Kitabı oku: «My Lady Rotha: A Romance», sayfa 14
CHAPTER XVIII.
A SUDDEN EXPEDITION
I did not after that suffer the grass to grow under my feet. I went out, and with my own eyes searched the fields at the back, and every ditch and water-hole. I had the loss cried in the camp, my lady on her return offered a reward, we sent even to the nearer villages, we patrolled the roads, we omitted nothing that could by any chance avail us. Yet evening fell, and night, and found us still searching; and no nearer, as far as we could see, to success. The child was gone mysteriously. Left to play alone for two minutes in the stillness of the afternoon, he had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.
Baffled, we began to ask, while Marie sat pale and brooding in a corner, or now and again stole to the door to listen, who could have taken him and with what motive? There were men and women in the camp capable of anything. It seemed probable to some that these had stolen the child for the sake of his clothes. Others suggested witchcraft. But in my own mind, I leaned to neither of these theories. I suspected, though I dared not utter the thought, that the general had done it. Without knowing how much of the story Count Hugo had confided to him, I took it as certain that the father had said enough to apprise him of the boy's value. And this being so, what more probable than that the general, whom I was prepared to credit with any atrocity, had taken instant steps to possess himself of the child?
My lady said and did all that was kind on the occasion, and for a few hours it occupied all our thoughts. At the end of that time, however, about sunset, General Tzerclas rode to the door, and with him, to my surprise, the Waldgrave. They would see her, and detained her so long that when she sent for me on their departure, I was sore on Marie's, account, and inclined to blame her as indifferent to our loss. But a single glance at her face put another colour on the matter. I saw that something had occurred to excite and disturb her.
'Martin,' she said earnestly, 'I am going to employ you on an errand of importance. Listen to me and do not interrupt me. General Tzerclas starts to-morrow with the larger part of his forces to intercept one of Wallenstein's convoys, which is expected to pass twelve leagues to the south of this. There will be sharp fighting, I am told, and my cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert, is going. He is not at present-I mean, I am afraid he may do something rash. He is young,' my lady continued with dignity and a heightened colour, 'and I wish he would stay here. But he will not.'
I guessed at once that this affair of the convoy was the business which had brought Count Hugo to the camp. And I was beginning to consider what advantage we might make of it, and whether the general's absence might not afford us both a pretext for departure and the opportunity, when my lady's next words dispelled my visions.
'I want you,' she said slowly, 'to go with him. He has a high opinion of you, and will listen to you.'
'The general?' I cried in amazement.
'Who spoke of him?' she exclaimed angrily. 'I said the Waldgrave Rupert. I wish you to go with him to see that he does not run any unnecessary risk.'
I coughed dryly, and stood silent.
'Well?' my lady said with a frown. 'Do you understand?'
'I understand, my lady,' I answered firmly; 'but I cannot go.'
'You cannot go! when I send you!' she murmured, unable, I think, to believe her ears. 'Why not, sirrah? Why not, if you please?'
'Because my first duty is to your excellency,' I stammered. 'And as long as you are here, I dare not-and will not leave you!'
'As long as I am here!' she retorted, red with anger and surprise. 'You have still that maggot in your head, then? By my soul, Master Martin, if we were at home I would find means to drive it out! But I know what it is! What you really want is to stay by the side of that puling girl! Oh, I am not blind,' my lady continued viciously, seeing that she had found at last the way to hurt me. 'I know what has been going on.'
'But Count Leuchtenstein-' I muttered.
'Don't bring him in!' my lady cried, in such a voice that I dared go no farther. 'General Tzerclas has told me of him. I understand what is between them, and you do not. Presumptuous booby!' she continued, flashing at me a glance of scorn, which made me tremble. 'But I will thwart you! Since you will not leave me, I will go myself. I will go, but Mistress Marie shall stay here till we return.'
'But if there is to be fighting?' I said humbly.
'Ah! So you have changed your note, have you!' she cried triumphantly. I had seldom seen her more moved. 'If there is to be fighting'-she mocked my tone. 'Well, there is to be, but I shall go. And now do you go, and have all ready for a start at daybreak, or it will be the worse for you! One of my women will accompany me. Fraulein Anna will stay here with your-other mistress!'
