p324"'He's mine,' the watcher whispered to himself."
He saw the tall form of Bevill turning away from the door of "Le Prince d'Orange," and understood that the man, who had in his hearing denounced the other as a spy, had been to see if the latter had entered the inn. He saw, too, by looking up the one long street that led from theplace, that the denouncer paused for a moment and then went swiftly along it. Seeing this, he understood, and himself followed swiftly, while now and again putting his hand in his breast as though to make sure of what was hidden there.
"He is gone that way," he muttered, "and the other knows it. So, too, do I know it now. Between us we shall run the fox to ground."
Thus they went on: the first man invisible to the last, but the second kept well in view by that last; then suddenly the latter paused.
He paused, with a muttered imprecation; paused while withdrawing himself into the deep, dark stoop of an old house.
"He has missed him! Missed him! He is coming back. The spy has escaped. Ah! ah! the chance is gone. If he has missed him how shall I ever find him?"
A moment later this watcher started, while giving utterance to some sound that was, now, neither imprecation nor exclamation, but, in truth, a gasp. A gasp full of astonishment, nevertheless; a gasp that surprise seemed to have choked back into his throat.
For he who was coming back was not the tall, handsomely apparelled young man who had started forth in pursuit of him whom he had denounced as a renegade spy; but, instead, another. An older man, one who held a dark cloak across his features from which some wisp of a grey beard projected; one who, as he came swiftly towards that stoop where the man was hidden, looked back and back, and back again, and glinted a pair of dark eyes up and down the street as though in mortal fear.
"He's mine," the watcher whispered to himself. "He's mine. He will spy no more."
As he so spoke, the man who was returning drew near the stoop, his footsteps fell outside it. He was before it!
* * * * * *
"How did I miss him? What twist or turn did the vagabond take whereby to avoid me?" Bevill pondered the next morning, as now the soft, roseate hue of the sun suffused the skies that, half an hour before, had been daffodil and, before that, lit by the moon. For it was four o'clock now, and the daylight had dawned on one of the last remaining days of May.
Four o'clock! And Bevill Bracton, after he had re-entered his room, disheartened at having missed Sparmann, had sat from midnight until now on a chair at a table by the window, while sternly refraining from lying down for fear that, thereby, he might fall asleep and so be trapped by some of the French soldiery whom the spy would possibly have put on his track.
He had asked himself the above question a dozen, a score, a hundred times during these hours. He had muttered again and again, "How did I miss him? How lose sight of him?" yet was always unable to find an answer to the question.
Also Bevill had asked himself another, a more important question which, not only in his own mind but in actual fact, remained unanswered. Why, since Sparmann had escaped him, had he not already been denounced? Why, through the night as it passed away, or in the cool coming of the dawn, had he heard no tread of provost's picket, or corporal's guard, coming down the street to the inn to arrest him? Yet his ancient enemy had but to warn them that here, in "Le Prince d'Orange," was an Englishman on whom would be found a Frenchman's passport, the passport of a secretary of the French Embassy in London, for his doom to be swift and sure. A hurried examination, a still more hurried trial, and--a platoon of soldiers! That was all.
Yet nothing had come during those hours of the passing night. Nothing had disturbed the watcher and listener at that table by the window, nothing had caused him to even glance towards his unsheathed sword as it lay on the undisturbed bed, nothing to cause his hand to advance one inch towards the pistols placed on a chair by his side. A dog barking, some labourers going forth to their toil, the striking of the hours by the church clock; but nothing more. And now the day was come and he was still free and unsought for.
"Even had I been sought for it may be that I might have escaped from out the town at break of day," Bevill mused now; "but what of her opposite? What of the woman who depends on me and my succour if needed--the woman who, knowing that I am no Frenchman and am, since all the world is against France or France's king, doubtless her enemy, does not betray me? Might have escaped? No! I could not have done that."
"Why," he continued, still reflecting, "has that man held his peace? Does he doubt that he may be mistaken, that I am not his old enemy and victor; or does he fear that, as he might betray me to his new masters, so might I find opportunity to betray him to his old ones, to his countrymen? In truth, it may be so."
The little town was waking up to the work of the day by this time. Windows were being thrown open to the rays of the bright morning sun. Away, outside the town, the bugles and trumpets of those who held the place in subjection could be heard, and, a moment later, Bevill saw Jeanne thrust aside the shutters of the rooms of the first floor of the "Duc de Brabant."
