with all ours. We shall not have one officer to each company on parade
this morning. A dozen, I believe, are lying under the table with
himself. Campbell, old Macdonald, and our most seasoned topers were put
to their mettle by him. But give me your sword, Stuart; the colonel is
waiting for it, but I trust will not keep it long. You must endeavour
to make your peace with him as soon as possible, and not be under any
fear of being put in Coventry by our mess: we know you too well to do
that."
Ronald felt considerable chagrin as he beheld Claude A----, the
adjutant, carry off his weapon and found himself under arrest, and in
imminent danger of being arraigned before a general court-martial. He
composed himself to indite, for the colonel's perusal, an account of his
absence, which he found a very delicate and difficult matter, as he was
unwilling that the mess should get hold of poor Catalina's name to make
it a subject of ridicule, and quiz him about it, which he feared would
be done unmercifully, if he took not some stern means to stop them.
Nearly a quire of paper was expended before he could get a despatch
worded to his own and Macdonald's satisfaction,--one giving as brief and
concise an account as possible of his adventures, and declaring that the
reason of his sudden departure from Almarez was to free the sister of
Don Alvaro, of Villa Franca, from Cifuentes the well-known bandit, who
had accompanied the first brigade disguised as a priest. Evan was
despatched with the letter to the colonel's quarters, while Stuart and
Macdonald, accompanied by De Mesmai, went to visit D'Estouville,--the
unfortunate commandant of fort Napoleon, who was dying of the wound he
had received from the officer of the 71st.
An old chapel, situated near the baths of Diana, had been appropriated
as an hospital for those wounded at the forts of Almarez. The design of
some gothic architect when the art was in its infancy, it was a low dark
building, with short clumsy columns, gloomy arches, enormously thick
walls, and dismal little windows, between the thick mullions of which
the grey day-light seemed to struggle to be seen. On the worn flight of
steps ascending to the great door-way, lay a few dozen legs, arms,
hands, and feet, which had been amputated and were lying there until the
hospital orderlies were at leisure to inter them. During the last war,
the reckless manner in which medical officers hewed off wounded limbs,
without attempting to reduce a fracture, has been often reprehended.
What a scene of multiplied human misery the interior of the chapel
presented! The wounded soldiers, British and French, to the number of
some hundreds, lay in ranks on the damp pavement, over which a little
straw was thrown, as no bedding could be given them. Deep and hollow
groans of acute agony and suffering sounded from many parts of the
building, and the continual rustling of the straw announced the
impatient restlessness of sickness and pain. Here lay the gallant and
high-spirited conscript, brooding gloomily, and almost weeping, over
those visions of glory, which the amputation of a leg had suddenly cut
short; and there the stern grenadier of the Imperial guard lay coolly
surveying his own blood as it trickled through the straw, and filled the
carved letters of epitaphs on the pavement stones. Near him lay his
conqueror, the British soldier, shorn of a limb, dejected and miserable,
having nothing before him now but a "passport to beg," and the poor
apology for a pension which grateful Britain bestows on her defenders,
with the happy resource of starving in a parish workhouse. All were
pale as death, and all disfigured by blood and bandages,--grisly,
ghastly, unwashed, and unshaven. Often as they passed up the aisle,
Stuart and Macdonald held the tin canteen to the parched lips of some
wounded man, who drank greedily of the hot stale water it contained, and
prayed them piteously to adjust his bandages, or by doing some little
office to alleviate his pain. Some were dying, and lay convulsed among
their straw, with the death-rattle sounding in their throat--expiring,
unheeded and uncared for, without a friend to behold them or a hand to
close their eyes; and as soon as they were cold, they were seized by the
hospital orderlies,[*] and carried off for interment.
[*] Well-conducted soldiers, excused from duty to attend the sick.
A wretched combination of misery, pain, and sorrow the interior of that
little chapel presented, and it made a deeper impression on Stuart and
Alister than on De Mesmai, who was an older soldier, and had beheld, in
twenty years' campaigning, too much bloodshed and agony to recoil at the
sight of it there; but he loudly expressed his pleasure at beholding the
attention paid to his countrymen. He saw that no distinction was made;
the wounded of both nations received the same attendance from the
medical officers and their orderlies; and more than one grenadier of
_the Guard_ allowed his dark features to relax into a grim smile, as his
red-coated attendants held up his head, to pour down his throat some
dose of disagreeable stuff.
