I did not after that suffer the grass to grow under my feet. I went out, and with my own eyes searched the fields at the back, and every ditch and water-hole. I had the loss cried in the camp, my lady on her return offered a reward, we sent even to the nearer villages, we patrolled the roads, we omitted nothing that could by any chance avail us. Yet evening fell, and night, and found us still searching; and no nearer, as far as we could see, to success. The child was gone mysteriously. Left to play alone for two minutes in the stillness of the afternoon, he had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.
Baffled, we began to ask, while Marie sat pale and brooding in a corner, or now and again stole to the door to listen, who could have taken him and with what motive? There were men and women in the camp capable of anything. It seemed probable to some that these had stolen the child for the sake of his clothes. Others suggested witchcraft. But in my own mind, I leaned to neither of these theories. I suspected, though I dared not utter the thought, that the general had done it. Without knowing how much of the story Count Hugo had confided to him, I took it as certain that the father had said enough to apprise him of the boy's value. And this being so, what more probable than that the general, whom I was prepared to credit with any atrocity, had taken instant steps to possess himself of the child?
My lady said and did all that was kind on the occasion, and for a few hours it occupied all our thoughts. At the end of that time, however, about sunset, General Tzerclas rode to the door, and with him, to my surprise, the Waldgrave. They would see her, and detained her so long that when she sent for me on their departure, I was sore on Marie's, account, and inclined to blame her as indifferent to our loss. But a single glance at her face put another colour on the matter. I saw that something had occurred to excite and disturb her.
'Martin,' she said earnestly, 'I am going to employ you on an errand of importance. Listen to me and do not interrupt me. General Tzerclas starts to-morrow with the larger part of his forces to intercept one of Wallenstein's convoys, which is expected to pass twelve leagues to the south of this. There will be sharp fighting, I am told, and my cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert, is going. He is not at present--I mean, I am afraid he may do something rash. He is young,' my lady continued with dignity and a heightened colour, 'and I wish he would stay here. But he will not.'
I guessed at once that this affair of the convoy was the business which had brought Count Hugo to the camp. And I was beginning to consider what advantage we might make of it, and whether the general's absence might not afford us both a pretext for departure and the opportunity, when my lady's next words dispelled my visions.
'I want you,' she said slowly, 'to go with him. He has a high opinion of you, and will listen to you.'
'The general?' I cried in amazement.
'Who spoke of him?' she exclaimed angrily. 'I said the Waldgrave Rupert. I wish you to go with him to see that he does not run any unnecessary risk.'
I coughed dryly, and stood silent.
'Well?' my lady said with a frown. 'Do you understand?'
'I understand, my lady,' I answered firmly; 'but I cannot go.'
'You cannot go!when I send you!' she murmured, unable, I think, to believe her ears. 'Why not, sirrah? Why not, if you please?'
'Because my first duty is to your excellency,' I stammered. 'And as long as you are here, I dare not--and will not leave you!'
'As long as I am here!' she retorted, red with anger and surprise. 'You have still that maggot in your head, then? By my soul, Master Martin, if we were at home I would find means to drive it out! But I know what it is! What you really want is to stay by the side of that puling girl! Oh, I am not blind,' my lady continued viciously, seeing that she had found at last the way to hurt me. 'I know what has been going on.'
'But Count Leuchtenstein----' I muttered.
'Don't bring him in!' my lady cried, in such a voice that I dared go no farther. 'General Tzerclas has told me of him. I understand what is between them, and you do not. Presumptuous booby!' she continued, flashing at me a glance of scorn, which made me tremble. 'But I will thwart you! Since you will not leave me, I will go myself. I will go, but Mistress Marie shall stay here till we return.'
'But if there is to be fighting?' I said humbly.
'Ah! So you have changed your note, have you!' she cried triumphantly. I had seldom seen her more moved. 'If there is to be fighting'--she mocked my tone. 'Well, there is to be, but I shall go. And now do you go, and have all ready for a start at daybreak, or it will be the worse for you! One of my women will accompany me. Fraulein Anna will stay here with your--other mistress!'
She pointed to the door as she spoke, and once more charged me to be ready; and I went away dazed. Everything seemed on a sudden to be turned upside down--the child lost, my lady offended, the Waldgrave desperate, the general in favour. It was hard to see which way my duty lay. I would fain have stayed in the camp a day to make farther search for the child, but I must go. I would gladly have got clear of the camp, but we were to travel in the general's company. As to leaving Marie, my lady wronged me. I knew of no special danger which threatened the girl, nor any reason why she should not be safe where she was. If the child were found she would be here to receive it.
On the other hand, there was my discovery of the beggar's fate, from the immediate consequences of which Count Hugo's arrival had saved me. This sudden expedition should favour me there; the general would have his hands full of other things, and Ludwig be hard put to it to gain his ear. I might now, if I pleased, discover the matter to my lady, and open her eyes. But I had no proof; even if time permitted, and I could take the Countess to that part of the camp, I could not be sure that the body was still there. And to accuse General Tzerclas of such a thing without proof would be to court my own ruin.
While I was puzzling over this, I saw the Waldgrave outside, and, thinking to profit by his advice, I went to meet him. But I found him in a peculiar mood, talking, laughing, and breaking into snatches of song; all with a wildness andabandonthat frightened while they puzzled me. He laughed at my doubts, and walking up and down, while his servants scoured his breast-piece and cleaned his harness by the light of a lantern, he persisted in talking of nothing but the expedition before us and the pleasure of striking a blow or two.
'We are rusting, man!' he cried feverishly, clapping me on the back. 'You have the rust on you yet, Martin But--
"Clink, clink, clink!Sword and stirrup and spur!Ride, ride, ride,Fast as feather or fur!"
"Clink, clink, clink!
Sword and stirrup and spur!
Ride, ride, ride,
Fast as feather or fur!"
To-morrow or the next day we will have it off.'
'You have heard about the child, my lord,' I said gravely, trying to bring him back to the present.
'I have heard that Von Werder, the dullest man at a board I ever met, turns out to be Hugo of Leuchtenstein, whom God preserve!' he answered recklessly. 'And that your girl's brat of a brother turns out to be his brat! And no sooner is the father found than the son is lost; and that both have gone as mysteriously as they came. But Himmel! man, what's the odds when we are going to fight to-morrow! What compares with that? Ça! ça! steady and the point!'
