CHAPTER IXTHE FUGITIVEHereleased her lips, but with fingers still locked in his he led her to the house and began to tell her all his news. She did not think it strange that he had no question concerning her own welfare during the days that had intervened. He had seen so much since then; the fires of war burnt him as a fever. She was content to listen and to know that she held his hand and heard his voice again.“I have been twenty hours in the saddle, little one,” he said, “twenty hours upon a biscuit and a glass of white wine at anauberge. How good it is to get home again!Ma foi!it seems a hundred years. I cannot think that it is only twenty days—twenty days since we went to Niederbronn and you taught me to see that the leaves were green. If we had known that morning! And you said that you would be an old woman!”“I should have been if you had not come back,” she exclaimed, speaking for the first time.He put his arm about her and pressed her close to his heart again.“It could not be,” he said decisively, “for me you are always the little girl of Strasburg I saw at the convent gate five years ago. And to-night—ah, if you could see yourself to-night,chérie.”She flushed for pleasure of his words and opened the door of their little drawing-room.“It has been a year of days, Edmond,” she said uncomplainingly, “yet I knew that you would come. And the roses have been ready every morning. Yesterday I would have ridden to Hagenau, but Jules Picard met me and said he had news of you. He has been very good to us. I rode with him to Niederbronn on Sunday. It was a dreadful day. They killed a German soldier—he died almost at my feet—”His merry laugh ran through the little house.“How—you call it a dreadful day, Beatrix! A dreadful day because a Prussian was killed! What will you say when I tell you that at Saarbrück on Tuesday General Bataille killed four thousand of them? The tale is everywhere. It was a victory for the Emperor and the Prince. The Prussians ran like deer. They will run every day when we begin. And we shall begin to-morrow,chérie; to-morrow we go to the north.”She could see his spirit waxing hot at the very thought of it; and his forgetfulness of all else but this consuming passion of the war was unmistakable from the first. He wished to hear of nothing, to speak of nothing but the troops of France then marching northward to their victory.“You shall tell me the story at dinner,petite,” he said. “I have asked Chandellier and Giraud, and the Colonel himself may come. It is only for to-morrow, for we march again on Saturday. Duhesme is with us, and Michel; Douay goes forward to Weissenburg. We shall be very strong when de Failly reports. He has two divisions at Bitche, and Frossard is before Saarbrück. We have the cuirassiers and the Turcos and ninety-six guns besides the mitrailleuse. That is the medicine for the Prussians—the mitrailleuse. You should hear the tales they tell of the Prince’s baptism. Whole regiments mowed down as wheat by the wind. Not a man left to go to Berlin and tell the others about it. It was a triumph, a procession. Those that could run were the lucky ones. Ah,mignonne, did I not promise you that before the vines had ripened I would be home again?”She took both his hands and looked up into his face very seriously, as one whose love wished more for him even than his own ambitions.“God grant it!” she ejaculated fervently.He kissed her for the words, but could not spare any praise for her pretty room or for the roses with which she had decked out the mantelpiece and the little windows. His thoughts were all of his comrades who were coming to dinner at the châlet. He talked incessantly of all that had happened in Strasburg and upon the march afterwards.“Old Hélène is at the Place Kleber,” he said; “she wants you back there, but I said that you would not go. There may be danger on the road, and while the army is about here you will be safe. We shall not leave the frontier until we ride to Berlin, and then I will write again. If it were not for those ‘others,’ Beatrix, I would take you with me. But our friendslà-basare merry fellows, and I do not wish you to meet the people who have come from Paris to our picnic. The Colonel says we have as many bonnet-boxes as waggons. It is his way of speaking, and, of course, soldiers are soldiers always. When the day comes, they will not fight less well because they know a pretty bonnet and a pretty face beneath it. I do not like that—but then, you know, I have someone to wait for me. Was it long to wait,mignonne—were you very lonely?”She was glad that he should have asked thequestion, though it came to him as an afterthought.“I counted the hours,” she said, “yet I knew that it must be, Edmond!”