, fathomless eyes.
"By sundown?"
"Yes."
"Truly?"
"Yes."
"Tiens ta Foy."
"Always, Lorraine."
She did not chide him; she longed to call him Jack, but it stuck in her white throat when she tried.
"If you do not come back by sundown, then I shall know you cannot," she said.
"But I shall."
"Yes, I believe it."
"Come after me if I don't return," he laughed, as he descended the steps.
"I shall, if you break your faith," she smiled.
She watched him out of sight—he was going on foot this time—then the trees hid him, and she turned back into the house, where Madame de Morteyn was preparing to close the Château for the winter and return to Paris.
It was the old vicomte who had decided; he had stayed and faced the music as long as there was any to face—Prussian music, too. But now the Prussians had passed on towards Metz—towards Paris, also, perhaps, and he wished to be there; it was too sad in the autumn of Lorraine.
He had aged fearfully in the last four days; he was in truth an old man now. Even he knew it—he who had never before acknowledged age; but he felt it at night; for it is when day is ended that the old comprehend how old they are.
This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and return to Morteyn with one servant. This he had promised Lorraine, and she had not said no. His aunt also wished it, but she did not think it time yet to tell the vicomte.
The servants, with the exception of one maid and the coachman, had gone in the morning, by way of Vigny, with the luggage. The vicomte and his wife were to travel by carriage to Passy-le-Sel, and from there, via Belfort, if the line were open, to Paris by rail. Jack, it had been arranged, was to ride to Belfort on horseback, and join the old people there for the journey to Paris.
So Lorraine turned back into the silent house, where the furniture stood in its stiff, white dust-coverings, where cloths covered candelabra and mirror, and the piano was bare of embroidered scarfs.
She passed through darkened rooms, one after another, through the long hall, where no servants remained, through the ballroom and dining-room, and out into the conservatory, emptied of every palm. She passed on across the interior court, through the servants' wicket, and out to the stables. All the stalls save one were empty. Faust stood in that one stall switching his tail and peering around at her with wise, dark eyes. Then she kissed his soft nose, and went sadly back to the house, only to roam over it again from terrace to roof, never meeting aliving soul, never hearing a sound except when she passed the vicomte's suite, where Madame de Morteyn and the maid were arranging last details and the old vicomte lay asleep in his worn arm-chair.
There was one room she had not visited, one room in which she had never set foot, never even peeped into. That was Jack's room. And now, by an impulse she could not understand, her little feet led her up the stairway, across the broad landing, through the gun-room, and there to the door—his door. It was open. She glided in.
There was a faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather, too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle. Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes, cigar-boxes, neckties, riding-crops, and gloves.
She stole on tiptoe to the bed, looked at her wide, bright eyes in the mirror opposite, flushed, hesitated, bent swiftly, and touched the white pillow with her lips.
For a second she knelt there where he might have knelt, morning and evening, then slipped to her feet, turned, and was gone.
At sundown Jack returned, animated, face faintly touched with red from his three-mile walk. He had seen the marquis; more, too, he had seen the balloon—he had examined it, stood in the wicker car, tested the aluminum screws. He brought back a message for Lorraine, affectionate and kindly, asking for her return home early the next morning.
"If we do not find you at Belfort to-morrow," saidMadame de Morteyn, seriously, "we shall not wait. We shall go straight on to Paris. The house is ready to be locked, everything is in perfect order, and really, Jack, there is no necessity for your coming. Perhaps Lorraine's father may ask you to stay there for a few days."
"He has," said Jack, growing a trifle pink.
"Then you need not come to Belfort at all," insisted his aunt. Jack protested that he could not let them go to Paris alone.
"But I've sent Faust on already," said Madame de Morteyn, smiling.
"Then the Marquis de Nesville will lend me a horse; you can't keep me away like that," said Jack; "I will drive Mademoiselle de Nesville to her home and then come on horseback and meet you at Belfort, as I said I would."
"We won't count on you," said his aunt; "if you're not there when the train comes, your uncle and I will abandon you to the mercy of Lorraine."
"I shall send him on by freight," said Lorraine, trying to smile.
"I'm going back to the Château de Nesville to-night for an hour or two," observed Jack, finishing his Moselle; "the marquis wanted me to help him on the last touches. He makes an ascent to-morrow noon."
"Take a lantern, then," said Madame de Morteyn; "don't you want Jules, too—if you're going on foot through the forest?"
"Don't want Jules, and the squirrels won't eat me," laughed Jack, looking across at Lorraine. He was thinking of that first dash in the night together, she riding with the fury of a storm-witch, her ball-gownin ribbons, her splendid hair flashing, he galloping at her stirrup, putting his horse at a dark figure that rose in their path; and then the collision, the trample, the shots in the dark, and her round white shoulder seared with the bullet mark.
She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going to start.
"Now," he said.
"You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with Lorraine.
Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.
"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.
"Always, Lorraine."
The night was starless. As he stood there on the terrace swinging his lantern, he looked back at her, up into her eyes. And as he looked she bent down, impulsively stretching out both arms and whispering, "At eleven—you have promised, Jack."
At last his name had fallen from her lips—had slipped from them easily—sweet as the lips that breathed it.
