By Eastern mage this secret figure limnedIs symbol that my barque of Life, outboundFrom ports forgot for shores by mist bedimmed,Should fetch the centre of this perfect round;Nor should one miss to see the focus 'tisOf a consummate oval: beacon lightThat points a haven to all argosies.Imperial Eyes, that do illume my night,My barque sets sail. Suffer that she clearHer harbour dues, and from her cargazonProffer these petalled blushes of the year,Which, tho' they fade, as must my Argus soonInto the dim horizon, still imploreBut access, and a smile; they dare no more!—N. C.
By Eastern mage this secret figure limnedIs symbol that my barque of Life, outboundFrom ports forgot for shores by mist bedimmed,Should fetch the centre of this perfect round;Nor should one miss to see the focus 'tisOf a consummate oval: beacon lightThat points a haven to all argosies.Imperial Eyes, that do illume my night,My barque sets sail. Suffer that she clearHer harbour dues, and from her cargazonProffer these petalled blushes of the year,Which, tho' they fade, as must my Argus soonInto the dim horizon, still imploreBut access, and a smile; they dare no more!
"Now," said Nigel to himself, "if I do but send Sergeant Blick to her waiting-maid with this sonnet ensconced in a basket of roses it is odds but her Highness gets it, and if any one intercept it beshrew me if he make anything of it, for I can make little of it myself."
The plan, clumsy or not, was successful. Sergeant Blick could be very stupid on occasions, till he knew he had what he wanted, and it cost him some pains before he could arrive at the personal attendant of the Archduchess. Then a handsome bribe for herself and the direct and not super-refined flatteries of the sergeant procured the faithful delivery of the gift.
Nigel had sent the drawing of the figure to meet either fortune. If she had not seen it before, it at all events assisted to explain the allusions of the sonnet; and if she had, by the hand of Wallenstein, it would justify his request as showing that he himself understood the linking of the three destinies.
As he sat with Hildebrand at his evening meal the day following, he was summoned and bidden to attend in the garden of the palace at the hour of nine, when he would be met at the nearest gate.
This involved some explanation to Hildebrand, who, receiving the other's assent to his own hint of an assignation, merely laughed and asked no more.
Nigel was punctual, and the same page who had introduced him to the Archduchess in the gallery met him, and bowing, led the way by a path little difficult to remember through the garden, where he had met Father Lamormain, to a little orchard close, which was separated from the garden by a thick hedge, within which was a wall. The page unlocked the gate of this with a key, which he then handed to Nigel, bowed again, and turned as if to go. Nigel entered the orchard close, and following a little path between two rows of trees came to an openbower, which had a carpet of thick sward, an old stone seat, a screen of yews and laurels all about save for the entrance and the exit opposite.
The night was matchless with moonlight. The trees shone whitely. Deep shadows fell from trees and bushes which were full of foliage. Out of a shadow stepped the Archduchess Stephanie, a dark-hued velvet cloak dependent from her shoulders and open, displaying her milk-white neck and bosom, and a robe of some sheeny tissue of gold thread and silk that glittered here and there as she moved, whose texture caught the moonbeams. Upon her head she wore a little golden fillet of antique work, which seemed to confine her profusion of black curls that for the rest framed in her glorious face and danced in the night breeze upon her shoulders. The dark eyebrows and the long lashes, like thickets half concealing twin lakes, made her complexion look paler than usual. But her red full lips parted in a smile.
Her beauty, intensified by the moonlight, and suffused with something more of air and sky, her ever astonishing resemblance to the strange Ottilie von Thüringen, together took Nigel by storm. The shock of it thrilled him. No Wallenstein of forty-eight, wrapped securely in the husk of his own fortunes, but a living man with all the ripe vintage of twenty-five surging in his veins, was Nigel. What would the world of men of forty-eight not give to have the glorious energy, the unconquerable vigour, the joyous ardour for love of twenty-five, of twenty-five that can quaff and quaff again and still hold out the bowl for more? Give? Another world!
Was it perchance precisely fair? The law of Archduchesses is sure their own, and no man can gainsay it.
Nigel, bewildered for a moment, stammered out—
"The Queen of Night!" and knelt to kiss her long slender fingers.
As he rose to his feet again she laid a hand lightly on his arm and said with a twinkle of merriment in her rich voice—
"Strange and inconsequent mixture are you, man! You face sword and fire, and lose not a heart-beat, nor a patch of colour. You meet a woman in the moonlight, and straightway your knees must knock, and you must tremble like a steeple in the wind."
"I crave pardon, your Highness!" said Nigel, recovering his boldness. "Great supreme beauty such as yours, if there be any like it anywhere, must needs give a man more than a feeling of awe!"
"Now you talk like a bold wooer and a poet. Faith! you have more than a touch of the poet, though my skill in the English tongue is not great enough for me to put a right value on your verses. 'Tis seven years since my cousin, the Infanta, thought to wed England. We all learned English in those days."
"But your Highness understood!" said Nigel eagerly. "It is but a day or two at most and I must ride into the very teeth of Gustavus. I burned to see your Highness, to thank you for my fortunes, and say that if your Highness has need of me at any time—"
"You will drop your regiment of Rough-riders like a hot iron and ride for me? And this is loyalty to the House of Habsburg!" Her smile blunted the edge of her ridicule.
"Saving my duty as a soldier, your Highness ismyHouse of Habsburg!" he rejoined with such an earnestness that broke down her fence of raillery.
"You Scots! Full of conceit! Sensitive! Brave to the degree that you do not even know you are brave! Kindly, so that you would die and not grudge the gift!... I shall not tempt you from your duty; but if I call you by this sign"—she drew out the figure from itshiding-place—"come what may ... I look to you. It will be no little matter."
Nigel's eyes were full upon her, for there was a solemnity in her voice, a note of strong appeal as from one high spirit calling to another and conscious of the other's attuning. He drew his sword and pressed the hilt to his lips in token of his fealty.
Then it pleased the Archduchess to pace to and fro for a while beneath the trees in silence. She was in truth full of emotion, which was all but too strong for her. The nearness of Nigel, who walked beside her, was one cause of trouble. She had told herself that she loved Wallenstein, the dark, inscrutable organiser of armies, that she had always loved him. But did she sway the spirit of Wallenstein, the heart of Wallenstein, so that it vibrated, if heart or spirit can vibrate, to her touch? She did not seek to answer it. She knew that this stranger Scot with the eagle eyes and bearing was nearer to her in the spring of his years and of his intelligence, albeit one of her father's mercenaries, who might perchance become another Tilly, never a Wallenstein. "And why not?" she asked herself. Then she answered it. "Too much heart!"
Of a sudden she broke the silence again—
"I like you, Colonel Nigel! I trust you! I am perhaps going into a nunnery for a season; perhaps for always!"
