prophetess in all that she held sacred! She had never prayed for
the Emperor, but she always prayed for France when she asked
forgiveness night and morning. At confession she had accused
herself sometimes because she could not understand the deeper
meaning of this daily prayer, but now she understood it; the
fierce love for native soil that blazes up when that soil is
stamped upon and spurned.
All the devotion, all the tender adoration, that she had given her
father turned now to bitter grief for this dear land of hers. It, at
least, had been her mother, her comforter, her consolation; and
there it lay before her--it called to her; she responded passionately,
and gave it all her love. So she lay there in the dark, her hot face
buried in her hands, close to one whom she needed and who needed her.
He was too wise to speak or move; he loved her too much to touch
again the hair, flung heavily across her face--to touch her
flushed brow, her clasped hands, her slender body, delicate and
warm, firm yet yielding. He waited for the tears to come. And
when they fell, one by one, great, hot drops, they brought no
relief until she told him all--all--her last and inmost hope and
fear.
Then when her white soul lay naked in all its innocence before
him, and when the last word had been said, he raised her head
and searched in her pure eyes for one message of love for
himself.
It was not there; and the last word had been said.
And, even as he looked, holding her there almost in his arms, the
Prussian trumpets clanged from the dim meadows and the drums
thundered on the hills, and the invading army roused itself at
the dawn of another day.
XVIII
THE STRETCHING OF NECKS
For two days and nights the German army passed through Morteyn
and Saint-Lys, on the march towards Metz. All day long the hills
struck back the echoes of their flat brass drums, and shook with
the shock of armed squadrons, tramping on into the west.
Interminable trains of wagons creaked along the sandy Saint-Avold
road; the whistle of the locomotive was heard again at Saint-Lys,
where the Bavarians had established a base of supplies and were
sending their endless, multicoloured trains puffing away towards
Saarbrück for provisions and munitions of war that had arrived
there from Cologne. Generals with their staffs, serious, civil
fellows, with anxious, near-sighted eyes, stopped at the Château
and were courteously endured, only to be replaced by others
equally polite and serious. And regularly, after each batch left
with their marching regiments, there came back to the Château by
courier, the same evening, a packet of visiting-cards and a
polite letter signed by all the officers entertained, thanking
the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn for their hospitality.
At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the
afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the
hills west of Morteyn, and the last straggling Uhlan followed
after, twirling his long lance.
Every day Lorraine had watched and waited for one word from her
father; every day Jack had ridden over to the Château de
Nesville, but the marquis refused to see him or to listen to any
message, nor did he send any to Lorraine.
Old Pierre told Jack that no Germans had visited the Château;
that the marquis was busy all day with his machinery, and never
left his turret except to eat at daylight in the grand salon
below. He also intimated that his master was about ready to make
another ascension in the new balloon, which, old Pierre affirmed,
had a revolving screw at either side of the wicker car, like a
ship; and, like a ship, it could be steered with perfect ease. He
even took Jack to a little stone structure that stood in a
meadow, surrounded by trees. In there, according to Pierre, stood
this marvellous balloon, not yet inflated, of course. That was
only a matter of five seconds; a handful of the silver dust
placed at the aperture of the silken bag, a drop of pure water
touched to it, and, puff! the silver dust turns to vapour and the
balloon swells out tight and full.
Jack had peeped into the barred window and had seen the wicker
car of the balloon standing on the cement floor, filled with the
folded silken covering for the globe of the balloon. He could
just make out, on either side of the car, two twisted twin
screws, wrought out of some dull oxidized metal. On returning to
Morteyn that evening he had told Lorraine.
She explained that the screws were made of a metal called
aluminum, rare then, because so difficult to extract from its
combining substances, and almost useless on account of its being
impossible to weld. Her father, however, had found a way to
utilize it--how, she did not know. If this ascension proved a
success the French government would receive the balloon and the
secret of the steering and propelling gear, along with the
formula for the silvery dust used to inflate it. Even she
understood what a terrible engine of war such an aërial ship
might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after
fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies
could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before
a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from the clouds.
On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left
Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the
marquis--for Lorraine's sake.
He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was
disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned
lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.
"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't
worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working
for France."
