"If I am shot in the woods--if I don't return--General Chanzy
will take charge of Mademoiselle de Nesville, for my uncle's
sake. They are sword-brothers."
"I accept the responsibility," said the old general, gravely.
They bowed to each other, and Jack went out and down the stairs
to the lawn. For a moment he looked up into the sky, trying to
remember where the balloon might have been when Von Steyr's
explosive bullet set it on fire. Then he trudged on into the
wood-road, buckling his revolver-case under his arm and adjusting
the cross-strap of his field-glasses.
Once in the forest he breathed more freely. There was an odour of
rotting leaves in the wet air; the branches quivered and dripped,
and the tree-trunks, moist and black, exhaled a rank aroma of
lichens and rain-soaked moss.
Along the park wall, across the Lisse, sentinels stood in the rain,
peering out of their caped overcoats or rambling along the river-bank.
A spiritless challenge or two halted him for a few moments, but he
gave the word and passed on. Once or twice squads met him and passed
with the relief, sick boyish soldiers, crusted with mud. Twice he met
groups of roving, restless-eyed franc-tireurs in straight caps and
sheepskin jackets, but they did not molest him nor even question him
beyond asking the time of day.
And now he passed the carrefour where he and Lorraine had first
met. Its only tenant was a sentinel, yellow with jaundice, who
seized his chassepot with shaking hands and called a shrill "Qui
Vive?"
From the carrefour Jack turned to the left straight into the
heart of the forest. He risked losing his way; he risked more
than that, too, for a shot from sentry or franc-tireur was not
improbable, and, more-over, nobody knew whether Uhlans were in
the woods or not.
As he advanced the forest growth became thicker; underbrush, long
uncut, rose higher than his head. Over logs and brush tangles he
pressed, down into soft, boggy gullys deep with dead leaves,
across rapid, dark brooks, threads of the river Lisse, over stony
ledges, stumps, windfalls, and on towards the break in the trees
from which, on clear days, one could see the turret-spire of the
Château de Nesville. When he reached this point he looked in vain
for the turret; the rain hid it. Still, he could judge fairly
well in which direction it lay, and he knew that the distance was
half a mile.
"The balloon dropped near here," he muttered, and started in a
circle, taking a gigantic beech-tree as the centre mark.
Gradually he widened his circuit, stumbling on over the slippery
leaves, keeping a wary eye out for the thing on the ground that
he sought.
He had seen no game in the forest, and wondered a little. Once or
twice he fancied that he heard some animal moving near, but when
he listened all was quiet, save for the hoarse calling of a raven
in some near tree. Suddenly he saw the raven, and at the same
moment it rose, croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket
floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They
were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the
rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and
sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above
his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay
there in the thicket. And he was right; but when he saw the
thing he covered his eyes with both hands and his heart rose in
his throat. At last he stepped forward and looked into the vacant
eye-sockets of a skull from which shreds of a long beard still
hung, wet and straggling.
It lay under the washed-out roots of a fir-tree, the bare ribs
staring through the torn clothing, the fleshless hands clasped
about a steel box.
How he brought himself to get the box from that cage of bones he
never knew. At last he had it, and stepped back, the sweat
starting from every pore. But his work was not finished. What the
ravens and wolves had left of the thing he pushed with sticks
into a hollow, and painfully covered it with forest mould. Over
this he pulled great lumps of muddy clay, trampling them down
firmly, until at last the dead lay underground and a heap of
stones marked the sepulchre.
The ravens had alighted in the tree-tops around the spot,
watching him gravely, croaking and sidling away when he moved
with abruptness. Looking up into the tree-tops he saw some shreds
of stuff clinging to the branches, perhaps tatters from the
balloon or the dead man's clothing. Near him on the ground lay a
charred heap that was once the wicker car of the balloon. This he
scattered with a stick, laid a covering of green moss on the
mound, placed two sticks crosswise at the head, took off his cap,
then went his way, the steel box buttoned securely in his breast.