"Your Highness! Into a nunnery!" Nigel's astonishment and his sorrow were racing for the mastery.
"They wish me to marry Maximilian of Bavaria!"
"The Jesuits? Your Highness will not?"
"I have told them that asked, 'Sooner a nunnery, or to wed a private gentleman who is not of the blood royal.'"
The blood coursed like a river through the youngofficer's veins. If—— He put the thought away sternly.
"Many things may happen. I must gain time. Some other league or bond may be formed and other interests may thwart it! I tell you so that if I be not here when you return, after you have driven Gustavus back to the Baltic, you will know. 'Tis the fate of princesses who cannot control their own destinies." She had stopped in her walk as if to say a word or two before dismissing him.
"I would I were to be nearer Vienna than Magdeburg!" said Nigel. "But I have promised. And your Highness is not an Infanta of Spain to be bartered here or there for an article in a treaty."
"So you think!" she said, evidently pleased. "But we women are all alike in one thing, we are all fatalists, like the Grand Turk."
"I have been very desirous of asking your Highness a question," said Nigel, drawing the little dagger from his belt and holding it so that she could see the hilt. "Whose arms are those?"
"Habsburg," she said. "How came you by it?"
"In Magdeburg a lady tried to stab me with it."
As her fingers closed round the hilt Nigel seemed to see the hand again just as he saw it and grasped it at Magdeburg.
"I wonder whether it was my cousin Ottilie von Thüringen," she said. "She is suspected of strong sympathies for the Lutherans."
"Does she resemble your Highness in person?"
"Yes! She did as a girl! There is a coldness between the families and we do not meet as we used. Some say she is singularly like me. Her mother was sister to mine! I remember myself giving her this dagger for agift. 'Tis very strange it should come into your hands and your eyes say that you wish it back in your own keeping. Colonel Nigel! I shall be jealous if you love my cousin Ottilie! It is the way of princesses!"
Her eyes fastened upon Nigel's: and his, fighting this uneven battle, drooped.
"I do not know if I love her! But I love none other! And then she is not a princess!"
"And one does not love the stars!" she interposed, rather with a touch of malice. "So you can worship but not love me, Colonel Nigel!"
"What can I say, your Highness? I must be true at all costs!"
A mist came over her fine eyes. She gave him her hand. This time he bowed and kissed it.
With a quick movement she turned, walked into the shadows, and he saw no more of her that night nor till he departed for his journey.
Itis not too much to say that the Emperor Ferdinand and the Jesuits, which may be taken to include the Duke of Bavaria, were intoxicated by the fall of Magdeburg. Ferdinand was bent on carrying out his Edict, bent on restoring to the Church of Rome its ancient possessions, bent on levelling the edifice of Protestantism till not one stone should be left in company with another, as witness that within the bounds of the empire there had once been such a heresy as Lutheranism, or such another heresy as Calvinism. Rather a tractless desert, which, for lack of a better name, he could call a Catholic state, than well-cultivated provinces, studded thickly with prosperous towns and cities, wherein men and women worshipped their Maker after any other fashion than his own. It was a dream of fanaticism.
Once the Emperor had deemed that he was within reach of his desires, when Wallenstein and his army had traversed the land driving the forces of Protestantism before him, not all Protestantism, mark you, but all that had courage enough to show an armed front in Germany. And the Diet of Ratisbon had said, "Your Majesty must dismiss Wallenstein." The Jesuits had been foremost, for they had weighed Wallenstein and found him wantingin their own kind of strenuousness. Reluctantly the Emperor had listened and agreed to let him go.
Gustavus had arisen. "Another little enemy," said Ferdinand, still full of the sensation of power that had crept into his heart with the aggrandisement of Wallenstein's army. Gustavus established himself in Mecklenburg and in Pomerania. "It is no great matter," said the Emperor. "Let our General Tilly and your General Pappenheim, Duke Maximilian, go on with their work and enforce the Edict. Brandenburg lies between Gustavus and Magdeburg, and George William is no fire-eater. He will stand by the Empire. Saxony, broad and rich in cities and men, lies next in his path, and John George is, Protestant though he be, a staunch Elector of the Empire. Let Tilly and Pappenheim go onward, maugre the threats of these northern migrants. We have seen Christian of Denmark driven back to his flat lands. So shall we see Gustavus." And lo! Tilly and Pappenheim took Magdeburg, and, whether they could help it or not, the city was burned and twenty thousand of its citizens died the death of the heretic: and the bruit of it had sent a shudder through all Protestant Germany. Who indeed should stand at the last day against the arms of the Empire?
"And all without your vaunted Wallenstein!" said Duke Maximilian. They set it down to impotence on the part of Gustavus.
The Emperor Ferdinand was not indisposed to show some other parts of Germany that Vienna was active, keeping them in mind, and he was not altogether sure of Hesse Cassel and its Landgrave. He did not wish to send his new regiment to join Tilly by the straight path through Saxony, because Saxony might take umbrage. It would help to preach submission if it took the road through Hesse Cassel and came by the north side of the mountains into the south of Hanover, and got into sight of Gustavusfrom the west bank of the Elbe, it being presumed that the Swedish king was upon the other side, and came up stream to Tilly.
This time Nigel had no despatches to carry. The Grand Duke Lothar had summoned him to read in his presence the instructions of the Emperor, which he was to impart to Major Hildebrand von Hohendorf. The only papers he was furnished with were general authorities to quarter his troops where he thought it expedient. Money was given him, but not in such abundance as to cumber his march. Last of all, he was bidden to Father Lamormain's apartments.
The priest received him with the urbanity that sat so well upon him, and bade him be seated.
"I trust that your visit to Vienna has been a pleasant and a profitable one!" he said.
"Both the one and the other beyond all expectations!" said Nigel heartily.
"You are entering upon a perilous adventure," said the priest. "But the Emperor and his councillors have great hopes that you will acquit yourself successfully. Your journey is a long one, and you will pass through many states, towns, bishoprics, and it depends upon yourself what speed you make. I do not doubt but that your zeal will conduct you to our armies. But the Emperor desires that you should note with care the disposition and affection of each district to his rule, so that he may know on whom to count for support or enmity. More than that, it is suspected here that the Duke of Friedland has intelligence with many princes and magistrates, even with Gustavus of Sweden."
"Impossible, Father!" the young man interposed with a flush of indignation. "Wallenstein a traitor!"
Father Lamormain made a little movement with his hands.
"I do not say treasonable! We live in times when we find it as difficult to say what is honour as Pilate found it hard to say what was truth. Besides, Wallenstein, being a private gentleman holding no office, may if he so chooses write letters even to Gustavus about ... shall we say butterflies, or forestry, or a thousand subjects."
"But with the open enemy of the Emperor!" protested Nigel.