He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long
as she lived. He said, too, that the marquis was labouring for
France. So he was; but France would never see the terrible war
engine, nor know the secrets of its management, as long as
Napoleon III. was struggling to keep his family in the high
places of France.
"Good-by," he said again. "I shall be back by sundown."
Lorraine leaned over the terrace, looking down at him with blue,
fathomless eyes.
"By sundown?"
"Yes."
"Truly?"
"Yes."
"Tiens ta Foy."
"Always, Lorraine."
She did not chide him; she longed to call him Jack, but it stuck
in her white throat when she tried.
"If you do not come back by sundown, then I shall know you
cannot," she said.
"But I shall."
"Yes, I believe it."
"Come after me if I don't return," he laughed, as he descended
the steps.
"I shall, if you break your faith," she smiled.
She watched him out of sight--he was going on foot this
time--then the trees hid him, and she turned back into the house,
where Madame de Morteyn was preparing to close the Château for
the winter and return to Paris.
It was the old vicomte who had decided; he had stayed and faced
the music as long as there was any to face--Prussian music, too.
But now the Prussians had passed on towards Metz--towards Paris,
also, perhaps, and he wished to be there; it was too sad in the
autumn of Lorraine.
He had aged fearfully in the last four days; he was in truth an old
man now. Even he knew it--he who had never before acknowledged age;
but he felt it at night; for it is when day is ended that the old
comprehend how old they are.
This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning
Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to
Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people
once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and
surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and
return to Morteyn with one servant. This he had promised
Lorraine, and she had not said no. His aunt also wished it, but
she did not think it time yet to tell the vicomte.
The servants, with the exception of one maid and the coachman,
had gone in the morning, by way of Vigny, with the luggage. The
vicomte and his wife were to travel by carriage to Passy-le-Sel,
and from there, via Belfort, if the line were open, to Paris by
rail. Jack, it had been arranged, was to ride to Belfort on
horseback, and join the old people there for the journey to
Paris.
So Lorraine turned back into the silent house, where the
furniture stood in its stiff, white dust-coverings, where cloths
covered candelabra and mirror, and the piano was bare of
embroidered scarfs.
She passed through darkened rooms, one after another, through the
long hall, where no servants remained, through the ballroom and
dining-room, and out into the conservatory, emptied of every
palm. She passed on across the interior court, through the
servants' wicket, and out to the stables. All the stalls save one
were empty. Faust stood in that one stall switching his tail and
peering around at her with wise, dark eyes. Then she kissed his
soft nose, and went sadly back to the house, only to roam over it
again from terrace to roof, never meeting a living soul, never
hearing a sound except when she passed the vicomte's suite, where
Madame de Morteyn and the maid were arranging last details and
the old vicomte lay asleep in his worn arm-chair.
There was one room she had not visited, one room in which she had
never set foot, never even peeped into. That was Jack's room. And
now, by an impulse she could not understand, her little feet led
her up the stairway, across the broad landing, through the
gun-room, and there to the door--his door. It was open. She
glided in.
There was a faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather,
too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or
perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle.
Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes,
cigar-boxes, neckties, riding-crops, and gloves.
She stole on tiptoe to the bed, looked at her wide, bright eyes
in the mirror opposite, flushed, hesitated, bent swiftly, and
touched the white pillow with her lips.
For a second she knelt there where he might have knelt, morning
and evening, then slipped to her feet, turned, and was gone.
At sundown Jack returned, animated, face faintly touched with red
from his three-mile walk. He had seen the marquis; more, too, he
had seen the balloon--he had examined it, stood in the wicker
car, tested the aluminum screws. He brought back a message for
Lorraine, affectionate and kindly, asking for her return home
early the next morning.
"If we do not find you at Belfort to-morrow," said Madame de
Morteyn, seriously, "we shall not wait. We shall go straight on
to Paris. The house is ready to be locked, everything is in
perfect order, and really, Jack, there is no necessity for your
coming. Perhaps Lorraine's father may ask you to stay there for a
few days."
"He has," said Jack, growing a trifle pink.
"Then you need not come to Belfort at all," insisted his aunt.
Jack protested that he could not let them go to Paris alone.
"But I've sent Faust on already," said Madame de Morteyn,
smiling.
"Then the Marquis de Nesville will lend me a horse; you can't
keep me away like that," said Jack; "I will drive Mademoiselle de
Nesville to her home and then come on horseback and meet you at
Belfort, as I said I would."
