But even that poignant question as to whether Marmaduke lived or did not live lost its arresting power before what she saw when, guided by thehakimAchmet, she threaded the maze of lanes and alleys which still formed the real Varna. The quays, it is true, had been widened and glorified. Along them gay restaurants andcafés chantantswere to be found, filled with reckless soldiers and still more reckless courtesans. A wide street had been hacked through tenement houses and lined with tawdry shops which catered for all and every luxury that can give a moment's pleasure to idle men. And there were plenty of them here, waiting, waiting still for that expedition of one hundred thousand soldiers to the Crimea, of which for months past the English papers had been full. Outwardly, therefore, so far as a fringe of welcome and a passage through it to the hills beyond went, Varna was what folk boasted it had become, a cosmopolitan town; but within, down by the back wharves and the sodden sea-alleys, round by the crushed-in closes and stifling courts, it was old, rotten, kept from utter putrefaction by the hot sun which, while it bred flies, dried up the muck of many men. Thehakim'shospital was in the wide courtyard of a mosque, one of the few air-holes left to the seething city; and Marrion Paul never forgot her first sight of the sunlit square set round with the dead and dying. The stench was unspeakable, and as she stooped over the first patient she saw that the sheet which covered him was alive with vermin. Achmet himself, a hunchback with a high-featured, intolerant face, seemed to think that sitting in the middle of the courtyard reciting his beads and exhorting the inmates to have patience and trust in God, was the best treatment he could offer. Mayhap it was, since half the forms that lay moaning on the stones were doomed to death. That night, when Marrion returned to her cypress-set villa, the first thing she did was to cut off her beautiful hair close to her head, and as she laid the great tresses away she thought once more of Marmaduke. She must find out about him when she had time, but that day and the next she had her work cut out for her. "Maryam Effendi" they had already learnt to call her, and old Achmet, with a daily stipend of so many piastres, was content to let her have her way. But there were other places besides the mosque hospital where some fifty men groaned and died, or groaned and got better, that were surcharged with misery and death. Hovels where babies tugged vainly at their dead mother's breasts and old women sat starving silently. It was among these that after a day or two Maryam Effendi was busiest. She settled to her work bravely, increasing her stock of Turkish rapidly and gaining for herself sufficient friends and aid to enable her to enlarge her sphere of usefulness. One of these was big fat "Heart's Darling," as her solitary servant was called, who, transferring domestic duties to an unspeakable drudge she produced, took up the duties of interpreter on the strength of some slight knowledge of French.
And Fate was so far kind to Marrion that she had little trouble in finding out the news she desired to hear. A sort of local rag in French and English was published in which, for equivalent of a penny, she learnt that Marmaduke's regiment was still camped six miles out among the hills and that he was still in command. From her verandah she could actually see the very place where he must be. Once, indeed, as she was hurrying along the quay in the ordinary dress of the Turkish gad-about woman she caught a sight of Andrew Fraser, tall, gaunt, serious as usual, looking on distastefully at one of the many drunken rows that occurred every day. The temptation to go up and speak to him was great, but she stuck to her plan and passed on. When she had really done something she would write and tell Marmaduke she was at hand, but not till then. Possibly, had she seen him instead of Andrew Fraser she might not have been so firm; for a glance would have shown her that she could have been of use. In truth, the inaction, the constant fret of feeling that all initiative is of no avail, was beginning to tell on Marmaduke Muir. He also looked down of an evening on the white pall that covered the Lake of Death, and wondered--without one shadow of fear, but from simple curiosity--whether the levels of life would meet his eyes again. And they seemed such low levels now! Yes, he had missed something in his life! What was it? These, however, were very secret thoughts. To the little coterie of careless men of which he was the centre, he was, as ever, the mainspring of everything. Even the divisional commander sought his sympathy as day after day the orders for the front tarried, and day after day the regimental chaplain grew busier and busier. For cholera was rampant in the camps as in the town, and every evening the "Dead March in Saul" echoed out through the hills and over the purple crocuses.
"Nothing will stop it, sir," said the young colonel quietly, "except orders for Sebastopol. The men are dead sick of waiting and so am I; that is the truth."
And still the orders lingered on the way. The waiting army did its best to pass the time. Marmaduke took to tying flies, and thereinafter thrashed the hill streams with ill success. And he played cricket with the men, though it was ill finding a proper pitch on the steep hill-side where they were encamped; and he had to keep his men from those low levels as much as he could, being rewarded for his care by the fact that his battalion suffered less from the scourge than any other. Though this was not to be wondered at, seeing that it was commanded by one whose cheery youth and strength seemed to defy Fate.
"The Cornel's face is mair tae the purpose nor your pills, doctor," said a young recruit fighting his best for life. "I'll just tak a sup o' it, if ye please, and leave tither alane for fowk as likes them."
Yet that same face often showed a touch of weariness in it when, after his wont, Marmaduke would climb the hill behind his hut in order to smoke his solitary after-breakfast cigar at the foot of a scarp whence the most astounding view of God's world was to be had. Hills and still more hills. Seas and still more seas; lakes and still more lakes. Flowers and still more flowers.
"It is the inaction, Mac," he said to his old friend of the regimental club one day after mess dinner. They had been perforce laughing at the plight of a braw Hielandman who had been brought up to orderly-rooms that day from the general guard, clad in Zouave trousers and jacket, kepi and all complete; only the chequered hose of his own uniform remaining to betray the drunken bout on which he had been engaged.
"I noo 'im by 'is legs, sir," said the sergeant solemnly, "so I brought 'im along."
"Ton my soul, I can't help sympathising with the poor beggars," he went on. "Why the devil can't they give the men something to do besides getting drunk? Here is the tenth of August and, so far as I can see, I might be off grouse-shooting on the twelfth. Good Lord, what wouldn't I give to be on Braemore with my dogs! They're the best----"
And he began, in true sportsman style, over the virtues of his setters; whereat others joined in with tales of their own. So, heartened up, they all repaired to Marmaduke's favourite vantage ground to finish their cigars.
