At this time I had never seen a camp, nor viewed any large number of armed men together, and my curiosity, as we dropped gently down the hill, while the sun set and the shadows of evening fell upon the busy scene, was mingled with some uneasiness. The babble of voices, of traders crying their wares, of men quarrelling at play, of women screaming and scolding, rose up continually, as from a fair; and the nearer we approached the more like a fair, the less like my anticipations, seemed the place we were entering. I looked to see something gay and splendid, the glitter of weapons and the gleam of flags, some reflection of the rich surroundings the general allowed himself. I saw nothing of the kind; no show of ordered lines, no battalia drilling, no picquets, outposts, or sentinels. On the contrary, all before us seemed squalid, noisy, turbulent; so that as I descended into the midst of it, and left the quiet uplands and the evening behind us, I felt my gorge rise, and shivered as with cold.
A furlong short of the camp a troop of officers on horseback came to meet us, and saluting their general--some with hiccoughs--fell in tumultuously behind us; and their feathered hats and haphazard armour took the eye finely. But the next to meet us were of a different kind--beggars; troops of whom, men, women, and children, assailed us with loud cries, and, wailing and imploring aid, ran beside our horses, until Tzerclas' men rode out at them and beat them off. To these succeeded a second horde, this time of gaudy, slatternly women, who hung about the entrance to the camp, with hucksters, peddlers, thieves, and the like, without number; so that our way seemed to lie through the lowest haunts of a great city. Not one in four of all I saw had the air of a soldier or counted himself one.
And this was the case inside the camp as well as outside. Everywhere booths and stalls stood among the huts, and sutlers plied their trade. Everywhere men wrangled, and women screamed, and naked children scuttered up and down. While we passed, the general's presence procured momentary respect and silence. The moment we were gone, the stream of ribaldry poured across our path, and the tide of riot set in. I saw plenty of bearded ruffians, dark men with scowling faces, chaffering, gaming or sleeping; but little that was soldierly, little that was orderly, nothing to proclaim that this was the lager of a military force, until we had left the camp itself behind us and entered the village.
Here in a few scattered houses were the quarters of the principal officers; and here a degree of quiet and decency and some show met the eye. A watch was set in the street, which was ankle-deep in filth. A few pennons fluttered from the eaves, or before the doors. In front of the largest house a dozen cannon, the wheels locked together with chains, were drawn up, and behind the buildings were groups of tethered horses. Two trumpeters, who seemed to be waiting for us, blew a blast as we appeared, and a dozen officers on foot, some with pikes and some with partisans, came up to greet the general. But even here ugly looks and insolent faces were plentiful. The splendour was faded, the rich garments were set on awry. Hard by the cannon, in the shadow of the house, a corpse hung and dangled from the branch of an oak. The man had kicked off his shoes before he died, or some one had taken them, and the naked feet, shining in the dusk, brushed the shoulders of the passers-by.
Some might have taken it for an evil omen; I found it a good one, yet wished more than ever that we had not met General Tzerclas. But my lady, riding beside him and listening to his low-voiced talk, seemed not a whit disappointed by what she saw, by the lack of discipline, or the sordid crowd. Either she had known better than I what to expect in a camp, or she had eyes only for such brightness as existed. Possibly Von Werder's warning had so coloured my vision that I saw everything in sombre tints.
We found quarters prepared for us, not in the general's house, the large one by the cannon, but in a house of four rooms, a little farther down the street. It was convenient, it had been cleaned for us, and we found a meal awaiting us; and so far I was bound to confess that we had no ground for complaint. The general accompanied my lady to the door, and there left her with many bows, requesting permission to wait on her next day, and begging her in the mean time to send to him for anything that was lacking to her comfort.
When he was gone, and my lady had surveyed the place, she let her satisfaction be seen. The main room had been made habitable enough. She stood in her redingote, tapping the table with her whip.
'Well, Martin, this is better than the forest,' she said.
'Yes, your excellency,' I answered reluctantly.
'I think we have done very well,' she continued; and she smiled to herself.
'We are safe from the rain, at any rate,' I said bluntly. My tongue itched to tell her Von Werder's warning, but Fraulein Anna and Marie Wort were in the room, and I did not think it safe to speak.
I could not stay and not tell, however, and I jumped at the first excuse for retiring. There was a kind of wooden platform in front of the houses, and running their whole length; a walk, raised out of the mud of the street and sheltered overhead by the low, wide eaves. A woman and some children had climbed on to it, and begging with their palms through the windows almost deafened us. I ran out and drove them off, and set a man in front to keep the place free. But the wretched creatures' entreaties haunted me, and when I returned I was in a worse temper than before.
The Waldgrave met me at the door, and to my surprise laid his hand on my shoulder. 'This way, Martin,' he said in a low voice. 'I want a word with you.'
I went with him across the road, and leaned against the fallen trunk of a tree, which was just visible in the darkness. Through the unglazed windows of the house we could see the lighted rooms, the Countess and her attendants moving about, Fraulein Anna sitting with her feet tucked up in a corner, the servants bringing in the meal. All in a frame of blackness, with the hoarse sounds of the camp in our ears, and the pitiful wailing of the beggars dying away in the distance. It was a dark night, and still.