"We won't count on you," said his aunt; "if you're not there when
the train comes, your uncle and I will abandon you to the mercy
of Lorraine."
"I shall send him on by freight," said Lorraine, trying to smile.
"I'm going back to the Château de Nesville to-night for an hour
or two," observed Jack, finishing his Moselle; "the marquis
wanted me to help him on the last touches. He makes an ascent
to-morrow noon."
"Take a lantern, then," said Madame de Morteyn; "don't you want
Jules, too--if you're going on foot through the forest?"
"Don't want Jules, and the squirrels won't eat me," laughed Jack,
looking across at Lorraine. He was thinking of that first dash in
the night together, she riding with the fury of a storm-witch,
her ball-gown in ribbons, her splendid hair flashing, he
galloping at her stirrup, putting his horse at a dark figure that
rose in their path; and then the collision, the trample, the
shots in the dark, and her round white shoulder seared with the
bullet mark.
She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going
to start.
"Now," he said.
"You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de
Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her
chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with
Lorraine.
Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised
Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.
"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.
"Always, Lorraine."
The night was starless. As he stood there on the terrace swinging
his lantern, he looked back at her, up into her eyes. And as he
looked she bent down, impulsively stretching out both arms and
whispering, "At eleven--you have promised, Jack."
At last his name had fallen from her lips--had slipped from them
easily--sweet as the lips that breathed it.
He tried to answer; he could not, for his heart beat in his
throat. But he took her two hands and crushed them together and
kissed the soft, warm palms, passive under his lips. That was
all--a touch, a glimpse of his face half lit by the lantern
swinging; and again she called, softly, "Jack, 'Tiens ta Foy!'"
And he was gone.
The distance to the Château de Nesville was three miles; it might
have been three feet for all Jack knew, moving through the
forest, swinging his lantern, his eyes on the dim trees towering
into the blackness overhead, his mind on Lorraine. Where the
lantern-light fell athwart rugged trunks, he saw her face; where
the tall shadows wavered and shook, her eyes met his. Her voice
was in the forest rumour, the low rustle of leafy undergrowth,
the whisper of waters flowing under silent leaves.
Already the gray wall of the park loomed up in the east, already
the gables and single turret of the Château grew from the shadows
and took form between the meshed branches of the trees.
The grille swung wide open, but the porter was not there. He
walked on, hastening a little, crossed the lawn by the summer
arbour, and approached the house. There was a light in the
turret, but the rest of the house was dark. As he reached the
porch and looked into the black hallway, a slight noise in the
dining-room fell upon his ear, and he opened the door and went
in. The dining-room was dark; he set his extinguished lantern on
the table and lighted a lamp by the window, saying: "Pierre, tell
the marquis I am here--tell him I am to return to Morteyn by
eleven--Pierre, do you hear me? Where are you, then?"
He raised his head instinctively, his hand on the lamp-globe.
Pierre was not there, but something moved in the darkness outside
the window, and he went to the door.
"Pierre!" he called again; and at the same instant an Uhlan
struck him with his lance-butt across the temples.
* * * * *
How long it was before he opened his eyes he could not tell. He
found himself lying on the ground in a meadow surrounded by
trees. A camp-fire flickered near, lighting the gray side of the
little stone house where the balloon was kept.
There were sounds--deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or
threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing,
crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt
button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished schapskas and
gold-scaled chin-guards. The knot of struggling figures suddenly
widened out into a half-circle, then came a quick command, a cry
in French--"Ah! God!"--and something shot up into the air and
hung from a tree, dangling, full in the firelight.
It was the writhing body of a man.
Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands.
Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat,
leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.
Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: "Links! vorwärts!" There
came a regular tramp of feet--one, two! one, two!--across the
grass, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in
his arms.
The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he
saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right--tall
Uhlans, buttoned to the chin in their sombre overcoats,
helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.
Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a
second or two before he even heard him.
"Prisoner, do you understand German?" repeated the Uhlan,
harshly.
"Yes," muttered Jack. He began to shiver, perhaps from the chill
of the wet earth.
"Stand up!"
Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his
eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the
man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to
that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling
oak-branch at the edge of the grove.
Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name pronounced;
he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispassionate
voice--"accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian
Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully,
maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded
trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty."
Again he heard the same voice: "The law of non-combatants
operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty
due."
Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now
he knew him--the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who
had scaled the park wall with the box--that was the face he had
struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face,
with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the
man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in
pencil on the maps--Siurd von Steyr!
Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted
to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispassionate and
harsh as ever when he said: "The prisoner Marche is at liberty to
confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!"
There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled
into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with
trailing spurs across the road to the tree.
From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his
name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of
tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-glasses told
him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the
hill-side.
One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks,
saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.
"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr.
Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was
choking. Everything around him swam in darkness--a darkness lit
by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their
midst now, shouldered and shoved across the grass; their hot
breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back
his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree
where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a
swivel.
It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the
first cry out of him: "Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of God!
Not--not this--"
He was struggling now--he set his teeth and struck furiously. The
crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man
in their midst--more mounted men, shouting.
The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in
his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his
fingers between the noose and his neck; now the thing loosened
and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.
"Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr!--here! get
back there!--get back!"
"Rickerl!" gasped Jack--"tell--tell them--they must shoot--not
hang--"
He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and
distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless,
haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the
noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up,
lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive
horses wheeled.
And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face
like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car,
which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.
"This is not the place nor is this the time to judge your
prisoners," said Rickerl, pushing his horse up to Von Steyr and
scowling down into his face. "Who called this drum-head court? Is
that your province? Oh, in my absence? Well, then, I am here! Do
you see me?"
The insult fell like the sting of a lash across Von Steyr's face.
He saluted, and, looking straight into Rickerl's eyes, said, "Zum
Befehl, Herr Hauptmann! I am at your convenience also."
"When you please!" shouted Rickerl, crimson with fury. "Retire!"
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed
his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a
groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his
hands to his head, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn
gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as
a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above
his head. Then, through the ring of nervous, quivering horses the
globe of the balloon appeared as by magic--an enormous, looming,
yellow sphere, tense, glistening, gigantic.
The horses reared, snorting with fright, the Uhlans clung to
their saddles, shouting and cursing, and the huge balloon,
swaying from its single rope, pounded and bounced from side to
side, knocking beast and man into a chaotic mass of frantic
horses and panic-stricken riders.
With a report like a pistol the rope parted, the great globe
bounded and shot up into the air; a tumult of harsh shouts arose;
the crazed horses backed, plunged, and scattered, some falling,
some bolting into the undergrowth, some rearing and swaying in an
ecstasy of terror.
The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long
lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the
banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the
forest, drifting slowly westward.
And now Von Steyr had a weapon in his hands--not a carbine, but a
long chassepot-rifle, a relic of the despoiled franc-tireur,
dangling from the oak-tree.
Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!"
"Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!"
The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.
The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest was belted by a blue
line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in
the sky. Then far away a light report startled the sudden
stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall,
swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and
earth.
"You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand
at Von Steyr.
"God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his
teeth.
Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.
"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.
Von Steyr stared around him, right and left--Jack was gone.
"Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously--"if
you escape my sabre in the morning."
"Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked
convulsively.
"Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he
cried. "Open order! Forward!"
XIX
RICKERL'S SABRE
Jack, lying full length in the depths of the forest, listened
fearfully for the sounds of the human pack on his heels. The
blackness was stupefying; the thud of his own heart seemed to
fill the shrouded forest like the roll of a muffled drum.
Presently he crept on again, noiselessly, painfully, closing his
eyes when the invisible twigs brushed his face.
He did not know where he was going, he only thought of getting
away, anywhere--away from that hangman's rope.
Again he rested, suffocated by the tumult in his breast, burning
with thirst. For a long while he lay listening; there was not a
sound in the night. Little by little his coolness returned; he
thought of Lorraine and his promise, and he knew that now he
could not keep it. He thought, too, of the marquis, never
doubting the terrible fate of the half-crazed man. He had seen
him stun the soldier with a blow of the steel box, he had seen
the balloon shoot up into the midnight sky, he had heard the shot
and caught a glimpse of the glare of the burning balloon.
Somewhere in the forest the battered body of the marquis lay in
the wreck of the shattered car. The steel box, too, lay
there--the box that was so precious to the Germans.