Sword and Gown Part 16

When the first certain rumors of war prevailed, Royston Keene was shooting woodc.o.c.ks in the Hebrides; he hastened back to town without a moment's delay. We know how quick and unerring, on such occasions, is the instinct of the Rapacidae. His object was to get on the active-service list as soon as possible. With his powerful interest and high reputation, this was not difficult; and he was soon gazetted to a Light Cavalry regiment. But he did not go out with the first detachments, and the summer was far advanced when he reached the Crimea.

There was great jubilation at his coming. Many out there knew him personally, well; and others rejoiced at having the opportunity of judging for themselves if he really deserved his fame. It soon became apparent that the Cool Captain was strangely altered. To be sure, the opportunities for general conviviality were few, for mess-rooms and ante-rooms were phantoms of the imagination, or only pleasant memories; still, there was a certain amount of agreeable though select _reunions_, where the vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy were sufficiently replaced by regulation rum. At these Royston appeared rarely; and when he did show there, was remarkably silent, and apt to let a favorable opportunity, even for a sarcasm, go by. He seemed to prefer the solitude of his own tent to the most tempting inducements of society. Men remembered afterward how, if they went in and found him alone, he was always busy with his revolver, or playing with his sabre. He had refused two advantageous offers of staff appointments, for no apparent reason except the desire not to be out of the way if any work were to be done: and scarcely a day pa.s.sed when he was not up at head-quarters, trying to find out if there was any chance of a break in the long inaction of the cavalry. Whether it was that the old blood-thirstiness had waked again in a congenial atmosphere, or whether a great weariness weighing on his spirits made him so impatient and restless, none can know for certain.

Again I say, let us not sift motives too inquisitively.

It is the morning of the 25th of October, and a lull comes between the storm-gusts. The "Heavies" have just taken up their position, after that magnificent charge, in which the Russian lancers were scattered like dead leaves in autumn when the wind is blowing freshly. There are murmurs of discontent running the ranks of the Light Brigade; it seems as if _their_ chance was never coming. One of his intimates grumbles as much to Royston Keene. The Cool Captain straightens a stray lock of his charger's mane, and answers, with his old provoking smile,

"Don't fret yourself, George. I have a presentiment that we shall get rid of the 'fidgets' before we sleep. See--_that_ looks like business."

It seemed as if a spirit of prophecy possessed him; for even while he was speaking, the aide-de-camp came down at speed. There was a pause while that message was delivered, the exact words of which will never be known--for you can not summon the dead as witnesses; then a brief hesitation, and a dozen sentences exchanged between the first and second in command; and then--every trooper in the Brigade understood what he had to do. Many drew true and evil augury from the cloud lowering on the stern features of the "Haughty Earl."

Keene had been under fire oftener than most there, and his practiced eye took in and appreciated every item of the peril; nevertheless, his brow cleared, and all his face lighted up strangely.

"What did I tell you, young one?" he said to the man who had addressed him just before; "it will be warmer work than the old Phoenix field-days; but one comfort is, it won't last so long."

Before the words were fairly uttered the trumpets rang out; and with a gayer laugh on his lip than it had worn for many a day, the Cool Captain led his squadron gallantly into Aceldama.

We will not describe the charge. Enthusiasts are not wanting who would rather have ridden in it than have won the highest distinction to which civilians can aspire. Who dares to object that it was not ultimately successful? Such a taunt has never been weighed in the balance against the glories of Thermopylae. I frequently meet in society one of the Paladins of that fatal Roncesvalles. In private life he has few peculiarities, except a tendency to engage in each and every game of chance, and a perfect monomania for waltzing. Yet I regard him with an immense respect and reverence, that the object of the feeling would be the last to understand. I think of the awful peril out of which the delicate, feminine face has come without a scar; and I protest I would no more dream of speaking to him angrily or slightingly, than I would venture to discourse about the Derby to the Bishop of O----, or to offer to that dignified prelate the current odds against the favorite. Rely upon it, in many homes of England (if the Manchestrians leave them standing) there will be one family portrait that our children will most delight to honor. Pointing out to strangers the crowning glory of their house, they will pa.s.s by grave effigies of lawyers, ecclesiastics, and statesmen, and pause opposite to a martial figure, dressed in the uniform of a light dragoon. All his ancestors shall give precedence to the simple soldier, who rode that day in the van of the Six Hundred.

Yes, we will leave that charge alone. The most hackneyed of professional _litterateurs_ might shrink from sitting down to his writing-desk, to make merchandise of such a "deed of _derring-do_." Nevertheless, Royston Keene bore his part in it manfully; and the troopers talk yet of the feats of skill and strength wrought by his sabre.

The immunity from dangers of shot and steel for which he had been always remarkable, did not seem to have deserted him; for he had come out of the batteries without a scratch, and had fought his way through more than one knot and peloton of the enemy, with no scathe beyond a slight flesh-wound. In one of these encounters he had got separated from such remnants of his squadron as still held together (you know even regiments lost their unity in that terrible _melee_), the only man who still kept near him was his covering-sergeant. All this while the fire from the Russian guns on the hill-side grew heavier and heavier, while the cruel grape-shot ripped through the mingled ma.s.ses of friends and foes: making sudden, unsightly gaps here and there, just as may be seen in a field of ripe corn "laid" by the las.h.i.+ng hail. The good horse on which Keene was mounted had not been out from England long enough to suffer materially in wind or limb; he was in very fair condition, and had carried his master splendidly so far, with equal luck in escaping any serious injury. Five hundred yards more would have placed them in safety, within the position where the Heavy Brigade was already moving up to cover the retreat of their comrades, when the Templar, going at top-speed, pitched suddenly forward, as a s.h.i.+p does when she founders; and, after rolling once half over his rider, lay still, with limbs just faintly quivering.