"I had best make my way across," Bevill mused, as now he refreshed himself with some hearty ablutions and made the usual toilet of travellers of that day. "It seems that I am to be unmolested for the present. Therefore will I start at once, and the sooner the better! leaving word that, as near as may be, I will await the coach of Madame la Comtesse beyond the town."
Thrusting, therefore, his sword into his belt, and his pistols into his deep pockets, he threw open the door of the room and went out into the passage. As he did so, however, he saw the sun streaming through the open door of another bedroom farther down, and heard voices proceeding from inside the room.
"Not in all night!" he heard one voice say, while recognising it as that of the landlady. "Not in all night! And he a man of years! Surely he is not a wastrel and a roysterer? It may be so, since he says he is a Frenchman, though he has not the air thereof. Perhaps he has been carousing with their dissolute soldiery. Or--ach!--if he should have ridden off without payment.Ach!'tis like enough!"
"His horse is in the stable," another voice, that of an ancientfemme de chamber, replied. "He has not done that. Yet, all the same, 'tis strange.Ja Wohl, it is strange."
"It must behimof whom they speak," Bevill thought to himself, as now he passed the door, and, giving "good-day" to the women within the room, went down the stairs and out into the street, after which he crossed theplaceto the "Duc de Brabant."
The coach of the Comtesse de Valorme was as he had seen it last night. At present there was no sign of departure; the horses had not yet been brought from the stable, and none of madame's servants were about. In the courtyard, however, the stableman andfacchinswere sluicing the whole place with buckets of water and brushing and mopping the stones, amongst them being the one who had brought down the valises to Joseph overnight.
Calling this man towards him with the intention of asking him to bring Jeanne Or Joseph down for a moment, so that he might leave a message for the Comtesse, he observed that he had a huge bruise on his face, one that was almost raw, and bled slightly.
"You have hurt yourself," Bevill said kindly to the fellow, after he had asked him to do his behest; and after, also, putting a piece of silver in his hand. "You would do well to put some styptic to your face."
"'Tis nothing, mynheer, nothing," the man muttered, as he pocketed the silver. "The lights were out as I went to my bed last night. The passages in this old house are dark as a pocket. It is nothing. I fell and bruised myself." After which he went away to summon one of the servants of her whom he called "Matame la Gomdesse."
A moment later Joseph appeared on the scene, and, ere Bevill could bid him inform Madame de Valorme that he thought it best to proceed past the barrier and out of the town at once, the coachman exclaimed:
"And the enemy of monsieur? The spy! What of him?"
"I lost him," Bevill replied. "He evaded me."
"And evidently he has not betrayed monsieur?"
"Evidently. It may be, Joseph, he supposed that in betraying me I might in return have betrayed him, if not to his new friends, at least to his old. Now, Joseph, I go. Present my respects to madame and say that a mile farther on the road to Liége I will await her coming."
Month before Bevill Bracton had set out on the task of endeavouring in some way to assist Sylvia Thorne in quitting Liége, and, should Providence prove favourable, of enabling her to return to England under his charge, the whole of what was termed, comprehensively, Flanders was filled with various bodies of troops that were drawn from almost all the countries of Western and, consequently, civilised Europe.
Used--as this great combination of various states had long been called--as "The Great Barrier"--i.e., the barrier between the aggressions of France and the safety of the Netherlands, it was, therefore, now filled with the above-named troops of the contending nations. To the most northern portion of it--from Antwerp on the west to Cologne on the east, and then downward to Kaiserswörth and Bonn--the French held possession under the ostensible command of the royal Duke of Burgundy, but actually under the command of the Maréchal de Boufflers, styled the second in command. With these were the troops of Spain under the command of Le Marquis de Bedmar. Other marshals and generals, such as Tallard (who was afterwards to lose the battle of Blenheim) and De Chamarande held high command under them.
The English and Dutch troops, many of the former of which had never been withdrawn since the Peace of Ryswick, made during the reign of William III., still held and garrisoned the more northern portions of the Flanders barrier. Of these, the principal commanders were, until Marlborough was appointed by the English and Dutch Governments Captain-General of the whole army of the Grand Alliance, Ginkell, Earl of Athlone, who was a Dutchman, and Coehoorn, who was another. Of towns and villages and outposts which the allied troops held at this time, Maestricht, a few miles north of Liége, was the principal; but rapidly, after the arrival of the Earl of Marlborough, many more were, one after the other, to fall into our hands.
