The battle of Weissheim was a very small affair, viewed from an
European standpoint. The forces engaged on either side were trivial,
and the issues at stake of comparative indifference to all save those
directly concerned; and yet it was not devoid of picturesqueness in
its incidents, nor even of academic interest to those who study the
conduct of military operations in the high regions of deep snow and
zero frosts. The bombardment of the Marienkastel was an excellent
example of concentrated artillery fire on a mediæval building, of the
efficacy of modern explosives on ancient masonry, of the superiority
of iron and melinite to stone and concrete. Bernhardt's gallant
attempt to storm the destructive battery was as noble in its way as
the heroic charge at Balaclava; its failure was even more pronounced.
He returned from that spirited enterprise with half his men and a
rifle bullet in his dangling left arm, but with an unbroken spirit
and untamed energy.
The Marienkastel existed no longer as a building. Its halls were
unroofed, its great tower but dwarf piers of splintered masonry. The
position,--which had been captured with such skill and
gallantry,--had been but a bait in the enemy's trap. The
Marienkastel, indeed, commanded Weissheim, but Sanatorium Hill
commanded the Marienkastel. The ex-priest's local knowledge had been
inferior to Meyer's, and that inferiority spelt the difference
between winning and losing the battle.
During Bernhardt's absence on his desperate effort to spike Von
Hügelweiler's mortars, Trafford had been left in command of the
castle. Finding his position untenable and his losses increasing at
an appalling rate, he drew off to the sheltered ground by Major
Flannel's curling-rink. Here they were safe from attack, and at the
same time powerless for purposes of aggression. Gloria was with him,
bitter at the destruction of her home, sick at the loss of her
followers, anxious to do some desperate action which should win back
their lost advantage.
The day which had opened with triumph seemed destined to close in
shame. A man's courage was in her heart, a stubborn pride in her
vigorous blood, but the sight of the wounded,--sufferers for her
ambition,--won a softer mood, and she hastened to give comfort where
she could no longer arouse enthusiasm. At about three o'clock in the
afternoon Bernhardt and his remnant entered the hollow, which
Trafford had now put in a position of defence. The ex-priest looked
round at the entrenched riflemen and the guns in their snow
embrasures, and laughed mockingly.
"On what can you train your guns here?" he asked, attempting to bind
his wounded arm with the aid of his uninjured member and his strong
teeth.
"On anyone who wants to play a game on Major Flannel's rink,"
Trafford replied, tendering his assistance for the stricken limb.
"Our motto for the moment is 'defence not defiance.' We cannot hurt
the enemy, and the next best thing is not to let him hurt us."
"And you are content with that?" asked Bernhardt with scorn.
"I have a beautiful nature," the American replied quietly, "and I
accept the decrees of Providence in a chastened spirit. We came to
capture a town and a king, and we have captured--a curling-rink!
Unfortunately we have sent the curling-stones down the bob-sleigh
run, so we are unable to derive much benefit from our achievement."
Bernhardt looked wonderingly at the other.
"And men call _me_ mad," he said after a pause.
"And with reason," retorted Trafford. "You are a Napoleon _in
parvo_, a man who desires big things quite apart from their intrinsic
value. You want a kingdom for your playground, and princes for your
playthings; that is what scientists call megalomania, and I, bad
taste. There are better things at hand for the normal man: a wife
and children and a good conscience."
"A coward's creed!" was Bernhardt's comment.
"Maybe, but mine."
Bernhardt tossed his head in despairing amazement.
"To think that you of all men should sink so hopelessly at our first
rebuff!--Trafford, the hero of the revolution, is no better than a
craven!"
"There is more than one kind of cowardice, Bernhardt," rejoined
Trafford without heat; "and I admit I was a coward in the
Marienkastel, when the shells dropped and buried men alive under
tottering walls. I don't think I was ever afraid before, but then I
had never been in action with--with a woman."
"But 'perfect love casteth out fear,'" mocked Bernhardt.