The Waldgrave laughed. 'Dilly, dilly, dilly! Come and be killed,' he muttered. 'Two thousand soldiers? Two thousand cut-throats, Martin. Pappenheim's black riders were gentlemen beside these fellows!'
'Things may look more cheerful by daylight,' I said.
'Or worse!' he answered.
I told him frankly that I thought the sooner we were out of the camp the better.
'If we can get out! Of course, it is better for the mouse when it is out of the trap!' he answered with a sneer. 'But there is the rub.'
'He would not dare to detain us,' I said. I did not believe my words, however.
'He will dare one of two things,' the Waldgrave answered firmly, 'you may be sure of that: either he will march your lady back to Heritzburg, and take possession in her name, with this tail at his heels--in which case, Heaven help her and the town. Or he will keep her here.'
I tried to think that he was prejudiced in the matter, and that his jealousy of General Tzerclas led him to see evil where none was meant. But his fears agreed so exactly with my own, that I found it difficult to treat his suggestions lightly. What the camp was, I had seen; how helpless we were in the midst of it, I knew; what advantage might be taken of us, I could imagine.
Presently I found an argument. 'You forget one thing, my lord,' I said. 'General Tzerclas is on his way to the south. In a week we shall be with the main army at Nuremberg, and able to appeal to the King of Sweden or the Landgrave or a hundred friends, ready and willing to help us.'
The Waldgrave laid his hand on my arm. 'He does not intend to go south,' he said.
I could not believe that; and I was about to state my objections when the noisy march of a body of men approaching along the road disturbed us. The Waldgrave raised his hand and listened.
'Another time!' he muttered--already we began to fear and be secret--'Go now!'
In a trice he disappeared in the darkness, while I went more slowly into the house, where I found my lady inquiring anxiously after him. I thought that the young lord would follow me in, and I said I had seen him. But he did not come, and presently wild strains of music, rising on the air outside, took us all by surprise and effectually diverted my lady's thoughts.
The players proved to be the general's band, sent to serenade us. As the weird, strange sweetness of the air, with its southern turns and melancholy cadences, stole into the room and held the women entranced--while moths fluttered round the lights and the servants pressed to the door to listen, and now and then a harsh scream or a distant oath betrayed the surrounding savagery--I felt my eyes drawn to my lady's face. She sat listening with a rapt expression. Her eyes were downcast, her lashes drooped and veiled them; but some pleasant thought, some playful remembrance curved her full lips and dimpled her chin. What was the thought, I wondered? was it gratification, pleasure, complacency, or only amusement? I longed to know.
On one point I was resolved. My lady should not sleep that night until she had heard the warning I had received from Von Werder. To that end I did all I could to catch her alone, but in the result I had to content myself with an occasion when only Fraulein Anna was with her. Time pressed, and perhaps the Dutch girl's presence confused me, or the delicacy of the position occurred to mein mediis rebus, as I think the Fraulein called it. At any rate, I blurted out the story a little too roughly, and found myself called sharply to order.
'Stay!' my lady said, and I saw too late that her colour was high. 'Not so fast, man! I think, Martin, that since we left Heritzburg you have lost some of your manners! See to it, you recover them. Who told you this tale?'
'Herr von Werder,' I answered with humility; and I was going on with my story. But she raised her hand.
'Herr von Werder!' she said haughtily. 'Who is he?'
'The gentleman who supped with us last night,' I reminded her.
She stamped the floor impatiently. 'Fool!' she cried, 'I know that! But who is he? Who is he? He should be some great man to prate of my affairs so lightly.'
I stuttered and stammered, and felt my cheek redden with shame.I did not know. And the man was not here, and I could not reproduce for her the air of authority, the tone and look which had imposed on me: which had given weight to words I might otherwise have slighted, and importance to a warning that I now remembered was a stranger's. I stood, looking foolish.
My lady saw her advantage. 'Well,' she said harshly, 'who is he? Out with it, man! Do not keep us waiting.'
I muttered that I knew no more of him than his name.
'Perhaps not that,' she retorted scornfully.
I admitted that it might be so.
My lady's eyes sparkled and her cheeks flamed. 'Before Heaven, you are a fool!' she cried. 'How dare you come to me with such a story? How dare you traduce a man without proof or warranty! And my cousin! Why, it passes belief. On the word of a nameless wanderer admitted to our table on sufferance you accuse an honourable gentleman, our kinsman and our host, of--Heaven knows of what, I don't! I tell you, you shame me!' she continued vehemently. 'You abuse my kindness. You abuse the shelter given to us. You must be mad, stark mad, to think such things. Or----'
She stopped on a sudden and looked down frowning. When she looked up again her face was changed. 'Tell me,' she said in a constrained voice, 'did any one--did the Waldgrave Rupert suggest this to you?'
'God forbid!' I said.
The answer seemed to embarrass her. 'Where is he?' she asked, looking at me suspiciously.
I told her that I did not know.
'Why did he not come to supper?' she persisted.
Again I said I did not know.