I thought of Marie; and it seemed to me that there were other things in the world besides fighting. For love makes a man both brave and a coward. But the argument would scarcely have been to the Waldgrave's mind, and, seeing that he would neither talk nor hear reason, I left him and went away to make my preparations.
But on the road next day I noticed that though now and then he flashed into the same wild merriment, he was on the whole as dull as he had been gay. Our party rode at the head of the column, that we might escape the dust and have the best of the road, the general and his principal officers accompanying us and leaving the guidance of the march to inferiors. Our force consisted of about six hundred horse and four hundred foot; and as we were to return to the camp, we took with us neither sutlers nor ordinary baggage, while camp followers were interdicted under pain of death. Yet the amount of our impedimenta astonished me. Half a dozen sumpter horses were needed to carry the general's tent and equipage; his officers required a score more. The ammunition for the foot soldiers, who were sufficiently burdened with their heavy matchlocks, provided farther loads; and in fine, while supposed to be marching in light fighting order, we had something like a hundred packhorses in our train. Then there were men to lead them, and cooks and pages and foot-boys and the general's band, and but that our way lay through woodland tracks and by-routes, I verily believe that we should have had his coach and dwarf also.
The sight of all these men and horses in motion was so novel and exhilarating, and the morning air so brisk, that I soon recovered from my parting with Marie, and began to take a more cheerful view of the position. I came near to sympathizing with my lady, whose pleasure and delight knew no bounds. The long lines of horsemen winding through the wood, the trailing pikes and waving pennons, gratified her youthful fancy for war; while as our march lay through the forest, she was shocked by none of those traces of its ravages which had appalled us on first leaving Heritzburg. The general waited on her with the utmost attention, riding by her bridle-rein and talking with her by the hour together. Whenever I looked at them I noticed that her eye was bright and her colour high, and I guessed that he was unfolding the plan of ambition which I was sure he masked under a cold and reserved demeanour. Alas! I could think of nothing more likely to take my lady's fancy, no course more sure to enlist her sympathy and interest. But I was helpless; I could do nothing. And for the Waldgrave, if he still had any power he would not use it.
My lady gave him opportunities. Several times I saw her try to draw him into conversation, and whenever General Tzerclas left her for a while she turned to the younger man and would have talked to him. But he seemed unable to respond. When he was not noisily gay, he rode like a mute. He seemed half sullen, half afraid; and she presently gave him up, but not before her efforts had caught Tzerclas' eye. The general had been called for some purpose to the rear of the column, and on his return found the two talking, my lady's attitude such that it was very evident she was the provocant. He did not try to resume his place, but fell in behind them; and riding there, almost, if not quite, within earshot, cast such ugly glances at them as more than confirmed me in the belief that in his own secret way he loved my mistress; and that, after a more dangerous fashion than the Waldgrave.
pg 190The general waited on her with the utmost attention, riding by her bridle-rein ...
This was late in the afternoon, and another hour brought us who marched at the head of the column to our camping-ground for the night. We lay in a rugged, wooded valley, not very commodious, but chosen because only one high ridge divided it from a second valley, through which the main road and the river had their course. Our instructions were that the convoy, which was bound for Wallenstein's army then marching on Nuremberg, would pass through this second valley some time during the following day; but until the hour came for making the proper dispositions, all persons in our force were forbidden to mount the intervening ridge under pain of death. We had even to do without fires--lest the smoke should betray our presence--and for this one night lay under something like the strict discipline which I had expected to find prevailing in a military camp. The only fire that was permitted cooked the general's meal, which he shared with my lady and the Waldgrave and the principal officers.
Even so the order caused trouble. The pikemen and musketeers did not come in till an hour before midnight, when they trudged into camp dusty and footsore and murmuring at their leaders. When, in this state, they learned that fires were not to be lighted, disgust grew rapidly into open disobedience. On a sudden, in half a dozen quarters at once, flames flickered up, and the camp, dark before, became peopled in a moment with strange forms, whose eighteen-foot weapons and cumbrous headpieces flung long shadows across the valley.
We had lain down to rest, but at the sound of the altercation and the various cries of 'Pikes! Pikes!' and 'Mutiny!' which broke out, we came out of our lairs in the bracken to learn what was happening. Calling young Jacob and three or four of the Heritzburg men to my side, I ran to my lady to see that nothing befell her in the confusion. The noise had roused her, and we found her at the door of her tent looking out. The newly-kindled fires, flaming and crackling on the sloping sides of the valley, lit up a strange scene of disorder--of hurrying men and plunging horses, for the alarm had extended to the horse lines--and for a moment I thought that the mutiny might spread and cut the knot of our difficulties, or whelm us all in the same ruin.
I had scarcely conceived the thought, when the general passed near us on his way from his tent, whence he had just been called; and at the sight my new-born hopes vanished. He was bare-headed; he carried no arms, and had nothing in his hand but a riding-switch. But the stern, grim aspect of his face, in which was no mercy and no quailing, was worth a thousand pikes. The firelight shone on his pale, olive cheek and brooding eyes, as he went by us, not seeing us; and after that I did not doubt what would happen, although for a moment the tumult of oaths and cries seemed to swell rather than sink, and I saw more than one pale-lipped officer climbing into his saddle that he might be able to fly, if necessary.
The issue agreed with my expectations. The heart of the disorder lay in a part of the camp separated from our quarters by a brook, but near enough in point of distance; so that we saw, my lady and all, pretty clearly what followed. For a moment, for a few seconds, during which you could hear a pin drop through the camp, the general stood, his life in the balance, unarmed in the midst of armed men. But he had that set courage which seems to daunt the common sort and paralyse the finger on the trigger; and he prevailed. The knaves lowered their weapons and shrank back cowering before him. In a twinkling the fires were beaten out by a hundred eager feet, and the general strode back to us through the silent, obsequious camp.
He distinguished my lady standing at the door of her tent, and stepped aside. 'I am sorry that you have been disturbed, Countess,' he said politely. 'It shall not occur again. I will hang up a dozen of those hounds to-morrow, and we shall have less barking.'
'You are not hurt?' my lady asked, in a voice unlike her own.
He laughed, deigning no answer in words. Then he said, 'You have no fire? Camp rules are not for you. Pray have one lit.' And he went on to his tent.