As he walked on through the forest, a wolf fled from the
darkening undergrowth, hesitated, turned, cringing half boldly,
half sullenly, watching him with changeless, incandescent eyes.
Darkness was creeping into the forest when he came out on the
wood-road. He had a mile and a half before him without lantern or
starlight, and he hastened forward through the mire, which seemed
to pull him back at every step. It astonished him that he
received no challenge in the twilight; he peered across the
river, but saw no sentinels moving. The stillness was profound,
save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet
branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep
his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of
the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the
whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer
it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it
passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp
report, and the steel fragments hurtled through the naked trees.
He was running now; he knew the Prussian guns had opened on the
Château again, and the thought of Lorraine in the tempest of iron
terrified him. And now the shells were streaming into the woods,
falling like burning stars from the heavens, bursting over the
tree-tops; the racket of tearing, splintering limbs was in his
ears, the dull shock of a shell exploding in the mud, the splash
of fragments in the river. Behind him a red flare, ever growing,
wavering, bursting into crimson radiance, told him that the
Château de Nesville was ablaze. The black, trembling shadows cast
by the trees grew blacker and steadier in the fiery light; the
muddy road sprang into view under his feet; the river ran
vermilion. Another light grew in the southern sky, faint yet, but
growing surely. He ran swiftly, spurred and lashed by fear, for
this time it was the Château Morteyn that sent a column of sparks
above the trees, higher, higher, under a pall of reddening smoke.
At last he stumbled into the garden, where a mass of plunging
horses tugged and strained at their harnessed guns and caissons.
Muddy soldiers put their ragged shoulders to the gun-wheels and
pushed; teamsters cursed and lashed their horses; officers rode
through the throng, shouting. A squad of infantry began a
fusillade from the wall; other squads fired from the lawn, where
the rear of a long column in retreat stretched across the gardens
and out into the road.
As Jack ran up the terrace steps the gatling began to whir like a
watchman's rattle; needle-pointed flames pricked the darkness
from hedge and wall, where a dark line swayed to and fro under
the smoke.
Up the stairs he sped, and flung open the door of the bedroom.
Lorraine stood in the middle of the room, looking out into the
darkness. She turned at the sound of the opening door:
"Jack!"
"Hurry!" he gasped; "this time they mean business. Where is your
sentinel? Where is the general? Hurry, my child--dress quickly!"
He went out to the hall again, and looked up and down. On the
floor below he heard somebody say that the general was dead, and
he hurried down among a knot of officers who were clustered at
the windows, night-glasses levelled on the forest. As he entered
the room a lieutenant fell dead and a shower of bullets struck
the coping outside.
He hastened away up-stairs again. Lorraine, in cloak and hat, met
him at the door.
"Keep away from all windows," he said. "Are you ready?"
She placed her arm in his, and he led her down the stairs to the
rear of the Château.
"Have they gone--our soldiers?" faltered Lorraine. "Is it defeat?
Jack, answer me!"
"They are holding the Château to protect the retreat, I think.
Hark! The gatling is roaring like a furnace! What has happened?"
"I don't know. The old general came to speak to me when I awoke.
He was very good and kind. Then suddenly the sentinel on the
stairs fell down and we ran out. He was dead; a bullet had
entered from the window at the end of the hall. After that I went
into my room to dress, and the general hurried down-stairs,
telling me to wait until he called for me. He did not come back;
the firing began, and some shells hit the house. All the troops
in the garden began to leave, and I did not know what to do, so I
waited for you."
Jack glanced right and left. The artillery were leaving by the
stable road; from every side the infantry streamed past across
the lawn, running when they came to the garden, where a shower of
bullets fell among the shrubbery. A captain hastening towards the
terrace looked at them in surprise.
"What is it?" cried Jack. "Can't you hold the Château?"
"The other Château has been carried," said the captain. "They are
taking us on the left flank. Madame," he added, "should go at
once; this place will be untenable in a few moments."