She pointed to the door as she spoke, and once more charged me to be ready; and I went away dazed. Everything seemed on a sudden to be turned upside down-the child lost, my lady offended, the Waldgrave desperate, the general in favour. It was hard to see which way my duty lay. I would fain have stayed in the camp a day to make farther search for the child, but I must go. I would gladly have got clear of the camp, but we were to travel in the general's company. As to leaving Marie, my lady wronged me. I knew of no special danger which threatened the girl, nor any reason why she should not be safe where she was. If the child were found she would be here to receive it.
On the other hand, there was my discovery of the beggar's fate, from the immediate consequences of which Count Hugo's arrival had saved me. This sudden expedition should favour me there; the general would have his hands full of other things, and Ludwig be hard put to it to gain his ear. I might now, if I pleased, discover the matter to my lady, and open her eyes. But I had no proof; even if time permitted, and I could take the Countess to that part of the camp, I could not be sure that the body was still there. And to accuse General Tzerclas of such a thing without proof would be to court my own ruin.
While I was puzzling over this, I saw the Waldgrave outside, and, thinking to profit by his advice, I went to meet him. But I found him in a peculiar mood, talking, laughing, and breaking into snatches of song; all with a wildness and abandon that frightened while they puzzled me. He laughed at my doubts, and walking up and down, while his servants scoured his breast-piece and cleaned his harness by the light of a lantern, he persisted in talking of nothing but the expedition before us and the pleasure of striking a blow or two.
'We are rusting, man!' he cried feverishly, clapping me on the back. 'You have the rust on you yet, Martin But-
"Clink, clink, clink!
Sword and stirrup and spur!
Ride, ride, ride,
Fast as feather or fur!"
To-morrow or the next day we will have it off.'
'You have heard about the child, my lord,' I said gravely, trying to bring him back to the present.
'I have heard that Von Werder, the dullest man at a board I ever met, turns out to be Hugo of Leuchtenstein, whom God preserve!' he answered recklessly. 'And that your girl's brat of a brother turns out to be his brat! And no sooner is the father found than the son is lost; and that both have gone as mysteriously as they came. But Himmel! man, what's the odds when we are going to fight to-morrow! What compares with that? Ça! ça! steady and the point!'
I thought of Marie; and it seemed to me that there were other things in the world besides fighting. For love makes a man both brave and a coward. But the argument would scarcely have been to the Waldgrave's mind, and, seeing that he would neither talk nor hear reason, I left him and went away to make my preparations.
But on the road next day I noticed that though now and then he flashed into the same wild merriment, he was on the whole as dull as he had been gay. Our party rode at the head of the column, that we might escape the dust and have the best of the road, the general and his principal officers accompanying us and leaving the guidance of the march to inferiors. Our force consisted of about six hundred horse and four hundred foot; and as we were to return to the camp, we took with us neither sutlers nor ordinary baggage, while camp followers were interdicted under pain of death. Yet the amount of our impedimenta astonished me. Half a dozen sumpter horses were needed to carry the general's tent and equipage; his officers required a score more. The ammunition for the foot soldiers, who were sufficiently burdened with their heavy matchlocks, provided farther loads; and in fine, while supposed to be marching in light fighting order, we had something like a hundred packhorses in our train. Then there were men to lead them, and cooks and pages and foot-boys and the general's band, and but that our way lay through woodland tracks and by-routes, I verily believe that we should have had his coach and dwarf also.
The sight of all these men and horses in motion was so novel and exhilarating, and the morning air so brisk, that I soon recovered from my parting with Marie, and began to take a more cheerful view of the position. I came near to sympathizing with my lady, whose pleasure and delight knew no bounds. The long lines of horsemen winding through the wood, the trailing pikes and waving pennons, gratified her youthful fancy for war; while as our march lay through the forest, she was shocked by none of those traces of its ravages which had appalled us on first leaving Heritzburg. The general waited on her with the utmost attention, riding by her bridle-rein and talking with her by the hour together. Whenever I looked at them I noticed that her eye was bright and her colour high, and I guessed that he was unfolding the plan of ambition which I was sure he masked under a cold and reserved demeanour. Alas! I could think of nothing more likely to take my lady's fancy, no course more sure to enlist her sympathy and interest. But I was helpless; I could do nothing. And for the Waldgrave, if he still had any power he would not use it.