I had the curiosity to pass near it when my lady retired. I found a dozen men, cuirassiers of his privileged troop, peeping and squinting under the canvas which had been hung round the fire. I joined them and looked; and saw him lying at length, wrapped in his cloak, reading 'Cæsar's Campaigns' by the light of the blaze, as if nothing had happened.
He was as good as his word. Before the sun had been up an hour six of the mutineers, chosen by lot from a hundred of the more guilty, dangled from a great tree which overhung the brook, and were already forgotten--so short are soldiers' memories--in the hurry and bustle of a new undertaking. The slope of the ridge which divided us from the neighbouring valley was quickly dotted with parties of men making their way up it, through bracken and furze which reached nearly to the waist; while the horse under Count Waska rode slowly off to make the circuit of the hill and enter the next valley by an easier road.
My lady chose to climb the hill on foot, in the track of the pikemen, though the heavy dew, which the sun had not yet drunk up, soon drenched her skirts, and she might, had she willed it, have been carried to the top on men's shoulders. The fern and long grass delayed her and made our progress slow, so that the general's dispositions were in great part made when we reached the summit. Busy as he still was, however, he had eyes for us. He came at once and placed us in a small coppice of fir trees that crowned one of the knobs of the ridge. From this point, where he took up his own position, we could command, ourselves unseen, the whole valley, the road, and river--the scene of the coming surprise--and see clearly, what no one below could discern, where our footmen lay in ambush in parties of fifty; the pikemen among some black thorns, close to the north end of the valley, the musketmen a little farther within and almost immediately below us. The latter, prone in the fern, looked, viewed from above, like lines of sheep feeding, until the light gleamed on a gun-barrel or sword-hilt and dispelled the peaceful illusion.
The sun had not yet risen above the hill on which we stood, and the valley below us lay cool and green and very pleasant to the eye. About a league in length, it was nowhere, except at its southern extremity, where it widened into a small plain, more than half a mile across. At its northern end, below us, and a little to the right, it diminished to a mere wooded defile, through which the river ran over rocks and boulders, with a dull roar that came plainly to our ears. A solitary house of some size, with two or three hovels clustered about it, stood near the middle of the valley; but no smoke rose from the chimney, no cock crowed, no dog barked. And, looking more closely, I saw that the place was deserted.
So quiet it seemed in this peaceful Thuringian valley, I shuddered when I thought of the purpose which brought us hither; and I saw my lady's face grow sad with a like reflection. But General Tzerclas viewed all with another mind. The stillness, the sunshine, the very song of the lark, as it rose up and up and up above us, and, still unwearied, sang its song of praise, touched no chord in his breast. The quietude pleased him, but only because it favoured his plans; the lark's hymn, because it covered with a fair mask his lurking ambush; the sunshine, because it seemed a good augury. His keen and vigilant eye, the smile which curled his lip, the set expression of his face, showed that he saw before him a battle-field and no more; a step upwards--a triumph, a victory, and that was all.
I blamed him then. I confess now, I misjudged him. He who leads on such occasions risks more than his life, and bears a weight of responsibility that may well crush from his mind all moods or thoughts of weather. At least, I did him, I had to do him, this justice: that he betrayed no anxiety, uttered no word of doubt or misgiving. Standing with his back against a tree and his eyes on the northern pass, he remained placidly silent, or talked at his ease. In this he contrasted well with the Waldgrave, who continually paced up and down in the background, as if the fir-grove were a prison and he a captive waiting to be freed.
'At what hour should they be here?' my lady asked presently, breaking a long silence.
She tried to speak in her ordinary tone, but her voice sounded uncertain. A woman, however brave, is a woman still. It began to dawn upon her that things were going to happen which it might be unpleasant to see, and scarcely more pleasant to remember.
'I am afraid I cannot say,' the general answered lightly. 'I have done my part; I am here. Between this and night they should be here too.'
'Unless they have been warned.'
'Precisely,' he answered,' unless they have been warned.'
After that my lady composed herself anew, and the day wore on, in desultory conversation and a grim kind of picnic. Noon came, and afternoon, and the Countess grew nervous and irritable. But General Tzerclas, though the hours, as they passed without event, without bringing that for which he waited, must have tried him severely, showed to advantage throughout. He was ready to talk, satisfied to be silent. Late in the day, when my lady, drowsy with the heat, dozed a little, he brought out his Cæsar, and read, in it, as if nothing depended on the day, and he were the most indifferent of spectators. She awoke and found him reading, and, for a time, sat staring at him, wondering where she was. At last she remembered. She sat up with a start, and gazed at him.
'Are we still waiting?' she said.
'We are still waiting,' he answered, closing his book with a smile. 'But,' he continued, a moment later, 'I think I hear something now. Keep back a little, if you please, Countess.'
We all stood up among the trees, listening, and presently, though the murmuring of the river in the pass prevented us hearing duller sounds, a sharp noise, often repeated, came to our ears. It resembled the snapping of sticks under foot.
'Whips!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Stand back, if you please.'
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a handful of horsemen appeared on a sudden in the road below us. They came on like tired men, some with their feet dangling, some sitting sideways on their horses. Many had kerchiefs wound round their heads, and carried their steel caps at the saddle-bow; others nodded in their seats, as if asleep. They were abreast of our pikemen when we first saw them, and we watched them advance, until a couple of hundred yards brought them into line with the musketmen. These, too, they passed without suspicion, and so went jolting and clinking down the valley, every man with a bundle at his crupper, and strange odds and ends banging and swinging against his horse's sides.
Two hundred paces behind them the first waggon appeared, dragged slowly on by four labouring horses, and guarded by a dozen foot soldiers--heavy-browed fellows, lounging along beside the wheels, with their hands in their breeches pockets. Their long, trailing weapons they had tied at the tail of the waggon. Close on their heels came another waggon creaking and groaning, and another, and another, with a drowsy, stumbling train of teamsters and horse-boys, and here and there an officer or a knot of men-at-arms. But the foot soldiers had mostly climbed up into the waggons, and lay sprawling on the loads, with arms thrown wide, and heads rolling from side to side with each movement of the straining team.