By the time, however, that Bevill Bracton had reached Flanders, not only were continuous sieges and encounters taking place, but also continuous marchings and counter-marchings and deployings of troops. The ground which one week had been occupied and held by the French would, the next, be occupied by English or Dutch, Austrian or Hanoverian troops; Austria, which was the rival claimant to the throne of Spain, being the only Catholic country in the Alliance. Had her claims not been recognised and used as the pivot on which revolved the determination of the other Powers to break down, once and for all, the arrogant assumption of the King of France, she would never have been admitted as partner in this great alliance of Protestant princes. She was, however, the foundation stone of the great fabric, and could not be omitted.
The land, therefore, which formed part of the eastern portion of Brabant, as well as the whole of Limburg, the Electorate of Cologne, and the Bishopric of Liége, was at this time the scene of skirmishes, of attacks, and general hostilities that occurred almost daily; but, since these never attained to the dignity of a battle, they have gone unrecorded even in the most dry-as-dust of military annals. Indeed, they were frequently bloodless and often unimportant, the occasional hanging of a spy, or supposed spy, on one side or the other, or the detention of a person who could give no satisfactory account of himself, being unworthy of notice by any chronicler, even if any chronicler ever heard of the incidents--which is probably doubtful.
Almost directly St. Trond was quitted, the great Cologne road parted, as it still parts; the northern arm passing through Looz to Maestricht and the southern running straight to Liége by Waremme, only to reunite later out side Liége.
At this bifurcation Bevill Bracton, drawing up his horse, paused beneath some trees and determined to await the coming of the Comtesse de Valorme.
It was still quite early, and, since he had been subjected to no delay at the gate, his passport having merely been glanced at by the soldier stationed there (perhaps because of the excellent French he spoke, which was a great deal better than that of the man, who belonged to the Régiment de Perche from the far south of France) he knew that there was no likelihood of the Comtesse appearing yet. Therefore he rode on a few hundred paces farther towards where he had observed a signboard swinging from the branch of a tree, and decided that he would wait here for her arrival. Also, he had not yet broken his fast, and determined that now would be a good opportunity for doing so.
As he came within twenty or thirty yards of the signboard, which bore a heart painted on it--the emblem resembling more a heart painted on a card than that which is a portion of the human frame--and had beneath it, in Dutch, the words, "The Kindly Heart," he was astonished at hearing a voice call out "Halt!" Yet he was not so astonished at hearing the word, which is very similar in most languages, as in hearing the voice that uttered that word, since, undoubtedly, it was the voice of an Englishman.
Turning in the direction whence the sound came, Bevill did not see any person whatever. But what he did see was the short, squat, unbrowned barrel of a musquetoon projecting through the interstices of a quickset hedge and covering him. A moment later the voice of the invisible owner of it repeated:
"Halt, will you, or shall I put a plum into you?"
In absolute fact, Bevill had halted at the first injunction; but, on hearing the above words delivered in a most unmistakably English tone of voice, he said:
"My friend, you will pay me no such compliment as that. Since we happen to be countrymen----"
"Countrymen!" the voice exclaimed now. "And so I think, in truth, we must be. Yet, countryman, are you mad? Have you escaped out of some Dutch Bedlam to be roaming about here alone?"
"No more mad than you who cry out to one who may be a Frenchman to halt. Come out of that hedge and let me see you. What regiment are you of?"
"What regiment? The Tangier Horse--the Royal Dragoons, as we are now called.[3]What matters the name so long as the fruit is good!" the speaker said, as now he came out of a little wicket gate in the hedge and advanced toward where Bevill sat his horse. As he did so, however, he still held his musquetoon in such a manner that he could have fired its charge into the other's body at any instant.
"What are you doing here?" the latter asked, while recognising by the man's accoutrements and banderole that he was undoubtedly that which he stated himself to be. "Is," he continued, "your regiment near here? Or any portion of our army? If not, you must be mad to betray yourself to one who might belong to the present controllers of all this neighbourhood."