The priest maintained his suavity.
"Injudicious, let us say, if it be true! It is suspected. Now if you should in your journeying intercept any of his messengers, the Emperor's service demands that you should possess yourself of his letters and hand them to the next regular priest you meet for transmission to the Emperor."
At the first grasp of the proposal Nigel was inclined to hesitate. But at the second he saw that there was nothing essentially unbecoming in it. He was in the service of the Emperor, and the Emperor's enemies avowed or secret must be his. There could be no division of allegiance. Besides, it was too impossible.
Father Lamormain watched his face, saw the hesitation, and drew forth a written order, signed by the Emperor himself, to seize the person of any messenger he would who carried letters, examine him, and send unbroken to the Emperor any letters he might seize.
Nigel read it and nodded.
"I understand, Father. It is for the safety of the Empire!"
"And Holy Church!" added the priest. "Your responsibility ceases when you report yourself to Count Tilly."
Nigel devoutly hoped that he would reach Tilly in the shortest possible space of time. Fighting was one thing. In so far as one did not get shot oneself or maimed, itwas an impersonal thing. Provided one did not have too much of it, it was exciting and almost enjoyable; besides that, it was the exercise of an old and honourable profession. But stopping messengers on the highroad, when there was no chance of reprisals on their part, questioning them at point of pistol, or rifling their holsters, seemed to be the work of a lower order entailing a certain stain upon him who performed it.
"I would ask you a question, Father. Why have I been chosen for this work?"
The priest smiled.
"For your knowledge of your craft the Archduke Lothar vouches. For your being a good Catholic the Church vouches. And that you are of the Scottish nation is good pledge that you will have no personal end to serve in Germany but your own advancement. To you Saxony is Saxony, Bavaria, Bavaria, but they mean nothing. You have taken service with the Emperor, and him only will you serve. So long as you serve the Emperor with a single eye you will succeed. The blessing of Heaven will follow you. The higher you climb, the more difficult the path will be. But only obey!"
The openness of the priest's avowal and his fatherly manner, almost a benediction in itself, won upon Nigel to a great degree, so that his suspicions of the Jesuits and their ways were almost, if not quite, laid to rest.
"To obey comes easy to the soldier, Father! But it does not make some duties less irksome."
"Ah! There I disagree with you," said the priest. "The rule of my order is obedience. The patience, the skill demanded of us, the interest involved in carrying out the task to a complete and successful issue beyond the possibility of doubt, remove all that you call irksomeness. Strive after our conception of obedience and all else becomes easy to you."
"But in your case," said Nigel, "there is no tie of blood that binds you. You admit neither father nor mother. The Church and your order stand in their stead."
"That is true! The member of the brotherhood of Jesus reckons no human relationship as having any meaning in his regard, and being free he moves safely to his instructed purpose. There is but one human passion which can be a source of danger to you. You are young. You may love. At present no danger threatens. Am I right?"
Nigel answered tersely enough.
"No woman claims me. I claim no woman!"
And his answer was as sincere as it appeared to be to Father Lamormain. For if his thoughts had often turned towards the lost Ottilie, and his admiration been roused by the Archduchess Stephanie, the unknown distance of the one and the exalted rank of the other had stayed the fire, as trenches widely dug will upon a burning heath.
Nigel was sensible of the pervading influence of the priest. He had passed the stage at which he had silently questioned his instructions, nor did he think it strange that the confessor of the Emperor should have been the channel of their conveyance: for by this time from one and another he had realised the peculiarly close leaning that the Emperor had towards the Church and towards its regular priests. He, however, did not recognise that one purpose of the interview was that Father Lamormain should make the further acquaintance with the instrument the Emperor and himself proposed to use.
On the whole, Father Lamormain was well pleased, and satisfied on the main head that Nigel was no creature of Wallenstein, though as a soldier he reverenced his old commander. For any further work beyond the present, time would show if this Scottish gentleman might become a more confidential agent of the order.
On the morrow Nigel set forth from Vienna with his three hundred "Rough-riders," and if, horses and men, they presented an uncouth and unfinished appearance, they also had a certain aspect of the formidable that boded ill for any obstacle they might encounter.
Ofthe earlier marches of Colonel Nigel Charteris it is not needful to say anything. For the first day brought them across the plains to Budweiss, where a strong garrison of the Emperor's troops lay, and the next to the Bohmerwald, crossing which they came into Bavaria, and so on the evening of the fourth day made Nuremberg. Bavaria being a country ruled by that masterful Duke Maximilian, who was a pupil of the Jesuits, though of a far more flexible mind than his cousin Ferdinand, was a stronghold of Catholicism, and, beyond a few natural grumbles at having to find quarters and food for so undesirable-looking a regiment, placed no obstacles in their way.
Nuremberg certainly showed a sullenness of the populace which seemed to indicate that below the surface there was a strong Protestant feeling, despite Maximilian's orthodoxy, but to Nigel it mattered little. His march next led him to Bamberg, a town entirely dominated by a Catholic Bishop, and a hostelry on the "Priestlane" to the Rhine, as the chain of Bishoprics was called by the untaught lewd of the Protestants. The next stage was Fulda, the seat of the Abbot of St Boniface, across the Bavarian border, and before him lay on one side the westernmoststrip of the Thüringian forest, and on the other the State of Hesse Cassel.
Now and again in Bavaria Nigel heard news of the army that was with Pappenheim and Tilly. He learned that no action had been fought, that the Elector of Saxony was still maintaining a neutrality, though he had gathered large numbers of troops. Of Gustavus he learned nothing. Evidently he was still in Pomerania. Nigel anticipated a peaceful march through the territories he had yet to traverse, albeit they were territories still Protestant in the main.
The Abbot of Fulda was the chief of all the abbots of the Empire. His territory extended twenty miles to the north and fifteen from east to west. It was for the most part a fertile plain of great cultivation lying between two ranges of hills which met at the northmost angle of a rough triangle. Fulda itself was in the south of the domain and near the Bavarian border. For forty years or more the Abbots of Fulda had kept Lutheranism at bay with as much zeal as the Emperor himself, while Hesse Cassel and Thüringia, the neighbouring states, had as sedulously fostered the heresy.
Nigel and his men readily gained entry to the town, and were surprised, as they rode through, at the palace of the Abbot and the buildings inhabited by his dependants and officers as well as those of the abbey itself, where the monks continued to extol, if not to emulate, the holiness of St Boniface, whose bones lay beneath the altar in the chapel beneath the choir of the cathedral. The town reflected in its shops and dwellings as well as in the dress of its inhabitants the wealth and prosperity of the Abbot, for the shrine of St Boniface brought numerous pilgrims, and the long and orderly rule of the Church for long generations over the domains had enabled the abbey to accumulate a considerable treasure. Nor were evidenceslacking that the Abbot was alive to the scriptural advice about the strong man armed keeping his goods in peace. For the Abbot commanded a goodly assemblage of lay brothers, who acted as his fighting force, for reprisals or for defence.