“Ah, the ‘must be’ will soon be a word of yesterday,” he said gaily;“you shall hear what the Colonel says, Beatrix. Giraud comes with him, but the Major is busy after horses, and Chandellier is to dine with Mademoiselle Serres of the Opéra Comique. You will hear her when we go to Paris in the autumn. She has come here to learn how Marguerite feels when Valentine has gone to the wars. It is a splendid idea, and Serres amuses me always. She has ridden with the regiment from Strasburg, and is now at the inn with the others. I am going down there by-and-by to arrange for to-morrow. If the Marshal is wise, he will not hurry us. The men are coming in every day, and we shall have our full numbers before the week is out. It does not matter, of course, for we have an army here that could fight all the Germans on the Rhine. And Saarbrück will have demoralised them. Our spirit is splendid. You do not know what magnificent fellows we lead, Beatrix. There are no finer troops in the world. I would risk the safety of France a hundred times with such men as our lancers at my back. I would stake my own life on the victory which they will win if only those Prussians will make haste and show themselves. But they know better. They wait for us, and they will not wait long. It will be like a storm in summer,petite—a little darkness, and then the sunshine and my home!”His mood was one which would brook no contradiction. Much as she wished to talk of many things, she saw that he would have no mind for them; and she hid away those little secrets of her love which at any other time she would have whispered joyously. His hope and happiness were very dear to her; and when by-and-by Colonel Tripard himself came to the house, and Lieutenant Giraud with him, she welcomed them as friends who could talk of things which were more fitting and momentous at such an hour. Simple as their dinner was, they had the music of the drums and the tramp of squadrons marching to make the music of a feast. And Edmond was at home again. The little house seemed full of bright lights as of the radiance of her own happiness. The watchfires on the hills were the beacons of her happiness.Colonel Tripard, a veteran soldier, with a pleasing voice and a gentle manner, spoke little but spoke well. Lieutenant Giraud, aflâneurwithout brains, babbled always of the victory at Saarbrück. Lefort himself was proud of the little wife who sat at the foot of his table—proud of her prettiness and of the gentle welcome she gave to his friends.“I will not let her go back to Strasburg, my Colonel,” he said, when Saarbrück had been forgotten for an instant. “Am I not right? Is she not better with the army?”“While you are here, yes. And the army should be grateful to you. But, of course, Madame will return when we are gone.”“To tell them of your victory, Colonel. Is there any other reason?” Beatrix asked.He curled his moustache, and shook his head thoughtfully.“There will be many soldiers here, Madame Lefort. They are not always the friends of women. And we have the Algerians with us. They are splendid fellows, but—”He shrugged his shoulders. A shadow of anxiety crossed her face.“You are not going to say, ‘Save us from our friends,’ Colonel.”Lieutenant Giraud chimed in:“Save them from their friends’ wine cellars, Madame Lefort. That is what the Colonel would say. They are the devil, those Turcos. A plagueof locusts is better. If you have any wine in your cellars, give it to them and go out to the hills while they drink it. There will be nothing but empty bottles in Germany a month from now. They are always thirsty—the camels!”Beatrix ignored him.“There were Baden troopers here on Sunday,” she said quietly; “they paid for what they had and robbed none. If I am to run away, it must not be from the soldiers of France, Colonel.”Lefort heard her with pleasure.“She is right,” he said; “we will leave the Prussians to do the running, my Colonel. And this house is not upon the high-road. If a soldier comes here to ask for a glass of wine, he shall have one!”“He is coming now, then,” exclaimed Giraud; “hark how the fellow gallops. You will have to look for a bucket for a rascal who rides like that.”All listened for a moment and heard a dull heavy sound, as of the thunder of hoofs muted by the wet of the road, without. Some trooper was galloping towards Reichshofen, and galloping as though for his life. When he came up to the châlet he reined back his horse and began to shout like one possessed—“Save yourselves, save yourselves; the Prussians are coming.”The Colonel filled his glass and sipped it. The others looked at each other incredulously.“The man is mad,” said Giraud.“Or drunk,” said Tripard; “a gallop in the hills will do him good.Apropos, Captain, where does your road lead to? We have twenty maps of Germanylà-basbut none of France. That is the way our people do things.”