We watched eighty of these waggons go by; the first must have been a mile and more in front of the last. After them followed a disorderly band of stragglers, among whom were some women. Then a thick, solid cloud of dust, far exceeding all that had gone before, came down the pass. It advanced by fits and starts, now plunging forward, now halting, while the heart of it gave forth a dull roaring sound that rose above the murmur of the river.
'Cattle!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Five hundred head, I should say. There can be nothing behind that dust. Be ready, trumpeter.'
The man he addressed stood a few paces behind us; and at intervals along the ridge others lay hidden, ready to pass the signal to an officer stationed on the farthest knob, who as soon as he heard the call would spring up, and with a flag pass the order to the cavalry below him.
The suspense of the moment was such, it seemed an age before the general gave the word. He stood and appeared to calculate, now looking keenly towards the head of the convoy, which was fast disappearing in a haze of dust, now gazing down at the bellowing, struggling, wavering mass below us. At length, when the cattle had all but cleared the pass, he raised his hand and cried sharply--
'Now!'
The harsh blare of the trumpet pierced the upper stillness in which we stood. It was repeated--repeated again; then it died away shrilly in the distance. In its place, hoarse clamour filled the valley below us. We pressed forward to see what was happening.
The surprise was complete; and yet it was a sorry sight we saw down in the bottom, where the sunshine was dying, and guns were flashing, and men were chasing one another in the grey evening light. Our musketmen, springing out of ambush, had shot down the horses of the last half-dozen waggons, and, when we looked, were falling pell-mell upon the unlucky troop of stragglers who followed. These, flying all ways, filled the air with horrid screams. Farther to the rear, our pikemen had seized the pass, and penning the cattle into it rendered escape by that road hopeless. Forward, however, despite the confusion and dismay, things were different. Our cavalry did not appear--the dust prevented us seeing what they were doing. And here the enemy had a moment's respite, a moment in which to think, to fly, to stand on their defence.
And soon, while we looked on breathless, it was evident that they were taking advantage of it. Possibly the general had not counted on the dust or the lateness of the hour. He began to gaze forward towards the head of the column, and to mutter savagely at the footmen below us, who seemed more eager to overtake the fugitives and strip the dead, than to press forward and break down opposition. He sent down Ludwig with orders; then another.
But the mischief was done already, and still the cavalry did not appear; being delayed, as we afterwards learned, by an unforeseen brook. Some one with a head on his shoulders had quickly drawn together all those among the enemy who could fight, or had a mind to fight. We saw two waggons driven out of the line, and in a moment overturned; in a twinkling the panic-stricken troopers and teamsters had a haven in which they could stand at bay.
Its value was soon proved. A company of our musketeers, pursuing some stragglers through the medley of flying horses and maddened cattle which covered the ground near the pass, came upon this rude fortress, and charged against it, recklessly, or in ignorance. In a moment a volley from the waggons laid half a dozen on the ground. The rest fell back, and scattered hither and thither. They were scarcely dispersed before a handful of the enemy's officers and mounted men came riding back from the front. Stabbing their horses in the intervals between the waggons, they took post inside. Every moment others, some with arms and some without, came straggling up. When our cavalry at last arrived on the scene, there were full three hundred men in the waggon work, and these the flower of the enemy. All except one had dismounted. This one, a man on a white charger, seemed to be the soul of the defence.
Our horse, flushed with triumph and yelling loudly, came down the line like a torrent, sabreing all who fell in their way. Half rode on one side of the convoy and half on the other. They had met with no resistance hitherto, and expected none, and, like the musketmen, were on the barricade before they knew of its existence. In the open, the stoutest hedgehog of pikes could scarcely have resisted a charge driven home with such blind recklessness; but behind the waggons it was different. Every interstice bristled with pike-heads, while the musketmen poured in a deadly fire from the waggon-tops. For a few seconds the place belched flame and smoke. Two or three score of the foremost assailants went down horse and man. The rest, saving themselves as best they could, swerved off to either side amid a roar of execrations and shouts of triumph.
My lady, trembling with horror, had long ago retired. She would no longer look. The Waldgrave, too, was gone; with her, I supposed. Half the general's attendants had been sent down the hill, some with one order, some with another. In this crisis--for I saw clearly that it was a crisis, and that if the defenders could hold out until darkness fell, the issue must be doubtful--I turned to look at our commander. He was still cool, but his brow was dark with passion. At one moment he stepped forward as if to go down into themêlée; the next he repressed the impulse. The level rays of the sun which just caught the top of the hill shone in our eyes, while dust and smoke began to veil the field. We could still make out that the cavalry were sweeping round and round the barricade, pouring in now and then a volley of pistol shots; but they appeared to be suffering more loss than they caused.
Given a ring of waggons in the open, stoutly defended by resolute men, and I know nothing more difficult to reduce. Gazing in a kind of fascination into the depths where the smoke whirled and eddied, as the steam rolls this way and that on a caldron, I was wondering what I should do were I in command, when I saw on a sudden what some one was doing; and I heard General Tzerclas utter an oath of relief. Back from the front of the convoy came three waggons, surrounded and urged on by a mob of footmen; jolting and bumping over the uneven ground, and often nearly overturned, still they came on, and behind them a larger troop of men. Finally they came almost abreast of the enemy's position, and some thirty paces to one side of it. There perforce they stayed, for the leading horses fell shot; but it was near enough. In an instant our men swarmed up behind them and began to fire volleys into the enemy's fortress, while the horse moving to and fro at a little distance forbade any attempt at a sally.
'That man has a head on his shoulders!' General Tzerclas muttered between his teeth. 'That is Ludwig! Now we have them!'
But I saw that it was not Ludwig; and presently the general saw it too. I read it in his face. The man who had brought up the waggons, and who could still be seen exposing himself, mounted and bare-headed in the hottest of the fire, ordering, threatening, inciting, leading, so that we could almost hear his voice where we stood, was the Waldgrave! His blue velvet cloak and bright fair head were unmistakable, though darkness was fast closing over the fight, and it was only at intervals that we could see anything through the pall of smoke.
'Vivat Weimar!' I cried involuntarily, a glow of warmth and pride coursing through my veins. In that moment I loved the young man as if he had been my son.