"Then is my love very far from perfect," came the ready answer. "I
was in a very torment of anxiety. A good man groaning out his life
with a lump of lead in his breast, and a broken wall across his legs,
is bad enough, but she"--and Trafford pointed to Gloria, who was
engaged in tending a poor, disfigured wretch who had been moved from
the stricken castle--"my God, Bernhardt, I was a coward!"
"Women don't feel pain as much as men," said Bernhardt brutally.
"Our anxiety on their account is a purely selfish sentiment based on
the lowest instincts."
"Your theory would be preposterous even if we were animals," replied
Trafford. "As applied to humanity it is blasphemy. I fancy your
wound hurts you."
"Aye, my wound hurts me--not the wound in my arm--I don't feel
that--but the wound in my spirit. I am not one to sit down under
defeat."
"Then what do you propose to do?"
"Push on to the Brunvarad!"
"And play Meyer's game for him! The road is held with every rifle
and quick-firer they can cram into it."
"We can get through at a price," said Bernhardt between his teeth.
"I don't think we could get through at any price," rejoined Trafford
with conviction. "If we go on we are beaten men; if we stay here we
may make a draw of it."
Bernhardt uttered an exclamation of contempt.
"There is no such word in Grimland," he said. "We either win victory
or we drain the cup of defeat to its dregs. Are we to return to the
good loyal town of Weidenbruck and say, 'We have lost three hundred
men and a dozen guns; we have not captured Weissheim, nor taken Karl,
but we have made a draw of it? Strew garlands in our path and deck
your houses with bunting, for we have escaped total destruction!'
"I was not suggesting returning to Weidenbruck," said Trafford.
"Can we stay here? What are we to eat? Where are we to sleep? The
nights are far from warm at these altitudes. To sleep out of doors
at Weissheim; is to sleep the sleep that knows no waking. If we
cannot go forward we must fall back on our communications at Wallen.
The hospitality of Major Flannel's curling-rink is not one to be
accepted permanently."
Trafford was silenced. Events had landed them in an _impasse_, and
to curse the whole folly of the expedition was alike ignoble and
unprofitable.
It might have been wiser,--as he had advocated at Wallen,--to have
abandoned the scheme of conquest, to have sought the joys of life in
quiet retirement from the scene of clashing ambitions and frenzied
upheavals; but the expedition had gone on to its fate and he had
gone, consenting, with it. And things being as they were,
Bernhardt's logic was relentlessly true. To go back with their
purpose unfulfilled was to test the brittle fabric of the sullen
Weidenbruckers' allegiance with too shrewd a strain. And if they
could not go forward they must go back. In grim perplexity he called
to Gloria.
"Is it worth while trying to force the road to Weidenbruck?" he asked
her.
"If you had been tending wounded men, you would not ask such a
question," she replied quietly.
"I thought the Schattenbergs rose to great heights in great
difficulties," sneered Bernhardt. "If we are shirk our butcher's
bill----"
"We have made our mistakes," she interrupted. "Our only chance is
for them to make theirs. If we stay here they may attack us."
"Meyer doesn't make mistakes," said the ex-priest, "and if he did it
would not be a mistake of that kind. If we stay here the only foes
that will attack us will be General Frost and Brigadier Hunger;
against such we have no defence."
"It seems to me," said Trafford, "that to go forward is madness, to
go back madness, to stay here is madness; and as we must do one of
these three things, madness is our portion. Now the most effective
kind of lunacy seems to me to stay here till night-fall."
"And then hazard a night attack?" questioned Gloria hopefully.
"Not an attack," rejoined Trafford. "Meyer has very sound theories
of defence, and his searchlights are sure to be in excellent working
order. No; we must drop the soldier and become burglars. Where a
thousand, or even a hundred, would fail, half a dozen may succeed;
and the object of our burglary must be Karl. If we can secure his
person and return with it to the capital, we shall have done all,--or
nearly all,--we attempted. Weissheim is loyal to an individual not a
dynasty, and Karl in the Strafeburg would be a much less attractive
person than Karl in the Brunvarad."
