THE DRAGON'S GORGE.
Nigel Charteris prayed for the fall of night. Night and the forest could
save him and his handful. Night and the forest would enable Elspeth to
lead them to the Wartburg more swiftly than any horsemen could make
their way.
Nigel prayed, but with him to pray was to labour. In a moment he was
back again at the hinder end of the gorge and drew out his two men. In
another moment they had spread forty yards apart, secure behind wide
boles of trees on either side of the direction taken by the Count. Then
a pause came. The Count and his followers rode stealthily forward. They
were evidently making a flank movement, but whether of departure or of
surprise, it was not clear to Nigel. Either was undesirable. Two puffs
of smoke, two shots rang out, two of the Bohemians fell from their
saddles. Six or seven of their comrades fired wildly in the direction of
the smoke. But Nigel's outposts had scuttled and taken up other
positions. Again two shots rang out, this time more in the rear of the
Count's party. One hit a horse, the other a rider. There was prancing
and rearing, and three riderless horses tore back breakneck in the
direction they had come. The Count shouted hoarsely, bidding his men
dismount and search. Nigel ran swiftly back and called to Blick and his
comrade to follow the gorge to its hinder issue and await him. It may be
imagined how Blick splashed through the water and reached the trembling
Elspeth, who, standing as high as she could out of reach of the
blood-stained water, was trembling all over at the unseen danger she
ran.
Blick was for killing the Count, but this Nigel forbade, though there
was justification enough. As far as his own deserters that was another
matter. He wished to scatter them, disable them in detail, to avoid a
hand-to-hand combat where numbers must tell against his little band, and
gain time. The two outposts had fallen back upon the hinder mouth of the
gorge. One was stationed behind Elspeth to keep the pass. The other
three with Blick again spread out and lay _perdu_ until the searchers
came near, so near that the muskets of Nigel's men could scarcely fail
to hit. Then one by one their voices spoke, reverberating through the
forest, given back by the rocks, repeated by other rocks, and again
howls and curses rent the air. The Bohemian deserters ran crouching here
and there firing at trees they deemed men. And twice again the hidden
marksmen hit the mark, and the Count, watched carefully by Nigel, was at
his wits' end. With this kind of warfare he was plainly unfamiliar. He
alone remained by his horse in company with a knot of five or six
besides his body-servant. His guards were on the alert with their
muskets ready to fire at the least sign, and every now and again a shot
from one of Nigel's holster pistols came whistling about their ears,
sufficiently near to increase the strain of their attention and make
them feel, despite their knowledge of Nigel's strength, that the forest
was full of enemies.
Once, twice, shots came perilously near hitting Nigel, but his advantage
of the thicker cover saved him. Meanwhile Sergeant Blick managed his
force of sharpshooters with amazing dexterity, advancing, retiring,
picking off a man here or there. And the twilight came, less a state of
light than of gloom. And the smoke of the powder hung just below the
foliage, making everything uncertain. Nigel began to smell victory
instead of merely a skilful retreat. The orders were, at the end of
every three fusilades to reassemble at the gorge. Nigel led his men
almost crawling through the bushes till they had the Count and his
body-guard within easy musket-shot. The rest were scattered, as Blick
had well contrived.
Then at a word four shots rang out together. Four men of the guard fell
wounded or dead, and with a rush at the Count, sword in hand, Nigel put
the finishing touch, for the Count in consternation threw down his own.
The rest of his immediate followers grovelled on the ground and were
quickly disarmed and bound. As for the others, who had grown dispirited
by the slaughter and their wild-goose chase among the trees, as one by
one they became acquainted with the culminating disaster, they slunk
back to the rearguard, seized a horse apiece, and rode back on a
harrying expedition of their own, which boded ill for Pastor Rad and his
flock. Some, that is to say, for others were of that spirit which must
follow a master, as a dog prefers the company of man. These threw down
their muskets at the brusque command of Blick, and a few minutes
afterwards Blick had them on horseback without weapons, his own men in
front and rear and the riderless horses beside them, awaiting the
command to march. Elspeth, all cheerfulness again, stood waiting. Nigel
and the Count were a little way off.
"There is no quarrel between us, Count!" said Nigel. "We have broken
bread together in the house of our friend the Abbot of Fulda!"