"That," the trooper replied respectfully, since he saw that he had a gentleman to deal with, and one who, though he wore no signs of being an officer, might very well be one, "you had best ask my captain and the lieutenant. They are breaking their fast in the inn."
"Your captain and lieutenant? Great heavens! Almost might I ask if they too, if all of you, are demented. Here, in this place, surrounded on all sides, garrisoned everywhere, by the enemy!"
"They are as like, sir, to go harmless as you. And we have a picket near. The enemy cannot get near us without our being warned in time to escape. We are spying out the land."
"Lead me to the officers," Bevill said.
Upon which the trooper motioned to him to dismount and leave his horse and follow him through the little orchard, out of which he had descended to the road. "They are," he said, "at the back of the house." While, as he did so, he repeated himself and said, "We are spying out the land, but wish no one to spy on us."
A burst of low, suppressed laughter reached Bevill's ears as now, after tying La Rose's reins to a stake in the quickset hedge, he drew near to the spot where the man had said the officers were. A burst of laughter, suddenly hushed by one who formed the group, as he said, "Silence! Silence! Here comes some stranger. If 'tis a Frenchman by chance----"
p328"'He is no Frenchman,' Bevillanswered for himself."
"He will not be a Frenchman or any other man long, unless he is of us."
"He is no Frenchman," Bevill answered for himself as he reached the grass plot, on which several officers sat round a table, and while taking off his hat in salutation as he did so; "but, instead, an Englishman. One who was once an officer of cavalry like yourselves, and hopes to be one again ere long."
"One who was an officer and hopes to be one again! One whowas!Pray sir, of what regiment?" the older of the group asked.
"Of the Cuirassiers. By name, Bevill Bracton."
"Bevill Bracton? You are Bevill Bracton? The man who trounced that insolent Dutchman for traducing our calling? The man who was broken for doing so?" And the speaker held out his hand.
"The same. Yet one who is not yet quit of him. He is now a spy in the pay of the French, and at Antwerp he almost betrayed me, and so again last night at St. Trond."
"And this time you killed him?"
"No. He disappeared. Something doubtless befell him--though not at my hands--since I passed safely out of the town half an hour ago."
After which, since Bevill's exploit of nearly killing Sparmann for his insolence more than two years ago had brought him into considerable notoriety (of an enviable character) with the whole of the army, while the harshness of the unpopular William of Orange in removing him from it had been very adversely commented on, these men, thrown so curiously together, began to discuss their affairs.
"Yet," said Bevill, as they commenced to "I pray you let your corporal keep watch and ward over the road leading from St. Trond past here. From out of the town will come ere long a travelling coach containing a lady and her servants----"
"What? Are English ladies travelling here, too, at such a time as this? And have you become a squire of dames? Pray, who can the daring lady be?"
"The lady is not English!"
"Oh. I protest! Surely, much as we are grappled to these good Hollanders, there is no need for a British officer, as you have been and will be again, to become a knight errant to their comely womankind."
"Nay. To be brief, the lady is a Frenchwoman. Ah! I beseech you," Bevill continued, "do not misunderstand me."
"'Tis very strange!"
"'Tis very simple. Listen, gentlemen. I go to help a young lady, a ward of my Lord Peterborough's----"
"What! A ward of Mordanto's!" the captain exclaimed, with a laugh. "The knight-errantpar excellence!"
"The very same. He is my cousin--or, rather, I should say in all respect that I am his. I go to help this young lady to leave Liége in safety, and to escort her first to the English lines, and afterwards, if I can compass it, to England."
"She must be the only English lady there now. For very sure, if you get into Liége you will also be the only Englishman in it."
"It may be so--for a time. Yet, for certain, Liége must fall to us ere long. It is a place to be possessed of."
"But the Frenchwoman!" one of the younger officers exclaimed. "The Frenchwoman?"
"She is a wayside companion--one whom I came to know at an inn we both sojourned at. A widow, grave, serious, and withal somewhat young. A serious-minded woman. Some slight assistance I rendered her on the road 'twixt Louvain and that place," nodding towards St. Trond, "and since then I ride as her escort. Yet, in solemn truth, my mind is teased; for, French though she is beyond all doubt, and deemed me to be the same at first----"
"At first! And now?"