“They fear you will lose the road to Berlin, Colonel,” suggested Beatrix; but Edmond said—“It is the road to Reichshofen and Niederbronn. Those who join de Failly will go that way to-morrow, my Colonel. There is plenty of cover for an ambush if ever the Germans this way—”“If the Germans—” ejaculated Giraud with irony that was almost indignation.“They were here on Sunday, Monsieur Giraud,” Beatrix said quietly.The laugh was turned against the lieutenant, and they were still merry over it when a second trooper was heard galloping up the road. He rode feebly, as one upon a weary horse; and when he came to the garden gate they could hear him crying for help in a weak and trembling voice.“Another,” said the lieutenant. “Sacre bleu—the whole regiment is drunk to-night, then.”A little while they waited in silence, for Guillaumette ran to the door. She came bustling into the room presently with a white face and lips which could scarcely articulate her news.“Monsieur, Monsieur,” she said wildly, “there is a man dying in the garden—come then!”Her news was so unlooked for that all rose to their feet at once; but Edmond put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and held her back.“It is nothing,” he said; “stay here, and we will see.”He went into the hall with the two men at his heels. Through the open door there came a fresh wind of the night to set the candles guttering in their sticks and to blow petals from the roses she had picked. The empty chairs and the food still upon the plates seemed ominous, in some way, of disaster. She heard the men all talking together, and to their voices was added the moaning voice of a stranger. When she could restrain her impatience no longer and went a little way into the hall, she beheld a spectacle so terrible that she sickened before it and would have fallen if Edmond had not put his arm about her. One of the hussars of Douay’s brigade stood in thelobby; he had a great gash upon his face, and the clotted blood had stained his tunic a deep brown. The pitiful eyes of the man, his wan cheeks, his failing voice told her that death had ridden with him upon the road.“Messieurs,” he said hoarsely, “it is a defeat—a rout at Weissenburg. The general is killed; the chasseurs are cut to pieces. I have ridden all day with Uhlans at my heels. Save yourselves, Messieurs, for they are coming here!”He spoke with a sympathetic earnestness, as though their safety was of great concern to him; but the effort was too much for his strength, and of a sudden he put both hands upon his forehead and reeled forward among them.“Oh, my God, Messieurs, what pain I have!” he cried.The Colonel’s strong arm was about him in a moment.“Mon pauvre,” he exclaimed, “you shall rest here—a glass of wine quick, Captain; he will tell us his story afterwards.”Beatrix had stood mute in her distress while the man spoke; but now, when she heard his cry of pain, a woman’s instinct released her will, and she was first in the room for the wine they sought. When she had filled a glass of it and returned to the hall, the huzzar lay full length upon thecarpet, his hands still clasping his head as though to crush the pain of the mortal wound he carried.“Here—here is the wine, Colonel.”Tripard thrust her back gently.“Not now,” he said.“His story is told, my child.”
CHAPTER IXTHE FUGITIVEHereleased her lips, but with fingers still locked in his he led her to the house and began to tell her all his news. She did not think it strange that he had no question concerning her own welfare during the days that had intervened. He had seen so much since then; the fires of war burnt him as a fever. She was content to listen and to know that she held his hand and heard his voice again.“I have been twenty hours in the saddle, little one,” he said, “twenty hours upon a biscuit and a glass of white wine at anauberge. How good it is to get home again!Ma foi!it seems a hundred years. I cannot think that it is only twenty days—twenty days since we went to Niederbronn and you taught me to see that the leaves were green. If we had known that morning! And you said that you would be an old woman!”“I should have been if you had not come back,” she exclaimed, speaking for the first time.He put his arm about her and pressed her close to his heart again.“It could not be,” he said decisively, “for me you are always the little girl of Strasburg I saw at the convent gate five years ago. And to-night—ah, if you could see yourself to-night,chérie.”She flushed for pleasure of his words and opened the door of their little drawing-room.“It has been a year of days, Edmond,” she said uncomplainingly, “yet I knew that you would come. And the roses have been ready every morning. Yesterday I would have ridden to Hagenau, but Jules Picard met me and said he had news of you. He has been very good to us. I rode with him to Niederbronn on Sunday. It was a dreadful day. They killed a German soldier—he died almost at my feet—”His merry laugh ran through the little house.