'You are a fool!' she replied sharply. But I saw that her anger had died down, and I was not surprised when she continued in a changed tone, 'Tell me; what has General Tzerclas done to you that you dislike him so? What is your grudge against him, Martin?'
'I have no grudge against him, your excellency,' I answered.
'You dislike him?'
I looked down and kept silence.
'I see you do,' my lady continued. 'Why? Tell me why, Martin.'
But I felt so certain that every word I said against him would in her present mood only set him higher in her favour that I was resolved not to answer. At last, being pressed, I told her that I distrusted him as a soldier of fortune--a class the country folk everywhere hold in abhorrence; and that nothing I had seen in his camp had tended to lessen the feeling.
'A soldier of fortune!' she replied, with a slight tinge of wonder and scorn. 'What of that? My uncle was one. Lord Craven, the Englishman, the truest knight-errant that ever followed banished queen--if all I hear be true--he is one; and his comrade, the Lord Horace Vere. And Count Leslie, the Scotchman, who commands in Stralsund for the Swede, I never heard aught but good of him. And Count Thurn of Bohemia--him I know. He is a brave man and honourable. A soldier of fortune!' she continued thoughtfully, tapping the table with her fingers. 'And why not? Why not?'
My choler rose at her words. 'He has the sweepings of Germany in his train,' I muttered. 'Look at his camp, my lady.'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'A camp is not a nunnery,' she said. 'And at any rate, he is on the right side.'
'His own!' I exclaimed.
I could have bitten my tongue the next moment, but it was too late. My lady looked at me sternly. 'You grow too quick-witted,' she said. 'I have talked too much to you, I see. I am no longer in Heritzburg, but I will be respected, Martin. Go! go at once, and to-morrow be more careful.'
Result--that I had offended her and done no good. I wondered what the Waldgrave would say, and I went to bed with a heart full of fancies and forebodings, that, battening on themselves, grew stronger and more formidable the longer I lay awake. The night was well advanced and the immediate neighbourhood of our quarters was quiet. The sentry's footsteps echoed monotonously as he tramped up and down the wooden platform before them. I could almost hear the breathing of the sleepers in the other rooms, the creak of the floor as one rose or another turned. There was nothing to keep me from sleep.
But my thoughts would not be confined to the four walls or the neighbourhood; my ears lent themselves to every sound that came from the encircling camp, the coarse song chanted by drunken revellers, the oath of anger, the shrill taunt, the cry of surprise. And once, a little before midnight, I heard something more than these: a sudden roar of voices that swelled up and up, louder and fiercer, and then died in a moment into silence--to be followed an instant later by fierce screams of pain--shriek upon shriek of such mortal agony and writhing that I sat up on my pallet, trembling all over and bathed in perspiration; and even the sleepers turned and moaned in their dreams. The cries grew fainter. Then, thank Heaven! silence.
But the incident left me in no better mood for sleep, and with every nerve on the stretch I was turning on the other side for the twentieth time when I fancied I heard whispering outside; a faint muttering as of some one talking to the sentinel. The sentry's step still kept time, however, and I was beginning to think that my imagination had played me a trick, when the creak of a door in the house, followed by a rustling sound, confirmed my suspicions. I rose to my feet. The next instant a low scream and the harsh voice of the watchman told me that something had happened.
I passed out of the house, without alarming any one, and was not surprised to find Jacob pinning a captive against the wall with one hand, while he threatened him with his pike. There was just light enough to see this, and no more, the wide eaves casting a black shadow on the prisoner's face.
'What is it, Jacob?' I said, going to his assistance. 'Whom have you got?'
'I do not know,' he answered sturdily, 'but I'll keep him. He was trying to get in or out. Steady now,' he added gruffly to his captive, 'or I will spoil your beauty for you!'
'In or out?' I said.
'Ay, I think he was coming out.'
There was a fire burning in the road a score of paces away. I ran to it and fetched a brand, and blowing the smouldering wood into a blaze, threw the light on the fellow's face. Jacob dropped his hand with a cry of surprise, and I recoiled. His prisoner was a woman--Marie Wort.
She hung down her head, trembling violently. Jacob had thrust back the hood from her face, and her loosened hair covered her shoulders.
'What does it mean?' I cried, struggling with my bewilderment. 'Why are you here, girl?'
Instead of answering she cowered nearer the wall, and I saw that she was trying to hide something behind her under cover of her cloak.
'What have you got there?' I said quickly, laying my hand on her wrist.
She flashed a look at me, her small teeth showing, a mutinous glare on her little pale face. 'Not my chain!' she snapped.
I dropped her arm and recoiled as if she had struck me; though the words did not so much hurt as surprise me. And I was quick to recover myself. 'What is it, then?' I said, returning to the attack. 'I must know, Marie, and what you are doing here at this time of night.'
As she did not answer I put her cloak aside, and discovered, to my great astonishment, that she was holding a platter full of food. It shook in her hand. She began to cry.
'Heavens, girl!' I exclaimed in my wonder, 'have you not had enough to eat?'
