"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.
A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Château. I think she was hurt."
"Hurt!"
"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables; Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.
"Where is Alixe?" he asked.
"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"
"I don't know."
He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.
"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone with Sir Thorald." And he climbedthe stairs and knocked softly at the door of the death-chamber.
"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay here."
She was kneeling at the bedside, her face buried on the breast of the dead man.
"Alixe," he said, but his voice broke in spite of him, and he went to her and touched her.
Very tenderly he raised her head, looked into her eyes, then quietly turned away.
Outside the door he met Lorraine.
"Don't go in," he murmured.
She looked fearfully up into his face.
"Yes," he said, "she was shot through the body."
Then he closed the door and turned the key on the outside, leaving the dead to the dead.
The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.
Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before, although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about, gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary observation of the Château.
Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the cover of the woods.
Around the Château the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi, grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue overcoats.
The line of battle stretched from the Château Morteyn, parallel with the river and the park wall, to the Château de Nesville; and along this line the officerswere riding all day, muffled to the chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks with earth, while in the Château itself preparations were in progress for the fighting of fire.
The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the ground for a head-stone.
Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse. Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds. Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns; and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw that her fair hands werecut and bleeding from plaiting the thorn-covered blossoms.
They spoke briefly, almost coldly. Lorraine hung the two wreaths over the head-piece of the cross and, kneeling, signed herself.
When she rose Jack replaced his cap, but said nothing. They stood side by side, looking out across the woods, where, behind a curtain of mist and rain, the single turret of the Château de Nesville was hidden.
She seemed restless and preoccupied, and he, answering aloud her unasked question, said, "I am going to search the forest to-day. I cannot bear to leave you, but it must be done, for your sake and for the sake of France."
She answered: "Yes, it must be done. I shall go with you."
"You cannot," he said; "there is danger in the forest."
"You are going?"
"Yes."
They said nothing more for a moment or two. He was thinking of Alixe and her love for Sir Thorald. Who would have thought it could have turned out so? He looked down at the river Lisse, where, under the trees of the bank, they had all sat that day—a day that already seemed legendary, so far, so far in the mist-hung landscape of the past. He seemed to hear Molly Hesketh's voice, soft, ironical, upbraiding Sir Thorald; he seemed to see them all there in the sunshine—Dorothy, Rickerl, Cecil, Betty Castlemaine—he even saw himself strolling up to them, gun under arm, while Sir Thorald waved his wine-cup and bantered him.
He looked at the river. The green row-boat lay on the bank, keel up, shattered by a shell; the trees were covered with yellow, seared foliage that dropped continually into the water; the river itself was a canal of mud. And, as he looked, a dead man, face under water, sped past, caught on something, drifted, spun giddily in an eddy, washed to and fro, then floated on under the trees.
"You will catch cold here in the rain," he said, abruptly.
"You also, Jack."
They walked a few steps towards the house, then stopped and looked at each other.
"You are drenched," he said; "you must go to your room and lie down."
"I will—if you wish," she answered.
He drew her rain-cloak around her, buttoned the cape and high collar, and settled the hood on her head. She looked up under her pointed hood.
"Do you care so much for me?" she asked, listlessly.
"Will you give me the right—always—forever?"
"Do you mean that—that you love me?"
"I have always loved you."
Still she looked up at him from the shadow of her hood.
"I love you, Lorraine."
One arm was around her now, and with the other hand he held both of hers.
She spoke, her eyes on his.
"I loved you once. I did not know it then. It was the first night there on the terrace—when they were dancing. I loved you again—after our quarrel,when you found me by the river. Again I loved you, when we were alone in the Château and you came to see me in the library."
He drew her to him, but she resisted.
"Now it is different," she said. "I do not love you—like that. I do not know what I feel; I do not care for that—for that love. I need something warmer, stronger, more kindly—something I never have had. My childhood is gone, Jack, and yet I am tortured with the craving for it; I want to be little again—I want to play with children—with young girls; I want to be tired with pleasure and go to bed with a mother bending over me. It is that—it is that that I need, Jack—a mother to hold me as you do. Oh, if you knew—if you knew! Beside my bed I feel about in the dark, half asleep, reaching out for the mother I never knew—the mother I need. I picture her; she is like my father, only she is always with me. I lie back and close my eyes and try to think that she is there in the dark—close—close. Her cheeks and hands are warm; I can never see her eyes, but I know they are like mine. I know, too, that she has always been with me—from the years that I have forgotten—always with me, watching me that I come to no harm—anxious for me, worrying because my head is hot or my hands cold. In my half-sleep I tell her things—little intimate things that she must know. We talk of everything—of papa, of the house, of my pony, of the woods and the Lisse. With her I have spoken of you often, Jack. And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell you, Jack. I can never love you like—like that, but I need you, and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love.Be gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret. You are all I have."
The intense grief in her face, the wide, childish eyes, the cold little hands tightening in his, all these touched the manhood in him, and he answered manfully, putting away from himself all that was weak or selfish, all that touched on love of man for woman:
"Let me be all you ask," he said. "My love is of that kind, also."
"My darling Jack," she murmured, putting both arms around his neck.
He kissed her peacefully.
"Come," he said. "Your shoes are soaking. I am going to take charge of you now."
When they entered the house he took her straight to her room, drew up an arm-chair, lighted the fire, filled a foot-bath with hot water, and, calmly opening the wardrobe, pulled out a warm bath-robe. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he knelt and unbuttoned her shoes.
"Now," he said, "I'll be back in five minutes. Let me find you sitting here, with your feet in that hot water."
Before she could answer, he went out. A thrill of comfort passed through her; she drew the wet stockings over her feet, shivered, slipped out of skirt and waist, put on the warm, soft bath-robe, and, sinking back in the chair, placed both little white feet in the foot-bath.
"I am ready, Jack," she called, softly.
He came in with a tray of tea and toast and a bit of cold chicken. She followed his movement with tired, shy eyes, wondering at his knowledge of littlethings. They ate their luncheon together by the fire. Twice he gravely refilled the foot-bath with hotter water, and she settled back in her soft, warm chair, sighing contentment.
After a while he lighted a cigarette and read to her—fairy tales from Perrault—legends that all children know—all children who have known mothers. Lorraine did not know them. At first she frowned a little, watching him dubiously, but little by little the music of the words and the fragrance of the sweet, vague tales crept into her heart, and she listened breathless to the stories, older than Egypt—stories that will outlast the last pyramid.