Lorraine spoke breathlessly: "Are you to hold the Château with
the gatling until the army is safe?"
"Yes, madame," said the captain. "We are obliged to."
There came a sudden lull in the firing. Lorraine caught Jack's
arm.
"Come," cried Jack, "we've got to go now!"
"I shall stay!" she said; "I know my work is here!"
The German rifle-flames began to sparkle and flicker along the
river-bank; a bullet rang out against the granite façade behind
them.
"Come!" he cried, sharply, but she slipped from him and ran
towards the house.
Drums were beating somewhere in the distant forest--shrill,
treble drums--and from every hill-side the hollow, harsh Prussian
trumpets spoke. Then came a sound, deep, menacing--a far cry:
"Hourra! Preussen!"
"Why don't you cheer?" faltered Lorraine, mounting the terrace.
The artillerymen looked at her in surprise. Jack caught her arm;
she shook him off impatiently.
"Cheer!" she cried again. "Is France dumb?" She raised her hand.
"Vive la France!" shouted the artillerymen, catching her ardour.
"Vive la Patrie! Vive Lorraine!"
Again the short, barking, Prussian cheer sounded, and again the
artillerymen answered it, cheer on cheer, for France, for the
Land, for the Province of Lorraine. Up in the windows of the
Château the line soldiers were cheering, too; the engineers on
the roof, stamping out the sparks and flames, swung their caps
and echoed the shouts from terrace and window.
In the sudden silence that followed they caught the vibration of
hundreds of hoofs--there came a rush, a shout:
"Hourra! Preussen! Hourra! Hourra!" and into the lawn dashed the
German cavalry, banging away with carbine and revolver. At the
same moment, over the park walls swarmed the Bavarians in a
forest of bayonets. The Château vomited flame from every window;
the gatling, pulled back into the front door, roared out in a
hundred streaks of fire. Jack dragged Lorraine to the first
floor; she was terribly excited. Almost at once she knelt down
and began to load rifles, passing them to Jack, who passed them
to the soldiers at the windows. Once, when a whole window was
torn in and the mattress on fire, she quenched the flames with
water from her pitcher; and when the soldiers hesitated at the
breach, she started herself, but Jack held her back and led the
cheering, and piled more mattresses into the shattered window.
Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house,
hammering with rifle-butts at the closed shutters, crouching,
dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into
the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres
in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and
galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.
Suddenly they all gave way; the garden and lawns were emptied
save for the writhing wounded and motionless dead.
"Cheer!" gasped Lorraine; and the battered Château rang again
with frenzied cries of triumph.
The wounded were calling for water, and Jack and Lorraine brought
it in bowls. Here and there the bedding and wood-work had caught
fire, but the line soldiers knocked it out with their rifle-butts.
Whenever Lorraine entered a room they cheered her--the young
officers waved their caps, even a dying bugler raised himself and
feebly sounded the salute to the colours.
By the light of the candles Jack noticed for the first time that
Lorraine wore the dress of the Province--that costume that he had
first seen her in--the scarlet skirt, the velvet bodice, the
chains of silver. And as she stood loading the rifles in the
smoke-choked room, the soldiers saw more than that: they saw the
Province itself in battle there--the Province of Lorraine. And
they cheered and leaped to the windows, firing frenziedly, crying
the old battle-cry of Lorraine: "Tiens ta Foy! Frappe! Pour le
Roy!" while the child in the bodice and scarlet skirt stood up
straight and snapped back the locks of the loaded chassepots, one
by one.
"Once again! For France!" cried Lorraine, as the clamour of the
Prussian drums broke out on the hill-side, and the hoarse
trumpets signalled from wood to wood.
A thundering cry arose from the Château:
"France!"
The sullen boom of a Prussian cannon drowned it; the house shook
with the impact of a shell, bursting in fury on the terrace.
White faces turned to faces whiter still.
"Cannon!"
"Hold on! For France!" cried Lorraine, feverishly.
"Cannon!" echoed the voices, one to another.