It was a perfect evening. The day had been hot, but with the sun setting a little cool sea-breeze had sprung up which seemed to freshen even the very flowers that had flagged with the sun's heat. They sat, growing more and more silent as the day died down; and, indeed, what lay before their eyes was sufficient to make most men hold their peace; for it was beautiful exceedingly. The far Euxine fading grey into a pearl-grey sky. Overhead and behind them the rose-pink pennons of the departing sun floating on the unfathomable clearness of space. Within the bay great ships of war showed, half-hidden in the evening haze which turned the squalid city into dreamland.
Close at hand lay innumerable little hills and ravines thrown in sharp shade and shine that trended away on all sides to the long line of lakes over whose purpling levels a fine veil of vapour was rising softly, swiftly.
Truly a dream-picture, unreal in its absolute beauty, its perfect peace.
"That's theAgamemnon, I expect," said one pointing with his cigar to a big vessel that, rounding the promontory to the south, began to cross the bay, leaving a great trail of smoke behind her. "I wonder if she is coming in?"
"Looks like it," said another, "only they weren't sure. Anyhow, we've company to-night. Look down there by the second wharf. There's another trail--some steamer is making fast!"
All eyes turned to where a thin column of smoke showed, rising high then drifting westwards over the town.
"Burning bad coal whatever," assented Mac. "Why, it's getting bigger!"
Marmaduke, watching intently, suddenly started up.
"By George, it is odd! I believe--by heavens, gentlemen, it is a fire!"
They all followed his example. And now there could be no doubt. With amazing rapidity the cloud darkened, deepened, then in the departing daylight showed dusky red. And there--flashing up suddenly came a great fork of flame. Marmaduke looked round on the others.
"The town is tinder," he said briefly, "and the magazines---- We had best be off!"
There was no need for more. In truth there was danger. The wind blew westwards. There were no fire-engines, so every man might be wanted.
And now the sound of fire alarms on the men-of-war echoed out stridently, and boatload after boatload of blue-jackets, armed with pumps and pipes, shot from every ship. Almost before Marmaduke was on his horse, after ordering fatigue parties to come on at the double, streams of water were pouring on the burning houses. To no purpose. The fire had originated in a wine and oil shop and both burnt fiercely. By the time he reached the town but one word was on the lips of every responsible officer--"The magazines!" They were full up. On them depended the possibility of the attack on Sebastopol; on them therefore hung the fortunes of war. They stood still far from the blazing town, but it burnt like the matchwood it was, and between them and it lay, as it were, nothing but fresh tinder ready to take fire at a spark.
"Those houses should come down, sir," suggested Marmaduke to a general, and almost before assent answered him, had sprung to organise the work. But ramshackle, tumbledown though the wooden piers and pilasters seemed, they were curiously strong, needing time for destruction. Hawsers were brought ashore to facilitate the job and parties told off to each house. Three hundred soldiers--mostly French--lay to manfully on one of the ropes, pulling for all they were worth, when just as the house they were tackling began to totter a loud explosion came from within. And, lo! the only two men left on that rope were Marmaduke and a young French officer who clicked his heels together and stood to the salute with a merry "Mes compliments, mon Colonel!"
"À vous, Monsieur le Capitaine!" returned Marmaduke laughing, as he rallied the men.
"It's not the magazines, boys!" he called. "We've to save that yet. Yo-ho--heave ahoy!"
They set to again with a will; but the flames gained ground every instant and the densely dark cloud of smoke drifting over the magazines showed alive with ominous shoals of sparks.
"Mac!" shouted Marmaduke, as he worked like a demon, when his major came hurrying past with another fatigue party. "Get hold of someone and suggest the commissariat blankets; there are bales and bales of them somewhere. Put them on the magazine roofs, soak 'em with water. Tell the blue-jackets----"
"All right, sir!" shouted back the major.
And thereon came blankets, bales on bales of them, and blue-jackets swarming up and over everything, and jets of water turned from their useless work on houses that would burn, to keep those blankets sodden.
The din was deafening. The inhabitants, swept out of their houses, stood huddled in the streets and kept up a constant wail. The bugle calls rang out here, there, and everywhere, and above the roar and crackle could be heard voices in urgent exhortation--"All together, men! The blue-jackets are laughing at you!" "Heave away, I say, boys, show the land-lubbers how to do it!" Or shriller, more passionate--"A moi, mes enfants! Les Anglais nous regardent!"
Once there came a sudden pause. The red flare of the conflagration changed to brilliant blue.
"Milles tonnerres!" cried the French soldiers sadly, as they recommenced work. "Ahé, le bon eau-de-vie!" Their commissariat canteen store had gone.
So through the long night they worked, fighting the flames with their hands for the most part. Fatigue party after fatigue party poured into the town and one strong man after another lay down exhausted on the quays and begged someone to cool him with water.
It was just as a faint lightening over the sea in the east showed dawn was nigh that Marmaduke, wiping the sweat from his blackened forehead, said--
"I think that's done with. The magazines are safe now!"
"Yes," said a man near him, "up here it's almost over. But they've got it still down there, by the dock wharves, poor devils!"
Marmaduke, whose every thought and look had hitherto been for the magazines, turned to the lower part of the town.
"By Jove, they have!" he cried. "Here, men, follow me!"
"Let me go, sir," put in a subaltern. "You must be done--and they should all be out of their houses by now."