The object of their visit being explained to the chief officer of the abbey, quarters were assigned to the men and horses in the outlying portions, while Nigel and Hildebrand were received with much ceremony into the palace of the Prince-Abbot himself, and treated with every courtesy as the representatives of the Emperor.
The Abbot loved good cheer, and those who sat at meat with him had no cause to complain of famine or of drought, nor was he himself sparing.
Beside the two soldiers were two of the Abbot's principal officers, and another gentleman, like the soldiers, a sojourner in the territories of Fulda. The high cheek-bones and small dark eyes, the swarthy gipsy-like complexion, all denoted an Eastern birthplace.
The Abbot presented the newcomers to him and named him as the Count von Teschen. His manners were pleasant. He was affable, but it was an affability that told nothing.
"So you were at Magdeburg!" said the Abbot. "A grave blunder!"
Nigel looked questioningly.
"Not on your part, colonel! Nor for that matter on Tilly's. But the Jesuits!"
"But Magdeburg had flouted the Edict!" opposed Nigel.
"Magdeburg was at fault too!" smiled the Abbot. "The Emperor is a good Catholic. So am I, I trust. But the Emperor is too Spanish in his Catholicism. Lutheranism was a kind of quartan fever, a theologic plague, a wen into which all manner of foul humoursof discontent drained till it burst. It should have been allowed to exhaust itself. What did my predecessors do? They sat fast. They rewarded their good faithful Catholics. They made no wholesale persecution of the heretics, of whom there were a few. But the heretics found out that the true faith paid them better. Here and there one was quietly deprived of his farm or of our custom. Lutheranism grew stale, as all these violent uprisings must. The old order continued. Little by little, when those tinged with heresy saw that we were not to be moved, they came back."
"They were long-headed men, the Abbots of Fulda! Now Fulda trades with Hesse Cassel and with Thuringia, which are both Lutheran. We exchange our cattle and our wine and leather for their goods or their money, and do not find fault because either smells of Lutheranism."
"It sounds reasonable!" said the Count von Teschen.
"Edicts are all very well," the Abbot continued, "but if edicts are going to destroy men and women and children, homesteads, workshops, trade, they are going to destroy our revenues."
"But surely," suggested Nigel, "our Father the Pope approved of the Emperor's Edict and the means he took to enforce it."
The Abbot smiled with great benignity.
"If the Grand Turk issued an edict that all his subjects should become Christians, would not the Holy Father approve? Without a doubt! But if the Grand Turk applied to His Holiness for a million of gold crowns to assist him in his task of conversion?"
"I wager," said Hildebrand, "His Holiness would not subscribe a single rix-dollar!"
"It would be a pious aspiration! And so was our Pope's. They call him Pope Lutheranus. He was not willing to discourage the Emperor Ferdinand in his desires torestore to the church what the church had lost, but he has not shown himself willing to contribute out of the treasure of Rome to set armies marching hither and thither over the peaceful lands of Germany to enforce his aspiration. Let well alone!"
"The Duke of Friedland allowed himself to be dismissed," said the Count von Teschen, "because he saw that it was the Emperor's desire to make him the instrument of oppression to the Protestants."
Nigel's ears pricked up. Who was this that spoke so intimately of Wallenstein's mind?
"Doubtless he saw also," said the Abbot, "that the ideas of the Emperor would draw together all the Protestant powers. It is coming to that. Even my neighbour the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel is but now on his way, if he has not already started, to join Gustavus."
"Indeed!" said Count von Teschen. There was that in his look and tone which suggested to Nigel that it was news to him, and unwelcome news.
"Moreover, my neighbours of Thüringia are in a ferment and have raised up at least a regiment to march into Saxony."
"To what end?" said Nigel. "It is thought the Elector, John George, is too well affected to the Emperor."
"John George is by nature peaceful! But he is gathering an army. And if the Emperor were as politic as he is a good Catholic he would say to John George, 'Come! Let us talk no more about edicts. Let us drive out the Swedes.' But he cannot. He is too headstrong, and too sure of John George. And John George has his people to consider. Do you think Magdeburg has softenedthem? Has not every village had its separate tale, and, as for Thüringia, there is a preacher called Pastor Rad, who haspainted the fall of Magdeburg from one end of the forest to the other in the colours of Sodom and Gomorrah. Beware how you and your troops ride through the forest. Just now the sight of a casque or a gorget would madden the peasantry till not one trooper of your regiment would remain to ride his horse."
Nigel was not ungrateful to the Abbot for his warning, though he suspected the dignitary of an inclination to exaggerate. He was no coward, but he had seen enough of the Forest to know its solitudes of trees, the deep beds of leaves that lay in the hollows, undisturbed from year to year, till those of ten years ago had become thick black soft earth in which a man's body might lie and moulder silently and surely till the bones parted company. In the Forest a shrewd bolt from an old cross-bow, an opportune thrust of pike from behind a tree, a stone well dropped from a bough, might each and all thin his ranks and no enemy be seen.
But these gruesome forebodings were set aside by something the genial and talkative host was saying to Count von Teschen.
"Prague! I have never journeyed thither! They say the Duke of Friedland has a goodly dwelling." He looked round complacently. "Our own is not amiss seeing what a patchwork the ages and my predecessors have made of it. Is the Duke's greater?"
"It is in a great park!" said Count von Teschen. There are six gates to its outer walls, and he has twenty gentlemen of birth serving him as if he were the King of France. The servants and horsemen are numberless, and his riches make the whole expense appear but a tithe of them.
"And how does he spend his time?"
"You have heard of his astrologer?"
"Has he an astrologer of his own?"
"Aye! One Master Seni! 'Tis not the only one, for I have heard of another, Master Pietro Bramante, who travels up and down and visits him at times."
"And what do they that a man cannot do for himself?"
"I know not! All they do they do in secret. But 'tis said they both watch the stars for signs."
"As Cæsar watched the entrails of the sacrifice for signs!" said the Abbot with a laugh. "But I wager that Don Cæsar could always find the auspices propitious, if his own plans were ripe."
This caustic comment did not seem to please Count von Teschen, for he said nothing but smiled an unpleasant smile that showed his fine white teeth.
"You may tell the Duke that I was much gratified by his gift. That antique mitre of old goldsmith's work and the rochet will be famous additions to our Abbey's treasure-house, and that which he has sent me of a more personal kind is very precious to an old man who finds much of his enjoyment in his toys."
Count von Teschen expressed his thanks for the Abbot's appreciation and promised deliverance of the message.