Once he laid down his book and told her of the Prince of Argolis and Æthra; of the sandals and sword, of Medea, and of the wreathed wine-cup. He told her, too, of the Isantee, and the legends of the gray gull, of Harpan and Chaské, and the white lodge of hope.
She listened like a tired child, her wrist curved under her chin, the bath-robe close to her throat. While she listened she moved her feet gently in the hot water, nestling back with the thrill of the warmth that mounted to her cheeks.
Then they were silent, their eyes on each other.
Down-stairs some rain-soaked officer was playing on the piano old songs of Lorraine and Alsace. He tried to sing, too, but his voice broke, whether from emotion or hoarseness they could not tell. A moment or two later a dripping infantry band marched out to the conservatory and began to play. The dismal trombone vibrated like a fog-horn, the wet drums buzzed and clattered, the trumpets wailed with the risingwind in the chimneys. They played for an hour, then stopped abruptly in the middle of "Partons pour la Syrie," and Jack and Lorraine heard them trampling away—slop, slop—across the gravel drive.
The fire in the room made the air heavy, and he raised one window a little way, but the wet wind was rank with the odour of disinfectants and ether from the stable hospital, and he closed the window after a moment.
"I spent all the morning with the wounded," said Lorraine, from the depths of her chair. The child-like light in her eyes had gone; nothing but woman's sorrow remained in their gray-blue depths.
Jack rose, picked up a big soft towel, and, deliberately lifting one of her feet from the water, rubbed it until it turned rosy. Then he rubbed the other, wrapped the bath-robe tightly about her, lifted her in his arms, threw back the bed-covers, and laid her there snug and warm.
"Sleep," he said.
She held up both arms with a divine smile.
"Stay with me until I sleep," she murmured drowsily. Her eyes closed; one hand sought his.
After a while she fell asleep.
When Lorraine had been asleep for an hour, Jack stole from the room and sought the old general who was in command of the park. He found him on the terrace, smoking and watching the woods through his field-glasses.
"Monsieur," said Jack, "my ward, Mademoiselle de Nesville, is asleep in her chamber. I must go to the forest yonder and try to find her father's body. I dare not leave her alone unless I may confide her to you."
"My son," said the old man, "I accept the charge. Can you give me the next room?"
"The next room is where our little Sister of Mercy died."
"I have journeyed far with death—I am at home in death's chamber," said the old general. He followed Jack to the death-room, accompanied by his aide-de-camp.
"It will do," he said. Then, turning to an aid, "Place a sentry at the next door. When the lady awakes, call me."
"Thank you," said Jack. He lingered a moment and then continued: "If I am shot in the woods—if I don't return—General Chanzy will take charge ofMademoiselle de Nesville, for my uncle's sake. They are sword-brothers."
"I accept the responsibility," said the old general, gravely.
They bowed to each other, and Jack went out and down the stairs to the lawn. For a moment he looked up into the sky, trying to remember where the balloon might have been when Von Steyr's explosive bullet set it on fire. Then he trudged on into the wood-road, buckling his revolver-case under his arm and adjusting the cross-strap of his field-glasses.
Once in the forest he breathed more freely. There was an odour of rotting leaves in the wet air; the branches quivered and dripped, and the tree-trunks, moist and black, exhaled a rank aroma of lichens and rain-soaked moss.
Along the park wall, across the Lisse, sentinels stood in the rain, peering out of their caped overcoats or rambling along the river-bank. A spiritless challenge or two halted him for a few moments, but he gave the word and passed on. Once or twice squads met him and passed with the relief, sick boyish soldiers, crusted with mud. Twice he met groups of roving, restless-eyed franc-tireurs in straight caps and sheepskin jackets, but they did not molest him nor even question him beyond asking the time of day.
And now he passed the carrefour where he and Lorraine had first met. Its only tenant was a sentinel, yellow with jaundice, who seized his chassepot with shaking hands and called a shrill "Qui Vive?"
From the carrefour Jack turned to the left straight into the heart of the forest. He risked losing his way; he risked more than that, too, for a shot fromsentry or franc-tireur was not improbable, and, more-over, nobody knew whether Uhlans were in the woods or not.
As he advanced the forest growth became thicker; underbrush, long uncut, rose higher than his head. Over logs and brush tangles he pressed, down into soft, boggy gullys deep with dead leaves, across rapid, dark brooks, threads of the river Lisse, over stony ledges, stumps, windfalls, and on towards the break in the trees from which, on clear days, one could see the turret-spire of the Château de Nesville. When he reached this point he looked in vain for the turret; the rain hid it. Still, he could judge fairly well in which direction it lay, and he knew that the distance was half a mile.
"The balloon dropped near here," he muttered, and started in a circle, taking a gigantic beech-tree as the centre mark. Gradually he widened his circuit, stumbling on over the slippery leaves, keeping a wary eye out for the thing on the ground that he sought.
He had seen no game in the forest, and wondered a little. Once or twice he fancied that he heard some animal moving near, but when he listened all was quiet, save for the hoarse calling of a raven in some near tree. Suddenly he saw the raven, and at the same moment it rose, croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay there in the thicket. And he wasright; but when he saw the thing he covered his eyes with both hands and his heart rose in his throat. At last he stepped forward and looked into the vacant eye-sockets of a skull from which shreds of a long beard still hung, wet and straggling.
It lay under the washed-out roots of a fir-tree, the bare ribs staring through the torn clothing, the fleshless hands clasped about a steel box.
How he brought himself to get the box from that cage of bones he never knew. At last he had it, and stepped back, the sweat starting from every pore. But his work was not finished. What the ravens and wolves had left of the thing he pushed with sticks into a hollow, and painfully covered it with forest mould. Over this he pulled great lumps of muddy clay, trampling them down firmly, until at last the dead lay underground and a heap of stones marked the sepulchre.
The ravens had alighted in the tree-tops around the spot, watching him gravely, croaking and sidling away when he moved with abruptness. Looking up into the tree-tops he saw some shreds of stuff clinging to the branches, perhaps tatters from the balloon or the dead man's clothing. Near him on the ground lay a charred heap that was once the wicker car of the balloon. This he scattered with a stick, laid a covering of green moss on the mound, placed two sticks crosswise at the head, took off his cap, then went his way, the steel box buttoned securely in his breast. As he walked on through the forest, a wolf fled from the darkening undergrowth, hesitated, turned, cringing half boldly, half sullenly, watching him with changeless, incandescent eyes.