“How—you call it a dreadful day, Beatrix! A dreadful day because a Prussian was killed! What will you say when I tell you that at Saarbrück on Tuesday General Bataille killed four thousand of them? The tale is everywhere. It was a victory for the Emperor and the Prince. The Prussians ran like deer. They will run every day when we begin. And we shall begin to-morrow,chérie; to-morrow we go to the north.”She could see his spirit waxing hot at the very thought of it; and his forgetfulness of all else but this consuming passion of the war was unmistakable from the first. He wished to hear of nothing, to speak of nothing but the troops of France then marching northward to their victory.“You shall tell me the story at dinner,petite,” he said. “I have asked Chandellier and Giraud, and the Colonel himself may come. It is only for to-morrow, for we march again on Saturday. Duhesme is with us, and Michel; Douay goes forward to Weissenburg. We shall be very strong when de Failly reports. He has two divisions at Bitche, and Frossard is before Saarbrück. We have the cuirassiers and the Turcos and ninety-six guns besides the mitrailleuse. That is the medicine for the Prussians—the mitrailleuse. You should hear the tales they tell of the Prince’s baptism. Whole regiments mowed down as wheat by the wind. Not a man left to go to Berlin and tell the others about it. It was a triumph, a procession. Those that could run were the lucky ones. Ah,mignonne, did I not promise you that before the vines had ripened I would be home again?”She took both his hands and looked up into his face very seriously, as one whose love wished more for him even than his own ambitions.“God grant it!” she ejaculated fervently.He kissed her for the words, but could not spare any praise for her pretty room or for the roses with which she had decked out the mantelpiece and the little windows. His thoughts were all of his comrades who were coming to dinner at the châlet. He talked incessantly of all that had happened in Strasburg and upon the march afterwards.“Old Hélène is at the Place Kleber,” he said; “she wants you back there, but I said that you would not go. There may be danger on the road, and while the army is about here you will be safe. We shall not leave the frontier until we ride to Berlin, and then I will write again. If it were not for those ‘others,’ Beatrix, I would take you with me. But our friendslà-basare merry fellows, and I do not wish you to meet the people who have come from Paris to our picnic. The Colonel says we have as many bonnet-boxes as waggons. It is his way of speaking, and, of course, soldiers are soldiers always. When the day comes, they will not fight less well because they know a pretty bonnet and a pretty face beneath it. I do not like that—but then, you know, I have someone to wait for me. Was it long to wait,mignonne—were you very lonely?”She was glad that he should have asked thequestion, though it came to him as an afterthought.“I counted the hours,” she said, “yet I knew that it must be, Edmond!”“Ah, the ‘must be’ will soon be a word of yesterday,” he said gaily;“you shall hear what the Colonel says, Beatrix. Giraud comes with him, but the Major is busy after horses, and Chandellier is to dine with Mademoiselle Serres of the Opéra Comique. You will hear her when we go to Paris in the autumn. She has come here to learn how Marguerite feels when Valentine has gone to the wars. It is a splendid idea, and Serres amuses me always. She has ridden with the regiment from Strasburg, and is now at the inn with the others. I am going down there by-and-by to arrange for to-morrow. If the Marshal is wise, he will not hurry us. The men are coming in every day, and we shall have our full numbers before the week is out. It does not matter, of course, for we have an army here that could fight all the Germans on the Rhine. And Saarbrück will have demoralised them. Our spirit is splendid. You do not know what magnificent fellows we lead, Beatrix. There are no finer troops in the world. I would risk the safety of France a hundred times with such men as our lancers at my back. I would stake my own life on the victory which they will win if only those Prussians will make haste and show themselves. But they know better. They wait for us, and they will not wait long. It will be like a storm in summer,petite—a little darkness, and then the sunshine and my home!”His mood was one which would brook no contradiction. Much as she wished to talk of many things, she saw that he would have no mind for them; and she hid away those little secrets of her love which at any other time she would have whispered joyously. His hope and happiness were very dear to her; and when by-and-by Colonel Tripard himself came to the house, and Lieutenant Giraud with him, she welcomed them as friends who could talk of things which were more fitting and momentous at such an hour. Simple as their dinner was, they had the music of the drums and the tramp of squadrons marching to make the music of a feast. And Edmond was at home again. The little house seemed full of bright lights as of the radiance of her own happiness. The watchfires on the hills were the beacons of her happiness.Colonel Tripard, a veteran soldier, with a pleasing voice and a gentle manner, spoke little but spoke well. Lieutenant Giraud, aflâneurwithout brains, babbled always of the victory at Saarbrück. Lefort himself was proud of the little wife who sat at the foot of his table—proud of her prettiness and of the gentle welcome she gave to his friends.