shredded mist the landscape lay hilly, nearly treeless, cut by
winding roads and rank on rank of spare poplars. Farther away
clumps of woods appeared, and little hillocks, and now, as the
air cleared, the spire of a church glimmered. Suddenly a thin
line of silver cut the landscape beyond the retreating fog. The
Saar!
"Where are the Prussians?" asked Jack, breaking the silence.
Georges laid his gloved hand on his companion's arm.
"Do you see that spire? That is Saarbrück. They are there."
"This side of the Rhine, too?"
"Yes," said Georges, reddening a little; "wait, my friend."
"They must have crossed the Saar on the bridges from
Saint-Johann, then. I heard that Uhlans had been signalled near
the Saar, but I didn't believe it. Uhlans in France? Georges,
when are you fellows going to chase them back?"
"This morning--you're just in time, as usual," said Georges,
airily. "Do you want me to give you an idea of our positions?
Listen, then: we're massed along the frontier from Sierk and Metz
to Hagenau and Strasbourg. The Prussians lie at right angles to
us, from Mainz to Lauterburg and from Trier to Saarbrück. Except
near Saarbrück they are on their side of the boundary, let me
tell you! Look! Now you can see Forbach through the trees. We're
there and we're at Saint-Avold and Bitsch and Saargemünd, too. As
for me, I'm with this damned rear-guard, and I count tents and
tin pails, and I raise the devil with stragglers and generally
ennui myself. I'm no gendarme! There's a regiment of gendarmes
five miles north, and I don't see why they can't do depot duty
and police this country."
"The same child--kicking, kicking, kicking!" observed Jack. "You
ought to thank your luck that you are a spectator for once. Give
me your glass."
He raised the binoculars and levelled them at the valley.
"Hello! I didn't see those troops before. Infantry, eh? And there
goes a regiment--no, a brigade--no, a division, at least, of
cavalry. I see cuirassiers, too. Good heavens! Their breastplates
take the sun like heliographs! There are troops everywhere;
there's an artillery train on that road beyond Saint-Avold. Here,
take the glasses."
"Keep them--I know where they are. What time is it, Jack? My
repeater is running wild--as if it were chasing Prussians."
"It's half-past nine; I had no idea that it was so late! Ha!
there goes a mass of infantry along the hill. See it? They're
headed for Saarbrück! Georges, what's that big marquee in the
wheat-field?"
"The Emperor is there," said Georges, proudly; "those troopers
are the Cuirassiers of the Hundred-Guards. See their white
mantles? The Prince Imperial is there, too. Poor little man--he
looks so tired and bewildered."
Jack kept his glasses fixed on the white dot that marked the
imperial headquarters, but the air was hazy and the distance too
great to see anything except specks and points of white and
black, slowly shifting, gathering, and collecting again in the
grain-field, that looked like a tiny square of pale gilt on the
hill-top.
Suddenly a spot of white vapour appeared over the spire of
Saarbrück, then another, then three together, little round clouds
that hung motionless, wavered, split, and disappeared in the
sunshine, only to be followed by more round cloud clots. A moment
later the dull mutter of cannon disturbed the morning air,
distant rumblings and faint shocks that seemed to come from an
infinite distance.
Jack handed back the binoculars and opened his own field-glasses
in silence. Neither spoke, but they instinctively leaned forward,
side by side, sweeping the panorama with slow, methodical
movements, glasses firmly levelled. And now, in the valley below,
the long roads grew black with moving columns of cavalry and
artillery; the fields on either side were alive with infantry,
dim red squares and oblongs, creeping across the landscape
towards that line of silver, the Saar.
"It's a flank movement on Wissembourg," said Jack, suddenly; "or
are they swinging around to take Saint-Johann from the north?"
"Watch Saarbrück," muttered Georges between his teeth.
The slow seconds crept into minutes, the minutes into hours, as
they waited there, fascinated. Already the sharper rattle of
musketry broke out on the hills south of the Saar, and the
projectiles fell fast in the little river, beyond which the
single spire of Saarbrück rose, capped with the smoke of
exploding shells.
Jack sat sketching in a canvas-covered book, raising his brown
eyes from time to time, or writing on a pad laid flat on his
saddle-pommel.
The two young fellows conversed in low tones, laughing quietly or
smoking in absorbed silence, and even their subdued voices were
louder than the roll of the distant cannonade.