My lady gave him opportunities. Several times I saw her try to draw him into conversation, and whenever General Tzerclas left her for a while she turned to the younger man and would have talked to him. But he seemed unable to respond. When he was not noisily gay, he rode like a mute. He seemed half sullen, half afraid; and she presently gave him up, but not before her efforts had caught Tzerclas' eye. The general had been called for some purpose to the rear of the column, and on his return found the two talking, my lady's attitude such that it was very evident she was the provocant. He did not try to resume his place, but fell in behind them; and riding there, almost, if not quite, within earshot, cast such ugly glances at them as more than confirmed me in the belief that in his own secret way he loved my mistress; and that, after a more dangerous fashion than the Waldgrave.
This was late in the afternoon, and another hour brought us who marched at the head of the column to our camping-ground for the night. We lay in a rugged, wooded valley, not very commodious, but chosen because only one high ridge divided it from a second valley, through which the main road and the river had their course. Our instructions were that the convoy, which was bound for Wallenstein's army then marching on Nuremberg, would pass through this second valley some time during the following day; but until the hour came for making the proper dispositions, all persons in our force were forbidden to mount the intervening ridge under pain of death. We had even to do without fires-lest the smoke should betray our presence-and for this one night lay under something like the strict discipline which I had expected to find prevailing in a military camp. The only fire that was permitted cooked the general's meal, which he shared with my lady and the Waldgrave and the principal officers.
Even so the order caused trouble. The pikemen and musketeers did not come in till an hour before midnight, when they trudged into camp dusty and footsore and murmuring at their leaders. When, in this state, they learned that fires were not to be lighted, disgust grew rapidly into open disobedience. On a sudden, in half a dozen quarters at once, flames flickered up, and the camp, dark before, became peopled in a moment with strange forms, whose eighteen-foot weapons and cumbrous headpieces flung long shadows across the valley.
We had lain down to rest, but at the sound of the altercation and the various cries of 'Pikes! Pikes!' and 'Mutiny!' which broke out, we came out of our lairs in the bracken to learn what was happening. Calling young Jacob and three or four of the Heritzburg men to my side, I ran to my lady to see that nothing befell her in the confusion. The noise had roused her, and we found her at the door of her tent looking out. The newly-kindled fires, flaming and crackling on the sloping sides of the valley, lit up a strange scene of disorder-of hurrying men and plunging horses, for the alarm had extended to the horse lines-and for a moment I thought that the mutiny might spread and cut the knot of our difficulties, or whelm us all in the same ruin.
I had scarcely conceived the thought, when the general passed near us on his way from his tent, whence he had just been called; and at the sight my new-born hopes vanished. He was bare-headed; he carried no arms, and had nothing in his hand but a riding-switch. But the stern, grim aspect of his face, in which was no mercy and no quailing, was worth a thousand pikes. The firelight shone on his pale, olive cheek and brooding eyes, as he went by us, not seeing us; and after that I did not doubt what would happen, although for a moment the tumult of oaths and cries seemed to swell rather than sink, and I saw more than one pale-lipped officer climbing into his saddle that he might be able to fly, if necessary.
The issue agreed with my expectations. The heart of the disorder lay in a part of the camp separated from our quarters by a brook, but near enough in point of distance; so that we saw, my lady and all, pretty clearly what followed. For a moment, for a few seconds, during which you could hear a pin drop through the camp, the general stood, his life in the balance, unarmed in the midst of armed men. But he had that set courage which seems to daunt the common sort and paralyse the finger on the trigger; and he prevailed. The knaves lowered their weapons and shrank back cowering before him. In a twinkling the fires were beaten out by a hundred eager feet, and the general strode back to us through the silent, obsequious camp.
He distinguished my lady standing at the door of her tent, and stepped aside. 'I am sorry that you have been disturbed, Countess,' he said politely. 'It shall not occur again. I will hang up a dozen of those hounds to-morrow, and we shall have less barking.'
'You are not hurt?' my lady asked, in a voice unlike her own.