The next I fell from the clouds. What would my lady say if anything happened to him? What should I say if I stood by and saw him fall? And he with no headpiece, breast or back! It was madness of him to expose himself! I started forward, stung by the thought, and before I knew what I was doing--for, in fact, I could have done no good--I was on the slope and descending the hill. Almost at the same moment the general gave the word to those who remained with him, and began to descend also. The hill was steep there, and it took us five minutes to reach the scene of action.
If I had foolishly thought that I could do anything, I was disappointed. By this time the battle was over. Manning every waggon within range, and pouring in a steady fire, our sharp-shooters had thinned the ranks behind the barricade. The enemy's fire had first slackened, and then ceased. A little later, one wing, unable to bear the shower of shot, had broken and tried to fly, and in a moment our pikemen had gained the work.
We heard the flight and pursuit go wailing up the valley, but the disorder, and darkness, and noise at the foot of the hill where we found ourselves, were such that I stood scared and bewildered, uncertain which way to turn or whither to go. On every side of me men were stripping the dead, the wounded were crying for water, and cattle and horses, wounded or maddened, were rushing up and down among broken waggons and prostrate loads. Such eyes of cruelty and greed glared at me out of the gloom, such shouts cursed me across dead men that I drew my sword and carried it drawn. But the scene robbed me of half my faculties; I did not know which way to turn; I did not know what to do; and until I came upon Ludwig, I wandered aimlessly about, looking for the Waldgrave without plan or system. It was my first experience of the darker side of war, and it surpassed in horror anything I had imagined or thought possible.
Ludwig, badly wounded in the leg, I found under a waggon. I had stood beside him some time without seeing him, and he had not spoken. But when I moved away I suppose he recognized my figure or step, for when I had gone a few paces I heard a hoarse voice calling my name. I went cautiously back to the waggon, and after a moment's search detected him peering from under it with a white, fierce face, which reminded me of a savage creature at bay.
'Hallo!' I said. 'Why did you not speak before, man?'
'Get me some water,' he whispered painfully. 'Water, for the love of Heaven!'
I told him that I had no flask or bottle, or I should before this have fetched some for others'. He gave me his, and I was starting off when I remembered that he might know how the Waldgrave had fared. I asked him.
'He led the pursuit,' he muttered. 'He is all right.' Then, as I was again turning away, he clutched my arm and continued, 'Have you a pistol?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Lend it to me until you come back,' he gasped. 'If these vultures find me they will finish me. I know them. That is better. I shall win through yet.'
I marked where his waggon stood, and left him. The river was distant less than a quarter of a mile, but it lay low, and the banks were steep; and in the darkness it was not easy to find a way down to the water. Succeeding at last--and how still and peaceful it seemed as I bent over the gently flowing surface and heard the plash and gurgle of the willows in the stream!--I filled my bottle and climbed back to the plain level. Here I found a change in progress. At intervals up and down the valley great fires had been kindled. Some of these, burning high already, lit up the wrecked convoy and the dark groups that moved round it, and even threw a red, uncertain glare far up the slopes of the hills. Aided by the light, I hastened back, and finding Ludwig without much difficulty, held the bottle to his lips. He seemed nearly gone, but the draught revived him marvellously.
When he had drunk I asked him if I could do anything else for him. He looked already more like himself.
'Yes,' he said, propping his back against the wheel and speaking with his usual hardihood. 'Tell our little general where I am. That is all. I shall do now we have light. I am not afraid of these skulkers any longer. But here, friend Martin. You asked about your Waldgrave just now?'
'Yes,' I said. 'Has he returned?'
'He never went,' he replied coolly. 'But if I had told you when you first asked me, you would not have gone for water for me. He is down. He fell, as nearly as I can remember, on the farther side of the second fire from here.'
With a curse I ran from him, raging, and searched round that fire and the next, like one beside himself. Many of the dead lay stripped to the skin, so that it was necessary to examine faces. And this ghastly task, performed with trembling fingers and by an uncertain light, took a long time. There were men prowling about with knives and bundles, whom I more than once interrupted in their work; but the sight of my pistol, and my face--for I was full of fierce loathing and would have shot them like rats--drove them off wherever I came. Not once but many times the wounded and dying begged me to stay by them and protect them; but my water was at an end and my time was not my own. I left them, and ran from place to place in a fever of dread, which allowed of no rest or relaxation. At last, when I had well-nigh given up hope, I found him lying half-stripped among a heap of dead and wounded, at the farthest corner of the barricade.
All his finery was gone, and his handsome face and fair hair were stained and bedabbled with dust and blood. But he was not dead. I could feel his heart beating faintly in his breast; and though he lay senseless and showed no other signs of life, I was thankful to find hope remained. I bore him out tenderly, and laid him down by himself and moistened his lips with the drainings of my flask. But what next? I could not leave him; the plunderers who had already robbed him might return at any moment. And yet, without cordials, and coverings, and many things I had not, the feeble spark of life left in him must go out. I stood up and looked round in despair. A lurid glare, a pitiful wailing, a passing of dark figures filled the valley. A hundred round us needed help; a hundred were beyond help. There were none to give it.
I was about to raise him in my arms and carry him in search of it--though I feared the effect of the motion on his wounds--when, to my joy and relief, the measured tramp of footsteps broke on my ears, and I distinguished with delight a party of men approaching with torches. A few mounted officers followed them, and two waggons creaked slowly behind. They were collecting the wounded.
I ran to meet them. 'Quick!' I cried breathlessly. 'This way!'
'Not so fast!' a harsh voice interposed; and, looking up, I saw that the general himself was directing the party. 'Not so fast, my friend,' he repeated. 'Who is it?' and leaning forward in his saddle, he looked down at me.
'The Waldgrave Rupert,' I answered impatiently. 'He is hurt almost to death. But he is alive, and may live, your excellency. Only direct them to come quickly.'
Sitting on his horse in the full glare of the torches, he gazed down at me, his face wearing a strange expression of hesitation. 'He is alive?' he said at last.
'Yes, at present. But he will soon be dead if we do not go to him,' I retorted. 'This way! He lies yonder.'
'Lead on!' the general said.
I obeyed, and a moment brought our party to the spot, where the Waldgrave still lay insensible, his face pale and drawn, his eyes half open and disclosing the whites. Under the glare of the torches he looked so like a corpse and so far beyond aid, that it was not until I had again thrust my hand into his breast, and felt the movement of his heart that I was reassured.