"Ha! Stewart," said Ronald, catching his namesake the assistant-surgeon
by the belt as he was rushing past, with a saw in one hand and a long
knife gleaming in the other.
"Don't detain me, pray. I have just clapped the tourniquet on that poor
devil in the corner. I have to take his arm out of the socket, at the
shoulder, too--a fearful operation: you'll hear his shrieks immediately.
Sorry to hear you are under arrest. You will get through it though,
doubtless,--being a favourite."
"Where is D'Estouville, the French major; and how is he?'
"Near his last gasp, poor man. You need not go to him now, as he is
dying; and troubling him will not lengthen his life a second. I could
do nothing more for him, and so have resigned him to his fate. I must
attend to our own people, whose lives are of more consequence,--every
man being worth exactly twenty pounds to government, as you will see
in--I forget what page of the 'Mutiny Act.'"
"How can you jest in such a horrid den as this? You surgeons are
strangely cool fellows, certainly. But D'Estouville--"
"Is lying yonder at the foot of that marble monument. Do not trouble
him now; he will be dead in five minutes. Excuse me: I have to amputate
a leg to prevent mortification, and its owner is growling and swearing
at my delay."
Under a gothic canopy lay the marble effigy of a warrior of the days
that are gone. It was the tomb of one of the Villa Franca family. He
was represented in armour, and lying at full length, with his hands
crossed on his bosom. The canopied recess had been made a receptacle
for the caps and knapsacks of dead men, which were without ceremony
piled above the figure of the Spanish cavalier. A tattered pennon, a
rusty casque, and a time-worn sword, hung over the niche, where a marble
tablet announced it to be the tomb of the noble knight Don Rodrigo de
Villa Franca:--"_Muerto en una batalia con los Moros, a diez de
Noviembre, del ano de mil y viente y siete._"[*]
[*] "Slain by the Moors in battle, the 10th November of the year 1027."
In front of this ancient tomb lay D'Estouville. Alas! how much ten days
of pain and suffering had changed the gallant young Frenchman! He was
stretched on a pile of bloody straw, stripped to his shirt and
regimental trowsers. A large bandage, clotted and gory, encircled his
head, and his once very handsome features were sadly changed; they were
sunken and hollow, pale and emaciated to the last degree. He lay
motionless, with his eyes closed; but his lips were parted, and he
respired through his clenched teeth with difficulty. His head rested on
a knapsack, placed under it by an honest Irishman of the 50th, who lay
on his left smoking a short black pipe, while he surveyed, with a
composed but rueful look, the stump of his right arm. On the other side
lay a Gordon Highlander, quivering in the agonies of death: a shot had
lodged in his breast, and he too had been given up as incurable by the
medical officers. The agony he endured had brought on a delirium; he
was chanting, in low and muttering tones, a sad and plaintive Gaelic
dirge,--probably the death-song of his race; and as his voice sunk and
died away, the bold spirit of the Son of the Mist seemed to pass with
it.
"_Morbleu!_ poor Victor!" said De Mesmai. "Ah! messieurs,--surely he is
not dead?"
At the sound of the French exclamation D'Estouville opened his eyes, and
attempted in vain to raise his head; but a faint smile of recognition
passed over his pale features as he beheld Ronald Stuart, and gazed on
the well-known uniform of De Mesmai. "Poor fellow!" continued the
latter, while a tear glistened in his eye, as he knelt down and took the
hand of Victor; "he is evidently far gone. Many a merry bout we have
had together at old Marcel's, and many a midnight frolic with the girls
and gens d'armes in the Rue de la Conference; but these times have all
passed now, and can never be again. Speak to me, my friend! How is
your wound?"
"_Les malheurs de la guerre! Ah, De Mesmai, mon ami, les malheurs de la
guerre!_" muttered the wounded man, and sunk backward on his miserable
bed; then pointing to his head he added, "_A mon
camarade--blessure--ou--ou--plaie mortelle!_"
"They have brought me here too, Victor, those cursed misfortunes of war;
but my case is not so bad as yours. The helmet is a better defence than
the grenadier cap against the straight-cutting blades of these fiery
Scots. Cheer up, D'Estouville; while there is life, hope remains. You
may yet lead the old Guard in the charge! the Eagles of the empire may
yet flap their wings over you."