"A jolly host!" said the Count in a tone of ingratiation, a little
forced.
"But," Nigel continued, "it seems to me that your errand has an object
which is not conducive to the Emperor's service, which is mine."
"In what, colonel?"
"To find you at Fulda bearing presents and messages from Wallenstein was
nothing that could offend the Emperor. But to find you in the company of
the Landgrave of Hesse?"
"Wherein was the offence?" the Count inquired courteously. "I admit I
had messages to the Landgrave from the Duke of Friedland, from one Count
of the Empire to another. What then?"
"The Landgrave had gathered an armed force. He is about to march to join
Gustavus. What else? To deliver messages from a subject of the Emperor
to an open foe is surely a grave matter of offence!"
"I am sorry you should think so!" said the Count. "It is not for me to
weigh wars and parties. The Duke of Friedland bids me carry certain
messages to certain of the great ones of the earth. I do it to the best
of my poor ability. To Bohemia the Emperor is a name, a usurper of the
kingship."
"Does that excuse the seduction of my men, who are the Emperor's, paid,
clothed, and fed by the Emperor?"
"As to that," the Count smiled, "they chose to desert you to follow a
countryman of their own! No great crime, surely? I could not compel
them. They chose."
"And chose badly, it seems," Nigel responded grimly. "Now before we
proceed I must search you for any letters you may carry."
"I carry none!" said the Count, flushing, as Nigel rapidly passed his
hands into his pockets, over his hose, and other vestments.
"As for your valise and holsters I can examine them later. Meantime you
are my prisoner, and will be shot down if you attempt to escape!"
"But!" protested the Count.
"There is no 'but'!" said Nigel. "Be good enough to mount!"
The Count bit his moustache and mounted. Nigel, having first perched
Elspeth on a horse, which he led, strode immediately in front, his left
hand on the rein, his right hand holding his drawn sword in case of
accidents.
The road was a mere bridle-track where single file was a necessity. On
the right for a mile or so it lay along the steep slope of the rising
ground, not so much precipitous as steep. For horses and men alike it
was necessary for progress to follow the pathway. Every now and again
cross paths came into view, but Elspeth knew the forest as if it had
been the highroad and kept steadily on. Above them the high tree-tops
towered, tall pines and straight slender beeches, whose foliage had
learned to grow only upon the topmost boughs. Now and again they came to
a broad clearing where clear sky was. Then the line of the ridge swept
over to the east and the steepest declivities were to the left. The
riders and Nigel looked down into the great hollows in the woodland,
flanked by great naked boulders that stood up out of the sea of leaves,
the countless heaping of unnumbered years. And now the moon was up and
patches of white light streaked the boles of trees, and the leaves, and
ceased to be, for the further darkness of the shadows.
Now the pathway leads up by zigzags. Elspeth whispers that they are now
upon the Wartburg itself, and bids Nigel look down and out, and surely
there in the moonlight he can see, a mile or two away, the outliers of
the town of Eisenach, else hidden by another hill which juts between.
Nigel calls a halt, and, to the Count's chagrin, just concealed and no
more, orders Blick to descend with the Count and the others to the
camping-place without the town where the regiment should be.
He himself with one soldier for his guard mounts the zigzags with
Elspeth, passes beneath the bridge wherefrom he is challenged by the
sentry, and stands at the outer gate of Luther's famous asylum.
There is the clank of men-at-arms, the murky flicker of the lanthorns,
rattling of bolts, and Nigel is admitted. The guard fears no surprise
from a single officer, a single trooper, and a maiden half dead with
fatigue, whose stockings are soaked with water, and that the reddened
water of the Dragon's Gorge.
Over the stones of the causeway of the outer court, through the arch
below the guard-room, they reach the inner courtyard, bathed in the
moonlight, serene, still, but for the splashing of the fountain. Beyond,
where the white walls of the castle are not, is the limitless night and
the limitless sea of tree-tops just flecked by the moonlight.
The doors are opened hospitably and the red glare of fires made visible.
Then the Landgrave himself, the Landgravine, with their gentlemen and
ladies, troop into the hall. And almost before Nigel can explain his
errand, a lady steps out, tall beyond her fellows, and cries aloud--
"Elspeth! Little Elspeth Reinheit! In what a plight!"
It was Ottilie von Thüringen.