A SURPRISE AT RATISBON.
Nigel awoke to the jolting of an ox-waggon, over which was a rough
covering. He was lying in his cloak on a truss of straw. Beside him sat
one of his aides-de-camp, Captain von Grätz. But just now he looked
strangely unlike a military man, and was reciting prayers, fingering a
rosary which hung about his neck while he did so, with an earnestness
that suggested that some one was on the point of death.
For a moment or two or three Nigel could not bring his mind to any clear
understanding. The officer had a lantern. Outside, through the opening
in the rough hood, was a blue sky and frosty-looking stars. Tramp!
Tramp! The army was on the march. Whither and why? Heaven, what a pain!
In his side, or was it in his shoulder? Nigel felt stiff for the most
part, but the pain was sharp and not always in one place.
The aide-de-camp raised the lantern and looked at him, gave him a
draught of some kind, which sent the blood circulating more warmly, and
made his stiff limbs feel as if they were being teased by a thousand
pricks. Then he said "Hush!" and went on praying till Nigel fell asleep.
In the morning they had reached Neuburg, and Nigel was sufficiently
himself to understand what had happened. Count Tilly had had his right
leg shattered by a cannon-ball, and a man of seventy-three, tough even
as Tilly, does not suffer such wounds with impunity. Altringer, his next
in command, was dead. The Elector Maximilian, swayed by Tilly, had
ordered a retreat from that wellnigh impregnable position. With
nightfall the retreat had begun, to Neuburg first. Then it was to be
Ingolstadt, where another stand would be made. Count Tilly was still
alive. The next question Nigel put was for the other aide-de-camp. He
had been drowned in the Lech. He had "died for the faith," as his
comrade-in-arms said.
"You are a regular priest?"
The aide-de-camp inclined his head in token of assent.
"We obey orders!" he said softly.
"What is the matter with me?"
"You had a pike-thrust through your left shoulder, a musket-shot grazed
your ribs, you were knocked unconscious from a blow from the raft as you
fell into the water. The poleman just snatched you from the gates of
heaven!" The Jesuit sighed as he said the last words. "As for myself, it
is not time yet."
Nigel had no reply ready. He decided however that, as he did not feel
any resentment against the poleman, he was not yet prepared for the end
his companion, evidently in good faith, desired for him.
A night and a day at Neuburg and the army with its men and its waggons,
its artillery, its swarms of camp-followers, passed on to Ingolstadt.
Count Tilly still lived, and while he lived Maximilian acted upon his
advice.
"Defend Ingolstadt as long as possible. Throw troops forward into
Ratisbon and hold that. Holding the two you hold the Danube!"
Other advice he gave, that all wounded and camp-followers should be sent
forward to Ratisbon. Ingolstadt was strongly fortified and might turn
the edge of Gustavus' sword if it contained nothing but fighting men.
Ratisbon would be a safe refuge for a few weeks.
Nigel was carried into the presence of Count Tilly at Ingolstadt.
The old general, looking shrivelled, sunken, his eyes feverishly bright,
lay in his bed. His hat with the red feather and his sword hung upon the
wall.
He looked up and recognised Nigel.
"You too, boy?"
"Not badly!" said Nigel.
"Go on to Ratisbon! You'll be well enough to fight the Swede again in
three weeks!" His voice faltered even in its weakness. He turned his
head away a minute or two. Nigel knew what the old warrior was thinking,
and could not find it in him to utter the worthless consolatory hopes
that he might.
"But _I_ shall never fight again! The Swede has beaten me. I would that
we had fought in the open and not cooped up behind trenches and rivers.
Well! It is Wallenstein's chance now, and for _me_ nothing but the
priest's viaticum. God be with you, boy!"
Nigel clasped his thin sword-hand with his own, and the young soldier of
fortune looked into the eyes, the stern, sharp, wistful, wild eyes of
the old soldier, who was doomed beyond possible help of army surgeon,
and the old man knew that the young one held him for a brave man, who
had been staunch to his profession, and loyal to the Emperor even to the
death. There was more comfort in Nigel's eyes than in a thousand
protestations from men who had never faced ball and pike-thrust on a
hard-fought field.
Nigel gulped down something and whispered hoarsely--
"Good-bye, General. The Holy Saints help you!"
His orderlies carried him out, and two days afterwards Tilly died, the
sound of Gustavus' cannon, without the walls of Ingolstadt, ringing in
his ears.
Nigel reached Ratisbon in the train of the troops sent on to defend it.
Every day he was under the ministrations of the Jesuit, who combined the
art of the healer with that of spiritual director, as if he had never,
sword in hand, hewn down Swedish pikemen on the bridge at the Lech.
Every day made him gain something of ease. And once lodged in a
comfortable upper room at Ratisbon he began to recover the usage of his
legs.