"Now she has discovered by some tone or trick of accent--I having the French well enough in ordinary since my father, Sir George Bracton, dwelt in Paris, and I was brought up and schooled there--that I am none. Yet, it may be, she knows not that I am English; but still--but still she has asked me if I know of the movements of my lords Athlone and Marlborough. If I can tell her when our army will draw near to Liége, when it will come, where it is now----"
"Tell her nothing," the captain said decisively. "She is a spy."
"No; she is no spy, I will be sworn. The cunning of spies harbours not behind such clear eyes or so honest a face as hers. If she is aught she should not be, and still I almost reproach myself for dreaming of such a thing, she is a woman who by some injustice, some wickedness done to her, is false to her own country, to France. Listen, gentlemen. This woman, the Comtesse de Valorme, desires one thing above all."
"What is it!" everyone of the dragoons asked in the same breath.
"To be brought to Marlborough or Athlone as soon as may be. How, then, shall she be a spy on us?"
"Upon a pretext to see one of these generals, upon seeing them, she might discover much," the lieutenant said; "yet she is but a sorry fool if she dreams of speaking with either of them or learning aught. Bah! Athlone--Ginkell--would offer her a glass of his native schnapps, bow before her with heavy, stolid grace, call her, 'Zhére Matam la Gondesse,' and tell her nothing. While as for my Lord Marlborough----"
"Ay, my Lord Marlborough!" Bevill said. "Marlborough!"
"He would receive her with infinite grace. Doubtless, he would kiss her hand with the most engaging look on his handsome face. Also, he would let her think that he esteemed himself well fortuned in being able to place himself and all the army at her disposal, and--he also would do nothing. A man with the sweetest disposition in all the world, one bred a courtier from his youth, one who has been a French soldier himself, who knows France as other Englishmen know their native hamlet, will not be hoodwinked by any scheming Frenchwoman."
"She is no schemer, or, if she is, it is against her own land," Bevill exclaimed. "Oh! if I knew, if I could divine what reason there may be for any French, in such times as these, to look to the English for help and support! Gentlemen, you have been long on this foreign service. Have you heard no word? Can any French, any portion of France, be hoping for help from us against their own selves?"
But the officers could tell him nothing. They had, indeed, been abroad some time, but that time had been passed only in the Netherlands. They did not know--it was impossible they should know--that far away in the South, whose shores and golden sands were laved by the soft waters of the Mediterranean, things were being done that were turning honest, faithful subjects into rebels. They did not know that homes were being rendered desolate, children made orphans, and parents childless; that the nobles were escaping, where possible, to other lands; that the working classes were being succoured in Clerkenwell and Spitalfields, beneath the Swiss snows and on the burning shores of Africa. Therefore, they could neither think nor dream of what might be the cause--if there were any such!--which could make this woman of the French aristocracy false to France.
But now the trooper came back to where they sat with Bevill, and stated that a great travelling coach was coming slowly along, it having evidently issued from out St. Trond, which lay round a bend of the road. Upon which Bevill, wishing them a hasty farewell and exchanging swift handshakes with them, mounted La Rose.
"God speed!" they all cried out to him. "God speed" and "Fortune de la guerre!" while the youngest exclaimed, in boyish enthusiasm, "If you creep into Liége and cannot find your way forth again, keep ever a brave heart. We shall be near; we, or some of us, will have you out."
"And, 'wareles beaux yeuxof Madame la Comtesse," the captain called.
"And those of the ward of my Lord Peterborough," said the lieutenant.
"'There is more danger,'" cried the youngest, misquoting, "'in one look of theirs than twenty of our foemen's swords,' as Betterton says as Romeo."
"So, monsieur le Mousquetaire--monsieur mon cousin, Le Blond," the Comtesse with emphasis said, as now Bevill rode back to the carriage and took up his usual position by the window, "you can speak English when you desire."
"Yes, madame, when I desire. I hope the sound of that tongue is not offensive to madame."
"An Englishman," the Comtesse replied, her calm, clear eyes upon him, "should ever speak the tongue he loves best--even as a valiant knight is ever knightly, no matter what his land may be."
Liége was before them. From a slight eminence in this land, in most cases so utterly without eminence at all, they could look onward and see its walls, especially those on the left bank of the Meuse. Also, they could see upon what they saw was the citadel a great banner streaming out to the soft south-west wind--a banner on which was emblazoned the gold sun that was the emblem of him who gloried in the name of "Le Roi Soleil." So, too, on the right side there floated out that ostentatious, braggart flag from the roof of the Chartreuse.