He might as well have saved his breath. Marmaduke, careless of fatigue, was racing to danger again. And here it was greater. The two or three story ramshackle houses almost closed in upon each other, and in one burnt-out street he had to pass through, a charred beam almost finished him. But he raced on; and here there was evidence that the fire had been faced with some method. Houses had been pulled down, the inhabitants ordered to certain open spaces, and as he neared the spot where the tenements almost overhung the water's edge, a double line of men were passing buckets. There were only two houses left in the street; one was in flames, the other, overhanging the water, must soon go. Seeing the hopelessness of saving it, or indeed the use, since evidently those were the occupants who, with shrill cries and excited gestures, were watching the destruction of their property, he was about to seek work elsewhere when a big fat woman almost overset him in her eagerness to find his feet. To these she clung, shrieking at the top of her voice--
"Maryam Effendi! Maryam Effendi!Elle est là, elle est là! Sauvez le--Sauvez le----"
He would have been at a loss even to grasp the last words had not a figure shown at that moment on the roof of the burning house. It was the figure of a tall woman in white and the flare of the flames showed that she carried a baby in her arms.
"My God!" he muttered under his breath, for there seemed no possibility of escape.
"Maryam Effendi! Maryam Effendi!" wailed the crowd, adding in mixed French and Turkish--"She has the child! Ah, the brave woman! She has the child!"
Aye, she had it, and she meant to hold it, too! A brave woman indeed! Pausing for a second in her perilous effort to pass from one roof to the other, she pulled off her veil, wrapped it round the child, and knotted it high above her shoulders. Then, hands and knees, set herself to her task. But the flames were almost too quick for her. And forked tongues licked at her feet; the next instant she was beyond them and, straightening herself, walked rapidly over a level strip. And now from below, where even Marmaduke stood arrested, helpless, watching another's fight for life, came a soft wail of horror. The last house had caught fire from below, the flames were surging upwards, the thin shingle roof might be gone any moment.
"Jump, for God's sake, jump!" cried Marmaduke, his voice vibrant with awful dread. "Jump, we'll catch you, somehow!"
Even as he spoke he felt the uselessness of his appeal to one who could not understand.
"Tell her to jump--we'll catch her!" he added dully, knowing there was no time, for already ominous crackings rose from the flames that mounted higher and higher.
But that familiar voice had reached the ears of the woman clinging her way for dear life, and tightened her hold upon the ridge-pole that was her only hope. No, she would not die yet! She would not die with that voice in her ears!
A faint shudder came from the crowd below as, with a crash, the roof fell in. A fainter moan of relief followed, as the woman with her pack still showed standing on the crossway beam of a balcony that overhung the water. A great tongue of flame shot out at her, but at the instant she raised her joined hands above her head and dived--a flash of white lit up by the red flare--into deep water.
"By heaven, what pluck!" muttered Marmaduke as, without a second's delay, he plunged from the wharf and swam, with quick overhand strokes, to where the woman had disappeared. He was just preparing to dive after her when she came up close beside him.
One look was sufficient.
"Marmie!" he cried. "God in heaven, am I dreaming? Marmie!"
"Yes--yes," she gasped impatiently, for owing to the weight she carried her dive had been prolonged. "The child's head--see that it is out of water!"
In a second he was cool, self-reliant.
"Your hands on my shoulders, please. That will raise you--I must swim round--the burning wood."
In truth every instant a fierce hiss, a cloud of steam close to them showed where some blazing fragment had fallen to be extinguished.
"Are you all right?" he called over his shoulder, as with powerful strokes he made for a further wharf.
"All right; but please be quick--the child----"
How like Marmie--always the child--the child. He swam on, feeling bewildered but, he knew not why, desperately happy.
"I don't understand," he began, when at last they stood dripping side by side, and the baby, being unloosed from its wrappings, was found to be none the worse.
"I will tell you directly," she said. "I must just give the child back to its mother; it is quite a tiny thing. Then you can walk up to my house over yonder and get your clothes dried."
But the stifling air of the streets soon scorched up the moisture, and Marmaduke protested against anything but a cup of hot coffee--which fat "Heart's Delight" bustled away to prepare--while those two stood and talked on the verandah. Below them lay the town, still smoking; still--as a puff of dawn wind blew the embers to redness--sending out a shower of sparks, or even a forked tongue of flame. The smell of burning filled their nostrils, the memory of a great escape filled their minds. And beyond that, under and deeper than that, stretched the atmosphere of death and disease, of constant danger, in which they had both been living for so long. It is an atmosphere which invariably brings with it, to the wholesome mind and body, a feeling of revolt against such limitations, a distaste of all things that pertain to decay: a keen appetite for those that belong to life.
And the dawn-light grew as they stood talking. She had bidden him begone, had urged as a reason that he must remember his health. Cholera might be bad on the hills, but it was deadly in the city. And he had laughed back that caution was a bit late to a man who had seen six strong men die that very morning. The poor devils seemed to like his being there. Now he----
"I should only wantyou, Marmie," he said. And she had looked at him in sudden wonder.
"I must go now if I'm to be in time for parade," he admitted at last. "Good-night--no, good-morrow, my heart's delight!"
For an instant she held he was joking with the fat coffee-bringer's name; then she gave a quick tremulous cry--
"Duke! what--what do you mean?"
He laughed a little low, happy laugh, sank on his knees beside her, and clasped her tight in his arms.
"Only that I love you--only that I've found you--no, I've found myself for ever and ever and ever!"
He buried his face in the loose folds of her dress and so they remained for a second. Then she slipped through his hold to her knees also, and they knelt looking into each other's eyes.
The sun rising slowly, majestically, out of the sea shone upon their shining faces. Vaguely, as in a glass, darkly the twain had passed to one; they were nearer the Great Unity.
"Duke," whispered Marmie, with a faint shiver, "I think I'm afraid!"
"And I," he said joyously, finding her lips, "feel as if I never could be afraid again--never--never--never!"
"Duke," she said, for at least the twentieth time, "I keep wondering how it came about."
He spent all his spare time now--it was not much--in the vine pergola, and he was picking out the ripe grapes from a bunch as he answered her.
"I don't. I had been thinking about you a lot; and then I was tired--really done!"
"What an excuse for falling in love," she protested half-vexedly; "but I should like to know."
He came over to her and put his arm round her waist.