But he was still far from the recovery of his full vigour, and spent
most of the day looking from a window seat, his shoulders leaning
against cushions because of his wounds, upon the passing trivialities of
the street, while the aide-de-camp was out about his military duties.
It was while he was thus employed that his soldier servant announced, "A
high-born lady visiting the sick, colonel!"
Wondering what new adventure this might be, he bade the soldier bring
her up.
First came a sour-visaged dame, whom Nigel half recognised and then
decided that he did not. Hard on her heels came one that brought a
sudden flush into his pallor. It was the Archduchess Stephanie.
It was clearly as unexpected on her part. But with wonderful presence of
mind she entreated him not to rise, and bade her maid set down her
basket and wait below.
Then as the door closed she sprang to him.
"Nigel! My love, Nigel! In Ratisbon!"
She knelt at his side, and placing his arm about her neck laid her face
against his, and crooned softly to him as she would have done to a
babe.
And he could say little but press her dear hand closer to him and
whisper "Stephanie! You too in Ratisbon!"
"We came, my brother Ferdinand and I, to strengthen the hands of the
Elector Maximilian, so that he fell not into the sin of neutrality."
"You and Ferdinand?" There was a world of inquiry in his tone.
"Yes, Nigel! Ferdinand was to play the fisherman and I the bait." She
sprang from him and dropped a stately curtsey, pulling her face
straight, serene and wonderful to behold for any one, but to Nigel not
the Queen of Sheba nor Zenobia of Palmyra would have seemed more
wonderful.
"And I the bait!" she repeated and laughed.
"But Maximilian had hopelessly broken his neutrality by the time you
arrived!" said Nigel.
"We could not know it till we came! And then I told the Elector what I
had told him in any hazard, I would not wed him were he twenty times
Elector and the Great Mogul besides. It is not in my blood or my
humour."
Nigel's eyes spoke the admiration for her boldness that he felt.
"Then you have tricked the Emperor, and Father Lamormain, and flouted
Maximilian----"
"To follow you, Tall Captain, or carry you off in my arms, or what shall
I do? I had no certain knowledge you were here. I had learned that the
camp had been broken up, that Tilly had retired to Ingolstadt, and when
I heard that the wounded were sent on to Ratisbon I began my search,
wondering how much of you I might find."
"It is naught!" said Nigel, getting up. "I have lost blood. I have a
scratch in the ribs, a thrust of pike in my left shoulder, but they
heal. A Jesuit is living with me, Captain von Grätz, salving me,
preaching to me, and doing military duty too."
"Not a word to him! Father Lamormain suspects! I know not how much, but
much!"
"You must plan, and I must plan!" said Nigel. "We are in a serious case.
If we be not wedded in a little, wedded we two shall never be. It is too
much to set the Emperor and the Elector at defiance and not expect
reprisals. But if we be wedded, beloved Stephanie, we may even get off
with a hair shirt and smock, saving your Highness, and exile to some
remote castle in the Grisons."
Nigel was no screech-owl, nor in the way of seeing ill before it came
except to prevent it, so his tone was gay; but there was doubt beneath.
"How did the Elector take it?" he went on.
"Faith, Nigel mine, but like as a pinch of sunshine peeps out between
the gathering clouds and is now quite shut out, so he seemed to smile,
but his brows were threatening black and his teeth gleamed a little.
"There is a touch of fantasy about the Wittelsbachers. Born in a lowlier
station, Maximilian might have become a sad kind of troubadour, or a
prophesying friar. Being a prince, he is capable of carrying out any
wild imagining he might have to snatch me to him, or to wreak his
disappointment."
"And we are in his hands here!" said Nigel.
"To-morrow, think you, Tall Captain, if I took the air on horseback
without the walls, the Swede not yet being come up, that you could mount
a charger and meet me by chance three leagues distance. If there were no
guards out we might perchance slip further still and make our way----"
"To what port of shelter?"
"To Znaim! Sure Wallenstein would make you one of his new captains, and
Znaim would be a veritable city of refuge!"
Nigel drew in his breath. "Stephanie, you have a godlike courage! To
Wallenstein! And yet why not? He will want officers. Here I am on the
list of the sick. There shall I be serving the Emperor! It is a bold
plan, Stephanie, but we must venture all, or be forever cravens!"
"To-morrow! Nigel! Heaven send not the Swedes too soon to close the
gates. At midday three leagues away by the road from the eastern gate!"
"And to-morrow if it see not our wedding shall see the eve of the
bridal!" She took Nigel by both hands, dealing as tenderly as with any
babe, and looked upon him with such a look of mystery and love and
motherhood in her eyes as caught him up into heaven and left him
entranced while one might count a hundred. Her look smote through his
eyes and on to his very soul, and put her impress there as it had been
the seal of the greatest Empire of all the world.
Then they kissed in solemn troth-plight, and the Archduchess went down
the stair leaving the room a darkness, though it was still broad day.