The Abbot, on his part, promised to show them the treasures of St Boniface on the morrow, and after a little while of further talk the guests were shown with all ceremony to their bedchambers.
Nigel was nothing loth. But he had no sooner found his couch than he began to con over this Count von Teschen. That he was an emissary of Wallenstein was plain: but that a rich nobleman should send presents appropriate in character to a rich prelate had nothing suspicious in it. If Wallenstein had lost favour and power mainly through the loss of the support of the great Catholic electors, the Bishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Treves, it was not so wonderful that he should by indirectmethods attempt to curry favour with a man like the Abbot of Fulda, who was almost the equal of the great Prince-Bishops, and would share their politics and their fortunes. But was thisallthe task of the emissary? Was it not possibly a cover to his real purpose, an end in itself, but only a minor one? If it were so, how was Nigel on the Abbot's own friendly territory to bid Count von Teschen stand and deliver, backed though he was by three hundred indifferent horsemen, many of whom were Count von Teschen's own countrymen? It is to be feared that Nigel's last prayers before sleep came were not for the salvation of Father Lamormain.
The next morning Nigel and Hildebrand met the Abbot, who had with him Count von Teschen, at the hour of nine, and made the round of the Cathedral and the treasure-house and the principal apartments of the palace and the abbey, which occupied them well till the hour of dinner, when they were again treated with sumptuous liberality. The meal over, Count von Teschen took his leave, and Nigel was unable to see him depart: but for this he had taken measures. The Abbot seemed very willing to detain the others, and asked particularly to see the muster of the troops and an exercise or two, for his tastes seemed to lie strongly towards secular matters. Nigel could do no less than gratify him, and though he himself was quite aware that his men were far from showing the discipline and skill of the veteran troops he had once led, the display pleased his host, and occupied a good deal of time.
His first question of Sergeant Blick was as to the direction taken by the Count. When he learned that it was on towards the borders of Hesse Cassel he was possessed by eagerness to set off, which, however, he had to restrain till he could take decent leave of the prelate.
"You have a good many Bohemians in your ranks, colonel!" said the Abbot.
It was significant that the Abbot of St Boniface could put two and two together.
"Aye," said Nigel to himself, "corbies dinna pick oot corbies' een!"
Itwas thus two hours past noon when Nigel and his men rode out of the north gate of Fulda, and took the road that leads along the left bank of the river Fulda, which steadily pursues its way till it finds an opening in Taunus and so breaks into Hesse Cassel. Whether Count von Teschen had taken that road, or returned, seemed of little moment, for he had at least two hours' start, and as he had but a single man-servant, and both of them were well mounted, pursuit promised little result; for the speed of Nigel's command was perforce the speed of the worst horse. Moreover, as they were approaching a country of doubtful friendliness, it was wiser to approach it in good order and condition than upon horses blown with haste.
At the frontier of Hesse was a small military post the captain of which challenged their further passage.
Nigel made a civil reply that he was commanding a regiment of the Emperor's horse and purposed to ride through Hesse Cassel into Lower Saxony. The captain requested that he would stay his march till the wishes of the Landgrave could be ascertained. To this Nigel made the firm answer that he was unable to wait for such permission, the more so that the Emperor was notat war with Hesse but with Sweden. The captain told him that he passed at his own peril, and called in his handful of men. Nigel rode on to Hersfeld. Such of the inhabitants that he met or overtook preserved a sullen demeanour, which did not savour of anything but hostility. Perhaps they regarded him and his men as the woeful harbingers of great armies, and few of them, indeed, made any guess as to the master he served, being disquieted at the uncouth aspect of the strangers.
But at Hersfeld he found something more than sullenness. For outside the gates on the town's common was drawn up a considerable body of well-armed infantry, and the numerous pennons showed that here was a muster camp. Two regiments were disposed in battle array in the dense battalion formation usual with all armies but that of Gustavus. A little in front of these was a group of richly-dressed officers, and in the middle one of high rank.
Nigel halted his men and rode forward with Hildebrand till he came within saluting distance, when, after a cold acknowledgment, the general commanding the Hessians motioned him to come forward.
Nigel advanced a few steps and reined in his horse.
"Who are you?" was the curt inquiry.
"Colonel Nigel Charteris of the Imperial Service, with my regiment of horse. I am leading them through the territories of Hesse Cassel to join Count Tilly."
"By whose authority?"
"The Emperor's, and with the goodwill of the princes his allies!"
"His Majesty takes strange measures to preserve their goodwill, sir. I am William of Hesse! These are my territories, not the Emperor's."
"Your Highness will surely of grace accord us a day's journey through your dominions, and such little provenderas we pay for. It is a peaceful errand so far as your Highness is concerned."
"Then you should have stayed at the frontier till my guards had asked my will."
"I crave pardon, your Highness. I was told in Fulda that your Highness had set out on a journey; and I might have waited an ill-convenient time."
"It is possible, colonel. You might have gone other ways."
"The Emperor would doubtless be surprised to hear that the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel was unwilling to give his men passage. But if it be denied to them, I have no instructions to make war."
"'Tis just as well!" said the Landgrave with a grim smile on his thick lips. "We have that about us that would stop you. You will go hence, if you so choose, across the river into Thüringia, and make what way you can. I am not ruler there. But further passage through Hesse you cannot have."
Nigel showed no outward perturbation. He took one level, leisurely survey of the officers of the Landgrave, saluted, and said—
"Adieu, your Highness! It will please the Emperor to know that the hospitality, which is denied to him, is accorded to the Duke of Friedland."
The point of this remark lay in this, that Count von Teschen was seated on horseback among the suite of the Landgrave.
"One does not inquire into the quality of the merchant, but into the goodness of his wares!" was the quick reply. For all his sternness the Landgrave looked into Nigel's eyes with a half smile, and made a little motion of farewell with gauntleted hand. He was a man and knew a man.
Nigel and Hildebrand bade their regiment of rough-riders turn about and make for the river bank. The advance-guard was bidden to stop wherever the river should be fordable. Then they planned to cross into Thüringia and march north by the way of Erfurt, and thence to the camp of Gustavus.
Thecontretempsat Hersfeld was a surprise to both of them. Nor was it to be explained by the presence of Count von Teschen. It was plain that the Landgrave was about to take up arms against the Emperor, and that the Emperor was ill-informed as to the real state of matters in the Protestant States, of which Hesse Cassel was one of the smallest.
As to Wallenstein, Nigel against his own inclination was beginning to have doubts of his loyalty. Father Lamormain had more than hinted them. The Landgrave's irony about the merchant and his merchandise showed that at the opposite poles of policy and belief similar ideas were current. And Nigel was honestly grieved. But his path at all events was plain. He was for the Emperor.
So having come to the ford he set his horse at the water, and though it reached his stirrups and ran swiftly, he made light of it. By the fall of evening they had reached the hamlet of Salzungen and bivouacked by the river Werra.