"How can I tell, sweetest? I had been thinking, as I said, a lot about you--and missing a lot--stockings, and all that"--his smile was charm itself; "then, when I saw your dear old head bob up all shaven and shorn!" he kissed it deliberately, and she laughed.
"For all that," she persisted, "I should like to understand."
"My dearest dear," he replied, "you are such a beggar for wanting to know and understand. Now I, my dear Marmie--I'm too happy to want to know anything! I'm content with what I have--and you are content, too, you know you are!"
There was no denying the fact. Content, indeed, was no word for the feeling that you were rapt away from the very possibility of care. There, in the very shadow of the grave, overlooking the Lake of Death, those two lovers found their joy enhanced by the uncertainty of life.
"I was chief mourner at six funerals this morning," Marmaduke would say sadly. "As fine fellows as ever stepped. Sometimes I wonder, darlingest, if I ought to come to you----"
"You can bring no more harm to me than I am in already," she would reply. "I am in the thick of it here. Indeed, I was wondering if I ought to let you come."
"Let me!" he would echo derisively. "As if you could stop me."
And in truth there was no gainsaying him, for Marmaduke, easy-going as a friend, was an imperious lover.
After he left her in the dawnings Marrion would take out the pocket Shakespeare she had brought with her and, sitting out under the purpling vines, read how the immortal lovers parted.
"I am content so thou wouldst have it so."
She had never before realised that so lay the very essence of love. No plannings, no cuttings, no contrivings. All things simplified, clarified.
It was a wonderful fortnight. The fire, after a brief recrudescence, died down, leaving the slums of the city in ruins, but purified. So cholera, most mysterious of diseases, abated, disappeared from the town; and even in the camps, exposed to the miasma of the Lake of Death, was shorn of half its terrors. And there was a stir as of coming life in the military backwaters. Marmaduke, his face alight, would say that the one thing needful to perfect happiness must be close at hand; for that was the curious thing about finding yourself in love--you wanted to be up and doing all the time.
And so one day when, instead of Marmaduke, Andrew Fraser--long since let into the secret of Maryam Effendi--appeared with a note, Marrion tried to echo Romeo's words without any reservations, and to be content if he would have it so. For the note ran as follows:
"Heart's Delight,
"The news has come! We are off to the Crimea. I feel that for the first time in my life I am going to have my chance--or, rather, we are going to have our chance, for I shall take you with me, never fear. I wish, dear, your real body were, small enough to go into my knapsack, but the heart that beats under this uniform coat is large enough to hold your love. I must be very busy, but I will find time in a day or two for perfect happiness.
"Yours ever,
"Marmaduke.
"P.S.--I must get you to box my ears before I go. It will keep me straight and make me what England expects.--M. M.
"P.P.S.--Andrew says he is taking my stockings for you to mend. Forgive us poor men bodies.--M."
So she sat darning the stockings and trying to prevent a sinking at the heart.
From her verandah she could see the bustle and stir in the camp. The next day one of the meadow stretches lay bare of tents. So the work of embarkation must be close at hand. Aye, the bay was thronged with transports! There was a sound of drums and fifes in the air. What room for love and peace when war and strife were afoot? But any moment now might bring Marmaduke, and that was enough for the present.
It was on the fourth day, when she was beginning to wonder if possibly he had not found time, that an orderly appeared with a note. It was not from Duke; it was from Andrew.
"Dear Madam,
"Please come. I have sent the Colonel's charger. He will carry a lady. He is very ill."
She turned soul-sick as she read.
"Is he--is the Colonel very ill?" she asked.
"Verra ill indeed, m'm. It's the co-lira, and they're sayin' he's like to dee--God forbid it!"
"Like to die!"
Well, it was best to know the truth. She put on her European dress and started, remembering as she rode through the flower-set meadows how they had planned this visit to his hut. How she should spend the day there and be introduced to his friends. For though they never spoke of the future or the past, living only in the present heaven, Marmaduke had evidently never considered the possibility of separation and she had been content to let such possibilities slide.
And now? She bit her lip to keep it from quivering as Andrew met her.
"He's lying in the arbour, m'm. And he's no worse, anyway."
Yes, there he was, lying--such a long length--on his camp-bed covered with his plaid. Lying under the arbour of Jonah's gourd, about which he had chattered so gaily as being a laughing-stock to the other officers, though they dearly loved to sit in its shade. The ripe fruit hung scarlet amid the yellowing leaves. It seemed to throw the blue pallor of his face into louder warning that Death was in grips with Life.
She knelt beside the bed and took his hand without one word. She had seen too many cholera cases to hope for speech, but the eyelids quivered and the fingers closed on hers.
"How long?" she asked.
"Since yesterday morning. He would not give in--we were to move to-night, ye see----"
"Why didn't you----?" Words failed her for reproach.
"He wouldna let me send. I'm thinking he was afraid for ye."
There was a long pause. Her heart was full of regret, of bitterness. Afraid for her--oh, Duke, Duke!
"And he has everything?"
"Aye, everything! The doctor will be here again the now."
He came and found his patient better. He opened his eyes and smiled. Collapse had gone, the following fever had laid hold on him. Would his heart stand it? All that day he lay in something like sleep--quiet, so long as his hand could find that other hand. Once or twice she caught a whispered word of command and once, urgent, came a call for reinforcements. His mind was at battle--far, far from her. About an hour before sunset he turned his head and looked at her.
"I've done it," he said faintly; "I've done it!"
The doctor came in many a time and oft. The orderlies were always doing something; but her part was to hold his hand until the last. She saw it coming clearly; she knew that it must be so.
Someone in the arbour suggested a clergyman, and they sent to fetch one.
"He will be too late," half-whispered a voice.
Was it hers? Too late! As if it mattered? As if He who made----
Hark! A bird singing. It had come in after the fruit--perhaps he had fed it, for he loved God's creatures--and now not five yards from where he lay it was giving its heart out in full-throated song.
