FREE!
Andrew had divined aright. That was what, in truth, it did mean.
Turenne had performed the greatest military feat of Louis' reign, had
set the chief seal upon a long career of glory.
Weary of lying inert in winter quarters for weeks after the battle of
Entzheim, he had suddenly conceived, and afterwards carefully matured,
the achievement which he had now carried through. The whole of his
army had left Alsace in three different brigades, and, passing over
the Vosges in the depth of a winter remarkable for its inclemency and
particularly for the amount of rain which fell--progressing through
roads and mountain paths rendered almost impassable by the mud and
water with which they were soaked--had reached Lorraine. There
remained nothing now but to fall upon the unsuspecting Imperialists at
Belfort, Mühlhausen, and elsewhere, to hunt them from Lorraine and,
once more and finally, to make Louis master of that much disputed
province. How this was done countless other pens have told.
Of those three brigades which had so wondrously and rapidly crossed
the mountains, the one that had met the eyes of Clemence first and of
Andrew afterwards, on this winter morning and after that night of
horror, was led by the great captain himself--it taking possession of
Remiremont ere many more hours had passed. Amongst those who had been
detached towards the still burning house, the moment that the flames
were seen, were some that formed the brigade of cavalry under the
Count de Lusignan, with also several of the English and Scotch
auxiliaries, under the command for the moment of the Marquis De La
Fare.
They rode into that great courtyard half an hour after the Lorrainers
had deserted the place, and, used though they were--God knows the
devastation of the Palatinate had made them so!--to the sight of
burning houses, even of burning towns and cities, they could not but
stare in amazement at what met their eyes.
For, still, from the south wing of that great house the flames poured
forth in fury--that side of it having now caught well alight; upon the
roof of the west wing they saw, clear against the threatening sky, the
form of a great man standing looking down upon them, his arms folded.
Then, from the midst of those rescuers, there rode forward one who
was, undoubtedly, in command of them--the rich justaucorps with its
gold gallooning and _flammes d'or_ showing that he who wore it
belonged to the nobility--who called up to Andrew standing above.
"Sir, are you the owner of this unfortunate house?" while, as he
spoke, he raised his hand to his thick, three-cornered felt hat.
"Nay, sir. Yet am I the last man left alive in it. But if you will, or
can, rescue us from our perilous position, for there are two women
here as well as I----"
But, as he spoke, he noticed that his questioner's attention had been
withdrawn from him by several of his followers, all of whom appeared
to be speaking earnestly to their leader, while at the same time they
directed their eyes up to Andrew, as did that leader also a moment
later. Then the latter said, or rather called up to him again:
"Sir, my men here tell me strange news. I cannot think but that they
are mistaken. Yet they aver it is not so, and you can soon decide.
They say that you are of our army, of the English auxiliary force, and
fought for us recently."
"'Tis true, sir. I was of the English Regiment under Colonel
Churchill, and am on leave of absence. And," pointing to where some of
the English and Scotch were now making their way towards the house,
"there are some who should know me, seeing that we fought side by
side. But, monsieur, the fire gains rapidly, if the wind shifts a
point it will soon reach here; I beseech you lose no time in effecting
our rescue. We have had a terrible night of it, and--once I am with
you--I have a marvellous story to tell."
The rescue was not effected for still some two hours, while, during
the passage of that time, the fire in the south wing crept ever nearer
and nearer towards the one on which Andrew and the two others were. At
last, however, it was accomplished. And thus it was done.
Leaving Marion in the charge of Clemence, and observing that she
seemed somewhat easier now, though all that she had gone through
during the night, the excitement of the past few days, the terror of
the burning house, and the exposure to the cold of the early morning,
had undoubtedly brought her very near her end, he descended once more
to the garret and, through it, to the floor below. This was still
untouched by the fire, and it seemed indeed as though, should the
flames from the south wing be prevented from spreading, or should they
by any chance become extinguished, that portion of the house would not
be destroyed. Then he went on farther down, reaching at last the top
of the first floor, and standing over the gulf left yawning by the
falling in of the great oak stairs.