She lifted her head and looked at me through her tears, her eyes sparkling with indignation. 'I have!' she said almost fiercely. 'But what of these?'--and she flung her disengaged hand abroad, with a gesture I did not at once comprehend. 'Can you sleep in their beds, and lie in their houses, and eat from their meal-tubs, and think of them starving, and not get up and help them? Can you hear them whining for food like dogs, and starve them as you would not starve a dog? I cannot. I cannot!' she repeated wildly. 'But you, you others, you of the north, you have no hearts! You lie soft and care nothing!'
'But what--who are starving?' I said in amazement. Her words outran my wits. 'And where is the man in whose bed I am lying?'
'Under the sky! In the ditch!' she answered passionately. 'Are you blind?' she continued, speaking more quietly and drawing nearer. 'Do you think your general built this village? If not, where are the people who lived in it a month ago? Whining for a crust at the camp gate. Living on offal, or starving. Fighting with the dogs for bones. I heard a man outside this house cry that it was all his, and that he was starving. You drove him off. I heard his wife and babes wailing outside a while ago, and I came out. I could not bear it.'
I looked at Jacob. He nodded gravely. 'There was a woman here, with a child,' he said.
'Heaven forgive us!' I cried. Then--'Go in, girl,' I continued. 'I will see the food put where they will get it; but do you go to bed.'
She obeyed meekly, leaving me wondering at the strange mixture of courage and fearfulness which makes up some women, and those the best; who fly from a rat, yet face every extremity of pain without flinching. A Romanist? And what of that? It seemed to me a small thing, as I watched her gliding in. If she knew little and that awry, she loved much.
I looked at Jacob and he at me. 'Is it true, do you think?' I said.
'I doubt it is,' he answered stolidly, dropping the smouldering brand on the ground and treading, it out with his heel. 'I have seen soldiers and sutlers and women since I came into camp; and beggars. But peasants not one. I doubt we have eaten them out, Master Martin. But soldiers must live.'
The little heap of red embers glowed dully in the road and gave no light. The darkness shut us in on every side, even as the camp shut us in. I looked out into it and shuddered. It seemed to my eyes peopled with horrors: with gaping mouths that cursed us as they set in death, with lean hands that threatened us, and tortured faces of maids and children; with the despair of the poor. Ghosts of starving men and women glared at us out of spectral eyes. And the night seemed full of omens.
I never knew where the Waldgrave spent that night, but I think it must have been with the fairies. For when he showed himself early next morning, before my lady appeared, I noticed at once a change in him; and though at first I was at a loss to explain it, I presently saw that that had happened which might have been expected. The appearance of a rival had laid the spark to his heart, and while the love-light was in his eyes, a new gravity, a new gentleness added grace to his bearing. The temper and pettiness of yesterday were gone. Other things, too, I saw--that his face flushed when my lady's voice was heard at the door, that his eyes shone when she entered. He had a nosegay of flowers for her--wild flowers he had gathered in the early morning, with the dew upon them--which he offered her with a little touch of humility.
Doubtless the fret and passion of yesterday had not been thrown away on him. He had learned in the night both that he loved, and the lowliness that comes of love. It wanted but that, it seemed to me, to make him perfect in a woman's eyes; and I saw my lady's dwell very kindly on him as he turned away. A little, I think, she wondered; his tone was so different, his desire to please so transparent, his avoidance of everything that might offend so ready. But such service wins its way; and my lady's own kindness and gaiety disposing her to meet his advances, she seemed in a few moments to have forgotten whatever cause of complaint he had given her.
The general's band came early, to play while she ate, but I noticed with satisfaction that the music moved her little this morning, either because she was taken up with talking to her companion, or because the romantic circumstances of the evening, darkness and vague surroundings, and the lassitude of fatigue, were lacking. With the sunshine and fresh air pouring in through the open windows, the strains which yesterday awoke a hundred associations and stirred mysterious impulses fell almost flat.
The Waldgrave made no attempt to resume the conversation he had held with me by the fallen tree. Either love, or respect for his mistress, made him reticent, or he was practising self-control. And I said nothing. But I understood, and set myself keenly to watch this duel between the two men. If I read the general's intentions aright, the young lord's influence with the Countess could scarcely grow except at the general's expense; his suit, if successful, must oust that which the elder man, I was sure, meditated. And this being so, all my wishes were on one side. My fear of the general had so grown in the night, that I suspected him of a hundred things; and could only think of him as an antagonist to be defeated--a foe from whom we must expect the worst that force or fraud could effect.
He came soon after breakfast to pay his respects to my lady, and alighted at the door with great attendance and endless jingling of bits and spurs. He brought with him several of his officers, and these he presented to the Countess with so much respect and politeness that even I could find no fault with the action. One or two of the men, rough Silesians, were uncouth enough; but he covered their mistakes so cleverly that they served only to set off his own good breeding.
He had not been in the room five minutes, however, before I saw that he remarked the change which had come over the Waldgrave, and perhaps some corresponding change in my lady's manner; and I saw that it chafed him. He did not lose his air of composure, but he grew less talkative and more watchful. Presently he let drop something aimed at the young man; a light word, inoffensive, yet likely to draw the other into a debate. But the Waldgrave refrained, and the general soon afterwards rose to take leave.