Bernhardt laughed softly.
"I begin to have hopes of you again," he said.
Gloria clapped her hands excitedly.
"I knew you would find some way out of the difficulty!" she cried.
"There is no such thing as despair with you in our counsels."
"I am fighting for a high stake," Trafford replied. "If I can win
success out of the tangled disorder of our fortunes you----"
"If you can capture Karl," she interrupted, "I am sure there will be
no political objection to your being--being my consort."
"Only personal objections?" he hazarded.
"There will be none," she said, "I swear it. You are a most gallant
and resourceful gentleman, and I might search my kingdom over for
your equal."
Trafford noted the genuine enthusiasm of her tones, and nodded grimly.
"You are what they call a 'throw-back,' your Majesty," he said. "You
should have lived five hundred years ago, in the age of joust and
tourney, when men won their wives by driving enormous spears through
the breastbones of their less muscular rivals."
"And you are of the Middle Ages too," she countered; "your ideals,
like mine, go back to the early days of chivalry."
"The days of the rack and the Iron Maiden? No, I assure you that
with all my faults I am more up-to-date than that. Romance is a fine
thing on paper, but in my heart of hearts I would win my soul's
desire with a gentle wooing. But to return to our _moutons_: does
the plan I have outlined commend itself to my friend Bernhardt?"
"If your proposal had been to put a bullet through Karl's cranium I
should say that it bordered on sanity," replied Bernhardt. "But even
that would be difficult. Meyer stands or falls by Karl's
supremacy--and the Jew is not a man to let his position be forfeited
for want of forethought. He will watch over Karl's sacred person as
a mother watches over her first-born. Still, we might scheme an
attempt for stalking the royal stag."
"I suggested turning burglar," said Trafford. "I consider that a
sufficient descent in the social scale, without turning murderer."
"You have not the advantage of being an _absintheur_," was
Bernhardt's rejoinder. But at this point the conversation was
interrupted; an officer of the Guides had approached and was standing
at the salute.
"A man to see your Excellency," he began, to Bernhardt.
"Where from?"
"Weidenbruck."
"His name?"
"Dr. Matti."
Bernhardt whistled.
"His business?" he demanded.
"Private and confidential."
"Hum! Conduct him here, please."
A moment later the doctor stood before them. He was arrayed in a
woollen jersey, with a Jäeger scarf around his neck. Grey-green
knickerbockers and yellow putties veiled his nether limbs. He was
wearing smoked glasses, and his feet were shod with skis. His head
was bare, and his hair wet and tangled, as though it had had intimate
acquaintance with the snow.
"What are you doing here?" demanded the ex-priest.
"I come as a messenger and a fugitive," replied the doctor.
"Your news?"
"Weidenbruck is in a condition of anarchy. You left me as a
dictator, but you deprived me of a dictator's only argument--force.
You drained the city of troops, and you expected me to impose my will
on that turbulent and sinful community. My will was to purify the
_stadt_. My men raided the gambling-houses round the Goose-market;
they harried the infamous dens of the Hahngasse. I closed the
Mailand Kurhaus and that other haunt of immorality, the Augustus
Café. For forty-eight hours virtue triumphed, and the worst features
of my native town began to disappear with exhilarating rapidity.
Then the forces of sin and debauchery put their evil heads together,
and the reaction began. My police were suborned. The cry was raised
that a worse tyranny than Karl's had been inaugurated. Rumours that
Karl was holding his own and more began to be disseminated in the
capital. It was whispered that guilty relations had been established
between the young Queen and the accursed American. There was a riot.
I called out the soldiers, but they were too few and not over
willing. The people who had hounded Karl from his throne cheered his
name in the same streets where they had sought his blood. I am no
coward, but I was appalled. To calm the tempest would have needed an
army corps."
"Or Father Bernhardt," interrupted Trafford.
"Anyway, I fled," the doctor resumed, "because I saw how imperative
it was that you should return as soon as you had won your victory."
"And left the city to anarchy?" put in Gloria.