He laughed, deigning no answer in words. Then he said, 'You have no fire? Camp rules are not for you. Pray have one lit.' And he went on to his tent.
I had the curiosity to pass near it when my lady retired. I found a dozen men, cuirassiers of his privileged troop, peeping and squinting under the canvas which had been hung round the fire. I joined them and looked; and saw him lying at length, wrapped in his cloak, reading 'Cæsar's Campaigns' by the light of the blaze, as if nothing had happened.
CHAPTER XIX.
IN A GREEN VALLEY
He was as good as his word. Before the sun had been up an hour six of the mutineers, chosen by lot from a hundred of the more guilty, dangled from a great tree which overhung the brook, and were already forgotten-so short are soldiers' memories-in the hurry and bustle of a new undertaking. The slope of the ridge which divided us from the neighbouring valley was quickly dotted with parties of men making their way up it, through bracken and furze which reached nearly to the waist; while the horse under Count Waska rode slowly off to make the circuit of the hill and enter the next valley by an easier road.
My lady chose to climb the hill on foot, in the track of the pikemen, though the heavy dew, which the sun had not yet drunk up, soon drenched her skirts, and she might, had she willed it, have been carried to the top on men's shoulders. The fern and long grass delayed her and made our progress slow, so that the general's dispositions were in great part made when we reached the summit. Busy as he still was, however, he had eyes for us. He came at once and placed us in a small coppice of fir trees that crowned one of the knobs of the ridge. From this point, where he took up his own position, we could command, ourselves unseen, the whole valley, the road, and river-the scene of the coming surprise-and see clearly, what no one below could discern, where our footmen lay in ambush in parties of fifty; the pikemen among some black thorns, close to the north end of the valley, the musketmen a little farther within and almost immediately below us. The latter, prone in the fern, looked, viewed from above, like lines of sheep feeding, until the light gleamed on a gun-barrel or sword-hilt and dispelled the peaceful illusion.
The sun had not yet risen above the hill on which we stood, and the valley below us lay cool and green and very pleasant to the eye. About a league in length, it was nowhere, except at its southern extremity, where it widened into a small plain, more than half a mile across. At its northern end, below us, and a little to the right, it diminished to a mere wooded defile, through which the river ran over rocks and boulders, with a dull roar that came plainly to our ears. A solitary house of some size, with two or three hovels clustered about it, stood near the middle of the valley; but no smoke rose from the chimney, no cock crowed, no dog barked. And, looking more closely, I saw that the place was deserted.
So quiet it seemed in this peaceful Thuringian valley, I shuddered when I thought of the purpose which brought us hither; and I saw my lady's face grow sad with a like reflection. But General Tzerclas viewed all with another mind. The stillness, the sunshine, the very song of the lark, as it rose up and up and up above us, and, still unwearied, sang its song of praise, touched no chord in his breast. The quietude pleased him, but only because it favoured his plans; the lark's hymn, because it covered with a fair mask his lurking ambush; the sunshine, because it seemed a good augury. His keen and vigilant eye, the smile which curled his lip, the set expression of his face, showed that he saw before him a battle-field and no more; a step upwards-a triumph, a victory, and that was all.
I blamed him then. I confess now, I misjudged him. He who leads on such occasions risks more than his life, and bears a weight of responsibility that may well crush from his mind all moods or thoughts of weather. At least, I did him, I had to do him, this justice: that he betrayed no anxiety, uttered no word of doubt or misgiving. Standing with his back against a tree and his eyes on the northern pass, he remained placidly silent, or talked at his ease. In this he contrasted well with the Waldgrave, who continually paced up and down in the background, as if the fir-grove were a prison and he a captive waiting to be freed.
'At what hour should they be here?' my lady asked presently, breaking a long silence.
She tried to speak in her ordinary tone, but her voice sounded uncertain. A woman, however brave, is a woman still. It began to dawn upon her that things were going to happen which it might be unpleasant to see, and scarcely more pleasant to remember.
'I am afraid I cannot say,' the general answered lightly. 'I have done my part; I am here. Between this and night they should be here too.'
'Unless they have been warned.'
'Precisely,' he answered,' unless they have been warned.'
