THE AMBUSH.
Pappenheim had brought up another body of at least a thousand horse,
and placed them in a wood, on the extreme left of his bivouac, in
front of which we found the original foe we had come to attack, the
Walloons mounted and under arms, as we approached; their dark figures
being distinctly defined against the sky, which was becoming lighter
every moment, day having now begun to dawn. As we advanced in
squadrons and formed line, they threw forward a body of skirmishers;
we did the same, and there ensued a desultory firing of pistols and
musketoons, by which several lives were lost, and, as usual in such
cavalry encounters, a great quantity of ammunition was wasted; for
when troopers contend against troopers with fire-arms, not one shot
in fifty takes effect. During this skirmish, which absorbed all our
interest, we did not perceive that another body of horse had defiled
from the wood on our left, and taken up a position between it and the
river Sarre, covering the highway, and completely cutting off our
retreat to Zaberne. This was a fine body of imperial cuirassiers
formed in line three deep, and led by Pappenheim. My amiable friend
De Bitche commanded that corps of Walloons which held us in play
while this artful and successful manoeuvre had been executed. The
moment they had taken up their ground, the Walloons recalled their
skirmishers by sound of trumpet, preparatory to charging our line in
double columns of squadrons, and then we discovered the trap into
which we had fallen.
'By heavens!' said Dundrennan; 'this game will cost some of us our
lives.'
'Mordieu!' added the Marquis de Toneins, galloping furiously up to
our leader, 'M. le Marquis de Gordon, Lavalette has been misled;
instead of one, we have at least two thousand here to meet our nine
hundred men!'
'This comes of having troops commanded by cardinals and holiday
generals,' replied Gordon, bitterly.
'Then what remains to be done?'
'There is nothing for us, but to retire.'
'In what order?' asked De Toneins, impetuously.
'Form your dragoons in squadrons again, Marquis; we will cut a
passage through those fellows in our rear, and fall back on Zaberne.'
'A passage?'--
'Of course,' said Gordon, loftily; 'I will open the ball with the
gentlemen of the Scottish Guard.'
'So be it then--Vive le Roi!' cried the young Marquis, as he gave the
order, which was executed at full speed, and before his dragoons
attained their new formation, we were already riding full at this new
enemy.
We, the cuirassiers, presented a front of about forty files only,
while the body we were to break through, had its flanks so far
extended, that they could have overlapped twenty times our number.
In the rear rank, I was Lord Dundrennan's covering file. The foe, a
black and solid line of dragoons, after firing from their carbines a
volley, by which we lost several brave gentlemen (for their fire was
given by a triple rank), got gradually into a trot, slinging their
fire-arms and drawing their swords, as they advanced with all their
trumpets sounding.
As the speed of our horses increased, so did our spirit fire up at
the emergency and the danger; and with the confidence we felt, of
being equal to anything that men might essay, we became closer and
closer, more firm and compact in our formation, and more furious in
our speed. A wild enthusiasm seemed to spread from heart to heart
along our little line; and had even a coward been there, he must have
caught a glow of courage from the glorious spirit around him.
'Close up--touch in--close up!' cried old Patrick Gordon, when the
hot fire thinned our ranks and, as the old Border ballad says,--
'Closing up on every side,
No slackness there was found;
Though many a gallant gentleman
Lay gasping on the ground'
Those who had the misfortune to fall, or be unhorsed, were doomed to
immediate death; for the rear squadrons of the Marquis de Toneins
trampled everything flat upon the turf. Goring our horses, riding
knee to knee at racing speed, with our teeth set and our swords
uplifted we rushed upon the Austrians. The Chevalier Livingstone was
shot through the left thigh, but kept his place till his boot was
full of blood; Patrick Gordon was wounded, and a ball took the plume
from my helmet; but the foe had not time to fire another shot; for,
with a reckless shout we were upon them,--and the shock of our
meeting was tremendous, forcing many of the chargers to reel back
upon their haunches.