Hush! Listen! Listen!--it seemed to say.
The still figure was growing more still.
The slow breathing grew slower.
The touch of these cold fingers on hers grew colder.
Then their feeble clasp had gone, but the bird sang on.
She rose unsteadily, drew the plaid over his face, and left the tent. She did not seem to realise the presence of others.
Andrew ran after her.
"Marrion, Marrion, whaur are ye gaun? Ye poor, poor thing!" he whispered hoarsely in the extremity of his bewildered grief. "Bide a wee, and I'll see ye haim."
"I am going to walk home," she said dully. "It will do me good. I must--I must do something--and I must be alone."
So she walked over the meadows, crushing the drifts of purple colchicum under her feet. What had he called the flower of death? Ah, the iris! That would come in the spring. It would flower on his grave perhaps. And all the time she felt his cold hand on hers, she heard the bird's full song. How he would have loved to hear it! Perhaps he had.
It was dark ere she reached the vine pergola where they had been so happy, and she started when a tall officer in Highland costume came towards her. Was it all a bad dream? Was she waking to find him still her own? But he was only the bearer of a kindly message from the regiment to say that the colonel was to be buried at dawn, and that if Mrs. Marsden----
"Who told you I was Mrs. Marsden?" she asked sharply. "Andrew Fraser?"
The officer bowed and went on.
"As one of the colonel's oldest friends, would care----"
She shook her head. She was grateful. It was a kind thought. But Colonel Muir was Colonel Muir and everybody loved him--he would have enough friends.
"Madam," said the young officer, with a break in his voice, "when we lower him into his solitary grave--he is to be buried on the hill above his tent where he sat so often--we shall all know that the finest fellow in the regiment, nay, in the whole army, has gone from us."
She lay that night, her face crushed into the pillow without a sob. Only once or twice she whispered to herself.
"Ah, Duke, Duke, I'm glad I made you happy--so glad--so glad!"
She was up betimes to take her stand on a neighbouring hill, where, unobserved, she could watch him laid to his rest. Not a tent was to be seen; the battalion had shifted quarters during the night; the forward march to which he had looked with such longing had begun, and he----
Close by the belt of forest trees she could see his dismantled hut; a heap of packed baggage piled close by with a sentry on guard beside it. But the arbour hid what it held. So, as the sun rose, the leaden beat of the Dead March rose, as the regiment, followed by detachments from all and every regiment in Varna, drew up in a lane to let the artillery with a gun-carriage draped with the colours pass up.
Just his coat, his plaid, his sword, his bonnet, that was all. And after him his grey Arab--the one she had ridden--fully dressed. That was Andrew on the one side, and the other three? Generals, she supposed, by their uniforms.
What a crowd of officers! And the men, marching so slowly to the muffled beat! Would they never reach the grave?
At last. Now there were some words of command--heard vaguely as inarticulate cries--the long procession formed up, massed itself into a hollow square.
They must be reading the service now.
"Being dead yet liveth--yet liveth--yet liveth----"
She held fast to that, as her eyes travelled where his had so often rested in content--thank God for that--in sheer content.
So, as she looked at the wide expanse of hill and valley, lake and sea, those half-heard words of his came back to memory--"I've done it--I have done it!"
What had he done?
The sharp rattle of musketry roused her. Again, again! The Last Post had been set. The last honour paid.
A minute's pause. Then the bands struck up their regimental marches, orders followed sharp and incisive. So with a swing the men stepped out, only a little knot of officers remaining to see the grave filled in. She must wait till they had gone. Shifting her position to one of greater ease, she rested her aching head upon a tussock of sweet thyme that was shaded by a rugged scarp of rock.
And so, wearied out with her sleepless night, with utter despair and misery she dozed off, sinking deeper and deeper into slumber, all grief forgotten, peaceful as a child. The long hours passed, yet still she slept.
When she awoke it was almost sun-setting. Over the far sea, shadowy outlines and still more shadowy trails of smoke told that the argosy of an army had started for the Crimea. Not a tent was to be seen. They had folded their white wings and gone. Already the populace had cleared away all that had been left behind. The hill-sides showed bare without a trace of humanity. His very hut had disappeared, the arbour was broken down, its scarlet fruits rifled. Only on the mossy plateau below the scarp at her feet lay a heap of stones.
Her heart gave a great throb. She had not thought of that, but a cairn was meet and fitting. And how many men of his regiment had gone there, even amid their busy-ness, to throw one stone for the sake of their love and respect!
She must throw one, too; at least, she could do that!
Her composure was almost terrible. She picked up a little moss-grown quartz pebble, and, going down, laid it where she judged those folded hands of his must rest.
"That's my heart, Duke!" she said. "It's cold--cold as a stone."
Steps behind her made her turn. It was Andrew Fraser, his lean face all blistered with the tears he had shed.
"My puir lammie!" he said. "I thocht I might find you here when you werna at the hoose, and the woman was wae to know what had become o' you."
The very warmth of his sympathy roused antagonism.
"I was just going back. Do you want me?"
He looked at her almost pitifully.
"It'll be no comfort tae you to ken that I'm as fu o' grief as you, Marrion. But I had tae see ye before we left. I got leave till the last. Oh, my lassie, is there naethin' I can do for you?"
She shook her head.
"Nothing, Andrew, except hold your tongue. The past is gone for ever!"
And as she walked down the hill with him her clasped hands bit into each other with bitter strength. Was it for this she had planned and protected? But, thank God, she had made him happy at the last!
In after years the next four days appeared to Marrion as a blank. She went on with her work, she shed no tears except when she was asleep. She did not even think. In the late evenings, when work was over, she would ride or drive to where the Highlanders' camp had stood and sit silent for an hour or two on the cairn about Marmaduke's grave, doing nothing. She brought no flowers, the sight of his grave gave her no more poignant grief. Indeed, often as she looked out eastwards over the sea, with all the glorious trending of sunlit, sun-shadowed hills and dales towards it, she would feel calmly that he would have admired it as much as she did.