Suddenly the wind changed and their ears were filled with the
hollow boom of cannon. And now, nearer than they could have
believed, the crash of volley firing mingled with the whirring
crackle of gatlings and the spattering rattle of Montigny
mitrailleuses from the Guard artillery.
"Fichtre!" said Georges, with a shrug, "not only dancing, but
music! What are you sketching, Jack? Let me see. Hm! Pretty
good--for you. You've got Forbach too near, though. I wonder what
the Emperor is doing. It seems too bad to drag that sick child of
his out to see a lot of men fall over dead. Poor little Lulu!"
"Kicking, kicking ever!" murmured Jack; "the same fierce
Republican, eh? I've no sympathy with you--I'm too American."
"Cheap cynicism," observed Georges. "Hello!--here's an aide-de-camp
with orders. Wait a second, will you?" and the young fellow gathered
bridle and galloped out into the high-road, where his troopers stood
around an officer wearing the black-and-scarlet of the artillery. A
moment later a bugle began to sound the assembly; blue-clad cavalrymen
appeared as by magic from every thicket, every field, every hollow,
while below, in the nearer valley, another bugle, shrill and fantastic,
summoned the squadrons to the colours. Already the better part of a
regiment had gathered, four abreast, along the red road. Jack could
see their eagles now, gilt and circled with gilded wreaths.
He pocketed sketch-book and pad and turned his horse out through
the fields to the road.
"We're off!" laughed Georges. "Thank God! and the devil take the
rear-guard! Will you ride with us, Jack? We've driven the
Prussians across the Saar."
He turned to his troopers and signalled the trumpeter. "Trot!" he
cried; and the squadron of hussars moved off down the hill in a
whirl of dust and flying pebbles.
Jack wheeled his horse and brought him alongside of Georges' wiry
mount.
"It didn't last long--eh, old chap?" laughed the youthful hussar;
"only from ten o'clock till noon--eh? It's not quite noon yet.
We're to join the regiment, but where we're going after that I
don't know. They say the Prussians have quit Saarbrück in a
hurry. I suppose we'll be in Germany to-night, and then--vlan!
vlan! eh, old fellow? We'll be out for a long campaign. I'd like
to see Berlin--I wish I spoke German."
"They say," said Jack, "that most of the German officers speak
French."
"Bird of ill-omen, croaker, cease! What the devil do we want to
learn German for? I can say, 'Wein, Weib, und Gesang,' and that's
enough for any French hussar to know."
They had come up with the whole regiment now, which was moving
slowly down the valley, and Georges reported to his captain, who
in turn reported to the major, who presently had a confab with
the colonel. Then far away at the head of the column the mounted
band began the regimental march, a gay air with plenty of
trombone and kettle-drum in it, and the horses ambled and danced
in sympathy, with an accompaniment of rattling carbines and
clinking, clashing sabre-scabbards.
"Quelle farandole!" laughed Georges. "Are you going all the way
to Berlin with us? Pst! Look! There go the Hundred-Guards! The
Emperor is coming back from the front. It's all over with the
sausage-eaters, et puis--bon-soir, Bismarck!"
Far away, across the hills, the white mantles of the
Hundred-Guards flashed in the sunshine, rising, falling, as the
horses plunged up the hills. For a moment Jack caught a glimpse
of a carriage in the distance, a carriage preceded by outriders
in crimson and gold, and followed by a mass of glittering
cuirassiers.
"It's the Emperor. Listen, we are going to cheer," cried Georges.
He rose in his saddle and drew his sabre, and at the same instant
a deep roar shook the regiment to its centre--
"Vive l'Empereur!"
X
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
It was a little after noon when the regiment halted on the
Saint-Avold highway, blocked in front by a train of Guard artillery,
and on either flank by columns of infantry--voltigeurs, red-legged
fantassins loaded with camp equipment, engineers in crimson and
bluish-black, and a whole battalion of Turcos, scarlet fez rakishly
hauled down over one ear, canvas zouave trousers tucked into canvas
leggings that fitted their finely moulded ankles like gloves.
Jack rested patiently on his horse, waiting for the road to be
cleared, and beside him sat Georges, chatting paternally with the
giant standard-bearer of the Turcos. The huge fellow laughed and
showed his dazzling teeth under the crisp jet beard, for Georges
was talking to him in his native tongue--and it was many miles
from Saint-Avold to Oran. His standard, ornamented with the
"opened hand and spread fingers," fluttered and snapped, and
stood out straight in the valley breeze.
