down on the blankets beside her.
"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In
it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the
other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my
uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened
because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The
Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city
is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or
Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all
going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know
nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they
need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my
duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you
must not go--it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to
Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with
a free heart."
She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.
"Hush," she said; "I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to
try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our
path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we
tread it together, always together, Jack." He struggled to speak;
she held him close, and laid her head against his breast,
contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of
France reconquered, of noble deeds and sacrifices, of the great
bells of churches thundering God's praise to a humble, thankful
nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay
dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the
sleeping echoes of the cave--the scuffling and thrashing of a
shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a
crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.
Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly
out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they
hurried from the cave another franc-tireur came up, leading a
riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his
rifle, the butt dripping with blood.
"Silence," he motioned to them, pointing to the wooded ridge
beyond. Jack looked intently at the cavalry horse. The schabraque
was blue, edged with yellow; the saddle-cloth bore the number
"11."
"Uhlan?" He formed the word with his lips.
The franc-tireur nodded with a ghastly smile and glanced down at
his dripping gunstock.
Lorraine's hand closed on Jack's arm.
"Come to the hill," she said; "I cannot stand that."
On the crest of the wooded ridge crouched Tricasse, bared sabre
stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around
him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in
the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts,
their sinewy fingers played continually with the rifle-hammers.
Jack hesitated, his arm around Lorraine's body, his eyes fixed
nervously on the bend in the road.
Something was coming; there were cries, the trample of horses,
the shuffle of footsteps. Suddenly an Uhlan rode cautiously
around the bend, glanced right and left, looked back, signalled,
and started on. Behind him crowded a dozen more Uhlans, lances
glancing, pennants streaming in the wind.
"They've got a woman!" whispered Lorraine.
They had a man, too--a powerful, bearded peasant, with a great
livid welt across his bloodless face. A rope hung around his
neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle-bow of an
Uhlan. But what made Jack's heart fairly leap into his mouth was
to see Siurd von Steyr suddenly wheel in his saddle and lash the
woman across the face with his doubled bridle.
She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his
stirrup.
"Get out, damn you!" roared Von Steyr. "Here--I'll settle this
now. Shoot that French dog!"
"My husband, O God!" screamed the woman, struggling in the dust.
In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred
forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around
his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and
tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to
pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt,
another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a
wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan's face, deeper,
deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.
"Fire!" shrieked Tricasse--"the woman's dead!"
Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering,
sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure passed like a flash
through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew
back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the
franc-tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene
was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were
torn from their frantic horses until only one remained--Von
Steyr--drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head.
They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot
eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat
him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck
him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad
cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when
they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated
the rabid thing that ran among them.
But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road
galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with
harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the
franc-tireurs were surrounded.
Then Tricasse raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the
dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the
dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and
the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the
road:
"'Ça ira! Ça ira!'"
It was the horrible song of the Terror.
"'Que faut-il au Républicain?
Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!
"'Du fer pour travailler,
Du plomb pour nous venger,
Et du pain pour nos frères!'"
And the fierce voices sang:
"'Dansons la Carmagnole!
Dansons la Carmagnole!
Ça ira! Ça ira!
Tous les cochons à la lanterne!
Ça ira! Ça ira!
Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!'"
The road trembled under the advancing cavalry; they surged around
the bend, a chaos of rearing horses and levelled lances; a ring
of fire around the little group of franc-tireurs, a cry from the
whirl of flame and smoke:
"France!"
So they died.
XXVIII
THE BRACONNIER
Lorraine had turned ghastly white; Jack's shocked face was
colourless as he drew her away from the ridge with him into the
forest. The appalling horror had stunned her; her knees gave way,
she stumbled, but Jack held her up by main force, pushing the
undergrowth aside and plunging straight on towards the thickest
depths of the woods. He had not the faintest idea where he was;
he only knew that for the moment it was absolutely necessary for
them to get as far away as possible from the Uhlans and their
butcher's work. Lorraine knew it, too; she tried to recover her
coolness and her strength.
"Here is another road," she said, faintly; "Jack--I--I am not
strong--I am--a--little--faint--" Tears were running over her
cheeks.
Jack peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road.
Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and
he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.
"Who are you?" came the summons again in French. Jack did not
answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip,
stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of
the slope.
"Hallo!" he called, softly.
Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly
and puzzled smile.