Yet underneath all her calm lurked a regret that grew with the days.
He had been left behind, and he had been so eager to go. Even those last words of his--"I have done it"--were poor comfort.
So, confusedly, out of this regret and the memory of those other words of his--"I have found you, or rather I have found myself, for ever and ever and ever"--arose the idea of getting to the Crimea herself, if she could. She could at least follow the fortunes of the regiment of which he had been so fond, so proud. Besides, home had no call for her. She had no ties there and the prospect of a long life without them was appalling. Far better to die out here as he had died. But the interest of Varna had passed. The tragedy of the fire had ousted the tragedy of disease and starvation. The cholera had ceased, the city was almost depopulated, so the problem of many mouths and no food had disappeared.
Once the idea of following the regiment presented itself to her it became an obsession. She made up her mind that if it could be compassed she would do what she could for its brave men; then if death did not intervene--which she hoped it might--she could come back to where Duke lay and tell him she had carried him in her heart all the way. So she set to work to think out the means. Her shaven and shorn head--as he had called it--might facilitate matters; for she might pose as a youth of one of the many uncouth peoples gathered round by greed of gain. Varna was a polyglot place, and she knew enough Turkish now to render English unnecessary.
While still nebulous, however, her plans were suddenly settled for her by the arrival in port of the very Turkish mail steamer in which she had sailed from Marseilles. The little doctor naturally enough called on hisprotégée, full of the fine reports he had heard of her from old Achmet. The ship had been requisitioned and he was on his way to Eupatoria with medical stores for the Turkish contingent, which expected to land there. The opportunity seemed too good to be lost. She begged him to arrange for her to go so far, pointing out that she had proved her capacity for usefulness. After a few demurs he consented. She left everything standing in Varna and three days afterwards found herself surveying the beach at Kalamita Bay, a few miles south of Eupatoria, which had been taken the night before by the expedition without the exchange of a shot. It was a shingly beach or bar but a few feet wide, behind which lay a long, narrow, sedge-set lake of salt water. From this rose, with deafening clamour, thousands upon thousands of wild fowl alarmed by the unaccustomed presence of man, their wailing cries almost drowning the long surge of the sea upon the shingly beach and the oaths and confusion inseparable from the disembarkation of so many troops. Beyond this salt lake rose a high bank of red clay serrated by many small ravines, while over this again the wide plain, dotted with cattle, corn-ricks, and farmhouses, showed a land where supplies should be plentiful. In the far distance could be seen, dimly blue, the hills behind Sebastopol, which lay some seven and twenty miles to the south. In deference to the little doctor's recommendation she remained on board and was thus free to watch the humour and difficulties of the disembarkation. Both were numerous. The heavy surf made the passage of boats to the shore dangerous, but the blue-jackets were over the sides almost before they could foot bottom, and, aided by those landed before--who, naked as the day they were born, rushed into the sea to help--generally succeeded in beaching their cargo high and dry. To little purpose, so far as the men were concerned, since it was "off uniform" in a second, and into the water to help the next arrivals. Luckily the day was sultry and warm. The landing of the cavalry horses presented the greatest difficulty, for even after confinement on shipboard the dry shingle was not sufficient bait to induce them to walk the plank alone; so that they had to be ridden, and as three out of six went souse into the sea it was provocative of much merriment--for even in those days the British soldier was light-hearted. The men, therefore, wrung their wet clothes out cheerfully, and the horses dried themselves by rolling in the patches of sun-baked sand, for the day was glorious. Yet the discomfort was hard, the work harder; but, despite it all, Thomas Atkins found time to nickname the Crim-Tartar population who came down, curious but friendly, to view the scene, by the strangely inappropriate and colourless appellation of "Joey," one which nevertheless stuck firm all through the Crimean War.
So the day passed; but the afternoon promised a storm, and Marrion was anxious to get on shore and make arrangements, if she could, for stopping there. As she was watching she saw a gig going ashore to the Old Fort with a woman in it--a woman who was received with plaudits by the whole army. At the time she could not conceive who it could be, though she afterwards found out it was the Countess of Erroll. The incident, however, gave her courage; she persuaded the little doctor to allow her to land, and, accompanied by him and in her Turkish dress, she found a night's lodging in one of the nearest farm-houses. Nor had she to pay for it overmuch, for the Crim-Tartarians were kindly, honest folk ready to welcome brothers and sisters of Islam. Indeed, they looked upon the new-comers as a possible deliverance from Russian rule. It was lucky this was so, thought Marrion, as with the sinking of day a violent storm of wind and rain swept the beach, drenching the fifty thousand men who were without tents. They dug holes for themselves in the shingle, spread their greatcoats atop, and joked away discomfort even though death stalked among them and the terrible scourge, cholera, they hoped they had left behind them, claimed not a few victims before morning.
They were cheerful as ever, nevertheless, next day while the work of disembarkation went on. Marrion watched it from afar, finding a Varna friend or two in the Turkish contingent, but sheering off from the regiment for fear of recognition--especially by Andrew Fraser. She was not ready for that yet. So three days passed and it was not till the nineteenth that the army of some fifty thousand men moved on towards Sebastopol. About a third of the way thither the enemy was said to be strongly entrenched on the banks of the Alma river. Why he had not attacked during the confusion of disembarkation was a subject of much comment, and all agreed it must be because the position they held on the river was supposed to be impregnable. Why, therefore, leave it?
"We shall see," said Lord Raglan succinctly.
He was an old man, as indeed were almost all the leaders in the Crimean War, but he was full of the fire of youth.
The march was a gay one despite the fact that it was over stony barren steppes; but the hares that started up so often seemed made to be chivied, when, confused, they got between the men's legs, and many a warrior strung one secretly under his knapsack against a savoury supper. And songs were sung, the "Tipperary" of the time, and jokes made with "Joey" who, all along the line, came out affably, ready to trade.