He had come, it seemed, to invite my lady's presence at a shooting-match which was to take place outside the camp at noon. He spoke of the match as a thing arranged before our arrival, but I have no doubt that the plan had its origin in a desire to please my lady and fill the day. He spoke, besides, of a hunting-party to take place next morning, with a banquet at his quarters to follow; of a review fixed for the day after that; and, in the still remoter distance, of races and a trip to a neighboring waterfall, with other diversions.
I heard the arrangements made, and my lady's frank acceptance, with a sinking heart; for under the perfect courtesy of his manner, behind the frank desire to give her pleasure which he professed, I felt his power. While he spoke, though I could find no fault with him, I felt the steel hand inside the silk glove. And these plans? Even my lady, though her eyes sparkled with anticipation--she loved pleasure with a healthy, honest love--looked a little startled.
'But I thought that you were marching southwards, General Tzerclas,' she said. 'At once I mean?'
'I am,' he answered, bowing easily--he had already risen. 'But an army, Countess, marches more slowly than a travelling party. And I am expecting despatches which may vary my route.'
'From the King of Sweden?'
'Yes,' he answered. 'The King has arrived at Nuremberg, and expects shortly to be attacked by Wallenstein, who is on the march from Egra.'
'But shall you be in time for the battle?' she asked, her eyes shining.
'I hope so,' he replied, smiling. 'Or my part may be less glorious--to cut off the enemy's convoys.'
'I should not like that!' she exclaimed.
'Nevertheless, it is a very necessary function,' he said. 'As the Waldgrave Rupert will tell your excellency.'
The young lord agreed, and a moment later the general with his jingling attendants took his leave and clattered out and mounted before the door. My lady went to the window and waved adieu to him, and he lowered his great plumed hat to his stirrup.
'At noon?' he cried, making his horse curvet in the roadway.
'Without fail!' my lady answered gaily, and she stood at the window looking out until the last gleam of steel sank in a cloud of dust and the beggars closed in before the door.
The Waldgrave leaned against the wall behind her with his lips set and a grave face. But he said nothing, and when she turned he had a smile for her. It seemed to me that these two had changed places; the Waldgrave had grown older and my lady younger.
A few minutes before noon, Captain Ludwig and a sub-officer of the same rank, a Pole with long hair, came to conduct my lady to the scene of the match. They were arrayed in all their finery, and made a show of such etiquette as they knew. For our part we did not keep them waiting; five minutes saw us mounted and riding through the camp. This wore, to-day, a more martial and less disorderly appearance. The part we traversed was clear of women and gamesters, while sentries stationed at the gate, and a guard of honour which fell in behind us at the same spot, proved that the eye of the master could even here turn chaos into order. I do not know that the change pleased me much, for if it lessened my dread of the cutthroats by whom we were surrounded, it increased the awe in which I held their chief.
The shooting was fixed to take place in a narrow valley diverging from the river, a mile or more from the camp. It was a green, gently-sloping place, such as sheep love; but the sheep had long ago been driven into quarters, and the shepherd to the listing-sergeant or the pike. A few ruined huts told the tale; the hills which rose on either side were silent and untrodden.
Not so the valley itself, which lay bathed in sunshine. It roared with the babel of a great multitude. A straight course, two hundred yards in length, had been roped off for the shooting, and round this the crowd thronged and pushed, or, breaking here or there into fragments, wandered up and down outside the lines, talking and gesticulating, so that the place seemed to swarm with life and movement and colour.
I had seen such a spectacle and as large a crowd at Heritzburg--once a year, it may be. But there the gathering had not the wild and savage elements which here caught the eye; the hairy, swarthy faces and black, gleaming eyes, the wild garb, and brandished weapons and fierce gestures, that made this crowd at once curious and formidable. The babel of unknown tongues rose on every side. Poland and Lithuania, Scotland and the Rhine, equally with Hungary, Italy, and Bohemia, had their representatives in this strange army.
General Tzerclas and his staff occupied a mound near the lower end of the valley. On seeing our party approach, he rode down to meet us, followed by thirty or forty officers, whose dress and equipments, even more than those of their men, fixed the attention; for while some wore steel caps and clumsy cuirasses, with silk sashes and greasy trunk-hose, others, better acquainted with the mode, affected huge flapped hats and velvet doublets, with falling collars of lace, and untanned boots reaching to the middle of the thigh. One or two wore almost complete armour; others, gay silks, stained with wine and weather. Their horses, too, were of all sizes, from tall Flemings to small, wiry Hungarians, and their arms were as various. One huge fat man, whose flesh swayed as he moved, carried a steel mace at his saddle-bow. Another swept along with a lance, raking the sky behind him. Great horse-pistols were common, and swords with blades so long that they ploughed the ground.
Varying in everything else, in one thing these warlike gentry agreed. As they came prancing towards us, I did not see a face among them that did not repel me, nor one that I could look at with respect or liking. Where dissipation had not set its seal so plainly as to oust all others, or some old wound did not disfigure, cruelty, greed, and recklessness were written large. The glare of the bully shone alike under flapped hat and iron cap. One might show a swollen visage, flushed with excess, and another a thin, white, cruel face; but that was all the odds.