"What do you want?" asked Jack, suspiciously.
"Parbleu! what do you want yourself?" asked the peasant, and
showed his teeth in a frank laugh.
Jack was silent.
The peasant's eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her
blanched face half hidden under the masses of her hair. "Oho!" he
said--"a woman!"
Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and
close up to Jack.
"Thought you might be one of those German spies," he said. "Is
the lady ill? Coeur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has
happened? I am Brocard--Jean Brocard; they know me here in the
forest--"
"Eh!" broke in Jack--"you say you are Brocard the poacher?"
"Hey! That's it--Brocard, braconnier--at your service. And you
are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the
little châtelaine De Nesville! Coeur Dieu! Have the Prussians
brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche--I know you and I
know the little châtelaine--oh, I know!--I, who have watched you
at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while
I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must
live! Yes, I am Brocard--I do not lie. I have taken enough game
from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?"
He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost
impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told
him the exact truth, word by word, slowly and without bitterness,
his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.
"Coeur Dieu!" muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine;
"I've half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in
the hides of these Prussian swine!"
He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When
they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and
badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech
growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing
before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.
"I have a guest," he said; "you need not fear him. Come!"
In a dozen steps they entered the low doorway, Brocard leading,
Lorraine leaning heavily on Jack's shoulder.
"Pst! There is a thick-headed Englishman in the next room; let
him sleep in peace," murmured Brocard.
He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace
with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the
little flames began to rustle and snap.
Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms;
Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from
Lorraine to Brocard.
The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and
leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes
fixed on the reviving fire.
"Morteyn! Morteyn!" he repeated; "it exists no longer. There are
many dead there--dead in the garden, in the court, on the
lawn--dead floating in the pond, the river--dead rotting in the
thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them--I, Brocard the
poacher."
After a moment he resumed:
"There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the
Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as
they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I
saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges;
I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought
to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game--boars,
deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched
one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds--I really
cannot tell."
He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the
next moment, and he continued: "I heard the fusillade on the
Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing
themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when God
permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Tricasse at last. Zut!
C'est embêtant! And poor old Passerat, too--and Brun, and all the
rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I--but, no--no! I am doing very well--I,
Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way."
An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth--that
was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably
already sent more than one Prussian to his account.
"That's all very well," he said, slowly--he had little sympathy
with guerilla assassination--"but I'd rather hear how you are
going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian
lines."
"You take much for granted," laughed the poacher. "Now, did I
offer to do any such thing?"
"But you will," said Jack, "for the honour of the Province and
the vicomte, whose game, it appears, has afforded you both
pleasure and profit."
"Coeur Dieu!" cried Brocard, laughing until his bright eyes grew
moist. "You have spoken the truth, Monsieur Marche. But you have
not added what I place first of all; it is for the gracious
châtelaine of the Château de Nesville that I, Jean Brocard, play
at hazard with the Prussians, the stakes being my skin. I will
bring you through the lines; leave it to me."
Before Jack could speak again the door of the next room opened,
and a man appeared, dressed in tweeds, booted and spurred, and
carrying a travelling-satchel. There was a moment's astonished
silence.
"Marche!" cried Archibald Grahame; "what the deuce are you doing
here?" They shook hands, looking questioningly at each other.
"Times have changed since we breakfasted by candle-light at
Morteyn," said Jack, trying to regain his coolness.
"I know--I know," said Grahame, sympathetically. "It's devilish
rough on you all--on Madame de Morteyn. I can never forget her
charming welcome. Dear me, but this war is disgusting; isn't it
now? And what the devil are you doing here? Heavens, man, you're
a sight!"
Lorraine sat up on the bed at the sound of the voices. When
Grahame saw her, saw her plight--the worn shoes, the torn,
stained bodice and skirt, the pale face and sad eyes--he was too
much affected to speak. Jack told him their situation in a dozen
words; the sight of Lorraine's face told the rest.
"Now we'll arrange that," cried Grahame. "Don't worry, Marche.
Pray do not alarm yourself, Mademoiselle de Nesville, for I have
a species of post-chaise at the door and a pair of alleged
horses, and the whole outfit is at your disposal; indeed it is,
and so am I. Come now!--and so am I." He hesitated, and then
continued: "I have passes and papers, and enough to get you
through a dozen lines. Now, where do you wish to go?"
"When are you to start?" replied Jack, gratefully.