But the sight of the red Alma cliffs that had to be stormed on the morrow sobered some, and Marrion, from another farmhouse where she had obtained shelter, watched the evening sun redden them still more, and thought of the blood that would be shed on them tomorrow with sick loathing.
It was grey dawn when she rose, slipped on a youth's dress she had brought with her, and, packing a few necessaries in a small bundle, waited for the réveillé. But none came. On that fateful morning of the 20th September, 1854, the whole force of twenty thousand British bayonets and sabres assembled in silence. For a watchful enemy awaited them beyond the sluggish tortuous river that wound its way to the sea amid sparse vineyards. Far away to the right the horizon of open sea showed a massing of grey hulks and twinkling lights. That was the Fleet ready to aid as it could. Further afield, beyond the debouching of the cliffs, seven thousand Turkish troops prevented a flank attack. Then came the French twenty thousand face to face with the most formidable part of the cliff nearest the sea. After that the British. Marrion, through her spy-glass, could see the Highlanders standing, their faces set and determined. This was to be their first brush with the enemy, and many of them had waited for it so long. Eight months since Duke had brought her news of battle in the little London house! And now he lay in his solitary grave while his men fought.
Still silence. It was past nine o'clock now, and the troops stood motionless as if on parade. Here and there, in low scrub on the opposite bank, an enemy's battery showed, ready no doubt for instant action on the firing of the first shot. And, every now and then, bayonet-points and the heads of men seen for a second or two against the sky-line, told of infantry ready to receive attack. But there were no skirmishers, no attempt to force on strife.
"No possible advance there," said the Chief of the Staff at the war council that was being held in the open, as he pointed on the map to the cliffs facing the sea. "I wish there were, for, so far as I can see, Menschikoff has left it unguarded."
A Colonel of the Zouaves looked critically at the contours, then turned to the Marquis St. Arnaud--
"My children are good climbers, sir; may we not try?"
"They shall," replied the French Commander-in-Chief. So the attack was ordered. On the extreme right, the French were to throw out skirmishers, tackle the cliff, charge over the first narrow plateau, and so, up the next bank, reach the plain above. Then, when the attack in flank had really commenced, the British would deliver a frontal one.
As he rode back to his own lines the Marquis St. Arnaud paused to take the British salute with the words, "I hope you will fight well to-day." To which came rapid reply in a voice from the 56th Regiment--"Don't you know we will?"
Whereat in long rolling reverberations from company to company, from battalion to battalion, rose a deafening cheer. It was the first sound of the battle of the Alma.
And hark! A disconnected rattle of rifle shots! The skirmishers are out among the rocks; and now, like goats up invisible paths, their full red pantaloons redder than the red clay, the Zouaves show in single file--here, there, everywhere like streamlets of blood. Incredible pluck! Astounding agility! But they are up. The first vantage ground is gained; they pause to collect the skirmishers and sound thepas de charge--that muffled pulse beat that, throbbing destruction, grows louder and louder and louder, drowning all but sheer lust of blood.
On they go, only to receive the fire from a Russian battery posted above.
So the advance goes on, but it goes slower. That salvo on the Zouaves opened the ball, and now, trundling among the ranks of the British, come round shot and shrapnel, dealing death and disablement.
Thepas de chargecontinues, but it is perforce slow. "Pass the order to lie down," says Lord Raglan; and, obedient, though straining at the leash, the British troops lie down while the enemy's shot fall among them still dealing death and disablement at every round.
"How goes the French attack?" he queries hastily, as an aide-de-camp dashes up at 1.50 p.m.
"They are across and up, sir, but not sufficiently established to warrant our starting."
Lord Raglan fumes. His blood was up, his men were being shot at without reply.
"Give the order for general advance," he said, staking all, rashly enough, on the hazard of brave troops; but if he staked rashly he staked wisely. The serried masses of men rose with ringing cheers, dashing on through a belt of fire from the opposite heights, floundered somehow through the river, and paused for a second to take breath in the vineyards below the steeps. But formation had been lost. It was sheer onslaught. At the head of the advance rode Lord Raglan himself, regardless of the gaps in his Staff. Sir George Brown, leading the Light Division, goes down in a cloud of dust before a Russian battery. "Go on, 23rd," he shouts; "I'm all right, but be sure I'll remember this day, boys!"
Further to the left Colin Campbell in front of the Highlanders calls back to them: "Keep yere fingers frae the triggers, men, till ye're within a yaird o' them." And they did. Colin Campbell's horse is down under him, but he is up again charging a battery on foot and calling to the Guards who came up in support, "We want nane but Hie'land bonnets here." But the Guards were firm. Steady, in even line, without a waver in the black bearskins, they came on resistless, making one man in the Light Division mutter under his breath, "D---- them, wasting time in dressing up as if they were on a parade ground!" For all that they had stormed the right end of the most powerful battery almost before the Highlanders had got in on the left. A few minutes later the 1st and 2nd divisions crowned the crest. The French, finding their objective, turned their own guns upon the flying enemy. There were a few faint struggles by the infantry, a few more rounds of artillery, and the Russians were in full flight, leaving over four thousand dead and wounded on the battlefield. So Alma's heights were won, but at a cost which saddened the victory; for out of a total of fourteen thousand British troops employed, one thousand four hundred, or one in ten, were dead or wounded. The French had suffered as much, so General Canrobert's face was grave as he rode up at the close of the day to exclaim: "I ask of Fortune but this! May I command an English corps for three short weeks, then could I die happy." And the English commander's voice was graver still as he replied: "I could not command a French corps. They would outpace me." And in truth the Zouaves' rapid, flame-like spread from crag to crag, their ceaseless fusillade meanwhile, had been all-astonishing and had paralysed the foe completely. But now the laurel wreath of victory was fading, the cypress garland of death was taking its place. It had been a three hours' hand to hand infantry battle, and the late September sun was sinking when the living turned to look after their fallen comrades, for in those days ambulance corps were in their infancy and Red Cross was not. The wounded soldier lay as he fell, dying, mayhap for want of care, even for a drink of water. There were hundreds such upon the heights they had won, as Marrion Paul, taking advantage of the fast coming darkness, began her round. She was provided with water, brandy, a few simple ligaments and bandages. At Varna she had had not a few wounded Turkish soldiers from the Danube in old Achmet's hospital; but this was different. There the wounds seemed a disease; here you felt the keen horror of cold steel and rifle bullet close at hand; you realised the futility, the wickedness of it. She avoided the salients where the dead and wounded lay thickest, for there help was already being given, and men were going to and fro with stretchers; but in one or two of the little gullies she found someone to tend until, darkness closing, she became more brave, and lighting the little lamp with which she had provided herself, she ventured more into the open. Here it was pitiful; the dead lay in clusters, their faces as a rule upturned to the stars. The stretcher-bearers had come and gone, leaving behind those to whom they were useless--as yet. She knelt beside one dead man and wiped away a blood stain from his forehead. He had been orderly once to Duke. Poor soul! Some woman would doubtless wish she had been in her, Marrion's, place. And now the whole hillside was lit up by wandering lights, the lights of men searching for their bosom friends, for their officers. But there were other lights, too, though she did not think of them as different--the lights of the pilferers, the carrion crows, who crept about to rifle dead men's pockets. There were more of them here on the level where the dead and wounded Russians lay in heaps; some, supported by the bodies of others, remained still in the attitude of firing, their rifles still in their hands, their faces curiously peaceful. Well, they had died doing their duty.