Darkness was creeping into the forest when he came out on the wood-road. He had a mile and a half before him without lantern or starlight, and he hastened forward through the mire, which seemed to pull him back at every step. It astonished him that he received no challenge in the twilight; he peered across the river, but saw no sentinels moving. The stillness was profound, save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp report, and the steel fragments hurtled through the naked trees.
He was running now; he knew the Prussian guns had opened on the Château again, and the thought of Lorraine in the tempest of iron terrified him. And now the shells were streaming into the woods, falling like burning stars from the heavens, bursting over the tree-tops; the racket of tearing, splintering limbs was in his ears, the dull shock of a shell exploding in the mud, the splash of fragments in the river. Behind him a red flare, ever growing, wavering, bursting into crimson radiance, told him that the Château de Nesville was ablaze. The black, trembling shadows cast by the trees grew blacker and steadier in the fiery light; the muddy road sprang into view under his feet; the river ran vermilion. Another light grew in the southern sky, faint yet, but growing surely. He ran swiftly, spurred and lashed by fear,for this time it was the Château Morteyn that sent a column of sparks above the trees, higher, higher, under a pall of reddening smoke.
At last he stumbled into the garden, where a mass of plunging horses tugged and strained at their harnessed guns and caissons. Muddy soldiers put their ragged shoulders to the gun-wheels and pushed; teamsters cursed and lashed their horses; officers rode through the throng, shouting. A squad of infantry began a fusillade from the wall; other squads fired from the lawn, where the rear of a long column in retreat stretched across the gardens and out into the road.
As Jack ran up the terrace steps the gatling began to whir like a watchman's rattle; needle-pointed flames pricked the darkness from hedge and wall, where a dark line swayed to and fro under the smoke.
Up the stairs he sped, and flung open the door of the bedroom. Lorraine stood in the middle of the room, looking out into the darkness. She turned at the sound of the opening door:
"Jack!"
"Hurry!" he gasped; "this time they mean business. Where is your sentinel? Where is the general? Hurry, my child—dress quickly!"
He went out to the hall again, and looked up and down. On the floor below he heard somebody say that the general was dead, and he hurried down among a knot of officers who were clustered at the windows, night-glasses levelled on the forest. As he entered the room a lieutenant fell dead and a shower of bullets struck the coping outside.
He hastened away up-stairs again. Lorraine, in cloak and hat, met him at the door.
"Keep away from all windows," he said. "Are you ready?"
She placed her arm in his, and he led her down the stairs to the rear of the Château.
"Have they gone—our soldiers?" faltered Lorraine. "Is it defeat? Jack, answer me!"
"They are holding the Château to protect the retreat, I think. Hark! The gatling is roaring like a furnace! What has happened?"
"I don't know. The old general came to speak to me when I awoke. He was very good and kind. Then suddenly the sentinel on the stairs fell down and we ran out. He was dead; a bullet had entered from the window at the end of the hall. After that I went into my room to dress, and the general hurried down-stairs, telling me to wait until he called for me. He did not come back; the firing began, and some shells hit the house. All the troops in the garden began to leave, and I did not know what to do, so I waited for you."
Jack glanced right and left. The artillery were leaving by the stable road; from every side the infantry streamed past across the lawn, running when they came to the garden, where a shower of bullets fell among the shrubbery. A captain hastening towards the terrace looked at them in surprise.
"What is it?" cried Jack. "Can't you hold the Château?"
"The other Château has been carried," said the captain. "They are taking us on the left flank.Madame," he added, "should go at once; this place will be untenable in a few moments."
Lorraine spoke breathlessly: "Are you to hold the Château with the gatling until the army is safe?"
"Yes, madame," said the captain. "We are obliged to."
There came a sudden lull in the firing. Lorraine caught Jack's arm.
"Come," cried Jack, "we've got to go now!"
"I shall stay!" she said; "I know my work is here!"
The German rifle-flames began to sparkle and flicker along the river-bank; a bullet rang out against the granite façade behind them.
"Come!" he cried, sharply, but she slipped from him and ran towards the house.
Drums were beating somewhere in the distant forest—shrill, treble drums—and from every hill-side the hollow, harsh Prussian trumpets spoke. Then came a sound, deep, menacing—a far cry:
"Hourra! Preussen!"
"Why don't you cheer?" faltered Lorraine, mounting the terrace. The artillerymen looked at her in surprise. Jack caught her arm; she shook him off impatiently.
"Cheer!" she cried again. "Is France dumb?" She raised her hand.
"Vive la France!" shouted the artillerymen, catching her ardour. "Vive la Patrie! Vive Lorraine!"
Again the short, barking, Prussian cheer sounded, and again the artillerymen answered it, cheer on cheer, for France, for the Land, for the Province of Lorraine. Up in the windows of the Château the linesoldiers were cheering, too; the engineers on the roof, stamping out the sparks and flames, swung their caps and echoed the shouts from terrace and window.
In the sudden silence that followed they caught the vibration of hundreds of hoofs—there came a rush, a shout:
"Hourra! Preussen! Hourra! Hourra!" and into the lawn dashed the German cavalry, banging away with carbine and revolver. At the same moment, over the park walls swarmed the Bavarians in a forest of bayonets. The Château vomited flame from every window; the gatling, pulled back into the front door, roared out in a hundred streaks of fire. Jack dragged Lorraine to the first floor; she was terribly excited. Almost at once she knelt down and began to load rifles, passing them to Jack, who passed them to the soldiers at the windows. Once, when a whole window was torn in and the mattress on fire, she quenched the flames with water from her pitcher; and when the soldiers hesitated at the breach, she started herself, but Jack held her back and led the cheering, and piled more mattresses into the shattered window.
Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house, hammering with rifle-butts at the closed shutters, crouching, dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.
Suddenly they all gave way; the garden and lawns were emptied save for the writhing wounded and motionless dead.
"Cheer!" gasped Lorraine; and the battered Château rang again with frenzied cries of triumph.