Again the solid walls shook with the shock of a solid shot.
Jack stuffed the steel box into his breast and turned to
Lorraine.
"It is ended, we cannot stay--" he began; but at that instant
something struck him a violent blow on the chest, and he fell,
striking the floor with his head.
In a second Lorraine was at his side, lifting him with all the
strength of her arms, calling to him: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"
The soldiers were leaving the windows now; the house rocked and
tottered under the blows of shell and solid shot. Down-stairs an
officer cried: "Save yourselves!" There was a hurry of feet
through the halls and on the stairs. A young soldier touched
Lorraine timidly on the shoulder.
"Give him to me; I will carry him down," he said.
She clung to Jack and turned a blank gaze on the soldier.
"Give him to me," he repeated; "the house is burning." But she
would not move nor relinquish her hold. Then the soldier seized
Jack and threw him over his shoulder, running swiftly down the
stairs, that rocked under his feet. Lorraine cried out and
followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and
thunder of the exploding shells dazed and stunned her; but the
soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she
followed, stumbling to his side.
"To the trees--yonder--the forest--" he gasped.
They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man
by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.
"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"
"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against
a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes
closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his.
XXV
PRINCESS IMPERIAL
The glare from the Château Morteyn, now wrapped in torrents of
curling flame, threw long crimson shafts of light far into the
forest. The sombre trees glimmered like live cinders; the wet
moss crisped and bronzed as the red radiance played through the
thickets. The bright, wavering fire-glow fell full on Jack's
body; his face was hidden in the shadow of Lorraine's hair.
Twice the timid young soldier drew her away, but she crept back,
murmuring Jack's name; and at last the soldier seized the body in
both arms and stumbled on again, calling Lorraine to follow.
Little by little the illumination faded out among the trees; the
black woods crowded in on every side; the noise of the crackling
flames, the shouting, the brazen rattle of drums grew fainter and
fainter, and finally died out in the soft, thick blackness of the
forest.
When they halted the young soldier placed Jack on the moss, then
held out his hands. Lorraine touched them. He guided her to the
prostrate figure; she flung herself face down beside it.
After a moment the soldier touched her again timidly on the
shoulder:
"Have I done well?"
She sobbed her thanks, rising to her knees. The soldier, a boy of
eighteen, straightened up; he noiselessly laid his knapsack and
haversack on the ground, trembled, swayed, and sat down,
muttering vaguely of God and the honour of France. Presently he
went away, lurching in the darkness like a drunken man--on, on,
deep into the forest, where nothing of light or sound penetrated.
And when he could no longer stand he sat down, his young head in
his hands, and waited. His body had been shot through and
through. About midnight he died.
When Jack came to his senses the gray mystery of dawn was passing
through the silent forest aisles; the beeches, pallid, stark,
loomed motionless on every side; the pale veil of sky-fog hung
festooned from tree to tree. There was a sense of breathless
waiting in the shadowy woods--no sound, no stir, nothing of life
or palpitation--nothing but foreboding.
Jack crawled to his knees; his chest ached, his mouth cracked
with a terrible throbbing thirst. Dazed as yet, he did not even
look around; he did not try to think; but that weight on his
chest grew to a burning agony, and he tore at his coat and threw
it open. The flat steel box, pierced by a bullet, fell on the
ground before his knees. Then he remembered. He ripped open
waistcoat and shirt and stared at his bare breast. It was
discoloured--a mass of bruises, but there was no blood there. He
looked listlessly at the box on the leaves under him, and touched
his bruised body. Suddenly his mind grew clearer; he stumbled up,
steadying himself against a tree. His lips moved "Lorraine!" but
no sound came. Again, in terror, he tried to cry out. He could
not speak. Then he saw her. She lay among the dead leaves, face
downward in the moss.
When at last he understood that she was alive he lay down beside
her, one arm across her body, and sank into a profound sleep.