The sight of such a crew should have opened my lady's eyes and enlightened her as to the position in which we stood. But women see differently from men. Too often they take swagger for courage, and recklessness for manhood. And, besides, the very defects of these men, their swashbuckling manners and banditti guise, only set off the more the perfect dress and quiet bearing of their leader, who, riding in their midst, seemed, with his cold, calm face and air of pride, like nothing so much as the fairy prince among the swine.
He wore a suit of black velvet, with a falling collar of Utrecht lace, and a white sash. A feather adorned his hat, and his furniture and sword-hilt were of steel. This, I afterwards learned, was a favourite costume with him. At odd times he relapsed into finery, but commonly he affected a simplicity which suited his air and features, and lost nothing by comparison with the tawdriness of his attendants.
He sprang from his horse at the foot of the slope, and, resigning it to a groom, took my lady's rein and, bareheaded, led her to the summit of the mound. The Waldgrave with Fraulein Anna followed, and the rest of us as closely as we could. The officers crowded thick upon us and would have edged us out, but I had primed my men, and though they quailed before the others' scowls and curses, they kept together, so that we not only had the advantage of watching the sport from a position immediately behind the Countess, but heard all that passed.
At the end of the open space I have mentioned stood three targets in a line. These were peculiar, for they consisted of dummies cased in leather, shaped so exactly to the form of men, that, at a distance of two hundred yards, it was only by the face I could tell that they were not men. Where the features should have been was a whitened circle, and on, the breast of each a heart in chalk. They were so life-like that they gave an air of savagery to the sport, and made me shudder. When I had scanned them, I turned and found Captain Ludwig at my elbow.
'What is it?' he said, grinning. 'Our targets? Fine practice, comrade. They are the general's own invention, and I have known them put to good use.'
'How?' I asked. He spoke under his breath. I adopted the same tone.
'You will know by, and by,' he answered, with a wink. 'Sometimes we find a traitor in the camp; or we catch a spy. Then--but you need not fear. Drawing-room practice to-day. There is no one in them.'
'In them?' I muttered, unable to take my eyes from his face.
He nodded. 'Ay, in them,' he answered, smiling at my look of consternation. 'Time has been I have known one in each, and cross-bow practice. That makes them squeal! With powder and a flint-lock--pouf! It is all over. Unless you put the butter-fingers first; then there is sport, perhaps.'
Little wonder that after that I paid no attention to the shooting, which had begun; nor to the brawling and disagreement which from the first accompanied it, and which it needed all the general's authority to quell. I thought only of our position among these wretches. If I had felt any doubt of General Tzerclas' character before, the doubt troubled me no more.
But it did occur to me that Ludwig might be practising on me, and I turned to him sharply. 'I see!' I said, pretending that I had found him out. 'A good joke, captain!'
He grinned again. 'You would not call it one,' he said dryly, 'if you were once in the leather. But have it your own way. Come, there is a good shot, now. He is a Swiss, that fellow.'
But I could take no interest in the shooting, with that ghastly tale in my head. I felt for the moment the veriest coward. We were ten in the midst of two thousand--ten men and four helpless women! Our own strength could not avail us, and we had nothing else under heaven to depend upon, except the scruples, or interest, or fears of a mercenary captain; a man whose hardness the thin veil of politeness barely hid, who might be scrupulous, gentle, merciful--might be, in a word, all that was honourable. But whence, then, this story? Why this tale of cruelty, passing the bounds of discipline?
It so disheartened me that for some time I scarcely noticed what was passing before me; and I might have continued longer in this dull state if the Waldgrave's voice, civilly declining some proposition, had not caught my ear.
I gathered then what the offer was. Among the matches was one for officers, and in this the general was politely inviting his guest to compete. But the Waldgrave continued firm. 'You are very good,' he answered with perfect frankness and good temper. 'But I think I will not expose myself. I shoot badly with a strange gun.'
It was so unlike him to miss a chance of distinction, or underrate his merits, that I stared. He was changed, indeed, to-day; or he thought the position very critical, the need of caution very great.
The general continued to urge him; and so strongly that I began to think that our host had his own interests to serve.
'Oh, come,' he said, in a light, gibing tone which just stopped short of the offensive. 'You must not decline. There are five competitors--two Bohemians, a Scot, a Pole, and a Walloon; but no German. You cannot refuse to shoot for Germany, Waldgrave?'
The Waldgrave shook his head, however. 'I should do Germany small honour, I am afraid,' he said.
The general smiled unpleasantly. 'You are too modest,' he said.
'It is not a national failing,' the Waldgrave answered, smiling also.
'I fancy it must be,' the general retorted. 'And that is the reason we see so little of Germans in the war!'
The words were almost an insult, though a dull man, deceived by the civility of the speaker's tone, might have overlooked it. The Waldgrave understood, however. I saw him redden and his brow grow dark. But he restrained himself, and even found a good answer.
'Germany will find her champions,' he said, 'when she seriously needs them.'