"What's that advertisement--the hand of Providence?" cried an
impudent line soldier, leaning on his musket.
"Is it the hand that spanked Bismarck?" yelled another. The
Turcos grinned under their scarlet head-dresses.
"Ohé, Mustapha!" shouted the line soldiers, "Ohé, le Croissant!"
and their band-master, laughing, raised his tasselled baton, and
the band burst out in a roll of drums and cymbals, "Partons pour
la Syrie."
"Petite riffa!" said the big standard-bearer, beaming--which was
very good French for a Kabyle.
"See here, Georges," said Jack, suddenly, "I've promised to be
back at Morteyn before dark, and if your regiment is going to
stick here much longer I'm going on."
"You want to send your despatches?" asked Georges. "You could
ride on to Saarbrück and telegraph from there. Will you? Then
hunt up the regiment later. We are to see a little of each other,
are we not, old fellow?"
"Not if you're going Prussian-hunting across the Rhine. When you
come back crowned with bay and laurel and pretzels, you can stop
at Morteyn."
They nodded and clasped hands.
"Au revoir!" laughed Georges. "What shall I bring you from
Berlin?"
"I'm no Herod," replied Jack; "bring back your own feather-head
safely--that's all I ask." And with a smile and a gay salute the
young fellows parted, turning occasionally in their saddles to
wave a last adieu, until Jack's big horse disappeared among the
dense platoons ahead.
For a quarter of an hour he sidled and pushed and shoved, and
picked a cautious path through section after section of field
artillery, seeing here and there an officer whom he knew, saluting
cheerily, making a thousand excuses for his haste to the good-natured
artillerymen, who only grinned in reply. As he rode, he noted with
misgivings that the cannon were not breech-loaders. He had recently
heard a good deal about the Prussian new model for field artillery,
and he had read, in the French journals, reports of their wonderful
range and flat trajectory. The cannon that he passed, with the
exception of the Montigny mitrailleuses and the American gatlings,
were all beautiful pieces, bronzed and engraved with crown and LN
and eagle, but for all their beauty they were only muzzle-loaders.
In a little while he came to the head of the column. The road in
front seemed to be clear enough, and he wondered why they had
halted, blocking half a division of infantry and cavalry behind
them. There really was no reason at all. He did not know it, but
he had seen the first case of that indescribable disease that
raged in France in 1870-71--that malady that cannot be termed
paralysis or apathy or inertia. It was all three, and it was
malignant, for it came from a befouled and degraded court, spread
to the government, infected the provinces, sparing neither prince
nor peasant, until over the whole fair land of France it crept
and hung, a fetid, miasmic effluvia, till the nation, hopeless,
weary, despairing, bereft of nerve and sinew, sank under it into
utter physical and moral prostration.
This was the terrible fever that burned the best blood out of the
nation--a fever that had its inception in the corruption of the
empire, its crisis at Sedan, its delirium in the Commune! The
nation's convalescence is slow but sure.
Jack touched spurs to his horse and galloped out into the
Saarbrück road. He passed a heavy, fat-necked general, sitting
on his horse, his dull, apoplectic eyes following the gestures of
a staff-officer who was tracing routes and railroads on a map
nailed against a poplar-tree. He passed other generals, deep in
consultation, absently rolling cigarettes between their
kid-gloved fingers; and everywhere dragoon patrols, gallant
troopers in blue and garance, wearing steel helmets bound with
leopard-skin above the visors. He passed ambulances, too, blue
vehicles covered with framed yellow canvas, flying the red cross.
One of the field-surgeons gave him a brief outline of the
casualties and general result of the battle, and he thanked him
and hastened on towards Saarbrück, whence he expected to send his
despatches to Paris. But now the road was again choked with
marching infantry as far as the eye could see, dense masses,
pushing along in an eddying cloud of red dust that blew to the
east and hung across the fields like smoke from a locomotive. Men
with stretchers were passing; he saw an officer, face white as
chalk, sunburned hands clinched, lying in a canvas hand-stretcher,
borne by four men of the hospital corps. Edging his way to the
meadow, he put his horse to the ditch, cleared it, and galloped on
towards a spire that rose close ahead, outlined dimly in the smoke
and dust, and in ten minutes he was in Saarbrück.