The wounded were calling for water, and Jack and Lorraine brought it in bowls. Here and there the bedding and wood-work had caught fire, but the line soldiers knocked it out with their rifle-butts. Whenever Lorraine entered a room they cheered her—the young officers waved their caps, even a dying bugler raised himself and feebly sounded the salute to the colours.
By the light of the candles Jack noticed for the first time that Lorraine wore the dress of the Province—that costume that he had first seen her in—the scarlet skirt, the velvet bodice, the chains of silver. And as she stood loading the rifles in the smoke-choked room, the soldiers saw more than that: they saw the Province itself in battle there—the Province of Lorraine. And they cheered and leaped to the windows, firing frenziedly, crying the old battle-cry of Lorraine: "Tiens ta Foy! Frappe! Pour le Roy!" while the child in the bodice and scarlet skirt stood up straight and snapped back the locks of the loaded chassepots, one by one.
"Once again! For France!" cried Lorraine, as the clamour of the Prussian drums broke out on the hill-side, and the hoarse trumpets signalled from wood to wood.
A thundering cry arose from the Château:
"France!"
The sullen boom of a Prussian cannon drowned it; the house shook with the impact of a shell, bursting in fury on the terrace.
White faces turned to faces whiter still.
"Cannon!"
"Hold on! For France!" cried Lorraine, feverishly.
"Cannon!" echoed the voices, one to another.
Again the solid walls shook with the shock of a solid shot.
Jack stuffed the steel box into his breast and turned to Lorraine.
"It is ended, we cannot stay—" he began; but at that instant something struck him a violent blow on the chest, and he fell, striking the floor with his head.
In a second Lorraine was at his side, lifting him with all the strength of her arms, calling to him: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"
The soldiers were leaving the windows now; the house rocked and tottered under the blows of shell and solid shot. Down-stairs an officer cried: "Save yourselves!" There was a hurry of feet through the halls and on the stairs. A young soldier touched Lorraine timidly on the shoulder.
"Give him to me; I will carry him down," he said.
She clung to Jack and turned a blank gaze on the soldier.
"Give him to me," he repeated; "the house is burning." But she would not move nor relinquish her hold. Then the soldier seized Jack and threw him over his shoulder, running swiftly down the stairs, that rocked under his feet. Lorraine cried out and followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and thunder of the exploding shells dazed and stunned her; but the soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she followed, stumbling to his side.
"To the trees—yonder—the forest—" he gasped.
They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.
"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"
"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his.
The glare from the Château Morteyn, now wrapped in torrents of curling flame, threw long crimson shafts of light far into the forest. The sombre trees glimmered like live cinders; the wet moss crisped and bronzed as the red radiance played through the thickets. The bright, wavering fire-glow fell full on Jack's body; his face was hidden in the shadow of Lorraine's hair.
Twice the timid young soldier drew her away, but she crept back, murmuring Jack's name; and at last the soldier seized the body in both arms and stumbled on again, calling Lorraine to follow.
Little by little the illumination faded out among the trees; the black woods crowded in on every side; the noise of the crackling flames, the shouting, the brazen rattle of drums grew fainter and fainter, and finally died out in the soft, thick blackness of the forest.
When they halted the young soldier placed Jack on the moss, then held out his hands. Lorraine touched them. He guided her to the prostrate figure; she flung herself face down beside it.
After a moment the soldier touched her again timidly on the shoulder:
"Have I done well?"
She sobbed her thanks, rising to her knees. The soldier, a boy of eighteen, straightened up; he noiselessly laid his knapsack and haversack on the ground, trembled, swayed, and sat down, muttering vaguely of God and the honour of France. Presently he went away, lurching in the darkness like a drunken man—on, on, deep into the forest, where nothing of light or sound penetrated. And when he could no longer stand he sat down, his young head in his hands, and waited. His body had been shot through and through. About midnight he died.
When Jack came to his senses the gray mystery of dawn was passing through the silent forest aisles; the beeches, pallid, stark, loomed motionless on every side; the pale veil of sky-fog hung festooned from tree to tree. There was a sense of breathless waiting in the shadowy woods—no sound, no stir, nothing of life or palpitation—nothing but foreboding.
Jack crawled to his knees; his chest ached, his mouth cracked with a terrible throbbing thirst. Dazed as yet, he did not even look around; he did not try to think; but that weight on his chest grew to a burning agony, and he tore at his coat and threw it open. The flat steel box, pierced by a bullet, fell on the ground before his knees. Then he remembered. He ripped open waistcoat and shirt and stared at his bare breast. It was discoloured—a mass of bruises, but there was no blood there. He looked listlessly at the box on the leaves under him, and touched his bruised body. Suddenly his mind grew clearer; he stumbled up, steadying himself against a tree. His lips moved "Lorraine!" but no sound came. Again, in terror,he tried to cry out. He could not speak. Then he saw her. She lay among the dead leaves, face downward in the moss.
When at last he understood that she was alive he lay down beside her, one arm across her body, and sank into a profound sleep.
She woke first. A burning thirst set her weeping in her sleep and then roused her. Tear-stained and ghastly pale, she leaned over the sleeping man beside her, listened to his breathing, touched his hair, then rose and looked fearfully about her. On the knapsack under the tree a tin cup was shining. She took it and crept down into a gulley, where, through the deep layers of dead leaves, water sparkled in a string of tiny iridescent puddles. The water, however, was sweet and cold, and, when she had satisfied her thirst and had dug into the black loam with the edge of the cup, more water, sparkling and pure, gushed up and spread out in the miniature basin. She waited for the mud and leaves to settle, and when the basin was clear she unbound her hair, loosened her bodice, and slipped it off. When she had rolled the wide, full sleeves of her chemise to the shoulder she bathed her face and breast and arms; they glistened like marble tinged with rose in the pale forest dawn. The little scrupulous ablutions finished, she dried her face on the fine cambric of the under-sleeve, she dried her little ears, her brightening eyes, the pink palms of her hand, and every polished finger separately from the delicate flushed tip to the wrist, blue-veined and slender. She shook out her heavy hair, heavy and gleaming with burnished threads, and bound it tighter. She mended the broken points of her bodice, thenlaced it firmly till it pressed and warmed her fragrant breast. Then she rose.
There was nothing of fear or sorrow in her splendid eyes; her mouth was moist and scarlet, her curved cheeks pure as a child's.