Water and green grass ripening into long hay were there in plenty, and Nigel had learned in the school of Wallenstein sufficient of the art of exacting creature-comforts for the men. It was merely an outskirt of the forest land, gently undulating from the hamlet church down to the river; and across the river farther down, where a wooden bridge spanned it, the road wound into gentle rising lands, behind which rose steeper pine-covered hills, and there was a great expanse of sky and comparatively open country. There was no chance of a surprise here, and except from equal numbers ofcavalry, a thing unlikely to expect, there was nothing to fear.
At the ford near Hersfeld he had left a vedette of three picked men to watch and capture any one that crossed during the next five or six hours. There was still a hope that it might be the Count von Teschen. And if his path lay in another direction, it might be some messenger to rouse the opposition of the people of the forest.
At midnight the vedette came in and reported that no one had crossed.
When the vedette came Nigel roused himself to hear their report, bade them take the refreshment provided for them, and go to sleep. The first sentinels had been relieved, and all was quiet save for the sound of horses tearing the rich grass as they took fresh mouthfuls, or the chant of some still unsated grasshoppers. He was soon asleep again.
But not so heavily as before. The couch of hay on which he lay in an open shed did not, once his sleep was broken, prove quite so soft and alluring as it had three hours before. And at two o'clock, which sounded from the nearest steeple, he found himself cold and wakeful. Then from the main street of the hamlet his ear caught the sound of horse's hoofs, not of a horse being ridden but led. One horse! Two horses! It might be some early villager; or, again, it might be Count von Teschen.
Nigel got up, wrapped in his cloak as he was, went out and summoned the sentry who was on guard beside the hut. Taking the man's musket himself, he bade him go and see who the horsemen were, and himself walked to and fro in the cold air, musket on arm. Then after a few steps he stood still, for he had heard a low call. It was a familiar one, the call of the Bohemian to his horse. Some wakeful trooper might have uttered it in pure negligence. But it was repeated. And then from anotherdirection, it was not easy to tell which, it was answered. Nigel was alert now, wondering what this might mean. Still dark, he had nothing but his ears to trust to, but down among the lines he thought he heard movements. So he roused the two nearest men, and sending one away in the direction of the noise he bade the other be on the alert. Then he resumed his place, appearing to sleep on his post but in reality watching with ears and eyes.
Two forms began to make themselves apparent, wriggling and crouching along the ground in between the sleeping troopers, mere shapes, but moving, and moving towards the hut. Of a sudden one sprang at him, knife in hand, to feel the butt of the sentry's musket hit him one tremendous blow beneath the chin and then nothing more upon earth. The other who made straight into the hut was faced at the opening by a trooper, who, firing his musket point-blank, blew half the man's face away, and in doing so roused the camp.
"Seize all the Bohemians!" was the next order. But quickly as it was carried out in the almost total darkness, the confusion, the protests, the excitement among the horses, which threatened to stampede, all contributed to the partial success of the plot. For some twenty-five or thirty men galloped in wild disorder across the grasslands and gained the wooded bridge before they could be stopped, and for the present it was hopeless to pursue. The sentry was found by the roadside leading to the village, stunned by a blow from a pistol butt.
Nigel, except for Hildebrand, kept his own counsel. But at dawn, as soon as the troopers had broken their fast and horses were fed and watered, he made a close inquiry, released such of the Bohemians as seemed to have kept quiet, distributed them by twos and threes through the other troops, and the rest, about a dozen in all, hedeprived of their arms and made them ride in the middle of the regiment, scowling and disconsolate.
So Count von Teschen had scored his first point, and the second point. But Nigel was determined not to let him get too far ahead, to husband his horses with all the skill he could command, and follow his own road to Erfurt. If he could get even with von Teschen on the way so much the better.
It was a summer morning. Not a few of the village folk came out to look at the regiment from a respectful distance. And as Nigel and Hildebrand rode over the little bridge whence they could see in either direction the little river peacefully meandering, the line of tiny trees along its banks, the shimmering haze over the meadows, and heard the church bell summoning the faithful to early mass, all the world seemed at peace. Over the low hill to another hamlet called Schweina, where they got a stirrup-cup, and then the road, still mounting, wound by an ascent that tried the horses towards the castle of Altenstein, which was nearly the highest point of the range of hills they had to cross, peering out of the thick woods. As yet they had seen no sign of the Count von Teschen. A short halt to breathe the horses and then onward again, and after a short farther ascent they found on the ridge of the range a fair road, wooded to the left, and bounded on the right by grasslands which sloped down to the valley, a world of greenery beneath a canopy of the bluest sky. A mile further on, to avoid a long detour, they had to clamber by a rough path over a spur of the woody hill before meeting the road again, and here they became aware they were not the only wayfarers, for, as Nigel was almost out of the woodland shade, he heard the murmur of many voices and the articulate sound of one strong resonant voice.
Nigel passed the word to halt, while he looked upon the business that was forward, and to do that the better he forced his horse through the undergrowth some few dozen yards farther along. Upon a waggon, from which the horses had been taken, stood Pastor Rad.
At first Nigel saw vaguely a great multitude, and his first thought was that this was an assemblage of the Lutherans for worship in a place convenient to the many scattered hamlets. Then as his horse stood more steadily and he could choose his own window in the leaves, he saw that a great many of them were men, and that they were armed in some measure; and, thirdly, he noticed that whatever the ultimate business might be, that which was being transacted was a sort of trial.
There was Pastor Rad standing in an ox-waggon, his long yellow hair partly matted on his brow and partly hanging in disorder, for he was manifestly very hot. Down below, facing him, sat a girl, her hair flowing down to her waist, in a plain dusky blue robe. She was manifestly being talked at, preached at, the object of public ignominy. In a ring round her at a little distance sat two rows of grim-faced elders, or whatever functionaries corresponded to that body in the Lutheran community.
"Come forth, Satan!" bellowed Pastor Rad, so that it reached even to the ears of Nigel and Hildebrand.
And all the ring of elders fell forthwith upon their knees and cried with a loud voice, "Come forth, Satan!"
The girl involuntarily put her hands to her ears because of the clamour.
"What in the name of heaven are they about?" Nigel asked.
"'Tis an exorcising. The girl has an evil spirit!" said Hildebrand, crossing himself. "'Tis none of our business! Let us get on!"
But the girl wept and stood up crying aloud for a deliverer. She evidently dreaded the next step of the exorcisers. And with good reason, for Pastor Rad issued some brief directions and two men seized the girl, and, thrusting her hands between the rails of the waggon, were proceeding to bind them; another stood forward with a whip of many thongs.
"God condemn the Lutherans!" said Hildebrand, and spat upon the ground. "They are going to whip the devil out of her."