As for the general, after looking down at him for awhile, he said quietly, 'He is dead.'
'Not so, your excellency,' I answered, rising briskly from my knees. 'He is stunned. That is all.'
'He is dead,' the general replied coldly. 'Leave him. We must help those first who need help.'
They were actually turning away. They had moved a couple of paces before I could believe it. Then I sprang to the general's rein.
'You mistake, your excellency!' I cried, my voice shrill with excitement. 'In Heaven's name, stop! He is alive! I can feel his breathing. I swear that he is alive!' I was trembling with emotion and terror.
'He is dead!' he said harshly. 'Stand back!'
Then I understood. In a flash his wicked purpose lay bared before me, and I knew that he was playing with me; I read in the cold, derisive menace of his eye that he knew the Waldgrave lived, that he knew he might live, might survive, might see the dawn, and that he was resolved that he should not. The perspiration sprang out on my brow. I choked with indignation.
'Mein Gott!' I cried breathless, 'and but for him you would have been beaten.'
'Stand back!' he muttered through his closed teeth; and his eyes flickered with rage. 'Are you tired of your life, man?'
'Ay, if you live!' I roared; and I shook his rein so that his horse reared and almost unseated him. But still I clung to it. 'Come back! Come back!' I cried, mad with passion, wild with indignation at treachery so vile, so cold-blooded, 'or I will heave you from your horse, you villain! I will----'
I stumbled as I spoke over a broken shaft of a waggon, and in a moment half a dozen strong arms closed round me. I was down and up again and again down. I fought savagely, passionately, at the last desperately, having that cold, sneering face before me, and knowing that it was for my life. But they were many to one. They crushed me down and knelt on me, and presently I lay panting and quiet. One of the men who held me had unsheathed his dagger and stood looking to the general for a signal. I closed my eyes expecting the blow, and involuntarily drew in my breast, as if that poor effort might avert the stroke.
But the general did not give the signal. He sat gazing down at me with a ruthless smile on his face. 'Tie him up,' he said slowly, when he had enjoyed his triumph to the full. 'Tie him up tightly. When we get back to the camp we will have a shooting-match, and he shall find us sport. You knave!' he continued, riding up to me in a paroxysm of anger, and slashing me across the face with his riding-whip so cruelly that the flesh rose in great wheals, and I fell back into the men's arms blind and shuddering with pain, 'I have had my eye on you! But you will work me no more mischief. Throw him into the waggon there,' he continued. 'Tie up his mouth if he makes a noise. Has any one seen Ludwig?'
The dawn came slowly. Night, loth to unveil what the valley had to show, hung there long after the wooded knobs that rose along the ridge had begun to appear, looking like grey and misty islands in a sea of vapour. Many cried for the light--what night passes that some do not?--but none more impatiently than a woman, whose unquiet figure began with the first glimmer to pace the top of the hill. Sometimes she walked to and fro with her face to the sky; sometimes she stood and peered into the depths where the fires still glowed fitfully; or again listened with shrinking ears to the wailing that rose out of the darkness.
It was the Countess. She had lain down, because they had bidden her do so, and told her that nothing could be done while night lasted. But with the first dawn she was on foot, so impatient that her own people dared not come near her, so imperious that the general's troopers crept away abashed.
The fight in the valley and the dreadful things she had seen and heard at nightfall had shaken her nerves. The absence of her friends had finished the work. She was almost distraught this morning. If this was war--this merciless butchery, this infliction of horrible pain on man and beast--their screams still rang in her ears--she had seen enough. Only let her get her friends back, and escape to some place where these things would not happen, and she asked no more.
The light, as it grew stronger, the sun, as it rose, filling the sky with glory, failed to comfort her; for the one disclosed the dead, lying white and stripped in the valley below, like a flock of sheep grazing, the other seemed by its very cheerfulness to mock her. She was raging like a lioness, when the general at last appeared, and came towards her, his hat in his hand.
His eye had still the brightness, his cheek the flush of victory. He had lain much of the night, thinking his own thoughts, until he had become so wrapped in himself and his plans that his shrewdness was for once at fault, and he failed to read the signs in her face which his own soldiers had interpreted. He was all fire and triumph; she, sick of bloodshed and ambition. For the first time since they had come together, she was likely to see him as he was.
'Countess,' he said, as he stopped before her, 'you will do yourself harm, I fear. You were on foot, I am told, before it was light.'
'It is true,' she said, shuddering and restraining herself by an effort.
'It was foolish,' he replied. 'You may be sure that as soon as anything is heard the news will be brought to you. And to be missing is not to be dead--necessarily.'
'Thank you,' she answered, her lip quivering. She flashed a look of scorn at him, but he did not see it. Her hands opened and closed convulsively.
'He was last seen in the pursuit,' the general continued smoothly, flattering himself that in suppressing his own triumphant thoughts and purposes and talking her talk he was doing much. 'A score or more, of them got away together. It is quite possible that they carried him off a prisoner.'
'And Martin?' she said in a choking voice. She could not stand still, and had begun already to pace up and down again. He walked beside her.
He shrugged his shoulders. 'I know nothing about him,' he said, scarcely concealing a sneer. 'The man went where he was not sent. I hope for the best, but----' He spread out his hands and shook his head.
'Oh!' she said. She was bursting with indignation. The sight of the dead lying below had stirred her nature to its depths. She felt intuitively the shallowness of his sympathy, the selfishness of his thoughts. She knew that he had it on his lips to talk to her of his triumph, and hated him for it. The horror which the day-old battlefield sometimes inspires in the veteran was on her. She was trembling all over, and only by a great effort kept herself from tears and fainting.
'The man is useful to you?' he said after a pause. He felt that he had gone wrong.
She bowed in silence.
'Almost necessary, I suppose?'
She bowed again. She could not speak. It was wonderful. Yesterday she had liked this man, to-day she almost hated him.
But he knew nothing of that, as he looked round with pride. Below, in the valley, parties of men were going to and fro with a sparkle and sheen of pikes. Now and again a trumpet spoke, giving an order. On the hill, not far from where they walked, a group of officers who had ascended with him sat round a fire watching the preparation of breakfast. And of all he was the lord. He had only to raise a finger to be obeyed. He saw before him a vista of such battles and victories, ending--God knows in what. The Emperor's throne was not above the dreams of such a man. And it moved him to speak.