After that my lady composed herself anew, and the day wore on, in desultory conversation and a grim kind of picnic. Noon came, and afternoon, and the Countess grew nervous and irritable. But General Tzerclas, though the hours, as they passed without event, without bringing that for which he waited, must have tried him severely, showed to advantage throughout. He was ready to talk, satisfied to be silent. Late in the day, when my lady, drowsy with the heat, dozed a little, he brought out his Cæsar, and read, in it, as if nothing depended on the day, and he were the most indifferent of spectators. She awoke and found him reading, and, for a time, sat staring at him, wondering where she was. At last she remembered. She sat up with a start, and gazed at him.
'Are we still waiting?' she said.
'We are still waiting,' he answered, closing his book with a smile. 'But,' he continued, a moment later, 'I think I hear something now. Keep back a little, if you please, Countess.'
We all stood up among the trees, listening, and presently, though the murmuring of the river in the pass prevented us hearing duller sounds, a sharp noise, often repeated, came to our ears. It resembled the snapping of sticks under foot.
'Whips!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Stand back, if you please.'
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a handful of horsemen appeared on a sudden in the road below us. They came on like tired men, some with their feet dangling, some sitting sideways on their horses. Many had kerchiefs wound round their heads, and carried their steel caps at the saddle-bow; others nodded in their seats, as if asleep. They were abreast of our pikemen when we first saw them, and we watched them advance, until a couple of hundred yards brought them into line with the musketmen. These, too, they passed without suspicion, and so went jolting and clinking down the valley, every man with a bundle at his crupper, and strange odds and ends banging and swinging against his horse's sides.
Two hundred paces behind them the first waggon appeared, dragged slowly on by four labouring horses, and guarded by a dozen foot soldiers-heavy-browed fellows, lounging along beside the wheels, with their hands in their breeches pockets. Their long, trailing weapons they had tied at the tail of the waggon. Close on their heels came another waggon creaking and groaning, and another, and another, with a drowsy, stumbling train of teamsters and horse-boys, and here and there an officer or a knot of men-at-arms. But the foot soldiers had mostly climbed up into the waggons, and lay sprawling on the loads, with arms thrown wide, and heads rolling from side to side with each movement of the straining team.
We watched eighty of these waggons go by; the first must have been a mile and more in front of the last. After them followed a disorderly band of stragglers, among whom were some women. Then a thick, solid cloud of dust, far exceeding all that had gone before, came down the pass. It advanced by fits and starts, now plunging forward, now halting, while the heart of it gave forth a dull roaring sound that rose above the murmur of the river.
'Cattle!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Five hundred head, I should say. There can be nothing behind that dust. Be ready, trumpeter.'
The man he addressed stood a few paces behind us; and at intervals along the ridge others lay hidden, ready to pass the signal to an officer stationed on the farthest knob, who as soon as he heard the call would spring up, and with a flag pass the order to the cavalry below him.
The suspense of the moment was such, it seemed an age before the general gave the word. He stood and appeared to calculate, now looking keenly towards the head of the convoy, which was fast disappearing in a haze of dust, now gazing down at the bellowing, struggling, wavering mass below us. At length, when the cattle had all but cleared the pass, he raised his hand and cried sharply-
'Now!'
The harsh blare of the trumpet pierced the upper stillness in which we stood. It was repeated-repeated again; then it died away shrilly in the distance. In its place, hoarse clamour filled the valley below us. We pressed forward to see what was happening.
The surprise was complete; and yet it was a sorry sight we saw down in the bottom, where the sunshine was dying, and guns were flashing, and men were chasing one another in the grey evening light. Our musketmen, springing out of ambush, had shot down the horses of the last half-dozen waggons, and, when we looked, were falling pell-mell upon the unlucky troop of stragglers who followed. These, flying all ways, filled the air with horrid screams. Farther to the rear, our pikemen had seized the pass, and penning the cattle into it rendered escape by that road hopeless. Forward, however, despite the confusion and dismay, things were different. Our cavalry did not appear-the dust prevented us seeing what they were doing. And here the enemy had a moment's respite, a moment in which to think, to fly, to stand on their defence.