“I will not let her go back to Strasburg, my Colonel,” he said, when Saarbrück had been forgotten for an instant. “Am I not right? Is she not better with the army?”“While you are here, yes. And the army should be grateful to you. But, of course, Madame will return when we are gone.”“To tell them of your victory, Colonel. Is there any other reason?” Beatrix asked.He curled his moustache, and shook his head thoughtfully.“There will be many soldiers here, Madame Lefort. They are not always the friends of women. And we have the Algerians with us. They are splendid fellows, but—”He shrugged his shoulders. A shadow of anxiety crossed her face.“You are not going to say, ‘Save us from our friends,’ Colonel.”Lieutenant Giraud chimed in:“Save them from their friends’ wine cellars, Madame Lefort. That is what the Colonel would say. They are the devil, those Turcos. A plagueof locusts is better. If you have any wine in your cellars, give it to them and go out to the hills while they drink it. There will be nothing but empty bottles in Germany a month from now. They are always thirsty—the camels!”Beatrix ignored him.“There were Baden troopers here on Sunday,” she said quietly; “they paid for what they had and robbed none. If I am to run away, it must not be from the soldiers of France, Colonel.”Lefort heard her with pleasure.“She is right,” he said; “we will leave the Prussians to do the running, my Colonel. And this house is not upon the high-road. If a soldier comes here to ask for a glass of wine, he shall have one!”“He is coming now, then,” exclaimed Giraud; “hark how the fellow gallops. You will have to look for a bucket for a rascal who rides like that.”All listened for a moment and heard a dull heavy sound, as of the thunder of hoofs muted by the wet of the road, without. Some trooper was galloping towards Reichshofen, and galloping as though for his life. When he came up to the châlet he reined back his horse and began to shout like one possessed—“Save yourselves, save yourselves; the Prussians are coming.”The Colonel filled his glass and sipped it. The others looked at each other incredulously.“The man is mad,” said Giraud.“Or drunk,” said Tripard; “a gallop in the hills will do him good.Apropos, Captain, where does your road lead to? We have twenty maps of Germanylà-basbut none of France. That is the way our people do things.”“They fear you will lose the road to Berlin, Colonel,” suggested Beatrix; but Edmond said—“It is the road to Reichshofen and Niederbronn. Those who join de Failly will go that way to-morrow, my Colonel. There is plenty of cover for an ambush if ever the Germans this way—”“If the Germans—” ejaculated Giraud with irony that was almost indignation.“They were here on Sunday, Monsieur Giraud,” Beatrix said quietly.The laugh was turned against the lieutenant, and they were still merry over it when a second trooper was heard galloping up the road. He rode feebly, as one upon a weary horse; and when he came to the garden gate they could hear him crying for help in a weak and trembling voice.“Another,” said the lieutenant. “Sacre bleu—the whole regiment is drunk to-night, then.”A little while they waited in silence, for Guillaumette ran to the door. She came bustling into the room presently with a white face and lips which could scarcely articulate her news.“Monsieur, Monsieur,” she said wildly, “there is a man dying in the garden—come then!”Her news was so unlooked for that all rose to their feet at once; but Edmond put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and held her back.“It is nothing,” he said; “stay here, and we will see.”He went into the hall with the two men at his heels. Through the open door there came a fresh wind of the night to set the candles guttering in their sticks and to blow petals from the roses she had picked. The empty chairs and the food still upon the plates seemed ominous, in some way, of disaster. She heard the men all talking together, and to their voices was added the moaning voice of a stranger. When she could restrain her impatience no longer and went a little way into the hall, she beheld a spectacle so terrible that she sickened before it and would have fallen if Edmond had not put his arm about her. One of the hussars of Douay’s brigade stood in thelobby; he had a great gash upon his face, and the clotted blood had stained his tunic a deep brown. The pitiful eyes of the man, his wan cheeks, his failing voice told her that death had ridden with him upon the road.