'Abroad!' the general replied, speaking in a flash, as it were. The instant the word was said, I saw that he repented it. He had gone farther than he intended, and changed his tone. 'Well, if you will not, you will not,' he continued smoothly. 'Unless our fair cousin can succeed where I have failed, and persuade you.'
'I?' my lady said--she had not been attending very closely. 'I will do what I can. Why will you not enter, Rupert? You are a good shot.'
'You wish me to shoot?' the Waldgrave said slowly.
'Of course!' she answered. 'I think it is a shame General Tzerclas has so few German officers. If I could shoot, I would shoot for the honour of Germany myself.'
The Waldgrave bowed. 'I will shoot,' he said coldly.
'Good!' General Tzerclas answered, with a show ofbonhomie. 'That is excellent. Will you descend with me? Each competitor is to fire two shots at the figure at eighty paces. Those who lodge both shots in the target, to fire one shot at the head only.'
The young lord bowed and prepared to follow him.
'Comrade,' Ludwig said in my ear, as I watched them go, 'your master had better have stood by his first word.'
'Why?'
'He will do no good.'
'Why not?' I asked.
'The Bohemian yonder--the fat man--will shoot round him. His little pig's eyes see farther than others. Besides, the devil has blessed his gun. He cannot miss.'
'What! That tun of flesh?' I cried, for he was pointing to the gross, unwieldy man, at whose saddle-bow I had marked the iron mace. 'Is he a Bohemian?'
Ludwig nodded. 'Count Waska, they call him. There is no man in the camp can shoot with him or drink with him.'
'We shall see,' I said grimly.
I had little hope, however. The Waldgrave was a good shot; but a man was not likely to have a reputation for shooting in such a camp as this, where every one handled pistol or petronel, unless his aim was something out of the common. And listening to the talk round me, I found that Count Waska's comrades took his victory for granted.
Their confidence explained General Tzerclas' anxiety to trap the Waldgrave into shooting. The jealous feeling which had been all on the Waldgrave's side yesterday, had spread to him to-day. He wished to see his rival beaten in my lady's presence.
I longed to disappoint him; I felt sore besides for the honour of Germany. I could not leave my lady, or I would have gone down to see that the Waldgrave had fair play, and a clean pan, and silence when he fired. But I watched with as much excitement as any in the field, all that passed; I doubt if I ever took part in a match myself with greater keenness and interest than I felt as a spectator of this one.
From our elevated position we could see everything, and the sight was a curious one. The rabble of spectators--soldiers and women, sutlers and horse-boys--stretched away in two dark lines, ten deep, being kept off the range by a dozen men armed with whips. The clamour of their hoarse shouting went up continuously, and sometimes almost deafened us. Immediately below us, at the foot of the mound, the champions and their friends were gathered, settling rests, keying up the wheels of their locks, and trying the flints. Owing to the Waldgrave's presence, which somewhat imposed upon the other officers both by reason of his rank and strangeness, the contest seemed likely to be conducted more decently than those which had preceded it. He was invited to shoot first, and when he excused himself on the ground that he was not yet familiar with his gun, Count Waska good-humouredly consented to open the match.
His weapon, I remarked--and I treasured up the knowledge and have since made use of it--was smaller in the bore than the others. He came forward and fired very carelessly, scarcely stooping to the rest; but he hit the figure fairly in the breast with both bullets and retired, a stolid smile on his large countenance.
The Waldgrave was the next to advance, and if he felt one half of the anxiety I felt myself, it was a wonder he let off his gun at all. General Tzerclas had returned to the Countess's side, and was speaking to her; but he paused at the critical moment, and both stood gazing, my lady with her lips parted and her eyes bright. The desire to see the stranger shoot was so general that something like silence prevailed while he aimed. I had time to conjure up half a dozen miseries--the gun might not be true, the powder weak; and then, bang! I saw the figure rock. He had hit it fairly in the breast, and I breathed again.
My lady cried, 'Vivat! good shot!' and he looked up at her before he primed his pan for a second trial. This time I felt less fear, the crowd less interest. The babel began afresh. His second bullet struck somewhat lower, but struck; and he stood back, his face flushed with pleasure. Honour, at any rate, was safe.
The Scot hit with both balls, the Pole with one only. Last of all the Walloon, a grim dark officer in a stained buff coat, who seemed to be unpopular with the soldiery, fired in the midst of such a storm of gibes and hisses that I wondered he could aim at all. He did, however, and hit with his second bullet. Even so he and the Pole stood out, leaving the Waldgrave, Count Waska, and the Scot to fire at the head.
Huge was the clamour which followed on this, half the company bellowing out offers to stake all that they had on the Count--money, chains, armour. Meanwhile I looked at the general to see how he took it. He had fallen silent, and my lady also. They stood gazing down on the competitors and their preparations, as if they were aware that more hung on the issue than a simple match at arms.
Count Waska advanced for the final shot, and this time he made ample use of the rest, aiming long and carefully over it. He fired, and I looked eagerly at the target. A roar of applause greeted the shot. The bullet had pierced the whitened face a little to the left, high up.