The flush on his cheek was deeper when he turned to her again. 'Yes, I suppose he was necessary to you,' he said, 'but it should not be so. The Countess of Heritzburg should look elsewhere for help than to a servant. Let me speak plainly, Countess,' he continued earnestly. 'It is becoming I should so speak, for I am a plain man. I am neither Baron, Count, nor Prince, Margrave, nor Waldgrave. I have no title but my sword, and no heritage save these who follow me. Yet, if I cannot with the help of the one and the other carve out a principality as long and as wide as Heritzburg, I am not John Tzerclas!'
'Poor Germany!' the Countess said with a faint smile.
He interpreted the words in his own favour, and shrugged his shoulders. 'Vœ victis!' he said proudly. 'There was a time when your ancestors took Heritzburg with the strong hand. Such another time is coming. The future is for those who dare, for those who can raise themselves above an old and sinking system, and on its ruins build their fortunes. Of these men I intend to be one.'
The Countess was an ambitious woman. At another time she might have heard his tale with sympathy. But at this moment her heart was full of anxiety for others, and she saw with perfect clearness the selfishness, the narrowness, the hardness of his aims. She was angry, too, that he should speak to her now--with the dead lying unburied, and the lost unfound, and strewn all round them the ghastly relics of the fight. She looked at him hardly, but she did not say a word; and he, following the exultant march of his own thoughts, went on.
'Albert of Wallenstein, starting from far less than I stand here, has become the first man in Germany,' he said, heedless of her silence--'Emperor in all but the name. Your uncle and mine, from a country squire, became Marshal and Count of the Empire, and saw the greatest quail before him. Ernest of Mansfeld, he was base-born and crook-backed too, but he lay softly and ruled men all his days, and left a name to tremble at. Countess,' the general continued, speaking more hurriedly, and addressing himself, though he did not know it, to the feeling which was uppermost in her mind, 'you may think that in saying what I am going to say, I am choosing an untimely moment; that with this round us, and the air scarce free from powder, I am a fool to talk of love. But'--he hesitated, yet waved his hand abroad with a proud gesture, as if to show that the pause was intentional--'I think I am right. For I offer you no palace, no bed of down, but only myself and my sword. I ask you to share a soldier's fortunes, and be the wife and follow the fate of John Tzerclas. May it be?'
His form seemed to swell as he spoke. He had an air half savage, half triumphant as he turned to her with that question. The joy of battle was still in his veins; he seemed but half sober, though he had drunk nothing. A timid woman might have succumbed to him, one of lesser soul might have shrunk before him; but the Countess faced him with a pride as great as his own.
'You have spoken plainly,' she said, undaunted. 'Perhaps you will pardon me if I speak plainly too.'
'I ask no more, sweet cousin,' he answered.
'Then let me remind you,' she replied, 'that you have said much about John Tzerclas, and little about the Countess of Heritzburg. You have given excellent reasons why you should speak here, but none why I should answer. For shame, sir,' the Countess continued tremulously, letting her indignation appear. 'I lost last night my nearest relative and my old servant. I am still distracted with anxiety on their account. Yet, because I stand alone, unprotected, and with none of my kin by my side, you choose this time to press your suit. For shame, General Tzerclas!'
'Himmel!' he exclaimed, forgetting himself in his annoyance--the fever of excitement was still in his blood--'do you think the presence of that dandified silken scarf would have kept me silent? No, my lady!'
She looked at him for a moment, astonished. The contemptuous reference to the Waldgrave, the change of tone, opened her eyes still wider.
'I think you do not understand me,' she said coldly.
'I do more; I love you,' he answered hotly. And his eyes burned as he looked at her. 'You are fit to be a queen, my queen! And if I live, sweet cousin, I will make you one!'
'Let that go by,' she said contemptuously, bearing up against his look of admiration as well as she could and continuing to move, so that he had to walk also. 'What you do not understand is my nature--which is, not to desert my friends when they are in trouble, nor to play when those who have served me faithfully are missing.'
'I can help neither the one nor the other,' he answered. But his brow began to darken, and he stood silent a moment. Then he broke out in a different tone. 'By Heaven!' he said, 'I am in no mood for play. And I think that you are playing with me!'
'I do not understand you!' she said. Her tone should have frozen him.
'I have asked a question. Will you answer me yes or no,' he persisted. 'Will you be my wife, or will you not?'
She did not blench. 'This is rather rough wooing, is it not?' she said with fine scorn.
'This is a camp, and I am a soldier.'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'I do not think I like rough ways,' she said.
He controlled himself by a mighty effort. 'Pardon me,' he said with a sickly smile, which sat ill on his flushed and angry face. 'Perhaps I am somewhat spoiled, and forget myself. But, like the man in the Bible, I am accustomed to say to some, "Go," and they go, and to others, "Do it," and it is done. And woe to those who disobey me. Possibly this makes me a rough wooer. But, Countess, the ways of the world are rough; the times are rough. We do not know what to-morrow will bring forth, and whatever we want we want quickly. More, sweetheart,' he continued, drawing a step nearer to her and speaking in a voice he vainly strove to modulate, 'a little roughness before marriage is better than ill-treatment afterwards. I have known men who wooed on their knees bring their wives to theirs very quickly after the knot was tied. I am not of that kind.'
My lady's heart sickened. Despite the assurance of his last words, she saw the man as he was; she read his will in his eyes; and though his sudden frankness was in reality the result of overmastering excitement, she had the added horror of supposing it to be dictated by her friendless position and the absence of the last men who might have protected her. She knew that her only hope lay in her courage, and, though her heart leapt under her bodice, she faced him boldly.
'You wish for an answer?' she asked.
'I have said so,' he answered.
'Then I shall not give you one now,' she replied with a quiet smile. 'You see, general, I am not one of those to whom you can say "Go," and they go, and "Do," and it is done. I must choose my own time for saying yes or no. And this time'--she continued, looking round, and suffering a little shudder to escape her, as she pointed to the valley below--'I do not like. I am no coward, but I do not love the smell of blood. I will take time to consider your offer, if you please; and, meanwhile, I think you gallant gentleman enough not to press me against my will.'