Once more the girl tried to wrench herself free, and in doing so turned her face, throwing back her flowing hair as she did so, in such wise that Nigel got a glimpse of it.
"By God's Son!" Nigel exclaimed, with a burst of passionate indignation that almost startled Hildebrand. "Go back! lead the men into the open, halt them in three lines and await my order! Tschk!"
Bowing his head and urging his horse he broke through the saplings and galloped to the girl's side.
It needed but his brief "Loose her!" to make her torturers undo the clumsy fastening they had begun, and "Elspeth Reinheit!" for her to fling her arms around his saddle-peak.
"Take me away! Save me! Save me! Captain!"
Nigel unclasped her arms and bade her once more sit down upon the low bench. "Fear no more, maiden!" he added with such decision in his voice as poured fresh courage into her. Then he faced sternly up at the Pastor and asked him—
"What have you against this maiden?"
But the Pastor, full to overflowing with spiritual drunkenness, shouted—
"The Lord hath delivered into our hands her paramour also! Behold him that sinned with the damsel. Nowshall the lying devil come out of her and she shall confess!"
"What say you?" was Nigel's response, hurled at the minister in a voice that spoke of his indignation.
"That you, Captain of the host of the Evil One, did'st lie with the damsel at Magdeburg! Deny it not!"
Before the Pastor knew what he did, Nigel had leaned over in his stirrups and, seizing him by the raiment, tumbled him to the ground and struck him two shrewd blows with the flat of his sword, which completed his confusion.
The men of the assembly sprang up, and with one accord were making for the bold intruder, but the immediate appearance of Hildebrand and his men caused every one to stand stark still.
"Know all men!" shouted Nigel in the temporary silence, "this maiden, Elspeth Reinheit, is as pure as snow. Your Pastor lies foully when he says other. It is true she succoured me when I was in sore need in Magdeburg. But do not your Scriptures say—'If thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink'? This did she, and for this I spared not only her life, but the life of her slanderer, Pastor Rad. Is this true, maiden?"
"Before God, it is true!" said Elspeth.
"Nevertheless, I leave her not here to your ruthlessness and your religion! Maiden!"
She sprang up at the word! Nigel lifted her upon his saddle, and giving his horse the spur, bore her to the regiment, who, understanding nothing of what had gone before, manifested a jovial indifference not unmingled later with some rough jokes, which would perhaps have put Nigel to the blush. For a woman, especially awoman in her youth, not ill-looking, was the ordained prey of the soldier of fortune, who having abducted her in one hour, as willingly dropped her in the next to patch up her life and the rags of her honour as she would.
BeforeElspeth Reinheit was aware of the providential character of the deliverance from her persecutors, she found herself descending the familiar, tortuous, narrow valley of the Erbstrom, along which the houses of the village of Ruhla are strung for fully a couple of miles. After a stony descent the regiment reached a tolerable inn, wherein Nigel could gain speech in something like connected fashion with the girl.
It seemed that from the day that Nigel burst into the house at Magdeburg Pastor Rad had conceived a violent jealousy in regard to Elspeth, to whom previously he had paid such attentions as indicated a project of marriage. Elspeth had till that time received his attentions with a kind of dutiful acquiescence; but as from that time his manner towards her changed into one of sullen suspicion, out of which arose interminable inquiries as to her relations with the Scottish captain of musketeers, so her mood of acquiescence had changed also into one of complete indifference, not altogether free from a little feminine spite. Unable to get any definite confession from her which would have condemned her, the minister had brooded over his own fancied wrongs along with the very real wrongs done to his fellow Lutherans at Magdeburg, and had finally concluded that she was possessed by a lying devil, who took pleasure in defeating him. This was a blow to his spiritual pride, and he had arranged to bring the matter to the test of a public discipline. To what lengths he might have gone in his extraordinary fury, supported as he was by the general renown he was just then enjoying as a prophet of Protestantism, it was impossible to say. He was a fanatic, and a genuine believer in his own fanaticism, spurred on by a bitter residuum of admiration and desire for the maiden he had once fully intended to marry. As for the congregations he had summoned from every hamlet, little and big, for miles round, it was sufficient for them to have heard the bruit of the possession to believe it implicitly. Even the very lawyers believed in such things, and unlearned persons were not prone to doubt what lawyers and clergy unitedly agreed was so. That she was a girl of the richer class of farmers, and therefore above most of themselves in social consideration, was in itself an inducement to believe ill of her. They had come to the assembly as to a holiday, with their wives and provisions, their pipes and tabors. There was to be a general muster afterwards of a military character, for had they not promised to raise a corps in aid of John George the Elector of Saxony, who was on the eve of rebellion against the Emperor?
The question Nigel now put to Elspeth was as to her next destination. Her home was a little to the north of Eisenach, but her father was a man who concerned himself more to stand well in the eyes of his neighbours, and especially those who bought and sold with him, than one to stand up starkly for his daughter's good name and safety. He had made a protest of sorts against her being haled before the congregations on such a charge, but he had not stood out long before the onslaught of PastorRad and some of the lay brethren. What had happened before might happen again. Elspeth felt no surety in being restored at present to the parental homestead.
"Have you no more powerful friends who could give you refuge till Pastor Rad grows tired of his folly?"
"There is the Lady Ottilie of Thüringen!" said Elspeth. "I know not where we may find her just now. She comes and goes like the forest deer. She is sometimes at the Wartburg! If she were there, the Landgravine would take me in, and Pastor Rad would never lay hands on me."
A strange eager light came into Nigel's face as the name of the mysterious Ottilie fell innocently and naturally from the girl's lips.
"Who is she, this Lady Ottilie?" he asked in a tone of calculated indifference. "Is she of the Landgrave's family?"
Elspeth opened her own blue eyes more widely, and considered Nigel's face with a calm gaze as she replied—
"She may be of their kin. I do not know. She is possessed of influence with them, and they treat her with much honour."
They made plans together, for Elspeth knew every path through the forest, and after an hour or so Nigel gave orders to mount again. Sergeant Blick had improvised a pillion, and Elspeth was mounted this time behind a solid German trooper, to whose belt she held tightly. She rode a few paces behind Nigel, who was busy for a mile or two unfolding to Hildebrand the inner history of the incident, and his own plans.
So they rode on to a spot where a ridge of high open ground divides the thick forest valleys leading northwards from the one by which they had come. It is called Hohe Sonne. Here Hildebrand assumed command of the regiment, and was to lead them to the right bythe road called Weinstrasse and halt them at the edge of the forest, two miles to the east of the town of Eisenach, while Nigel with Sergeant Blick and four trustworthy troopers should make their way on foot with Elspeth through the Annathal to the Wartburg. By this forest path they would be under cover all the way. Their task accomplished, Nigel and his party could rejoin the regiment. In the present state of Thüringia, stirred from end to end as it evidently had been, Nigel was bent on keeping as much as possible to the open road, and not allowing his force to be entangled in any tumult in the towns.