“Messieurs,” he said hoarsely, “it is a defeat—a rout at Weissenburg. The general is killed; the chasseurs are cut to pieces. I have ridden all day with Uhlans at my heels. Save yourselves, Messieurs, for they are coming here!”He spoke with a sympathetic earnestness, as though their safety was of great concern to him; but the effort was too much for his strength, and of a sudden he put both hands upon his forehead and reeled forward among them.“Oh, my God, Messieurs, what pain I have!” he cried.The Colonel’s strong arm was about him in a moment.“Mon pauvre,” he exclaimed, “you shall rest here—a glass of wine quick, Captain; he will tell us his story afterwards.”Beatrix had stood mute in her distress while the man spoke; but now, when she heard his cry of pain, a woman’s instinct released her will, and she was first in the room for the wine they sought. When she had filled a glass of it and returned to the hall, the huzzar lay full length upon thecarpet, his hands still clasping his head as though to crush the pain of the mortal wound he carried.“Here—here is the wine, Colonel.”Tripard thrust her back gently.“Not now,” he said.“His story is told, my child.”
Hereleased her lips, but with fingers still locked in his he led her to the house and began to tell her all his news. She did not think it strange that he had no question concerning her own welfare during the days that had intervened. He had seen so much since then; the fires of war burnt him as a fever. She was content to listen and to know that she held his hand and heard his voice again.
“I have been twenty hours in the saddle, little one,” he said, “twenty hours upon a biscuit and a glass of white wine at anauberge. How good it is to get home again!Ma foi!it seems a hundred years. I cannot think that it is only twenty days—twenty days since we went to Niederbronn and you taught me to see that the leaves were green. If we had known that morning! And you said that you would be an old woman!”
“I should have been if you had not come back,” she exclaimed, speaking for the first time.
He put his arm about her and pressed her close to his heart again.
“It could not be,” he said decisively, “for me you are always the little girl of Strasburg I saw at the convent gate five years ago. And to-night—ah, if you could see yourself to-night,chérie.”
She flushed for pleasure of his words and opened the door of their little drawing-room.
“It has been a year of days, Edmond,” she said uncomplainingly, “yet I knew that you would come. And the roses have been ready every morning. Yesterday I would have ridden to Hagenau, but Jules Picard met me and said he had news of you. He has been very good to us. I rode with him to Niederbronn on Sunday. It was a dreadful day. They killed a German soldier—he died almost at my feet—”
His merry laugh ran through the little house.
“How—you call it a dreadful day, Beatrix! A dreadful day because a Prussian was killed! What will you say when I tell you that at Saarbrück on Tuesday General Bataille killed four thousand of them? The tale is everywhere. It was a victory for the Emperor and the Prince. The Prussians ran like deer. They will run every day when we begin. And we shall begin to-morrow,chérie; to-morrow we go to the north.”
She could see his spirit waxing hot at the very thought of it; and his forgetfulness of all else but this consuming passion of the war was unmistakable from the first. He wished to hear of nothing, to speak of nothing but the troops of France then marching northward to their victory.
“You shall tell me the story at dinner,petite,” he said. “I have asked Chandellier and Giraud, and the Colonel himself may come. It is only for to-morrow, for we march again on Saturday. Duhesme is with us, and Michel; Douay goes forward to Weissenburg. We shall be very strong when de Failly reports. He has two divisions at Bitche, and Frossard is before Saarbrück. We have the cuirassiers and the Turcos and ninety-six guns besides the mitrailleuse. That is the medicine for the Prussians—the mitrailleuse. You should hear the tales they tell of the Prince’s baptism. Whole regiments mowed down as wheat by the wind. Not a man left to go to Berlin and tell the others about it. It was a triumph, a procession. Those that could run were the lucky ones. Ah,mignonne, did I not promise you that before the vines had ripened I would be home again?”
She took both his hands and looked up into his face very seriously, as one whose love wished more for him even than his own ambitions.