For a moment she stood pensive, her face now grave, now sensitive, now touched with that mysterious exaltation that glows through the histories of the saints, that shines from tapestries, that hides in the dim faces carved on shrines.
For the world was trembling and the land cried out under the scourge, and she was ready now for what must be. The land would call her where she was awaited; the time, the hour, the place had been decreed. She was ready—and where was the bitterness of death, when she could face it with the man she loved.
Loved? At the thought her knees trembled under her with the weight of this love; faint with its mystery and sweetness, her soul turned in its innocence to God. And for the first time in her child's life she understood that God lived.
She understood now that the sadness of life was gone forever. There was no loneliness now for soul or heart; nothing to fear, nothing to regret. Her life was complete. Death seemed an incident. If it came to her or to the man she loved, they would wait for one another a little while—that was all.
A pale sunbeam stole across the tree-tops. She looked up. A little bird sang, head tilted towards the blue. She moved softly up the slope, her hair glistening in the early sun, her blue eyes dreaming; and when she came to the sleeping man she bent beside him and held a cup of sweet water to his lips.
About noon they spoke of hunger, timidly, lest either might think the other complained. Her head close against his, her warm arms tight around his neck, she told him of the boy soldier, the dreadful journey in the night, the terror, and the awakening. She told him of the birth of her love for him—how death no longer was to be feared or sought. She told him there was nothing to alarm him, nothing to make them despair. Sin could not touch them; death was God's own gift.
He listened, too happy to even try to understand. Perhaps he could not, being only a young man in love. But he knew that all she said must be true, perhaps too true for him to comprehend. He was satisfied; his life was complete. Something of the contentment of a school-boy exhausted with play lingered in his eyes.
They had spoken of the box; she had taken it reverently in her hands and touched the broken key, snapped off short in the lock. Inside, the Prussian bullet rattled as she turned the box over and over, her eyes dim with love for the man who had done all for her.
Jack found a loaf of bread in the knapsack. It was hard and dry, but they soaked it in the leaf-covered spring and ate it deliciously, cheek against cheek.
Little by little their plans took shape. They were to go—Heaven knows how!—to find the Emperor. Into his hands they would give the box with its secrets, then turn again, always together, ready for their work, wherever it might be.
Towards mid-afternoon Lorraine grew drowsy. There was a summer warmth in the air; the littleforest birds came to the spring and preened their feathers in the pale sunshine. Two cicadas, high in the tree-tops, droned an endless harmony; hemlock cones dropped at intervals on the dead leaves.
When Lorraine lay asleep, her curly head on Jack's folded coat, her hands clasped under her cheek, Jack leaned back against the tree and picked up the box. He turned it softly, so that the bullet within should not rattle. After a moment he opened his penknife and touched the broken fragment of the key in the lock. Idly turning the knife-blade this way and that, but noiselessly, for fear of troubling Lorraine, he thought of the past, the present, and the future. Sir Thorald lay dead on the hillock above the river Lisse; Alixe slept beside him; Rickerl was somewhere in the country, riding with his Uhlan scourges; Molly Hesketh waited in Paris for her dead husband; the Marquis de Nesville's bones were lying in the forest where he now sat, watching the sleeping child of the dead man. His child? Jack looked at her tenderly. No, not the child of the Marquis de Nesville, but a foundling, a lost waif in the Lorraine Hills, perhaps a child of chance. What of it? She would never know. The Château de Nesville was a smouldering mass of fire; the lands could revert to the country; she should never again need them, never again see them, for he would take her to his own land when trouble of war had passed, and there she should forget pain and sorrow and her desolate, loveless childhood; she should only remember that in the Province of Lorraine she had met the man she loved. All else should be a memory of green trees and vineyards and rivers, growing vaguer and dimmer as the healing years passed on.
The knife-blade in the box bent, sprang back—the box flew open.
He did not realize it at first; he looked at the three folded papers lying within, curiously, indolently. Presently he took them and looked at the superscriptions written on the back, in the handwriting of the marquis. The three papers were inscribed as follows:
"1. For the French Government after the fall of the Empire."2. For the French Government on the death of Louis Bonaparte, falsely called Emperor.""3. To whom it may concern!"
"To whom it may concern!" he repeated, looking at the third paper. Presently he opened it and read it, and as he read his heart seemed to cease its beating.
"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN!"Grief has unsettled my mind, yet, what I now write is true, and, if there is a God, I solemnly call His curses on me and mine if I lie."My only son, René Philip d'Harcourt de Nesville, was assassinated on the Grand Boulevard in Paris, on the 2d of December, 1851. His assassin was a monster named Louis Bonaparte, now known falsely as Napoleon III., Emperor of the French. His paid murderers shot my boy down, and stabbed him to death with their bayonets, in front of the Café Tortoni. I carried his body home; I sat at the window, with my dead boy on my knees, and I saw Louis Bonaparte ride into the Rue St. Honoré with his murderous Lancers, and I saw children spit at him and hurl curses at him from the barricade."Now I, Gilbert, Marquis de Nesville, swore to strike. And I struck, not at his life—that can wait. I struck at the root of all his pride and honour—I struck at that which he held dearer than these—at his dynasty!"Do the people of France remember when the Empress was first declared enciente? The cannon thundered from the orangerie at Saint-Cloud, the dome of the Invalides blazed rockets, the city glittered under a canopy of coloured fire. Oh, they were very careful of the Empress of the French! They went to Saint-Cloud, and later to Versailles, as they go to holy cities, praying. And the Emperor himself grew younger, they said."Then came the news that the expected heir, a son, had been born dead! Lies!"I, Gilbert de Nesville, was in the forest when the Empress of the French fell ill. When separated from the others she called to Morny, and bade him drive for the love of Heaven! And they drove—they drove to the Trianon, and there was no one there. And there the child was born. Morny held it in his arms. He came out to the colonnade holding it in his arms, and calling for a messenger. I came, and when I was close to Morny I struck him in the face and he fell senseless. I took the child and wrapped it in my cloak. This is the truth!"They dared not tell it; they dared not, for fear and for shame. They said that an heir had been born dead; and they mourned for their dead son. It was only a daughter. She is alive; she loves me, and, God forgive me, I hate her for defeating my just vengeance."And I call her Lorraine de Nesville."
"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN!