Up a stony street, desolate, deserted, lined with rows of closed
machine-shops, he passed, and out into another street where a
regiment of lancers was defiling amid a confusion of shouts and
shrill commands, the racket of drums echoing from wall to
pavement, and the ear-splitting flourish of trumpets mingled with
the heavy rumble of artillery and the cracking of leather
thongs. Already the pontoons were beginning to span the river
Saar, already the engineers were swarming over the three ruined
bridges, jackets cast aside, picks rising and falling--clink!
clank! clink! clank!--and the scrape of mortar and trowel on the
granite grew into an incessant sound, harsh and discordant. The
market square was impassable; infantry gorged every foot of the
stony pavement, ambulances creaked through the throng, rolling
like white ships in a tempest, signals set.
In the sea of faces around him he recognized the correspondent of
the London _Times_.
"Hello, Williams!" he called; "where the devil is the telegraph?"
The Englishman, red in the face and dripping with perspiration,
waved his hand spasmodically.
"The military are using it; you'll have to wait until four
o'clock. Are you with us in this scrimmage? The fellows are down
by the Hôtel Post trying to mend the wires there. Archibald
Grahame is with the Germans!"
Jack turned in his saddle with a friendly gesture of thanks and
adieu. If he were going to send his despatch, he had no time to
waste in Saarbrück--he understood that at a glance. For a moment
he thought of going to the Hôtel Post and taking his chances with
his brother correspondents; then, abruptly wheeling his horse, he
trotted out into the long shed that formed one of an interminable
series of coal shelters, passed through it, gained the outer
street, touched up his horse, and tore away, headed straight for
Forbach. For he had decided that at Forbach was his chance to
beat the other correspondents, and he took the chance, knowing
that in case the telegraph there was also occupied he could still
get back to Morteyn, and from there to Saint-Lys, before the
others had wired to their respective journals.
It was three o'clock when he clattered into the single street of
Forbach amid the blowing of bugles from a cuirassier regiment
that was just leaving at a trot. The streets were thronged with
gendarmes and cavalry of all arms, lancers in baggy, scarlet
trousers and clumsy schapskas weighted with gold cord, chasseurs
à cheval in turquoise blue and silver, dragoons, Spahis,
remount-troopers, and here and there a huge rider of the
Hundred-Guards, glittering like a scaled dragon in his splendid
armour.
He pushed his way past the Hôtel Post and into the garden, where,
at a table, an old general sat reading letters.
With a hasty glance at him, Jack bowed, and asked permission to
take the unoccupied chair and use the table. The officer inclined
his head with a peculiarly graceful movement, and, without more
ado, Jack sat down, placed his pad flat on the table, and wrote
his despatch in pencil:
"FORBACH, 2d August, 1870.
"The first shot of the war was fired this morning at ten
o'clock. At that hour the French opened on Saarbrück
with twenty-three pieces of artillery. The bombardment
continued until twelve. At two o'clock the Germans,
having evacuated Saarbrück, retreated across the Saar to
Saint-Johann. The latter village is also now being
evacuated; the French are pushing across the Saar by
means of pontoons; the three bridges are also being
rapidly repaired.
"Reports vary, but it is probable that the losses on the
German side will number four officers and seventy-nine
men killed--wounded unknown. The French lost six
officers and eighty men killed; wounded list not
completed.
"The Emperor was present with the Prince Imperial."
Leaving his pad on the table and his riding-crop and gloves over
it, he gathered up the loose leaves of his telegram and hastened
across the street to the telegraph office. For the moment the
instrument was idle, and the operator took his despatch, read it
aloud to the censor, an officer of artillery, who viséd it and
nodded.
"A longer despatch is to follow--can I have the wires again in
half an hour?" asked Jack.
Both operator and censor laughed and said, "No promises,
monsieur; come and see." And Jack hastened back to the garden of
the hôtel and sat down once more under the trees, scarcely
glancing at the old officer beside him. Again he wrote:
"The truth is that the whole affair was scarcely more
than a skirmish. A handful of the 2d Battalion of
Fusilliers, a squadron or two of Uhlans, and a battery
of Prussian artillery have for days faced and held in
check a whole French division. When they were attacked
they tranquilly turned a bold front to the French, made
a devil of a racket with their cannon, and slipped
across the frontier with trifling loss. If the French
are going to celebrate this as a victory, Europe will
laugh--"
He paused, frowning and biting his pencil. Presently he noticed
that several troopers of the Hundred-Guards were watching him
from the street; sentinels of the same corps were patrolling the
garden, their long, bayoneted carbines over their steel-bound
shoulders. At the same moment his eyes fell upon the old officer
beside him. The officer raised his head.