'Vive le Roi! St. Andrew! St. Andrew!' cried the Marquis of Gordon;
and while we all echoed the battle-cry of the Garde du Corps
Ecossais, we bore the enemy back--cutting, hewing, slashing, and
throwing horses and men to the earth. I felt many intended cuts and
blows glide off my helmet, given I knew not by whom; and in the
crush, confusion, and fury of the conflict, I actually forgot all
about Pappenheim for a time, and scarcely knew at whom to strike, but
hewed away at random. Swords were gleaming and clashing on all sides
of me; and as they were whirled about, drops of blood were seen to
fly through the air.
The Marquis of Gordon slew three men in succession; Dundrennan was
unhorsed in the melée, but shot a German trooper by his
girdle-pistol, and mounted his horse, almost in the time I take to
write it. Our old Marechal de Logis was hewing away on all sides
with his enormous bilbo, keeping three or four horsemen in play at
once, for we had now become broken, involved among the foe, and,
while still spurring and pressing towards the Zaberne road, were
engaged in a series of desperate personal combats, in which every
gentleman of the Guard had at least two swords opposed to his single
weapon. Poor Sir Quentin Home, though faint with loss of blood, had
rid himself of two antagonists, when a third passed a sword fairly
through his body. He uttered a wild cry, and, grasping the right
hand of the Austrian to prevent him withdrawing the blade, he
actually thrust the shell close up to the wound, and, rising in his
stirrups with the last energies of despair and death, clove his
destroyer through helmet and skull down to the moustache, and then
threw his sword into the air, crying,--
'A Home! a Home! _True to the end!_' and fell dead from his horse,
with his foeman above him. It was the motto of his house he had
cried aloud, and with it closed his life and his name, for--rest him,
God!--Sir Quentin was the last of his race.
Just as he sank from sight among the frightful débris of this brief
and rapid conflict, I perceived before me a familiar face, flushed
with excitement, and having a pair of eyes that glared at me through
the ribs of a triple-barred helmet. This was Wolfgang Count
Pappenheim, and we were somewhat apart from the general melée. Not a
word did we exchange; but there was a furious blow given, a fortunate
parry made, and then a deadly thrust or two; after which we paused,
surveying each other with the gloomy determination of two men who
were never to part alive. By one lucky stroke I cut his reins, which
placed him completely at my mercy, for both his pistols were empty;
so, with an oath of rage, he hurled them at my head. I then levelled
a pistol full in his face, saying,--
'Yield, Count--yield, or I kill you!'
He smiled disdainfully, and, with a glance full of spite and fury,
proffered his sword by the hilt. I stretched forth my hand to
receive it, when suddenly the traitor turned the point upon me, and
would have run me through the body had not the blade been struck up
by Raynold Cheyne, who was at my side. He then passed his own sword
twice through the body of Pappenheim, who fell forward on his horse's
neck, and, with blood gushing from his mouth, dropped dead beneath
our horse's feet.
'Here ends our rivalry!' thought I, as the Garde du Corps pressed on,
and dashed furiously along the Zaberne road, leaving the Marquis de
Toneins and his dragoons to pass through the deadly gap we had made
in the ranks of the German reitres; but in achieving that service
nearly twenty of my noble comrades left their bodies on the field.
Of the hundred Scottish cuirassiers who marched from Paris, there
were now only sixty under the king's standard. We had escaped the
snare prepared for us, and slain Count Pappenheim; but while De
Bitche was left alive, I deemed the work of that day but half done.
'Raynold's sword has done you a good service,' said Dundrennan, in a
low voice, and with a grim smile, as he reloaded his pistols while we
rode together at an easy trot along the path of rock that led to
Zaberne. 'Pappenheim is removed for ever from your path.'
'That matters little, Viscount,' said I, bitterly. 'She is beautiful
and nobly born, and will always find those who will love her and beg
her love. I would that she were still but the little soubrette I
first knew her! Pappenheim was brave, but foully treacherous, as the
last act of his life proved amply. Yet 'tis said this fellow really
loved Marie Louise.'
'He--then, if so, and common rumour be believed, he never loved
anything else.'
'Save his wine-pot.'
'True; but the Count is a German.'
I looked back to the mountains, where a silver haze was rising in the
sunshine from the valley, where poor Quentin Home of Redden with so
many of our comrades lay.
'Twenty of our brother soldiers have gone this morning to their last
account,' said the Marquis of Gordon, with emotion. 'Alas! how this
cursed soil of Alsace soaks up our Scottish blood!'