"Grief has unsettled my mind, yet, what I now write is true, and, if there is a God, I solemnly call His curses on me and mine if I lie.
"My only son, René Philip d'Harcourt de Nesville, was assassinated on the Grand Boulevard in Paris, on the 2d of December, 1851. His assassin was a monster named Louis Bonaparte, now known falsely as Napoleon III., Emperor of the French. His paid murderers shot my boy down, and stabbed him to death with their bayonets, in front of the Café Tortoni. I carried his body home; I sat at the window, with my dead boy on my knees, and I saw Louis Bonaparte ride into the Rue St. Honoré with his murderous Lancers, and I saw children spit at him and hurl curses at him from the barricade.
"Now I, Gilbert, Marquis de Nesville, swore to strike. And I struck, not at his life—that can wait. I struck at the root of all his pride and honour—I struck at that which he held dearer than these—at his dynasty!
"Do the people of France remember when the Empress was first declared enciente? The cannon thundered from the orangerie at Saint-Cloud, the dome of the Invalides blazed rockets, the city glittered under a canopy of coloured fire. Oh, they were very careful of the Empress of the French! They went to Saint-Cloud, and later to Versailles, as they go to holy cities, praying. And the Emperor himself grew younger, they said.
"Then came the news that the expected heir, a son, had been born dead! Lies!
"I, Gilbert de Nesville, was in the forest when the Empress of the French fell ill. When separated from the others she called to Morny, and bade him drive for the love of Heaven! And they drove—they drove to the Trianon, and there was no one there. And there the child was born. Morny held it in his arms. He came out to the colonnade holding it in his arms, and calling for a messenger. I came, and when I was close to Morny I struck him in the face and he fell senseless. I took the child and wrapped it in my cloak. This is the truth!
"They dared not tell it; they dared not, for fear and for shame. They said that an heir had been born dead; and they mourned for their dead son. It was only a daughter. She is alive; she loves me, and, God forgive me, I hate her for defeating my just vengeance.
"And I call her Lorraine de Nesville."
The long evening shadows were lengthening among the trees; sleepy birds twitted in dusky thickets; Lorraine slept.
Jack still stood staring at the paper in his hands, trying to understand the purport of what he read and reread, until the page became a blur and his hot eyes burned.
All the significance of the situation rose before him. This child, the daughter of the oath-breaker, the butcher of December, the sly, slow diplomate of Europe, the man of Rome, of Mexico, the man now reeling back to Châlons under the iron blows of an aroused people. In Paris, already, they cursed his name; they hurled insults at the poor Empress, that mother in despair. Thiers, putting his senile fingers in the porridge, stirred a ferment that had not even germinated since the guillotine towered in the Place de la Concorde and the tumbrils rattled through the streets. He did not know what he was stirring. The same impulse that possessed Gladstone to devastate trees animated Thiers. He stirred the dangerous mess because he liked to stir, nothing more. But from that hell's broth the crimson spectre of the Commune was to rise, when the smoke of Sedan had drifted clear of a mutilated nation.
Through the heavy clouds of death which were already girdling Paris, that flabby Cyclops, Gambetta, was to mouth his monstrous platitudes, and brood over the battle-smoke, a nightmare of pomposity and fanfaronade—in a balloon. All France was bowed down in shame at the sight of the grotesque convoy, who were proclaiming her destiny among nations, and their destiny to lead her to victory and "la gloire." A scorched, blood-soaked land, a pall of smoke through which brave men bared their breasts to the blast from the Rhine, and died uncomplainingly, willingly, cheerfully, for the mother-land—was it not pitiful?
The sublime martyrdom of the men who marched, who shall write it? And who shall write of those others—Bazaine, Napoleon, Thiers, Gambetta, Favre, Ollivier?
If Bazaine died, cursed by a nation, his martyrdom, for martyrdom it was, was no greater than that of the humblest French peasant, who, dying, knew at last that he died, not for France, but because the men who sent him were worse than criminal—they were imbecile.
The men who marched were sublime; they were the incarnation of embattled France; the starving people of Metz, of Strassbourg, of Paris, were sublime. But there was nothing sublime about Monsieur Adolphe Thiers, nothing heroic about Hugo, nothing respectable about Gambetta. The marshal with the fat neck and Spanish affiliations, the poor confused, inert, over-fed marshal caged in Metz by the Red Prince, harassed, bewildered, stunned by the clashing of politics and military strategy, which his meagre brain was unable to reconcile or separate—this unfortunateincapable was deserving of pity, perhaps of contempt. His cup was to be bitterer than that—it was to be drained, too, with the shouts of "Traitor" stunning his fleshy ears.
He was no traitor. Cannot France understand that this single word "traitor" has brought her to contempt in the eyes of the world? There are two words that mar every glorious, sublime page of the terrible history of 1870-71, and these two words are "treason" and "revenge." Let the nation face the truth, let the people write "incapacity" for "treason," and "honour" for "revenge," and then the abused term "la gloire" will be justified in the eyes of men.
As for Thiers, let men judge him from his three revolutions, let the unknown dead in the ditches beyond the enceinte judge him, let the spectres of the murdered from Père Lachaise to the bullet-pitted terrace of the Luxembourg judge this meddler, this potterer in epoch-making cataclysms. Bismarck, gray, imbittered, without honour in an unenlightened court, can still smile when he remembers Jules Favre and his prayer for the National Guard.
And these were the men who formed the convoy around the chariot of France militant, France in arms!—a cortège at once hideous, shameful, ridiculous, grotesque.
What was left of the Empire? Metz still held out; Strassbourg trembled under the shock of Prussian mortars; Paris strained its eyes for the first silhouette of the Uhlan on the heights of Versailles; and through the chill of the dying year the sombre Emperor, hunted, driven, threatened, tumbled into thesnare of Sedan as a sick buzzard flutters exhausted to earth under a shower of clubs and stones.
The end was to be brutal: a charge or two of devoted men, a crush at the narrow gates, a white flag, a brusque gesture from Bismarck, nothing more except a "guard of honour," an imperial special train, and Belgian newsboys shrieking along the station platform, "Extra! Fall of the Empire! Paris proclaims the Republic! Flight of the Empress! Extra!"
