DE BITCHE.
'M. l'Abbé, alias M. Blane de Blanerne, alias M. Scaramouche le
Moucharde, welcome! most welcome to share the hospitality of
Phalsbourg!' exclaimed De Bitche, twisting up his enormous black
moustache; 'by Beelzebub, but this is a most unexpected pleasure, for
we had quite given up all hope of seeing you again!'
'Perhaps so, M. le Comte, after murdering a poor soldier, in mistake
for me, on the Nanci road.'
'Your predilection for wandering outside your own camp is marvellous;
but we must cure you of it. Corboeuf! I would that Pappenheim were
here, to share with me the pleasure of giving you a welcome.'
When I gazed on the demon-like eye of this infamous noble--a
strangler, a gambler, and debaucher--I almost believed in the
sorceries and diablerie imputed to him by the simple peasantry of
Alsace and Lorraine.
'Well, mon condottiere,' continued the Count, in his bantering
manner; 'you gaze at me curiously--you remember having met me before,
I think?'
'Those who once behold your face, will never forget it;' said I,
making a violent effort to repress my growing anger.
'Oh, milles demons! one could not be mistaken then?'
'No, M. le Comte--those who once see your visage, will never behold
another like it.'
'Especially if they are in your perilous perdicament. You walk
stiffly--your spurs drip blood. By St. Nicholas! M. Blane, you have
ridden fast from Nanci; but not fast enough to escape me, who left it
before you; though six miles further on you would have found
Messieurs Hepburn and Lavalette, peppering Zaberne (a bitter
reflection certainly) with culverin and caliver. Had your horse
wings? But we shall not inquire. My dear M. Blane, I have you here
snug enough, and here you shall remain; for unless you write me a
little billet to my dictation, I shall hang you like a dog.'
'Hang?' I exclaimed, laying my hand on my sword.
He nodded his head, adding,
'Unless you pen for me a little billet.'
'A billet?'
'Milles demons! yes--I speak plain enough.'
'To whom?'
'Mademoiselle de Lorraine,' said he, in a hoarse whisper.
'Count, you are a villain!'
'M. le Commandant!' exclaimed at least twenty men, knitting their
brows and grasping their swords.
'Nay, nay, gentlemen,' said he, 'be patient, I pray you. It is a
defect of these Scots to be somewhat plainly spoken.'
'And to be truthful too,' I said with ungovernable fury, while
unsheathing my sword; but it was barely out of the scabbard, when the
rough hands of a crowd of armed men were laid upon me, and in a
moment, I was denuded of my belt, with its poniard and pistols, my
sword and purse of fifty crowns, with all my papers, while I was held
so tightly on every side that I could scarcely breathe. My
despatches were valueless to me, compared to the farewell note of
Marie Louise.
'M. le Comte,' exclaimed a bloated young subaltern of Swiss, who was
looking over my papers; 'here is a letter from mademoiselle--'
'De l'Orme--yes!' interrupted De Bitche, abruptly, closing the
sentence to mislead his followers, and snatching the letter of Louise
from the startled discoverer thereof; 'and on peril of your life,' he
added, 'speak no more of it.'
'But, M. le Comte,' said Schreckhorn, 'here is a protection from
Monseigneur le Duc, dated at Nanci, yesterday. This, at least, must
be respected.'
'A vile forgery--put it in the fire; every spy has papers.'
The protection given to me by Vaudemont was then consigned to the
flames.
'And here is a despatch sealed with the royal arms of France, and
addressed to M. le Chevalier Hepburn, marshal and general of the
Scots with the army of the Rhine.'
'Bon--diable! give me that!' shouted De Bitche, making a snatch at
the envelope, which contained the brave Hepburn's diploma of Marshal
of France; 'and now away with the moucharde to the turret above the
river; but, off with his buff coat first. Aha, messieurs! 'tis
laced, and of the true Parisian cut. Off with it, for by the
favourite corn of St. Nicolas, he will never need it more!'
My buff coat was rudely torn off me by some half-drunken Swiss and
Germans, among whom it formed an object of furious contention. I was
then dragged through the hall, along a dark passage, and up a narrow
stone stair, to a little arched door, through which I was thrust into
an apartment lighted only by fitful gleams of the moon, across which
the stormy clouds were hurrying in black masses; and there left to my
own anxious and alarming thoughts.