It was the Emperor, Napoleon III.
XI
"KEEP THY FAITH"
Jack was startled, and he instinctively stood up very straight,
as he always did when surprised.
Under the Emperor's crimson képi, heavy with gold, the old, old
eyes, half closed, peered at him, as a drowsy buzzard watches the
sky, with filmy, changeless gaze. His face was the colour of
clay, the loose folds of the cheeks hung pallid over a heavy
chin; his lips were hidden beneath a mustache and imperial,
unkempt but waxed at the ends. From the shadow of his crimson cap
the hair straggled forward, half hiding two large, wrinkled,
yellow ears.
With a smile and a slight gesture exquisitely courteous, the
Emperor said: "Pray do not allow me to interrupt you, monsieur;
old soldiers are of small account when a nation's newspapers
wait."
"Sire!" protested Jack, flushing.
Napoleon III.'s eyes twinkled, and he picked up his letter again,
still smiling.
"Such good news, monsieur, should not be kept waiting. You are
English? No? Then American? Oh!"
The Emperor rolled a cigarette, gazing into vacancy with dreamy
eyes, narrow as slits in a mask. Jack sat down again, pencil in
hand, a little flustered and uncertain.
The Emperor struck a wax-match on a gold matchbox, leaning his
elbow on the table to steady his shaking hand. Presently he
slowly crossed one baggy red-trouser knee over the other and,
blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into the sunshine, said: "I
suppose your despatch will arrive considerably in advance of the
telegrams of the other correspondents, who seem to be blocked in
Saarbrück?"
He glanced obliquely at Jack, grave and impassible.
"I trust so, sire," said Jack, seriously.
The Emperor laughed outright, crumpled the letter in his gloved
hand, tossed the cigarette away, and rose painfully, leaning for
support on the table.
Jack rose, too.
"Monsieur," said Napoleon, playfully, as though attempting to
conceal intense physical suffering, "I am in search of a
motto--for reasons. I shall have a regiment or two carry
'Saarbrück' on their colours. What motto should they also carry?"
Jack spoke before he intended it--he never knew why: "Sire, the
only motto I know is this: 'Tiens ta Foy!'"
The Man of December turned his narrow eyes on him. Then, bowing
with the dignity and grace that he, of all living monarchs,
possessed, the Emperor passed slowly through the garden and
entered the little hôtel, the clash of presented carbines ringing
in the still air behind him.
Jack sat down, considerably exercised in his mind, thinking of
what he had said. The splendid old crusader's motto, "Keep thy
Faith," was scarcely the motto to suggest to the man of the Coup
d'État, the man of Rome, the man of Mexico. The very bones of
Victor Noir would twist in their coffin at the words; and the
lungs of that other Victor, the one named Hugo, would swell and
expand until the bellowing voice rang like a Jersey fog-siren
over the channel, over the ocean, till the seven seas vibrated
and the four winds swept it to the four ends of the earth.
Very soberly he finished his despatch, picked up his gloves and
crop, and again walked over to the telegraph station.
The censor read the pencilled scrawl, smiled, drew a red pencil
through some of it, smiled again, and said: "I trust it will not
inconvenience monsieur too much."
"Not at all," said Jack, pleasantly.
He had not expected to get it all through, and he bowed and
thanked the censor, and went out to where his horse stood,
cropping the tender leaves of a spreading chestnut-tree.
It was five o'clock by his watch when he trotted out into the
Morteyn road, now entirely deserted except by a peasant or two,
staring, under their inverted hands, at the distant spire of
Saarbrück.
Far away in the valley he caught glimpses of troops, glancing at
times over his shoulder, but the distant squares and columns on
hill-side and road seemed to be motionless. Already the thin,
glimmering line of the Saar had faded from view; the afternoon
haze hung blue on every hill-side; the woods were purple and
vague as streaks of cloud at evening.
He passed Saint-Avold far to the south, too far to see anything
of the division that lay encamped there; and presently he turned
into the river road that follows the Saar until the great highway
to Metz cuts it at an acute angle. From this cross-road he could
see the railway, where a line of freight-cars, drawn by a puffing
locomotive, was passing--cars of all colours, marked on one end
"Elsass-Lothringen," on the other "Alsace-Lorraine."