"Say in half an hour. Can Mademoiselle de Nesville stand it?"
"Yes, thank you," said Lorraine, with a tired, quaint politeness
that made them smile.
"Then we wish to get as near to the French Army as we can," said
Jack. "I have a mission of importance. If you could drive us to
the Luxembourg frontier we would be all right--if we had any
money."
"You shall have everything," cried Grahame; "you shall be driven
where you wish. I'm looking for a battle, but I can't seem to
find one. I've been driving about this wreck of a country for the
last three days; I missed Amonvillers on the 18th, and Rezonville
two days before. I saw the battles of Reichshofen and Borney. The
Germans lost three thousand five hundred men at Beaumont, and I
was not there either. But there's a bigger thing on the carpet,
somewhere near the Meuse, and I'm trying to find out where and
when. I've wasted a lot of time loafing about Metz. I want to see
something on a larger scale, not that the Metz business isn't
large enough--two hundred thousand men, six hundred cannon--and
the Red Prince--licking their chops and getting up an appetite
for poor old Bazaine and his battered, diseased, starved,
disheartened army, caged under the forts and citadel of a city
scarcely provisioned for a regiment."
Lorraine, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked at him silently,
but her eyes were full of a horror and anguish that Grahame could
not help seeing.
"The Emperor is with the army yet," he said, cheerfully. "Who
knows what may happen in the next twenty-four hours? Mademoiselle
de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour
of France."
"Yes," said Lorraine.
Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out
into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young
French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss
plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg
frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in
the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.
"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon;
this cannot go on. We will find the Emperor and do our part.
Don't look that way, Lorraine, my darling!" He took her in his
arms. She put both arms around his neck, and hid her face.
For a while he held her, watching the fire with troubled eyes.
The room grew darker; a wind arose among the forest trees,
stirring dried leaves on brittle stems; the ashes on the hearth
drifted like gray snowflakes.
Her stillness began to trouble him. He bent in the dusk to see
her face. She was asleep. Terror, pity, anguish, the dreadful
uncertainty, had strained her child's nerves to the utmost; after
that came the deep fatigue that follows torture, and she lay in
his arms, limp, pallid, exhausted. Her sleep was almost the
unconsciousness of coma; she scarcely breathed.
The fire on the hearth went out; the smoking embers glimmered
under feathery ashes. Grahame entered, carrying a lantern.
"Come," he whispered. "Poor little thing!--can't I help you,
Marche? Wait; here's a rug. So--wrap it around her feet. Can you
carry her? Then follow; here, touch my coat--I'm going to put out
the light in my lantern. Now--gently. Here we are."
Jack climbed into the post-chaise; Grahame, holding Lorraine in
his arms, leaned in, and Jack took her again. She had not
awakened.
"Brocard and I are going to sit in front," whispered Grahame. "Is
all right within?"
"Yes," nodded Jack.
The chaise moved on for a moment, then suddenly stopped with a
jerk.
Jack heard Grahame whisper, "Sit still, you fool! I've got
passes; sit still!"
"Let go!" murmured Brocard.
"Sit still!" repeated Grahame, in an angry whisper; "it's all
right, I tell you. Be silent!"
There was a noiseless struggle, a curse half breathed, then a
figure slipped from the chaise into the road.
Grahame sank back. "Marche, that damned poacher will hang us all.
What am I to do?"
"What is it?" asked Jack, in a scarcely audible voice.
"Can't you hear? There's an Uhlan in the road in front. That fool
means to kill him."
Jack strained his eyes in the darkness; the road ahead was black
and silent.
"You can't see him," whispered Grahame. "Brocard caught the
distant rattle of his lance in the stirrup. He's gone to kill
him, the bloodthirsty imbecile!"
"To shoot him?" asked Jack, aghast.
"No; he's got his broad wood-knife--that's the way these brutes
kill. Hark! Good God!"
A scream rang through the forest; something was coming towards
them, too--a horse, galloping, galloping, pounding, thundering
past--a frantic horse that tossed its head and tore on through
the night, mane flying, bridle loose. And there, crouched on the
saddle, two men swayed, locked in a death-clench--an Uhlan with
ghostly face and bared teeth, and Brocard, the poacher, cramped
and clinging like a panther to his prey, his broad knife flashing
in the gloom.
In a second they were gone; far away in the forest the hoof
strokes echoed farther and farther, duller, duller, then ceased.