“God grant it!” she ejaculated fervently.
He kissed her for the words, but could not spare any praise for her pretty room or for the roses with which she had decked out the mantelpiece and the little windows. His thoughts were all of his comrades who were coming to dinner at the châlet. He talked incessantly of all that had happened in Strasburg and upon the march afterwards.
“Old Hélène is at the Place Kleber,” he said; “she wants you back there, but I said that you would not go. There may be danger on the road, and while the army is about here you will be safe. We shall not leave the frontier until we ride to Berlin, and then I will write again. If it were not for those ‘others,’ Beatrix, I would take you with me. But our friendslà-basare merry fellows, and I do not wish you to meet the people who have come from Paris to our picnic. The Colonel says we have as many bonnet-boxes as waggons. It is his way of speaking, and, of course, soldiers are soldiers always. When the day comes, they will not fight less well because they know a pretty bonnet and a pretty face beneath it. I do not like that—but then, you know, I have someone to wait for me. Was it long to wait,mignonne—were you very lonely?”
She was glad that he should have asked thequestion, though it came to him as an afterthought.
“I counted the hours,” she said, “yet I knew that it must be, Edmond!”
“Ah, the ‘must be’ will soon be a word of yesterday,” he said gaily;“you shall hear what the Colonel says, Beatrix. Giraud comes with him, but the Major is busy after horses, and Chandellier is to dine with Mademoiselle Serres of the Opéra Comique. You will hear her when we go to Paris in the autumn. She has come here to learn how Marguerite feels when Valentine has gone to the wars. It is a splendid idea, and Serres amuses me always. She has ridden with the regiment from Strasburg, and is now at the inn with the others. I am going down there by-and-by to arrange for to-morrow. If the Marshal is wise, he will not hurry us. The men are coming in every day, and we shall have our full numbers before the week is out. It does not matter, of course, for we have an army here that could fight all the Germans on the Rhine. And Saarbrück will have demoralised them. Our spirit is splendid. You do not know what magnificent fellows we lead, Beatrix. There are no finer troops in the world. I would risk the safety of France a hundred times with such men as our lancers at my back. I would stake my own life on the victory which they will win if only those Prussians will make haste and show themselves. But they know better. They wait for us, and they will not wait long. It will be like a storm in summer,petite—a little darkness, and then the sunshine and my home!”
His mood was one which would brook no contradiction. Much as she wished to talk of many things, she saw that he would have no mind for them; and she hid away those little secrets of her love which at any other time she would have whispered joyously. His hope and happiness were very dear to her; and when by-and-by Colonel Tripard himself came to the house, and Lieutenant Giraud with him, she welcomed them as friends who could talk of things which were more fitting and momentous at such an hour. Simple as their dinner was, they had the music of the drums and the tramp of squadrons marching to make the music of a feast. And Edmond was at home again. The little house seemed full of bright lights as of the radiance of her own happiness. The watchfires on the hills were the beacons of her happiness.
Colonel Tripard, a veteran soldier, with a pleasing voice and a gentle manner, spoke little but spoke well. Lieutenant Giraud, aflâneurwithout brains, babbled always of the victory at Saarbrück. Lefort himself was proud of the little wife who sat at the foot of his table—proud of her prettiness and of the gentle welcome she gave to his friends.
“I will not let her go back to Strasburg, my Colonel,” he said, when Saarbrück had been forgotten for an instant. “Am I not right? Is she not better with the army?”
“While you are here, yes. And the army should be grateful to you. But, of course, Madame will return when we are gone.”
“To tell them of your victory, Colonel. Is there any other reason?” Beatrix asked.
He curled his moustache, and shook his head thoughtfully.
“There will be many soldiers here, Madame Lefort. They are not always the friends of women. And we have the Algerians with us. They are splendid fellows, but—”
He shrugged his shoulders. A shadow of anxiety crossed her face.
“You are not going to say, ‘Save us from our friends,’ Colonel.”
Lieutenant Giraud chimed in:
“Save them from their friends’ wine cellars, Madame Lefort. That is what the Colonel would say. They are the devil, those Turcos. A plagueof locusts is better. If you have any wine in your cellars, give it to them and go out to the hills while they drink it. There will be nothing but empty bottles in Germany a month from now. They are always thirsty—the camels!”