It was here that his further descent was impeded, though, had the fire
not still been smouldering below, he could perhaps have escaped easily
enough: could have leaped down on to all the fallen _débris_ that was
heaped up a dozen feet beneath him, have attempted a way across it to
the open doorway--bereft now of its huge double-door, which had been
chopped off its hinges by the besiegers and hurled on as fresh fuel to
feed the flames--have possibly forced his way out thus to safety and
freedom.
But, now, at this time, no such attempt was wise--not wise, even had
he been alone and unencumbered with Marion Wyatt and Clemence.
For, although the fire no longer blazed up from the centre of that
hall, although from the vast heap beneath him there rose only the
slow-curling, grey smoke that told of what was smouldering beneath, he
knew that, to spring into its midst yet, would be to spring into a
seething, still burning mass, to hurl himself into a vast heap of
charred embers--to be choked, burnt, suffocated beyond any hope of
recovery.
The way was not to be found there!
He went, therefore, rapidly along the gallery of that floor on the
west side in hopes of finding, perhaps, some other descent, some
_escalier de service_, or back stairs, by which escape might be made.
But there was none, or, if there had ever been any, it must have
existed in the north wing, which was long since entirely destroyed, or
in the south, which was on fire--or perhaps the front, which was
unreachable.
"There is but one way," he told himself, "one way left. From some
window. I must bring the women down here, find somehow the opportunity
of lowering them to the ground. Yet 'twill be no easy task. This stone
basement is high, was once the whole height of the house--was the
house itself. Laurent told me--'tis far to the ground from here."
It was, indeed; the windows of the rooms that opened off the corridor
he was now on being fully thirty-five feet from the ground. A height
to appal a man who had to lower two almost helpless women--one
certainly helpless--from it to the earth; a man who had also not so
much as a cord in his possession wherewith to do so. Yet that, he
thought, could be overcome, provided for. The cavalry men outside
might catch the women in their arms as he lowered them; if they sat
close upon their horses and near together under the windows from which
he let down Marion and Clemence, at his--and their--full arms' length,
the distance would not be so much to fall. But entering the room
nearest to him, in which, to his horror, he found Beaujos, the
steward, lying dead in a bed--no doubt he had been keeping that bed
since the injuries he had received in Andrew's encounter with him when
he and Marion made their first attempt to escape, and had been
suffocated while lying there forgotten--another obstacle presented
itself. Outside the small diamond-paned lattice windows, themselves a
strong barrier to any exit, with their leaden framework for the small
panes, and with small stone columns dividing each window into three
compartments, he noticed at once that they were strongly guarded by
iron bars crossed both horizontally and perpendicularly. He tried
another room--it was the same, both as regarded bars outside and stone
columns within; was indeed a counterpart of the first. They offered no
chance.
"Curse these Lorraine wolves," he muttered to himself, as he rushed to
a third room, "they protected themselves well. Did indeed mean that
none should get into their house, or, being in, should ever get out
again."
The third room was as useless as the first for his purpose, and--there
was but one more left! If that was the same, God only knew how the
escape could ever be made, unless it was back across the chasm, the
way he had come. Could that be done, he mused, as now he approached
the fourth room. Was that possible? If one, or a dozen, of the men
outside should proceed to the brink of the chasm, fasten a rope to the
tree as he and Laurent had done--if----
"Ha! the chance is here," he exclaimed, breaking off in his
calculations. "Here. Here. It must be."
He had entered the fourth room--in this case he had to burst the door
open by hurling himself against its stout oak panels, since it was
locked--and, in doing so, found the chance of which he spoke.
The window was of the same form as the others, but it had been
subjected to some great violence and was much damaged by the shock;
the slim columns were broken quite out of base and socket, the
shattered fragments of the stone lay on the floor and, with them, lay,
too, the leaden framework of the diamond panes, and most of the panes
themselves. The violence had come from outside--later on, Andrew
learnt that, during the night attack, a petard carried by the
besieging Lorrainers--one of a number brought by them to assist in
destroying the house--had been hurled against that window and had
blown it in. Yet, when this had been accomplished, their object had
failed. The window was too high from the ground to allow of their
obtaining entry, and the petard, after bursting it open, had fallen
back, doing no further damage.