At first the pathway led gently downwards through a wide undulating area of forest, which gradually contracted to a long sinuous ravine flanked by steep walls of rock. The sound of voices carried far along this rock-bound way in the stillness, that was broken by nothing but the light splashing of the brook and the "pink-pink" call of the birds.
Nigel and Elspeth Reinheit were far in front, for they were lighter of foot, and both eager, though from different causes. He was desirous to surrender his charge, pretty and young as she was, into safe keeping, for Nigel had never played philanderer. He was also involuntarily full of the tumult, at once a wonder to himself and a pleasure, that came over him at the thought of Ottilie von Thüringen.
Elspeth in her ingenuous way was only too glad to leave the soldiers in the rear, in order to savour the unspoken delight she felt at being alone in the forest with her deliverer, at whose noble and martial aspect she kept taking little fleeting but soul-satisfying looks. She longed with all her maidenliness, and she was as sweet and chaste as the brook that gurgled by them, to throw her arms about him and tell him that she couldlove him to eternity. The affection of a thousand affectionate German girls, rippling over with endearing phrases of their love-making mother tongue, welled up to her lips, but did not pass them. Only by an effort of will did she convert them to little outbursts of thankfulness that gushed out at intervals, and after short spaces of silence, renewed themselves in other words. Even Nigel could scarcely fail to be aware of the state of her feelings, for the tenderness of her tones filled out what might be lacking in her actual declarations. Her beautiful golden hair had been gathered by her deft fingers into a coil, and surmounted rather than covered by a dainty coif; and with her clear blue eyes and pink cheeks, her supple figure, rather tall than otherwise, she was a feast for the eyes that some of the heroes of the Nibelungen Lied might well have coveted.
One question bubbled to the surface of her mingled reverie and talk.
"Noble captain, have you ever seen the Lady Ottilie since we parted at Erfurt?"
Nigel was too busy with the puzzling thoughts that the question called up to apprehend any subtlety in the question. So he said—
"Once I fancied so! But it was not near enough to speak, and it was night."
"Do you long very much to see her again?" came the next question.
"I? Little one! I scarcely know! She is a mystery to me!"
"Perhaps that is why you would like to see her!" she conjectured. "Now when you have brought me to a safe placeIshall never cease to wish to seeyouagain."
Nigel smiled as he answered—
"You must have a long patience, Fräulein Elspeth, for I may never come this way again."
Elspeth was on the verge of tears.
"But what is this?" asked Nigel. "It seems to me that the rocks close in and that there is no passage, though I suppose the brook runs out by some crevice. Do we have to climb the rocks?"
"We are coming to the Dragon's Gorge. After that we shall have the wide forest again."
"We must wait till the men come up with us!" said Nigel.
"I could wait all day!" sighed the maiden, gazing at him with large eyes and then dropping her eyelids.
In a minute or two they heard the sound of hurrying feet, in another Sergeant Blick and his men came panting up as fast as they could run.
"The Bohemians!" said Blick. "Count von Teschen!" Presently the jingle and clatter of men and horses echoed along the rocky walls.
"No horses can get through the Dragon's Gorge," said Elspeth. "Come!" She led them to the rocks, and there a narrow passage disclosed itself, the width of a broad man, no more. It was as if the rocks had once been one and been split asunder by some mighty rent. The brook flowed to the opening, and the rocks' sides were covered with mosses and ferns up and up, through which there was an eternal trickle of water, and high above all were the tree-tops.
"The question is, are they pursuing us, or are they merely making for the Wartburg?" Nigel asked Sergeant Blick. Elspeth answered—
"They would never have come this way torideto the Wartburg."
"Then they must never come through!" said Nigel. "Fräulein Elspeth, lead these men through to the other end! Blick, stay here with me."
Then Nigel peered out from the mouth of the rockypassage. He espied Count von Teschen and his troop of Bohemians riding along. Then, as they in their turn made out the impossibility of going further, there was a general hubbub of voices.
Count von Teschen was inclined to turn back and seek another way, but evidently some of his ruffians were for a pursuit on foot, thinking the rock passage but a temporary obstacle. Five or six of them dismounted and throwing the reins on their horses' necks rushed forward splashing into the brook, and then one entered the Dragon's Gorge. He had no sooner peered round the first bend than he fell forward, for Blick's musket butt was heavy and the arm that swung it strong. He fell face downwards into the stream.
Another of his fellows followed eagerly, and again the butt descended and he fell on top of the other. The water continued to trickle through the ferns and mosses. And the brook flowing on carried the flowing blood onwards to Nigel's feet as he splashed forward towards the other end of the gorge.
It was a strange fortress to hold, this rift in the rocks, and yet a fortress of a kind. One man at each end could hold it. It was tortuous and it was lofty. Overhead were streaks of blue sky, alternating with patches of greenery and overhanging rocks. It would take more men than Count von Teschen had to spy down from above with the view of letting a big loose stone fall upon the heads of the defenders, for a yard to right or left for them brought invisibility. Nigel pressed on to the other end, which opened out into a wider passage a few feet in length, and then discovered a still wider glen, with sloping sides thick with trees. Two things were possible: the one to hasten forward and trust to their heels for putting the forest depths between them and the pursuers, which meant risking their lives once the Count and his followers hadmade a circuit of the obstacle and possibly overtaken them, spreading out as they would be sure to do. The other was to lie in the fortress, stoutly guarding both ends, and trust to the foe giving up a hopeless task, and proceeding. The latter had this to recommend it, that darkness would fall at sunset, and the hours of this eventful day were hastening to their end. And with darkness and Elspeth they might surely expect to evade the others and make their way to the Wartburg.
Against this plan Nigel's mind suggested that Count von Teschen was quite possibly himself journeying to that same castle, carrying letters to the Landgrave, and if he reached there first, what hope could there be of a reception for Elspeth, or safety for himself, especially now that blood had been shed.
It became an immediate necessity to see what the enemy was doing. He sent one man back to support Blick, one man he posted at the farther end of the gorge, outside, as a look-out, and the other two with Elspeth stood in a little hollow just outside on a dry spot, with instructions to retire to the rocks if danger threatened. Nigel then climbed the steep ascent at the further end and made his way along the lip of the rift till he could look down upon the Count and his followers; they were all there as far as Nigel could see, irresolute. Finally they seemed to make up their minds, and one by one began to lead their horses in single file up a steep bank into the woodland. Yet not all, for six remained to guard the inlet. Very cautiously Nigel leaned over and called to Blick, whose cheery voice was heard in reply—
"Two dead. No wounded, colonel!"