"Never," whispered Macdonald; "his race of existence is over. Why,
then, inspire him with false hopes of living longer?'
"He is one of those fellows that are very hard to kill. I know Victor,"
whispered the other in reply; then continued as before, "The Emperor has
marked you for his own,--the whole service say so, D'Estouville, and
suppose that your promotion will be as rapid as ever was Soult's,
Macdonald's, Bernadotte's, or any other marshal's of the empire.
Remember these things, _mon ami_, and never think of death!"
"Death's cold hand is upon me. Ah! Maurice, how can I expect to
conquer?"
"_Morbleu!_ by determining to live, and to earn honour and fame in spite
of him. Courage, my friend."
"No, no, De Mesmai!" replied D'Estouville, with that sudden life and
energy which often animates the dying when the moment of dissolution
draws near, while his pale cheek flushed, and a light sparkled in his
sunken eye. "Honour and glory--these are the dreams of every Frenchman,
and they once were mine, my constant thoughts, never for a moment absent
from my mind. The very visions of my sleep were full of the gloss and
glitter of military parade: martial honour was the idol of my heart. As
a gallant young conscript when I left my native home at Lillebonne, as
the hardened grenadier, as the dashing subaltern of the Guard, as a
wretched prisoner pining in Scotland, and again as a free and daring
soldier,--these high hopes, this proud ambition, never left me for an
instant,--buoying and bearing me up under all the toils of war and
misfortune, until I found myself stretched on the pavement of this
chapel, a dying captive! Honour has faded away from me, and the proud
sentiments which caused my heart to swell, to bound with rapture at the
sharp roll of the drum, now animate me no more. Never again will drum
or bugle sound for me!"
"You speak very sorrowfully, in truth," replied De Mesmai; "but some
droning monk has been putting these notions in your head. Take care you
do not exhaust yourself, _mon ami_."
"Ah, Maurice! a thousand times I wish I had fallen sword in hand at
Almarez, rather than lingered here, enduring for these past ten days the
extremes of mental and bodily agony. Yet had I only received a moment's
warning, I question much if that officer of the Scottish chasseurs could
have cut me down so easily."
"No. In truth you were an excellent swordsman, Victor,--sharp of eye,
and sure of hand."
"I trust, Maurice, you will not be long a prisoner. 'Twas a sad blank
in my life, my captivity. Faith! _mon camarade_, I almost shiver at
remembrance of the castle of Edinburgh. You will remember me to Louis
Chateaufleur and the rest of your regiment; and do so particularly to my
own, should you ever fall in with them on service." He spoke now with
more difficulty, and at longer intervals. "Glory to France, and long
life to the great Emperor! I trust he will think Major D'Estouville has
done his duty. Almarez I defended to the last; and, Maurice, had you
not cut the pontoon, we might have effected our retreat. The emperor
would have saved four hundred soldiers of his noble old Guard."
"And your life, Victor."
"A mere bagatelle! I lay it down in his service."
"_Vive l'Empereur!_" cried some of his soldiers, who lay within hearing
on their pallets of straw. The shout was taken up by many, and echoed
through distant parts of the chapel. D'Estouville's eye flashed
brightly; he waved his hand as he would have brandished his sword, and,
exhausted with speaking, and the emotions which the gallant battle-cry
aroused within him, he again sank backwards, and by the spasms which
crossed his pallid features, they saw too surely that the moment of
death was nigh. Again rousing himself from his lethargy, he beckoned to
Ronald, who knelt down beside him.
"I would speak to you of Diane de Montmichel," he whispered, in
tremulous and broken accents. "Her husband, Monsieur le Baron--de
Clappourknuis--the letter I gave you at Truxillo; ah! _mon ami_, do you
not understand me?"
"Indeed I do not, D'Estouville."
"The hand of the grim king of terrors is upon me; the sands of life are
ebbing fast, and my voice will fail me soon. Monsieur le Baron--"
"Is released from the castle of Albuquerque, and has passed over to the
French lines. Think not of these, D'Estouville."
"I--I would give you a message to Diane."
"Alas! how can I ever deliver it?"
"Find means, _croix Dieu!_" muttered he piteously. "Kneel closer to me.
I depend on your honour, Monsieur Stuart. Diane--Diane--"
"What of her? Say--say, ere it be too late!"