And soon, while we looked on breathless, it was evident that they were taking advantage of it. Possibly the general had not counted on the dust or the lateness of the hour. He began to gaze forward towards the head of the column, and to mutter savagely at the footmen below us, who seemed more eager to overtake the fugitives and strip the dead, than to press forward and break down opposition. He sent down Ludwig with orders; then another.
But the mischief was done already, and still the cavalry did not appear; being delayed, as we afterwards learned, by an unforeseen brook. Some one with a head on his shoulders had quickly drawn together all those among the enemy who could fight, or had a mind to fight. We saw two waggons driven out of the line, and in a moment overturned; in a twinkling the panic-stricken troopers and teamsters had a haven in which they could stand at bay.
Its value was soon proved. A company of our musketeers, pursuing some stragglers through the medley of flying horses and maddened cattle which covered the ground near the pass, came upon this rude fortress, and charged against it, recklessly, or in ignorance. In a moment a volley from the waggons laid half a dozen on the ground. The rest fell back, and scattered hither and thither. They were scarcely dispersed before a handful of the enemy's officers and mounted men came riding back from the front. Stabbing their horses in the intervals between the waggons, they took post inside. Every moment others, some with arms and some without, came straggling up. When our cavalry at last arrived on the scene, there were full three hundred men in the waggon work, and these the flower of the enemy. All except one had dismounted. This one, a man on a white charger, seemed to be the soul of the defence.
Our horse, flushed with triumph and yelling loudly, came down the line like a torrent, sabreing all who fell in their way. Half rode on one side of the convoy and half on the other. They had met with no resistance hitherto, and expected none, and, like the musketmen, were on the barricade before they knew of its existence. In the open, the stoutest hedgehog of pikes could scarcely have resisted a charge driven home with such blind recklessness; but behind the waggons it was different. Every interstice bristled with pike-heads, while the musketmen poured in a deadly fire from the waggon-tops. For a few seconds the place belched flame and smoke. Two or three score of the foremost assailants went down horse and man. The rest, saving themselves as best they could, swerved off to either side amid a roar of execrations and shouts of triumph.
My lady, trembling with horror, had long ago retired. She would no longer look. The Waldgrave, too, was gone; with her, I supposed. Half the general's attendants had been sent down the hill, some with one order, some with another. In this crisis-for I saw clearly that it was a crisis, and that if the defenders could hold out until darkness fell, the issue must be doubtful-I turned to look at our commander. He was still cool, but his brow was dark with passion. At one moment he stepped forward as if to go down into the mêlée; the next he repressed the impulse. The level rays of the sun which just caught the top of the hill shone in our eyes, while dust and smoke began to veil the field. We could still make out that the cavalry were sweeping round and round the barricade, pouring in now and then a volley of pistol shots; but they appeared to be suffering more loss than they caused.
Given a ring of waggons in the open, stoutly defended by resolute men, and I know nothing more difficult to reduce. Gazing in a kind of fascination into the depths where the smoke whirled and eddied, as the steam rolls this way and that on a caldron, I was wondering what I should do were I in command, when I saw on a sudden what some one was doing; and I heard General Tzerclas utter an oath of relief. Back from the front of the convoy came three waggons, surrounded and urged on by a mob of footmen; jolting and bumping over the uneven ground, and often nearly overturned, still they came on, and behind them a larger troop of men. Finally they came almost abreast of the enemy's position, and some thirty paces to one side of it. There perforce they stayed, for the leading horses fell shot; but it was near enough. In an instant our men swarmed up behind them and began to fire volleys into the enemy's fortress, while the horse moving to and fro at a little distance forbade any attempt at a sally.
'That man has a head on his shoulders!' General Tzerclas muttered between his teeth. 'That is Ludwig! Now we have them!'
But I saw that it was not Ludwig; and presently the general saw it too. I read it in his face. The man who had brought up the waggons, and who could still be seen exposing himself, mounted and bare-headed in the hottest of the fire, ordering, threatening, inciting, leading, so that we could almost hear his voice where we stood, was the Waldgrave! His blue velvet cloak and bright fair head were unmistakable, though darkness was fast closing over the fight, and it was only at intervals that we could see anything through the pall of smoke.