Lying outside the city, as they were easily able to observe from the eminence on which they had halted, were several regiments, their colours displayed from the larger tents amongst the lines; and some of these Bevill Bracton was able to recognise, since he had seen them before, when in Holland and Flanders under William III.
"Those," he exclaimed, pointing towards a large blue banner that streamed out above a great tent--a blue banner on which was a heraldic emblazonment that, had they been nearer, they would have recognised as a leopardcouchant, "are the arms of a fierce, cruel general. The pennon to the right is that of the cavalry of Orléans; that to the left is the pennon of the dragoons of Piémont-Royal. We have met--I should say I have seen them--before."
Remembering, however, that much as the Comtesse might suspect or, indeed, actually know with regard to his being neither Frenchman nor mousquetaire, she did not know all, Bevill refrained from adding, "I have charged them in the past, and should know their colours."
"And this general you speak of--this man who is fierce and cruel? Who is he?"
"Montrével," Bevill replied.
As he did so he heard the Comtesse give a slight gasp, or, if it were so slight as to be unheard, at least he saw her lips part, while into her eyes there came a strange look, one that expressed half fear and half hate.
"Madame knows him?" he exclaimed.
"I know of him. He is, as monsieur says, fierce and cruel. He--he comes from a part of France I know very well--from Orange. And, worse than all, he is a--a--renegade."
"A renegade? He! One of Louis' most trusted leaders! He who has received thebâtonof a Field-Marshal but recently! He a renegade?"
"One may be a renegade to others than king and country. To----"
"Yes! To what? To whom?"
"To God!"
After which the Comtesse seemed undesirous of saying more and sat gazing down towards the army lying outside the walls of Liége, while occasionally asking Bevill if he could tell her what other persons or regiments were represented by the various colours flying from tents and staffs.
But he, while doing his best to explain all that she had desired to know, and while pointing out to her the regiments of Poitou and Royal Roussillon--both of which he had also encountered--recognised that his mind was far away from a subject that, in other circumstances, would have occupied it to its fullest extent.
For now he could not keep his attention fixed on banners and bannerols and regiments, deep as might be the import they must bear towards England and his own safety. He could not even reflect upon how he, an Englishman passing as a Frenchman, would in the next hour or so have to make his way through the lines of those regiments while every word he uttered might betray him to sudden death. Sudden death! as must, indeed, be his only portion if, among those masses of troops below, one word mispronounced, one accent to arouse suspicion, should be observed. Sudden death! Yes, after a moment's interview with one of the generals or marshals--such a marshal, to wit, as the fierce cruel Montrével! Sudden death after another moment, and that but a short one, allowed for a hasty prayer.
And still he could not force his mind to think upon these things, since those words of the Comtesse de Valorme had driven all other thoughts away.
"Why?" he asked himself again and again as he sat his horse by her side. "Why does she speak thus of that truculent soldier? Why, among so many other matters that must have possession of her thoughts now, does this man's apostasy, for such it must be that she refers to, affect her so deeply. Ah! if I could but know!" And, as he thought thus, he let his eyes fall on those of the comtesse, and saw that hers were resting on him.
Suddenly, as he did this, he saw in them something that seemed almost as clear and distinct as spoken words would themselves have been; some pleading in them which, unlike spoken words, he could not understand, while still recognising that in her look there was a request. But yet he could not understand. He could not comprehend what it was that she desired of him, and so held his peace.
Now, however, the Comtesse spoke. She spoke as she leant forward, in the same way she had done before since they had first travelled in company, her gloved hand on the sash of the lowered window, her glance full of earnestness.
"We are close to Liége, monsieur," she said. "Little more than an hour will take us to the lines of that army lying outside the city. In two hours, by Heaven's grace, we may be inside. Monsieur, shall we not be frank with each other?"
"Frank, madame. How so? How frank?"
"Ah, monsieur, do not let us trifle further. Each of us has an object in entering that city. Yours I can partly divine, as I think; but mine I doubt your ever divining. Yet--yet--I know what you are, and I would that you should know who and what I am. If--if it pleases you, can we not confide in each other?"