Still, it had performed a service never dreamt of by the
Lorrainers--it had provided a way for the escape of those three
prisoners in the burning house.
The cavalry men, who had by now been joined by those belonging to the
English and Scotch auxiliaries, were all upon that side of the
mansion--since 'twas there, above, that they had first perceived the
form of Andrew outlined against the threatening morning clouds--and as
his head appeared through the shattered window they hailed him with a
shout. Also from those of his own countrymen, as well as from the
Scotch, came noisy greetings. Some had stood side by side with him in
other campaigns than these; all had seen his prowess at Entzheim and
honoured him for it.
"Yet," called up the young Marquis De La Fare, he being the officer in
command, "the height is great. How to descend; how bring the ladies
you speak of?" While, as he himself spoke, he bade some of the men
search the outhouses they observed near by. Perchance some ladder
might be there, by which the window could be reached.
"It may happen," said Andrew, "that I can drop the women to you--yet
the distance is almost too great--if they should be missed by your
soldiers it would be instant death."
"It is impossible," the other replied. "Yet, have patience--my men
seek even now for some means to reach you--if a ladder can be found
all will be well. Meanwhile, I counsel you, go bring the ladies to the
window. By then the way may have been found."
The advice was good, and Andrew lost no time in following it. Ere a
quarter of an hour had passed, Clemence and Marion had been brought
down from the roof, and were with him in the room. But, almost he
feared that ere they should be rescued Marion would be a dead woman.
She was nearly helpless now--nay, quite so, and half insensible; it
was in those great, untiring arms that she had to be carried from the
roof below.
And behind them had followed Clemence, muttering:
"She will die. She will die." While as she so said she wept.
That she would die, Andrew could not doubt; this last shock, following
on the long detention she had been subjected to by her deceiver, De
Bois-Vallée; following on, too, the agony of mind she must have
suffered in musing on what those at home would feel at her
disappearance; had brought her to her end. He could not doubt it.
"And still," he murmured to himself, "Philip is unavenged. Soon there
will be two victims of his villainy. God! how I have failed. Failed to
avenge him, to save her--failed even to learn how the evil was
wrought. And if she dies now--to-day--to-night--I shall never know."
Yet, even as he so spoke, there came into his face a look which would
have told plainly enough to anyone observing it, that, in one thing,
at least, he would not fail. If ever De Bois-Vallée stood face to face
with Andrew Vause again, he would escape no more with life--the hour
when he did so would be his last. Only--would he ever so stand? Might
he not by now have put leagues between them; might he not ere long put
the mountains, the seas, between him and the avenger who sought for
him!
As Andrew gazed below from the window of the room in which they were
now, he learnt that no ladder was to be found, either in outhouse or
elsewhere. If there had ever been one it had been removed, probably by
the Lorrainers; had possibly been used by them to furnish fresh fuel
for the flames inside. But, even as the men who returned from the
search told the Marquis De La Fare of their failure, from another
group who had wandered further into the woods around the house there
came a shout--it seemed of triumph and rejoicing. Then, quickly, one
came running back, breathless, and soon the story was told of what
they had lit upon.
A shed not far from the mansion, hidden in one of the copses of
Bois-le-Vaux; a house used by the woodmen for storing the felled logs
of trees--a house piled full of what was, doubtless, the winter store
of fuel--doubtless, also, overlooked by and unknown to the besiegers.
Otherwise, for sure, all in that but would have gone to swell the
flames--the attackers would not have laboured to hew down saplings and
branches had they known of that store so near to their hands.
Now, it was to be directed to a vastly different purpose--to save
instead of to destroy. By twos and threes, by squads as well, those
men who, for nights, had scarce rested during that weary and rough
passage of the mountains, set to work once more, bringing one by one,
or half a dozen at a time between them, the logs to the spot beneath
where those three prisoners were; untiringly they worked. And so they
placed them against the window from which Andrew gazed, making first a
deep base of the larger billets, edged round and secured by fallen
masses of stone and beams from the old house, and then building others
above, pyramid-wise, until, at last, the work was done.
Until, at last, the stage was erected on to which those three could
step forth to safety and salvation. To which two of them, at least,
could step forth, but on to which the other, the dying woman, had to
be lifted.