She had a fan in her hand, and she began to walk again; she held it up, between her face and the sun, which was still low. He walked by her side, his brow as black as thunder. He read her thoughts so far correctly that he felt the evasion boded him no good; but the influence of her courage and pride was such that he shrank from throwing down the mask altogether, or using words which only force could make good. True, it wanted only a little to urge him over the edge, but her lucky star and bold demeanour prevailed for the time, and perhaps the cool, fresh air had sobered him.
'I suppose a lady's wish must be law,' he muttered, though still he scowled. 'But I hope that you will not make a long demand on my patience.'
'That, too, you must leave to me,' she replied with a flash of coquetry, which it cost her much to assume. 'This morning I am so full of anxiety, that I scarcely know what I am saying. Surely your people must know by this time if they--they are among the dead?'
'They are not,' he answered sulkily.
'Then they must have been captured?' she said, a tremor in her voice.
He nodded. At that moment a man came up to say that breakfast was ready. The general repeated the message to her.
'With your leave I will take it with my women,' she answered with presence of mind. 'I slept ill, and I am poor company this morning,' she added, smiling faintly.
The ordeal over, she could scarcely keep her feet. She longed to weep. She felt herself within an inch of swooning.
He saw that she had turned pale, and he assented with a tolerable grace. 'Let me give you my hand to your fire,' he said anxiously.
'Willingly,' she answered.
It was the last effort of her diplomacy, and she hated herself for it. Still, it won her what she wanted--peace, a respite, a little time to think.
Yet as she sat and shivered in the sunshine, and made believe to eat, and tried to hide her thoughts, even from her women, a crushing sense of her loneliness took possession of her. She had read often and often, with scarce a quickening of the pulse, of men and women in tragic straits--of men and women brought face to face with death, nay, choosing it. But she had never pictured their feelings till now--their despair, their shrinkings, their bitter lookings back, as the iron doors closed upon them. She had never considered that such facts might enter into her own life.
Now, on a sudden, she found herself face to face with inexorable things, with the grim realities that have closed, like the narrowing walls of the Inquisition dungeons, on many a gay life. In the valley below they were burying men like rotten sheep. The Waldgrave was gone, captured or killed. Martin was gone. She was alone. Life seemed a cheap and uncertain thing, death very near. Pleasure--folly--a dancing on the grave.
Of her own free will she had placed herself in the power of a man who loved her, and whom she now hated with an untimely hatred, that was half fear and half loathing. In his power! Her heart stood still, and then beat faster, as she framed the thought. The sunshine, though it was summer, seemed to fall grey and pale on the hill sward; the morning air, though the day was warm, made her shiver. The trumpet call, the sharp command, the glitter of weapons, that had so often charmed her imagination, startled her now. The food was like ashes in her mouth; she could not swallow it. She had been blind, and now she must pay for her folly.
She bad passed the night in the lee of one of the wooded knolls that studded the ridge, and her fire had been kindled there. The nearest group of soldiers--Tzerclas' staff, whose harsh voices and reckless laughter came to her ears at intervals--had their fire full a hundred paces away. For a moment she entertained the desperate idea that she might slip away, alone, or with her women, and, passing from clump to clump, might gain the valley from which she had ascended, and, hiding in the woods, get somehow to Cassel. The smallest reflection showed her that the plan was not possible, and it was rejected as soon as formed. But a moment later she was tempted to wish that she had put it into effect. An officer made his appearance, with his hat in his hand and an air of haste, and wished to know, with the general's service, whether she could be ready in an hour.
'For what?' she asked, rising. She had been sitting on the grass.
'To start, your excellency,' he replied politely.
'To start!' she exclaimed, taken by surprise. 'Whither, sir?'
'On the return journey. To the camp.'
The blood rushed to her face. 'To the camp?' she repeated. 'But is the general going to start this morning? Now?'
'In an hour, madam.'
'And leave the Waldgrave Rupert--and my servant?' she cried, in a voice of burning indignation. 'Are they to be abandoned? It is impossible! I will see the general. Where is he?' she continued impetuously.
'He is in the valley,' the man answered.
'Then take me to him,' she said, stepping forward. 'I will speak to him. He cannot know. He has not thought.'
But the officer stood silent, without offering to move. The Countess's eyes flashed. 'Do you hear, sir?' she cried. 'Lead on, if you please. I asked you to take me to him.'
'I heard, madam,' he replied in a low voice, 'and I crave your pardon. But this is an army, and I am part of it. I can take orders only from General Tzerclas. I have received them, and I cannot go beyond them.'
For a moment the Countess stood glaring at him, her face on fire with wrath and indignation. She had been so long used to command, she was of a nature so frank and imperious, that she trembled on the verge of an outburst that could only have destroyed the little dignity it was still possible for her to retain. Fortunately in the nick of time her eyes met those of a group of officers who stood at a distance, watching her. She thought that she read amusement in their gaze, and a pride greater than that which had impelled her to anger came to her aid. She controlled herself by a mighty effort. The colour left her cheeks as quickly as it had flown to them. She looked at the man coldly and disdainfully.
'True,' she said, 'you do well to remind me. It is not easy to remember that in war many things must give way. You may go, sir. I shall be ready.'
But as she stood and saw her horses saddled, her heart sank like lead. All the misery of her false position came home to her. She felt that now she was alone indeed, and powerless. She was leaving behind her the only chance that remained of regaining her friends. She was going back to put herself more completely, if that were possible, in the general's hands. Yet she dared not resist! She dared not court defeat! As her only hope and reserve lay in her wits and in the prestige of her rank and beauty, to lower that prestige by an unavailing struggle, by an unwomanly display, would be to destroy at a blow half her defences.
The Countess saw this; and though her heart ached for her friends, and her eyes often turned back in unavailing hope, she mounted with a serene brow. Her horses had been brought to the top of the hill, and she rode down by a path which had been discovered. When she had gone a league on the backward road she came upon the foremost part of the captured convoy; which, was immediately halted and drawn aside, that she might pass more conveniently and escape the noise and dust it occasioned.
Among the rest were three waggons laden with wounded. Awnings had been spread to veil them from the sun, and she was spared the sight of their sufferings. But their meanings and cries, as the waggons jolted and creaked over the rough road, drove the blood from her cheeks. She passed them quickly--they were many and she was one, and she could do nothing--and rode on, little thinking who lay under the awnings, or whose eyes followed her as she went.