Bevill bowed over his horse's mane as the Comtesse said these words; then, in a low tone, he replied:
"Any confidence madame may honour me with shall be deeply respected. Meanwhile, I have perceived that madame knows or suspects that I am not what I seem to be. So be it. I am in her hands and I do not fear. Let her tell me what she believes me to be and, if she has judged aright, I will answer truly. A frank admission can harm me no more than suspicion can do."
"I shall not harm you," the Comtesse said. "I have not forgotten your succour when those boors had attacked me." Then, glancing round to observe whether the servants were out of earshot, as was, indeed, the case, since they had gone some little distance ahead of the coach the better to gaze upon the troops environing the city, as well as on the city itself, she said:
"You are, as I have said, an Englishman."
"Yes," Bevill replied calmly, fearing nothing from this avowal which, made to any other French subject, would have been fraught with destruction to him. "I am an Englishman."
p363"Liége was before them."--p. 363.
"A soldier, doubtless, endeavouring to make his way to his own forces."
"No; I am no soldier--now. I have been one. But my mission is far different from that. I go, if it may be so, to escort a young countrywoman of mine out of Liége, and to take her back in safety to England."
"Alas! you will never succeed. That she may be permitted to leave Liége is possible, though by no means probable. Those in the city who are not French will scarcely obtain permission to depart, since they would be able to convey far too much intelligence to the enemy of what prevails within. While as for you----"
"Yes, madame?" Bevill said, still speaking quite calmly.
"You may very well stay in Liége unharmed since no Walloon would betray you to his conquerors, and the French troops are in the citadel, the Chartreuse, at the gates, and elsewhere. But you will never get out with your charge."
"Not as a Frenchman?"
"No. Not with an Englishwoman. That is, unless she can transform herself into a Frenchwoman as easily as you have transformed yourself into a Frenchman."
"Yet you have discovered me to be none."
"I discovered you by some of your expressions, the turn of your phrases, simply because--and this may astonish you--your French was too good. You used some phrases that were those of a scholar and not the idiom of daily life. It is often so." Then, with almost a smile on the face that was generally so preternaturally grave, the Comtesse de Valorme said:
"Captain Le Blond, as you call yourself, would you discover that I am a Frenchwoman?"
And to Bevill's astonishment she spoke these words in perfect English--so perfect, indeed, that they might have issued from the lips of one of his own countrywomen.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, forgetting for the moment the perfect courtesy and deference which had marked his manner to her from the first. "What are you? Speak. Are you English or French? Yet, no," he continued. "No. There is the faintest intonation, though it has to be sought for; the faintest suspicion of an accent that betrays you. Madame," he exclaimed, not rudely, but only in a tone born of extreme surprise, "what are you--English or French?"
"French," she replied, while still speaking in perfect English; "but I have lived much in England, and--it may be that I shall die there."
"I cannot understand."
"You shall not be left long without doing so. Monsieur, as I must still address you, it is more than twenty years since I first went to England with my father, though I have returned to France more than once during those years. Now I have returned yet again. And--you have confided in me; I will be equally frank with you--listen. I am a Protestant."
"A Protestant!" Bevill exclaimed. "A Protestant? Ah! I begin to understand. A Protestant opposed to this war; linked with us against Spain and France; desirous of seeing these two great Catholic Powers subdued----"
"Alas!" the Comtesse said, "I cannot claim so noble an excuse for being here in the midst of this war. My presence here is more selfish, more personal. I--I--have suffered. God, He knows, how all of mine have suffered in the South----"
"You are from the South?"
"I am. From Tarascon. You saw me start when you spoke of that unutterable villain, Montrével. Montrével," she repeated, with bitter scorn; "Field-marshal and swashbuckler! Montrével, born a Protestant, but now of the Romish faith. A man who has persecuted us cruelly--one who even now desires to be sent to the Cevennes to persecute us still further."
Then, suddenly, the Comtesse ceased what she was saying, and, changing from the subject, exclaimed:
"But come--come. We have tarried here too long. We should be once more on our road to Liége. How do you propose to present yourself at the gates and gain admission to the city? You will run deep risks if you appear under the guise of a mousquetaire; for"--and now she took out a scroll of paper from the huge pocket let into the leather padding of her coach and looked at it, "there are two troops of the Mousquetaires Noirs at the Chartreuse."