Beatrix ignored him.
“There were Baden troopers here on Sunday,” she said quietly; “they paid for what they had and robbed none. If I am to run away, it must not be from the soldiers of France, Colonel.”
Lefort heard her with pleasure.
“She is right,” he said; “we will leave the Prussians to do the running, my Colonel. And this house is not upon the high-road. If a soldier comes here to ask for a glass of wine, he shall have one!”
“He is coming now, then,” exclaimed Giraud; “hark how the fellow gallops. You will have to look for a bucket for a rascal who rides like that.”
All listened for a moment and heard a dull heavy sound, as of the thunder of hoofs muted by the wet of the road, without. Some trooper was galloping towards Reichshofen, and galloping as though for his life. When he came up to the châlet he reined back his horse and began to shout like one possessed—
“Save yourselves, save yourselves; the Prussians are coming.”
The Colonel filled his glass and sipped it. The others looked at each other incredulously.
“The man is mad,” said Giraud.
“Or drunk,” said Tripard; “a gallop in the hills will do him good.Apropos, Captain, where does your road lead to? We have twenty maps of Germanylà-basbut none of France. That is the way our people do things.”
“They fear you will lose the road to Berlin, Colonel,” suggested Beatrix; but Edmond said—
“It is the road to Reichshofen and Niederbronn. Those who join de Failly will go that way to-morrow, my Colonel. There is plenty of cover for an ambush if ever the Germans this way—”
“If the Germans—” ejaculated Giraud with irony that was almost indignation.
“They were here on Sunday, Monsieur Giraud,” Beatrix said quietly.
The laugh was turned against the lieutenant, and they were still merry over it when a second trooper was heard galloping up the road. He rode feebly, as one upon a weary horse; and when he came to the garden gate they could hear him crying for help in a weak and trembling voice.
“Another,” said the lieutenant. “Sacre bleu—the whole regiment is drunk to-night, then.”
A little while they waited in silence, for Guillaumette ran to the door. She came bustling into the room presently with a white face and lips which could scarcely articulate her news.
“Monsieur, Monsieur,” she said wildly, “there is a man dying in the garden—come then!”
Her news was so unlooked for that all rose to their feet at once; but Edmond put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and held her back.
“It is nothing,” he said; “stay here, and we will see.”
He went into the hall with the two men at his heels. Through the open door there came a fresh wind of the night to set the candles guttering in their sticks and to blow petals from the roses she had picked. The empty chairs and the food still upon the plates seemed ominous, in some way, of disaster. She heard the men all talking together, and to their voices was added the moaning voice of a stranger. When she could restrain her impatience no longer and went a little way into the hall, she beheld a spectacle so terrible that she sickened before it and would have fallen if Edmond had not put his arm about her. One of the hussars of Douay’s brigade stood in thelobby; he had a great gash upon his face, and the clotted blood had stained his tunic a deep brown. The pitiful eyes of the man, his wan cheeks, his failing voice told her that death had ridden with him upon the road.
“Messieurs,” he said hoarsely, “it is a defeat—a rout at Weissenburg. The general is killed; the chasseurs are cut to pieces. I have ridden all day with Uhlans at my heels. Save yourselves, Messieurs, for they are coming here!”
He spoke with a sympathetic earnestness, as though their safety was of great concern to him; but the effort was too much for his strength, and of a sudden he put both hands upon his forehead and reeled forward among them.
“Oh, my God, Messieurs, what pain I have!” he cried.
The Colonel’s strong arm was about him in a moment.
“Mon pauvre,” he exclaimed, “you shall rest here—a glass of wine quick, Captain; he will tell us his story afterwards.”
Beatrix had stood mute in her distress while the man spoke; but now, when she heard his cry of pain, a woman’s instinct released her will, and she was first in the room for the wine they sought. When she had filled a glass of it and returned to the hall, the huzzar lay full length upon thecarpet, his hands still clasping his head as though to crush the pain of the mortal wound he carried.
“Here—here is the wine, Colonel.”
Tripard thrust her back gently.
“Not now,” he said.“His story is told, my child.”