Jack, sitting with the paper in his hands, read between the lines, and knew that the prophecy of evil days would be fulfilled. But as yet the writing on the wall of Alsatian hills had not spelled "Sedan," nor did he know of the shambles of Mars-la-Tour, the bloody work at Buzancy, the retreat from Châlons, and the evacuation of Vitry.
Buzancy marked the beginning of the end. It was nothing but a skirmish; the 3d Saxon Cavalry, a squadron or two of the 18th Uhlans, and Zwinker's Battery fought a half-dozen squadrons of chasseurs. But the red-letter mark on the result was unmistakable. Bazaine's correspondence was captured. On the same day the second sortie occurred from Strassbourg. It was time, for the trenches and parallels had been pushed within six hundred paces of the glacis. And so it was everywhere, the whole country was in a ferment of disorganized but desperate resistance of astonishment, indignation, dismay.
The nation could not realize that it was too late, that it was not conquest but invasion which the armies of France must prepare for. Blow after blow fell, disaster after disaster stunned the country, while thegovernment studied new and effective forms of lying and evasion, and the hunted Emperor drifted on to his doom in the pitfall of Sedan.
All Alsace except Belfort, Strassbourg, Schlettstadt, and Neuf Brisac was in German hands, under German power, governed by German law. The Uhlans scoured the country as clean as possible, but the franc-tireurs roamed from forest to forest, sometimes gallantly facing martyrdom, sometimes looting, burning, pillaging, and murdering. If Germans maintain that the only good franc-tireur is a dead franc-tireur, they are not always justified. Let them sit first in judgment on Andreas Hofer. England had Hereward; America, Harry Lee; and, when the South is ready to acknowledge Mosby and Quantrell of the same feather, it will be time for France to blush for her franc-tireurs. Noble and ignoble, patriots and cowards, the justified and the misguided wore the straight képi and the sheepskin jacket. All figs in Spain are not poisoned.
With the fall of the Château Morteyn, the war in Lorraine would degenerate into a combat between picquets of Uhlans and roving franc-tireurs. There would be executions of spies, vengeance on peasants, examples made of franc-tireurs, and all the horrors of irregular warfare. Jack knew this; he understood it perfectly when the muddy French infantry tramped out of the Château Morteyn and vanished among the dark hills in the rain.
For himself, had he been alone, there would have been nothing to keep him in the devastated province. Indeed, considering his peculiarly strained relations with the Uhlans of Rickerl's regiment, it behoovedhim to get across the Belgian frontier very promptly.
Now he not only had Lorraine, he had the woman who loved him and who was ready to sacrifice herself and him too for the honour of France. She lived for one thing—the box, with its pitiful contents, its secrets of aërial navigation and destruction, must be placed at the service of France. The government was France now, and the Empress was the government. Lorraine knew nothing of the reasons her father had had for his hatred of the Emperor and the Empire. Personal grievances, even when those grievances were her father's, even though they might be justified, would never deter her from placing the secrets that might aid, might save, France with the man who, at that moment, in her eyes, represented the safety, security, the very existence of the land she loved.
Jack knew this. Whether she was right or not did not occur to him to ask. But the irony of it, the grim necessity of such a fate, staggered him—a daughter seeking her father at the verge of his ruin—a child, long lost, forgotten, unrecognized, unclaimed, finding the blind path to a father who, when she had been torn from him, dared not seek for her, dared not whisper of her existence except to Morny in the cloaked shadows of secret places.
For good or ill Jack made up his mind; he had decided for himself and for her. Her loveless, lonely childhood had been enough of sorrow for one young life; she should have no further storm, no more heartaches, nothing but peace and love and the strong arm of a man to shield her. Let her remember the only father she had ever known—let her rememberhim with faithful love and sorrow as she would. For the wrong he had done, let him account to another tribunal; her, the echo of that crime and hate and passion must never reach.
Why should he, the man who loved her, bring to her this heritage of ruin? Why should he tear the veil from her trusting eyes and show her a land bought with blood and broken oaths, sold in blood and infamy? Why should he show her this, and say, "This is the work of your imperial family! There is your father!—some call him the Assassin of December! There is your mother!—read the pages of an Eastern diary! There, too, is your brother, a sick child of fifteen, baptized at Saarbrück, endowed at Sedan?"
It was enough that France lay prostrate, that the wounded screamed from the blood-wet fields, that the quiet dead lay under the pall of smoke from the nation's funeral pyre. It was enough that the parents suffer, that the son drag out an existence among indifferent or hostile people in an alien land. The daughter should never know, never weep when they wept, never pray when they prayed. This was retribution—not his, he only watched in silence the working of divine justice.
He tore the paper into fragments and ground them under his heel deep into the soft forest mould.
Lorraine slept.
He stood a long while in silence looking down at her. She was breathing quietly, regularly; her long, curling lashes rested on curved cheeks, delicate as an infant's.
Half fearfully he stooped to arouse her. A footfall sounded on the dead leaves behind him, and a franc-tireur touched him on the shoulder.
"What do you want?" asked Jack, in a voice that vibrated unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the subdued afternoon haze—wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering their gunlocks, bayoneted rifles unslung.
"Your name?" said the man who had touched him on the shoulder.
He did not reply at once. One of the men began to laugh.
"He's the vicomte's nephew," said another; and, pointing at Lorraine, who, now aroused, sat up on the moss beside Jack, he continued: "And that is the little châtelaine of the Château de Nesville." He took off his straight-visored cap.
The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground.
"Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she said. "Oh, and there is le Père Passerat, and little Émile Brun! Émile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?" The dark faces lighted up; somebody snickered; Brun, the conscript of the class of '71 who had been hauled by the heels from under his mother's bed, looked confused and twiddled his thumbs.
One by one the franc-tireurs came shambling up to pay their awkward respects to Lorraine and to Jack, while Tricasse pulled his bristling mustache and clattered his sabre in its sheath approvingly. When his men had acquitted themselves with all the awkward sincerity of Lorraine peasants, he advanced with a superb bow and flourish, lifting his cap from his gray head:
"In my quality of ex-pompier and commandant of the 'Terrors of Morteyn'—my battalion"—here he made a sweeping gesture as though briefly reviewing an army corps instead of a dozen wolfish-eyed peasants—"I extend to our honoured and beloved Châtelaine de Nesville, and to our honoured guest, Monsieur Marche, the protection and safe-conduct of the 'Terrors of Morteyn.'"