"I left the sons of worthlessness to their own confusion."
"Dr. Matti," said Bernhardt, "you are one of those amiable beings who
have theories. If you had amused the Weidenbruckers,--or even let
them amuse themselves,--all might have been well. Instead, however,
you tried to turn them into angels,--a role which Providence has not
assigned to any community east of Berlin."
"I meant well----"
"That is what I complain of," interrupted Bernhardt.
"But the situation is only temporarily serious," interposed the
hapless doctor. "When you have captured Weissheim----"
"When we have captured Weissheim," said Trafford. "Unfortunately we
are about a quarter of a mile further from Weissheim than we were two
hours ago. And two hours hence we shall very probably be further
still."
"Good heavens! You----"
"We are like you, Dr. Matti," went on Trafford. "We have had a
failure; like you, we over-rated our own skill and under-rated our
enemies'. The situation is bad."
Matti was silent, but his big, plebeian features showed plainly the
disappointment and consternation of his mind. The short winter day
was winning to its close. Already the sun was falling behind the
great wall of the distant mountains; already the snows of the
Klauigberg were flushing rose-pink against the greening turquoise of
the cloudless sky. A chill had crept into the air, the surface of
the curling-rink,--which had been wet under the sun's mid-day
power,--was now as slippery as a polished mirror. In an hour it
would be dark, and with the dark would come the intense cold that
meant death to all that failed to find a night's shelter.
"It is time we fell back towards Wallen," said Bernhardt to Gloria.
"I and Trafford will stay behind with a few trusty spirits. If all
goes well we will join you to-morrow morning."
"I am going to stay behind too," said Gloria quietly. "Colonel
Schale can conduct the retreat."
"I too will stay behind," said Dr. Matti. "I am further from
Weidenbruck here than at Wallen."
Bernhardt looked at the doctor's heavy, determined features, and
nodded.
"We four," he muttered. "It is enough! My wound burns like fire;
the cold has got into it, and it will mortify. To-morrow Dr. Matti
can remove the gangrened limb."
Matti's professional instincts were roused by the last words.
"You are wounded?" he said. "You had best let me remove the bullet
at once." He produced from his person a small bottle containing a
colourless fluid. "I was prepared for emergencies of this nature. A
whiff of chloroform----"
"To the devil with your anæsthetics!" cried Bernhardt hotly. "My
brain is wanted to-night; my _brain_, Herr Doctor, not a fuddled mass
of drugged cells and inert tissue! Take out the bullet if you will,
but don't imagine I shall flinch under the knife. There is no pain
that I can feel but the pain of disappointment."
"But a mere whiff," began the worthy doctor.
"Do as he bids," said Trafford, taking the bottle from Matti's hand
and putting it for safety into his pocket. "That may come in useful
later. But I should take out the bullet, if you can," he whispered;
"there is a queer look in his eyes, and I fancy the pain is making
him light-headed."
"Come, cut out the little lump of lead, doctor," said Bernhardt, "the
little messenger that meant so much harm and achieved so little. Cut
deep, Matti, and do not stint the knife. Only leave me my right arm
and my brain; for to-night there will be great doings between the
dusk and the dawn. Aye, Bernhardt," he went on, talking to himself,
"you must rise to great heights. There will be friends to help
you--a mad Yankee, a Puritan doctor, and the last of the
Schattenbergs. A strange trinity! Nor must I forget my good
councillor Archmedai. He must be very near me to-night. Herr
Trafford, I have a flask at my belt; it is difficult for me to undo
it with one hand. Kindly assist me. A thousand thanks! I drink to
our success to-night, I drink to the devil in the devil's own tipple.
Death to Karl! Joy to Trafford and his bride! And to Bernhardt----"
he tossed down a full measure of his beloved absinthe--"to Bernhardt
I drink"--his speech thickened and his eyes wandered vaguely over the
group. He drank again--"To Bernhardt I pledge--the great unknown!"
[Illustration: "I drink to our success to-night, I drink to the devil
in the devil's own tipple"]