"Drive on," muttered Jack, with lips that could barely form the
words.
XXIX
THE MESSAGE OF THE FLAG
It was dawn when Lorraine awoke, stifling a cry of dismay. At the
same moment she saw Jack, asleep, huddled into a corner of the
post-chaise, his bloodless, sunken face smeared with the fine red
dust that drifted in from the creaking wheels. Grahame, driving
on the front seat, heard her move.
"Are you better?" he asked, cheerfully.
"Yes, thank you; I am better. Where are we?"
Grahame's face sobered.
"I'll tell you the truth," he said; "I don't know, and I can't
find out. One thing is certain--we've passed the last German
post, that is all I know. We ought to be near the frontier."
He looked back at Jack, smiled again, and lowered his voice:
"It's fortunate we have passed the German lines, because that
last cavalry outpost took all my papers and refused to return
them. I haven't an idea what to do now, except to go on as far as
we can. I wish we could find a village; the horses are not
exhausted, but they need rest."
Lorraine listened, scarcely conscious of what he said. She leaned
over Jack, looking down into his face, brushing the dust from his
brow with her finger-tips, smoothing his hair, with a timid,
hesitating glance at Grahame, who understood and gravely turned
his back.
Jack slept. She nestled down, pressing her soft, cool cheek close
to his; her eyes drooped; her lips parted. So they slept
together, cheek to cheek.
A mist drove across the meadows; from the plains, dotted with
poplars, a damp wind blew in puffs, driving the fog before it
until the blank vapour dulled the faint morning light and the
dawn faded into a colourless twilight. Spectral poplars, rank on
rank, loomed up in the mist, endless rows of them, fading from
sight as the vapours crowded in, appearing again as the fog
thinned in a current of cooler wind.
Grahame, driving slowly, began to nod in the thickening fog. At
moments he roused himself; the horses walked on and the wheels
creaked in the red dust. Hour after hour passed, but it grew no
lighter. Drowsy and listless-eyed the horses toiled up and down
the little hills, and moved stiffly on along the interminable
road, shrouded in a gray fog that hid the very road-side
shrubbery from sight, choked thicket and grove, and blotted the
grimy carriage windows.
Jack was awakened with startling abruptness by Grahame, who shook
his shoulders, leaning into the post-chaise from the driver's
seat.
"There's something in front, Marche," he said. "We've fallen in
with a baggage convoy, I fancy. Listen! Don't you hear the
camp-wagons? Confound this fog! I can't see a rod ahead."
Lorraine, also now wide awake, leaned from the window. The blank
vapour choked everything. Jack rubbed his eyes; his limbs ached;
he could scarcely move. Somebody was running on the road in
front--the sound of heavy boots in the dust came nearer and
nearer.
"Look out!" shouted Grahame, in French; "there's a team here in
the road! Passez au large!"
At the sound of his voice phantoms surged up in the mist around
them; from every side faces looked into the carriage windows,
passing, repassing, disappearing, only to appear again--ghostly,
shadowy, spectral.
"Soldiers!" muttered Jack.
At the same instant Grahame seized the lines and wheeled his
horses just in time to avoid collision with a big wagon in front.
As the post-chaise passed, more wagons loomed up in the fog, one
behind another; soldiers took form around them, voices came to
their ears, dulled by the mist.
Suddenly a pale shaft of light streamed through the fog above;
the restless, shifting vapours glimmered; a dazzling blot grew
from the mist. It was the sun. Little by little the landscape
became more distinct; the pallid, watery sky lightened; a streak
of blue cut the zenith. Everywhere in the road great, lumbering
wagons stood, loaded with straw; the sickly morning light fell on
silent files of infantry, lining the road on either hand.
"It's a convoy of wounded," said Grahame. "We're in the middle of
it. Shall we go back?"
A wagon in front of them started on; at the first jolt a cry sounded
from the straw, another, another--the deep sighs of the dying, the
groans of the stricken, the muttered curses of teamsters--rose in
one terrible plaint. Another wagon started--the wounded wailed;
another started--another--another--and the long train creaked on, the
air vibrating with the weak protestations of miserable, mangled
creatures tossing their thin arms towards the sky. And now, too, the
soldiers were moving out into the road-side bushes, unslinging rifles
and fixing bayonets; a mounted officer galloped past, shouting
something; other mounted officers followed; a bugle sounded
persistently from the distant head of the column.