"You know that? You have a paper of the disposition of the French forces?"
"I have, though with no view of betraying them to--the Allies. My disloyalty to my country is not so deep as that, nor even is it to the King who persecutes my people so evilly. Nevertheless, there are many of the Reformed Faith in these armies. There is a De la Tremouille, though he is but a lad, in the bodyguard of the Duc de Bourgogne; a De Rohan with Tallard; a De Sully in the Mousquetaires Noirs; also there are many others. I have means of learning much, though not all that I would know. These 'heretics,'" she continued bitterly, "may help me if trouble comes and I require help. Meanwhile, for yourself. You will never obtain entrance as a mousquetaire."
"I have another passport--one procured for me by a grand personage in England. With that I entered Antwerp, using only the papers of Captain le Blond after I had been recognised by an ancient enemy."
"Under what guise, what description, do you appear in that?"
"A secretary of the French Embassy in London--the embassy that now exists no longer."
The Comtesse de Valorme pondered for a few moments over this information, while, as she did so, there came two little lines on her white forehead, a forehead on which, as yet, Time had not implanted any lines of its own. Then she said:
"And what name do you bear on that?"
"André de Belleville."
Again she pondered for a moment, then said:
"It should suffice. It is by no chance likely that any of the secretaries from that embassy, now closed, should come here, or be here. Also, those at the walls cannot doubt me. It would be best you enter as a kinsman riding by my side as escort, as protector; for such you have been to me. And we are kin in one thing at least--our faith."
"Madame, I am most deeply grateful to you. If----"
"Nay; gratitude is due from me to you. Yet what was it you said but now? That you had an ancient enemy who recognised you at Antwerp. If so, may he not follow you here?"
"I think not. At St. Trond he appeared again, only to again disappear. Some evil may have befallen him, though not at my hands. He would have denounced me by daybreak had that not happened."
"So be it then. Let us go forward. Once in Liége you will doubtless be safe. If 'tis not so, then you must rely on Heaven, which has watched over you so far, to do so still. Where have you dreamt of sojourning when you are there? At the house where dwells this lady you go to seek and help?"
"Nay; that cannot be. I have never seen her since she was a child. Her father is dead. I know not in what part of the city she dwells. I must seek some inn----"
"No, no. I have kinsmen and kinswomen there of your faith. Their houses shall be--nay, will be, freely at your service. Speak but the word and it shall be so."
For a moment Bevill Bracton pondered over this gracious offer, while, even as he did so, he raised the gloved hand of the Comtesse to his lips and murmured words of thanks for her politeness. But after a moment's reflection he decided not to accept this offer.
He recognised at once that he ought not to do so; that the acceptance of that offer would be unwise. For he knew, or, at least, he had a presentiment, that from the moment he reached Sylvia Thorne his duty must be dangerous; that what he had promised the Lord Peterborough-- ay! and also promised to do at all cost, all risk--might put him in peril of his life. He had known this ere he set out from England; he knew it doubly now. The French were all about and everywhere. Even during the next hour or so he would have to pass through a portion of that army to enter the city that lay before them. The difficulty of leaving it would be increased twofold--tenfold, when he had with him for charge a young girl, a young woman, who was also an English subject.
"Therefore," he mused, or rather decided quickly, while still the Comtesse de Valorme awaited his answer, "I must be unhampered; above all, untrammelled in my movements. God alone knows with what dangers, what difficulties, it may please Him to environ me; but be that as it may, I must at all hazards be free and at liberty to either face or avoid them. Courtesy, that courtesy as much due from guest to host as from host to guest, could not be freely testified in such circumstances as these. The quality of guest would not be fairly enacted by me. I should be but a sorry inhabitant of any man's house!"
Therefore, in very courteous phrases, conveying many thanks, he spoke these thoughts aloud to the Comtesse, while begging that the rejection of her offer might not be taken ill by her.
"It must be as you say," the lady said; "yet--yet--we must not drift from out each other's knowledge. Remember, I shall still be able to help and assist you; also I look forward still to your guidance and succour. You will not forget? It is imperative for me, if Heaven permits, to obtain audience of the Earl of Marlborough when he draws near, or, failing him, that of other of his generals. It is to England alone that we poor Protestants can look for succour."