As he spoke his expression became exalted. He, Tricasse, ex-pompier and exempt, was posing as the saviour of his province, and he felt that, though German armies stretched in endless ranks from the Loire to the Meuse, he, Tricasse, was the man of destiny, the man of the place and the hour when beauty was in distress.
Lorraine, her eyes dim with gentle tears, held out both slender hands; Tricasse bent low and touchedthem with his grizzled mustache. Then he straightened up, frowned at his men, and said "Attention!" in a very fierce voice.
The half-starved fellows shuffled into a single rank; their faces were wreathed in sheepish smiles. Jack noticed that a Bavarian helmet and side-arm hung from the knapsack of one, a mere freckled lad, downy and dimpled. Tricasse drew his sabre, turned, marched solemnly along the front, wheeled again, and saluted.
Jack lifted his cap; Lorraine, her arm in his, bowed and smiled tearfully.
"The dear, brave fellows!" she cried, impulsively, whereat every man reddened, and Tricasse grew giddy with emotion. He tried to speak; his emotion was great.
"In my capacity of ex-pompier," he gasped, then went to pieces, and hid his eyes in his hands. The "Terrors of Morteyn" wept with him to a man.
Presently, with a gesture to Tricasse, Jack led Lorraine down the slope, past the spring, and on through the forest, three "Terrors" leading, rifles poised, Tricasse and the others following, alert and balancing their cocked rifles.
"How far is your camp?" asked Jack. "We need food and the warmth of a fire. Tell me, Monsieur Tricasse, what is left of the two châteaux?"
Lorraine bent nearer as the old man said: "The Château de Nesville is a mass of cinders; Morteyn, a stone skeleton. Pierre is dead. There are many dead there—many, many dead. The Prussians burned Saint-Lys yesterday; they shot Bosquet, the letter-carrier; they hung his boy to the railroad trestle, then shot him to pieces. The Curé is a prisoner; the Mayor ofSaint-Lys and the Notary have been sent to the camp at Strassbourg. We, my 'Terrors of Morteyn' and I, are still facing the vandals; except for us, the Province of Lorraine is empty of Frenchmen in armed resistance."
The old man, in his grotesque uniform, touched his bristling mustache and muttered: "Nom d'une pipe!" several times to steady his voice.
Lorraine and Jack pressed on silently, sorrowfully, hand in hand, watching the scouts ahead, who were creeping on through the trees, heads turning from side to side, rifles raised. They passed along the back of a thickly wooded ridge for some distance, perhaps a mile, before the thin blue line of a smouldering camp-fire rose almost in their very faces. A low challenge from a clump of birch-trees was answered, there came the sound of rifles dropping, the noise of feet among the leaves, a whisper, and before they knew it they were standing at the mouth of a hole in the bank, from which came the odour of beef-broth simmering. Two or three franc-tireurs passed them, looking up curiously into their faces. Tricasse dragged a dilapidated cane-chair from the dirt-cave and placed it before Lorraine as though he were inviting her to an imperial throne.
"Thank you," she said, sweetly, and seated herself, not relinquishing Jack's hand.
Two tin basins of soup were brought to them; they ate it, soaking bits of crust in it.
The men pretended not to watch them. With all their instinctive delicacy these clumsy peasants busied themselves in guard-mounting, weapon cleaning, and their cuisine, as though there was no such thing as apretty woman within miles. But it tried their gallantry as Frenchmen and their tact as Lorraine peasants. Furtive glances, deprecatory and timid, were met by the sweetest of smiles from Lorraine or a kindly nod from Jack. Tricasse, utterly unbalanced by his new rôle of protector of beauty, gave orders in fierce, agitated whispers, and made sudden aimless promenades around the birch thicket. In one of these prowls he discovered a toad staring at the camp-fire, and he drew his sword with a furious gesture, as though no living toad were good enough to intrude on the Châtelaine of the Château de Nesville; but the toad hopped away, and Tricasse unbent his brows and resumed his agitated prowl.
When Lorraine had finished her soup, Jack took both plates into the cave and gave them to a man who, squatted on his haunches, was washing dishes. Lorraine followed him and sat down on a blanket, leaning back against the side of the cave.
"Wait for me," said Jack. She drew his head down to hers.
They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and found Tricasse, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad ridge.
A road ran under the overhanging bank.
"I didn't know we were so near a road," said Jack, startled. Tricasse laid his finger on his lips.
"It is the high-road to Saint-Lys. We have settled more than one Uhlan dog on that curve there by the oak-tree. Look! Here comes one of our men. See! He's got something, too."
Sure enough, around the bend in the road slunk afranc-tireur, loaded down with what appeared to be mail-sacks. Cautiously he reconnoitred the bank, the road, the forest on the other side, whistled softly, and, at Tricasse's answering whistle, came puffing and blowing up the slope, and flung a mail-bag, a rifle, a Bavarian helmet, and a German knapsack to the ground.
"The big police officer?" inquired Tricasse, eagerly.
"Yes, the big one with the red beard. He died hard. I used the bayonet only," said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the dried blood on his hairy fists. "I got a Bavarian sentry, too; there's the proof."
Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling them like cards.
One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.
"There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur Marche?"
"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly.
He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.
"Put out the fire, too," called Tricasse, softly. "I begin to smell it."
When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Tricasse, folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the flat steel box was.
"Letters from Paris," he said. "The Uhlans have appeared in the Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege."
"Paris!" blurted out Tricasse, aghast.
Jack nodded, silently.
After a moment he resumed: "The Emperor is said to be with the army near Mézières on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do."
Tricasse stared at him, incapable of speech.
"Very well," said Jack, gently, "think it over. Tell me, at least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this evening."
He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a careless footstep might perhaps be heard by passing Uhlans. In a few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow, where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.
Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat down on the blankets beside her.
"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened.The Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you must not go—it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with a free heart."
She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.
"Hush," she said; "I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we tread it together, always together, Jack." He struggled to speak; she held him close, and laid her head against his breast, contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of France reconquered, of noble deeds and sacrifices, of the great bells of churches thundering God's praise to a humble, thankful nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the sleeping echoes of the cave—the scuffling and thrashing of a shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.
Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they hurried from the cave anotherfranc-tireur came up, leading a riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his rifle, the butt dripping with blood.