But there was no reply. What the Frenchman would have said, expired on
his lips, and he fell back speechless on the hard knapsack which formed
his pillow.
He never spoke again; but in a few minutes died, and without a struggle.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*DE MESMAI.*
"Ah, me! how mournful, wan, and slow,
With arms reversed, the soldiers come;
Dirge-sounding trumpets full of woe,
And, sad to hear, the muffled drum!"
_John Mayne._
The death-bed scene of poor D'Estouville, although it made on the
witnesses of it a deep impression for the time, was easily passed over
when the feelings are blunted and deadened by the continual excitement
of campaigning. They had scarcely left the chapel or hospital, before
the shade of sorrow which their faces had worn disappeared. Macdonald
went away on some duty; Stuart's thoughts reverted to his arrest, and
the disagreeable predicament in which he was placed; while De Mesmai
began to talk in his usual light and careless style. He placed his
scarlet forage-cap very much on one side, tightened his sash, arranging
the tassels gracefully, and stuck his glass in his eye to ogle and
scrutinize the females who passed.
"Poor Victor!" said he; "a merrier comrade or more gallant soldier than
he was, there is not in the imperial service. Many a glorious evening
we have had in Paris, flirting with the _jolies grisettes_ of the Rue
des Trois Maries,--fighting with the gendarmerie, and amusing ourselves
by frolicking with messieurs the good-natured bourgeois,--some dozen of
whom we have ducked in the Seine. These days are all passed away, and
poor Victor is gone to his long home. War leads to death or glory, and
his fate to-day maybe ours to-morrow; so, then, what is the utility of
being cast down? _Vive la joie!_ let us live and be merry while we can.
Praised be our stars! here is a wine-house, where we can spend the
evening in a jovial style, and scare away from our hearts the gloom cast
upon them by the death of D'Estouville. _Diable! mon ami_; for what do
you stare so at that old ruinous mansion?"
"'Tis the house of the Villa Franca family. I received great kindness
from them, when I came to Merida for the first time."
"A picturesque ruin it makes, with its shattered capitals and empty
windows. D'Estouville's grenadiers did all that. I have heard that he
carried off a very pretty creature from this place, at least so
Chateaufleur of ours told me. He had her at Almarez; but, like a
cunning dog, kept her closely out of my sight, lest I might have
procured her transfer to the tower of Ragusa, when I was left in
temporary command. But we had plenty of girls there, by the Pope! We
captured a score of plump young _paisanas_; but their skins were
devilish brown, and their hands were all chapped with milking goats and
cows. Here is the wine-house,--but, _morbleu!_ I have not one infernal
sous to clink upon another!"
"I have, _mon camarade_," said Stuart, producing a purse containing
forty duros, which he had borrowed from Major Campbell, to procure
favour with whom he was obliged to endure two long stories about Egypt.
"_Sacre!_ forty duros? A lucky dog and a most gorgeous display,--'pon
honour--really. Enter then, and we will drink a long glassful to the
continuance of the war."
From the wine-house they adjourned to the Prado, where they strolled
about under the shade of the rich orange-trees, or lounged on the wooden
sofas. De Mesmai smoked a cigar, and kept up, to use a camp phrase, a
running fire of words, and laughed heartily at his own jokes; while
Ronald listened in silence, and surveyed with feelings of mortification
the regiment on its evening parade, from which for the present he was
excluded.
"Fine fellows, these bare-kneed Celts of yours, Monsieur Stuart," said
De Mesmai, as he knocked the ashes from his cigar. "A goodly row of
most captivating brown legs they have. How pretty the waving tartan
seemed, as the corps wheeled from open column into line. They call
forth the admiration of the ladies too,--the delightful creatures!
Really, 'pon honour, I think they peep more at the Scottish plaids and
plumes, than at this smart uniform and bright steel bourgoinette of
mine. A gallant chevalier your colonel is. He gives his orders with
that firm tone of authority which marks the true, the bold-hearted
soldier, and one born to command. A _soldado_ of most goodly
proportions is that long-legged field-officer, who last night bored me
to death about Egypt, and his campaigns there. Body o' the Pope! look
at that girl."
"Which?"
"With the black veil hung over the high comb. What a roguish black eye
and most excessively attractive pair of ankles she has! I will speak to
her. Ho! _ma princesse_--"
"Beware what you do, De Mesmai," interrupted Ronald hastily. "She is a
lady, and one of rank evidently, by the lace embroidery on her stomacher
and mantilla. Some officers of the 39th are with her, too."