A faint call came from a man who lay, his head half-resting on the breast of a dead comrade. She turned to him at once, throwing her lamp-light on his face. Extraordinarily good-looking, so young, so near death. She saw these things at a glance, guessing he was shot through the lungs as his breath came in soft pitiful gasps. She knelt to offer him a drink, but he shook his head. Evidently his eyes were already dim, for he whispered in broken English: "Good--gentlemens--take--take--my heart." She leaned closer to catch his words, thinking bitterly as she did so that he took her for his enemy--his enemy--while her whole heart was going out in pity for such as he.
"I don't understand," she said tenderly. "Your heart--what do you mean?"
"My heart," he gasped painfully--"here!" And his limp arm, lying helplessly beside him, crooked itself in supreme effort, and the hand fell on his breast.
A sudden comprehension came to her.
"You want me to take something from your heart?"
His dim eyes smiled faintly.
"Yes--good gentlemens," he whispered; it was almost a sigh, but it held content. "Take--give!"
She understood now, though a faint shiver through the young body told her that the speaking soul had gone. Here again was Love transcending Death! Quietly she laid down the head she had been supporting, closed the eyes, and opening the grey tunic began her search, her mind rapt away from her surroundings by thoughts of Duke. Her hand had just found a thin chain, when a rough clutch was laid on her shoulder and she was wrenched to her feet with such force that the chain giving way left her standing with something hanging from her hand.
"Caught in the act!" said a rough voice. "Shoot the young devil, sergeant!"
Something cold touched her forehead. Her heart gave a great bound. Was this death--oh, Duke--Duke!
The flash of a bull's-eye lantern turned full on her showed her face deadly pale but firm.
"Hold hard!" cried another voice hastily. "The fellow carries a water-bottle--of our pattern, too! Give the devil his due, Mac."
She could see faintly now. They were Highlanders; a search party evidently, and the blood rushed back to heart and face.
"I'm doing no harm!" she cried hotly. "He asked me--to take and give--his heart."
At her first word the cold nozzle of the revolver had left her forehead.
"By God!" came in a murmur; but for the most part the little group of men were startled out of speech and stood staring at the figure before them, holding out in apology what it held.
It was only a pinchbeck locket with a woman's face in it--a pinchbeck locket in the form of a heart.
"What the devil are you doing here in that kit, you young oaf?" said an angry voice at last. "I as nearly shot you as a carrion crow as ever----" It paused; something in the situation seemed to bring silence. The stars overhead, the dead lover at their feet, the tall, slim mysterious figure holding out the symbol of something that had survived death.
"You had better go on, Mac," said the voice that had advised caution, finally breaking the stillness. "I will use this young fool's lantern and that will make two search parties. We have little time to spare. I'll see him safe. You'd better take the orderlies with you. They have appliances and will know what to do. I can manage."
"As you please, doctor," came the reply.
When they had gone the man they had called doctor took up Marrion's lantern and seemed to examine its light, turning it finally full on his face; and suddenly he spoke.
"Mrs. Marsden----" Marrion could not avoid a start.
"Mrs. Marsden!" she echoed faintly.
"Yes. You don't recognise me evidently. Indeed, I doubt if you ever saw me, but I was with poor Muir when he died. Andrew Fraser had to tell me--something--before I would let you come, and your face and hair aren't easily forgotten. I guess why you are here; but it isn't safe--in fact, it's impossible; but if you will go back now and come to my hospital--Dr. Forsyth--in English dress, please--I think I can settle you to work--something that will prevent your being taken for a Crim-Tartar thief," he added grimly. "It's lucky I have a good memory for faces."
"I don't think I should have cared," said Marrion, but he took no notice of her defiance.
"As for this poor chap," he knelt down beside the Russian and laid his hand over the heart. "Dead as a door nail, ceased to beat--wonder where he wanted to send it. Is there a name at the back?"
Marrion bent to the light.
"A name and an address."
The doctor jumped up lightly.
"Being dead he yet speaketh," he remarked cheerfully. "Now if you will please go back I will go on. We have to find poor Grant; he was last seen on the crest leading his men, with Andrew Fraser--the colonel's servant, you remember--just behind him."
"Andrew!" exclaimed Marrion, with a sort of sob. "Is he killed, too?"
"Killed or missing," called Dr. Forsyth, as he turned away to rejoin his party.