He tried to answer; he could not, for his heart beat in his throat. But he took her two hands and crushed them together and kissed the soft, warm palms, passive under his lips. That was all—a touch, a glimpse of his face half lit by the lantern swinging; and again she called, softly, "Jack, 'Tiens ta Foy!'" And he was gone.
The distance to the Château de Nesville was three miles; it might have been three feet for all Jack knew,moving through the forest, swinging his lantern, his eyes on the dim trees towering into the blackness overhead, his mind on Lorraine. Where the lantern-light fell athwart rugged trunks, he saw her face; where the tall shadows wavered and shook, her eyes met his. Her voice was in the forest rumour, the low rustle of leafy undergrowth, the whisper of waters flowing under silent leaves.
Already the gray wall of the park loomed up in the east, already the gables and single turret of the Château grew from the shadows and took form between the meshed branches of the trees.
The grille swung wide open, but the porter was not there. He walked on, hastening a little, crossed the lawn by the summer arbour, and approached the house. There was a light in the turret, but the rest of the house was dark. As he reached the porch and looked into the black hallway, a slight noise in the dining-room fell upon his ear, and he opened the door and went in. The dining-room was dark; he set his extinguished lantern on the table and lighted a lamp by the window, saying: "Pierre, tell the marquis I am here—tell him I am to return to Morteyn by eleven—Pierre, do you hear me? Where are you, then?"
He raised his head instinctively, his hand on the lamp-globe. Pierre was not there, but something moved in the darkness outside the window, and he went to the door.
"Pierre!" he called again; and at the same instant an Uhlan struck him with his lance-butt across the temples.
How long it was before he opened his eyes he couldnot tell. He found himself lying on the ground in a meadow surrounded by trees. A camp-fire flickered near, lighting the gray side of the little stone house where the balloon was kept.
There were sounds—deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing, crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished schapskas and gold-scaled chin-guards. The knot of struggling figures suddenly widened out into a half-circle, then came a quick command, a cry in French—"Ah! God!"—and something shot up into the air and hung from a tree, dangling, full in the firelight.
It was the writhing body of a man.
Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands. Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat, leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.
Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: "Links! vorwärts!" There came a regular tramp of feet—one, two! one, two!—across the grass, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in his arms.
The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right—tall Uhlans, buttoned to the chin in their sombre overcoats, helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.
Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a second or two before he even heard him.
"Prisoner, do you understand German?" repeated the Uhlan, harshly.
"Yes," muttered Jack. He began to shiver, perhaps from the chill of the wet earth.
"Stand up!"
Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling oak-branch at the edge of the grove.
Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name pronounced; he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispassionate voice—"accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully, maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty."
Again he heard the same voice: "The law of non-combatants operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty due."
Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now he knew him—the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who had scaled the park wall with the box—that was the face he had struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face, with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in pencil on the maps—Siurd von Steyr!
Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispassionate and harsh as ever when he said: "The prisoner Marche is at liberty to confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!"
There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with trailing spurs across the road to the tree.
From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-glasses told him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the hill-side.
One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks, saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.
"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr.
Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was choking. Everything around him swam in darkness—a darkness lit by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their midst now, shouldered and shoved across the grass; their hot breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a swivel.
It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the first cry out of him: "Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of God! Not—not this—"
He was struggling now—he set his teeth and struck furiously. The crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man in their midst—more mounted men, shouting.
The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his fingers between thenoose and his neck; now the thing loosened and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.
"Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr!—here! get back there!—get back!"
"Rickerl!" gasped Jack—"tell—tell them—they must shoot—not hang—"
He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless, haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up, lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive horses wheeled.
And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car, which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.
"This is not the place nor is this the time to judge your prisoners," said Rickerl, pushing his horse up to Von Steyr and scowling down into his face. "Who called this drum-head court? Is that your province? Oh, in my absence? Well, then, I am here! Do you see me?"
The insult fell like the sting of a lash across Von Steyr's face. He saluted, and, looking straight into Rickerl's eyes, said, "Zum Befehl, Herr Hauptmann! I am at your convenience also."
"When you please!" shouted Rickerl, crimson with fury. "Retire!"
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his hands to hishead, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above his head. Then, through the ring of nervous, quivering horses the globe of the balloon appeared as by magic—an enormous, looming, yellow sphere, tense, glistening, gigantic.
The horses reared, snorting with fright, the Uhlans clung to their saddles, shouting and cursing, and the huge balloon, swaying from its single rope, pounded and bounced from side to side, knocking beast and man into a chaotic mass of frantic horses and panic-stricken riders.
With a report like a pistol the rope parted, the great globe bounded and shot up into the air; a tumult of harsh shouts arose; the crazed horses backed, plunged, and scattered, some falling, some bolting into the undergrowth, some rearing and swaying in an ecstasy of terror.
The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the forest, drifting slowly westward.
And now Von Steyr had a weapon in his hands—not a carbine, but a long chassepot-rifle, a relic of the despoiled franc-tireur, dangling from the oak-tree.
Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!"
"Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!"
The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.
The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest wasbelted by a blue line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in the sky. Then far away a light report startled the sudden stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall, swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and earth.
"You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand at Von Steyr.
"God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his teeth.
Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.
"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.
Von Steyr stared around him, right and left—Jack was gone.
"Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously—"if you escape my sabre in the morning."
"Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked convulsively.
"Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he cried. "Open order! Forward!"