She woke first. A burning thirst set her weeping in her sleep and
then roused her. Tear-stained and ghastly pale, she leaned over
the sleeping man beside her, listened to his breathing, touched
his hair, then rose and looked fearfully about her. On the
knapsack under the tree a tin cup was shining. She took it and
crept down into a gulley, where, through the deep layers of dead
leaves, water sparkled in a string of tiny iridescent puddles.
The water, however, was sweet and cold, and, when she had
satisfied her thirst and had dug into the black loam with the
edge of the cup, more water, sparkling and pure, gushed up and
spread out in the miniature basin. She waited for the mud and
leaves to settle, and when the basin was clear she unbound her
hair, loosened her bodice, and slipped it off. When she had
rolled the wide, full sleeves of her chemise to the shoulder she
bathed her face and breast and arms; they glistened like marble
tinged with rose in the pale forest dawn. The little scrupulous
ablutions finished, she dried her face on the fine cambric of the
under-sleeve, she dried her little ears, her brightening eyes,
the pink palms of her hand, and every polished finger separately
from the delicate flushed tip to the wrist, blue-veined and
slender. She shook out her heavy hair, heavy and gleaming with
burnished threads, and bound it tighter. She mended the broken
points of her bodice, then laced it firmly till it pressed and
warmed her fragrant breast. Then she rose.
There was nothing of fear or sorrow in her splendid eyes; her
mouth was moist and scarlet, her curved cheeks pure as a child's.
For a moment she stood pensive, her face now grave, now
sensitive, now touched with that mysterious exaltation that glows
through the histories of the saints, that shines from tapestries,
that hides in the dim faces carved on shrines.
For the world was trembling and the land cried out under the
scourge, and she was ready now for what must be. The land would
call her where she was awaited; the time, the hour, the place had
been decreed. She was ready--and where was the bitterness of
death, when she could face it with the man she loved.
Loved? At the thought her knees trembled under her with the
weight of this love; faint with its mystery and sweetness, her
soul turned in its innocence to God. And for the first time in
her child's life she understood that God lived.
She understood now that the sadness of life was gone forever.
There was no loneliness now for soul or heart; nothing to fear,
nothing to regret. Her life was complete. Death seemed an
incident. If it came to her or to the man she loved, they would
wait for one another a little while--that was all.
A pale sunbeam stole across the tree-tops. She looked up. A
little bird sang, head tilted towards the blue. She moved softly
up the slope, her hair glistening in the early sun, her blue eyes
dreaming; and when she came to the sleeping man she bent beside
him and held a cup of sweet water to his lips.
About noon they spoke of hunger, timidly, lest either might think
the other complained. Her head close against his, her warm arms
tight around his neck, she told him of the boy soldier, the
dreadful journey in the night, the terror, and the awakening. She
told him of the birth of her love for him--how death no longer
was to be feared or sought. She told him there was nothing to
alarm him, nothing to make them despair. Sin could not touch
them; death was God's own gift.
He listened, too happy to even try to understand. Perhaps he
could not, being only a young man in love. But he knew that all
she said must be true, perhaps too true for him to comprehend. He
was satisfied; his life was complete. Something of the contentment
of a school-boy exhausted with play lingered in his eyes.
They had spoken of the box; she had taken it reverently in her
hands and touched the broken key, snapped off short in the lock.
Inside, the Prussian bullet rattled as she turned the box over
and over, her eyes dim with love for the man who had done all for
her.
Jack found a loaf of bread in the knapsack. It was hard and dry,
but they soaked it in the leaf-covered spring and ate it
deliciously, cheek against cheek.
Little by little their plans took shape. They were to go--Heaven
knows how!--to find the Emperor. Into his hands they would give
the box with its secrets, then turn again, always together, ready
for their work, wherever it might be.
Towards mid-afternoon Lorraine grew drowsy. There was a summer
warmth in the air; the little forest birds came to the spring
and preened their feathers in the pale sunshine. Two cicadas,
high in the tree-tops, droned an endless harmony; hemlock cones
dropped at intervals on the dead leaves.