"_Diable!_ so I now perceive; and one of your savage Scots chasseurs, I
think."
"Savage!" repeated Stuart, dubious whether to laugh or frown. "He is an
officer of the Highland Light Infantry,--that corps with the tartan
trews, and bonnets without feathers. By Jove! 'tis Armstrong; the same
officer who cut down poor D'Estouville at Almarez. He is flirting with
this young lady, and recks no more of the deadly stroke he gave, than if
he had killed a muircock. Let us move on. The Highlanders will march
past this way, and I little like to be sitting here like an out-cast
from them,--and without my sword too, by heavens!"
"A prisoner of war,--_diable! Me voila a votre service_. I will go with
you wherever you please. But there are more girls congregated here, to
see the troops on evening parade, than in any other part of this ruinous
old city of Merida. In France they love, like the butterflies, to be in
the sun; but here they promenade under the cold shades of the trees, or
sail about beneath their gloomy damp piazzas. By the way, it has a most
singularly picturesque effect, a tall graceful figure with a fluttering
veil and floating mantilla gliding under these old arches; quite
mysterious, in fact. Look, for instance, at that lovely creature with
the auburn tresses. _Tete-dieu!_ how I long to wheel that girl round in
a waltz. Ha! there is a _rouge-et-noir_ table not far from this, and a
thought strikes me; I shall make my fortune to-night. Will you lend me a
couple of these dazzling duros you showed me a short time ago?"
"Undoubtedly, and with pleasure."
"_Vive la joie_! Come along, then. There is a gaming-house in the
Calle de Ferdinando, kept by some officers of the Portuguese cacadores.
Come with me, and I will show you how to break their bank, and carry off
their glorious piles of duros and dobloons."
"I never gamble," replied Ronald; "and by the rules of our service 'tis
strictly forbidden to do so, either in camp or quarters."
"Bah! _mon camarade_. If I had you within sound of the bells of Notre
Dame, I would soon learn you to forget your northern prejudices."
Stuart's remonstrances and protestations were made in vain. The gay
impetuosity of the Frenchman overcame them all; and while arguing about
the matter they arrived at the door, where a board, painted red on one
side and black on the other, announced that the _rouge-et-noir_ table
was kept there. A crowd of English, Portuguese, and German officers
were pressing round the table, at the head of which sat the banker, a
swarthy Portuguese officer of light infantry, with a long cigar in his
mouth, and having heaped up before him several piles of dollars,
doubloons, and British guineas,--all of which were rapidly changing
hands, at every turn of the red and black cards.
Stuart remarked that there was not a single Scottish bonnet in the room,
and his national abhorrence of gambling caused him absolutely to blush
at being there. He was disgusted at the wild eagerness, the intense
anxiety, the bitter disappointment, fierce anguish, or cruel triumph
which he witnessed in the features of the players. The two dollars De
Mesmai had borrowed were soon added to the goodly pile which lay before
an officer of the 39th; and urged on by the former, Ronald betted on
several cards, all of which turned up fatally, and he had the
mortification to behold every one of his remaining dollars swept across
the table in quick succession, and coolly pocketed by a fierce-looking
Spanish officer of De Costa's brigade, who evidently thought it no sin
to gamble, although he wore on his left breast the enamelled red cross
of Calatrava, a religious order of knighthood.[*] Ronald rushed away
from the hell, feeling absolutely furious at his own folly and at De
Mesmai, who, however, continued at the table in hopes of borrowing from
some one.
[*] Instituted by Don Santio of Toledo, in 1130.
The lesson was not lost on Stuart, who, from that day until this, has
never touched a card. But that night's play left him literally
penniless, and in a strange city. He was ashamed to apply to any of his
brother-officers, or expose his folly to them; and as Gordon, the
regimental paymaster, had not received the arrears of pay, there was
nothing to be hoped for from him. It was now dusk, and he was wandering
among the groves of olive and willow that flourish by the sedgy banks of
the Guadiana and overhang its current. Here, while pursuing the narrow
pathway by the river-side, he was surprised by seeing the figure of
Dugald Mhor Cameron, the colonel's private servant, standing at a short
distance from him; a sure sign that Cameron himself was not far off.