It was the Waldgrave's turn now. He came forward, with an air of quiet confidence, and set his weapon on the crutch. This time two or three voice's were raised, gibing him; the crowd was growing jealous of its champion's reputation. I longed to be down among them, and I saw my lady's eyes flash and her colour rise. She looked indignantly at Tzerclas. But the general's face was set. He did not seem to hear.
Flash! Plop! In a moment I was shouting with the rest, shouting lustily for the honour of the house! The Waldgrave had lodged his ball in the upper part of the face towards the right-hand side. If Waska had put in the one eye, he had put in the other.
We shouted. But the camp hung silent, gloomily wondering whether this were luck or skill. And the general stood silent too. It was not until my lady had cried, 'Vivat! Vivat Weimar!' in her frank, brave voice, that he spoke and echoed the compliment.
When he had spoken, sullen silence fell upon the crowd again. I saw men look at us--not pleasantly; until the Scot by taking his place at the crutch diverted their attention. It seemed to me that he was an hour arranging the rest and his weapon, scraping his priming this way and that, and putting in a fresh flint at the last moment. At length he fired. A roar of laughter followed. He had missed the target altogether.
How it was arranged I do not know, but we saw at once that Waska and the Waldgrave were about to take another shot. The Bohemian, as he levelled his weapon with care, looked up at us.
'We have put in his eyes,' he said in his guttural tones. 'I propose to put in his nose. If his excellency can better that, I give him the bone.'
He aimed very diligently, amid such a silence you could have heard a feather drop, and fired. He did as he had promised. His ball pierced the very middle of the face, a little below and between the two shots.
A wild roar of applause greeted the achievement. Even we who felt our honour at stake shouted with the rest and threw up our caps; while my lady took off in her admiration a slender gold chain which she wore round her neck and flung it to the champion, crying 'Vivat Bohemia! Vivat Waska!'
He bowed with grotesque gallantry, and one of the bystanders picked up the chain and gave it to him. We smiled; for, too fat to kneel or stoop, he could no more have recovered the gift himself than he could have taken wings and flown. Fraulein Anna muttered something about Tantalus and water, but I did not understand her, and in a moment the Waldgrave gave me something else to think about.
He stepped forward when the noise and cheering had somewhat subsided, and like his antagonist he looked up also.
'I do not see what there is left for me to do,' he said, with a gallant air. 'I could give him a mouth, but I fear I may set it on awry.'
Thrice he took aim, and, dissatisfied, forbore to fire. The crowd, silent at first, and confident of their champion's victory, began to jeer. At length he pulled. Plop! The smoke cleared away. An inch below Waska's last shot appeared another orifice. The Waldgrave had put in the mouth.
We waved our caps and shouted until we were hoarse; and the crowd shouted. But it soon became evident, amid the universal clamour and uproar, that there were two parties: one acclaiming the Waldgrave's success, and another and larger one crying fiercely that he was beaten--that he was beaten! that his shot was not so near the centre of the target as Count Waska's. The Waldgrave's promise to make the mouth had been heard by a few only, mainly his friends; and while these, headed by the Bohemian, who showed that his clumsy carcase still contained some sparks of chivalry, tried to explain the matter to others, the camp with one voice bellowed against him, the more excited brandishing fists and weapons in the air, while the less moved kept up a stubborn and monotonous chant of 'Waska! Waska! Waska!'
The only person unaffected by the tumult appeared to be the Waldgrave himself; who stood looking up at us in silence, a smile on his face. Presently, the noise still continuing, I saw him clap Count Waska on the shoulder, and the two shook hands. The Count seemed by his gestures--for the uproar and tumult were so great that all was done in dumb show--to be deprecating his retreat. But the younger man persisted, and by-and-by, after saluting the other competitors, he turned away, and began to force his way up the mound. It was time he did; the crowd had burst its bounds and flooded the range. The scene below was now a sea of wild confusion.
Such an ending seemed stupid in the extreme; in any place where ordinary discipline prevailed, it would have been easy to procure silence and restore order. And my lady, her face flushed with indignation, turned impatiently to the general, to see if he would not interfere. But he was, or he affected to be, powerless. He shrugged his shoulders with an indulgent smile, and a moment later, seeing the Waldgrave on his way to join us and the crowd still persistent, he gave the word to retire. The officers, who in the last hour had pressed on us inconveniently, fell back, and waiting only for the Waldgrave to reach his horse, we rode down the mound, and turned our faces towards the camp.
For a space, and while the uproar still rang in my ears, I could scarcely speak for indignation. Then came a reaction. I saw my lady's face as she rode alongside the Waldgrave and talked to him. And my spirits rose. General Tzerclas had the place on her other hand, but she had not a word for him. It was not so much that the young lord had distinguished himself and done well, but that in an awkward position he had borne himself with dignity and self-control. That pleased her.
I saw her eyes shine as she looked at him, and her mouth grow tender; and I told myself with exultation that the Waldgrave had done something more than rival Waska--he had scored the first hit in the fight, and that no light one. The general would be wise, if he looked to his guard; fortunate, if he did not look too late.