Two grape-shot, making one wound, had crashed right into his chest and through the heart.

His covering-sergeant was within three lengths of Royston when the latter went down: he pulled up and sprang down instantly, and was by his officer's side in a second, trying to extricate him.

"Hold up, Major," he said cheerily; "that's nothing. Take my horse.

He'll carry you in; and I can manage well enough."

The strong soldier reeled, from sheer weakness, as he was speaking; for the blood was spouting in dark-red jets from a ghastly cut in his bridle arm: yet he seemed to see nothing in his offer but a simple act of duty; though men have won a place in history for meaner self-sacrifice. One of the most remarkable peculiarities about the Cool Captain was the hold he maintained over the affections and impulses of those with whom he was brought in contact, without any visible reason for such influence. He was the strictest possible disciplinarian; and his demeanor toward his subordinates was consistently dictatorial; yet the present case was only one instance of the enthusiasm with which they regarded him.

Keene looked up at the speaker wistfully, from where he lay; and his face softened in its set sternness.

"You're a good fellow, Davis," he said; "but I would not avail myself of your generosity if I could. I can't take much credit for refusing it. My thigh is broken; and I am hurt besides. I couldn't keep the saddle for ten seconds. Draw my right gauntlet off, and take my ring; you deserve it better than the Cossacks. Keep it as long as you like; it will always bring you a fifty, if you get hard up. And take _this_ too." He put his hand into the breast of his uniform; but drew it back quickly. "No: it shall stay with me while I live."

His tone and manner were just the same as if he had met with a heavy fall, out hunting, and were answering some good-natured friend who had stopped to pick him up.

The trooper took the ring; but he lingered still. Royston saw a knot of the enemy sweeping down on them, like ravens on a stag wounded to the death; his voice resumed its wonted accent of irresistible command.

"Did you hear what I said? I told you to go. Those devils will be down on us in less than a minute. I have not fired one barrel of my revolver, and I'm good for one or two of them yet."

The habit of obedience, more than the instinct of self-preservation, made Davis mount and ride away without another word. He looked back, though, as he did so. He heard three distinct reports from Keene's revolver: two of the enemy's skirmishers dropped to the shots, and the third wavered in his saddle; the rest closed round the fallen man with leveled lances. The stout sergeant looked back no more; but he set his teeth hard, and turned out of his way to encounter a stray Russian, and laid the foeman's face open from eyebrow to lip, with an awful blasphemy. The spot where Royston fell was so near to the British lines that those who slaughtered him dared not stay for plunder. Half an hour later, Davis and two more volunteers went out and brought in the mangled body of the best swordsman in the Light Brigade.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Not dead yet!

Though the b.l.o.o.d.y Muscovite spearmen thought they had left a corpse behind them, and though the surgeons who examined him decided that he could not survive the night, the obstinate vitality in Royston Keene still lingered on, refusing to yield to wounds that might have drained the life out of three strong men. It seemed as if some strange doom were upon him, such as was laid on the Black Slave in the _Arabian Nights_, loved by the enchantress-queen; or a Durindarte in the old romance, where the tortured spirit, enthralled by potent spells, was withheld for a season from departure, though its tenement was all shattered and ruined. His case from the first was utterly hopeless; and his bodily helplessness at times almost resembled catalepsy; yet his faculties were quite clear. He could recognize his friends, and talk with them quite composedly; cry or complaint never once issued from those rigid lips.

They sent him down to Scutari at last, not with any hope of his recovery, but wis.h.i.+ng to insure him all available comforts in his dying moments. It was a rough pa.s.sage (even on invalids the cruel Euxine had little mercy) this, and the pain of transport through the few hundred yards that were between the vessel and the hospital almost exhausted the dregs of Royston's strength. When they laid him down on the bed allotted to him, in a small room of the main ward, of which he was to be the sole tenant, none of the surgeons could have told if they were dealing with life or death. Work was so heavy on their hands at that dreadful season, that they could not devote more than a certain s.p.a.ce of precious time to any one patient; so after trying all means and appliances of recovery in vain, they left Keene for a while in his swoon. It seemed as if he would never open his eyes again. They unclosed slowly at last, still dim with the deathly faintness; his head was dizzy and confused; and in his ears there was a dull, droning sound, like the murmur of a distant sea. As objects and sounds a.s.sumed more distinctness, he became aware of the figure of a woman sitting on the ground by the side of his couch--her head buried in her hands--rocking herself ever to and fro, and never pausing in her low, heart-broken wail. If old tales speak truth, such a figure might be seen in dark corners of haunted houses; and such a wail might echo at dead of night through chambers conscious of some fearful crime. Instinct more than reason revealed to Royston the truth.

The lips that under the thrusts of Russian lances, and through all subsequent tortures, had guarded so jealously the secret of his agony, could not repress a groan as they syllabled the name of--Cecil Tresilyan.

It was so. The brilliant beauty who for two seasons had ruled the world in which she moved so imperiously--insatiate of conquest, and defying rivalry--the delicate _aristocrate_ who from her childhood had been used to every imaginable luxury, and had appreciated them all--was found again, here, in the gray robe of a Sister of Charity, content to endure real, bitter hards.h.i.+ps, and to witness daily sights from which womanhood, with all its bravery, must needs recoil. The motives that had urged her to such a step would be hard indeed to define. The same weariness and impatience of inaction that have been alluded to in the case of Royston Keene may have had much to do with it; to this, perhaps, was added a feeling of wild remorse, seeking to vent itself in self-torturing penance, such as impelled kings and conquerors in old days to don the palmer's gown, and macerate their bodies by fast and scourge; there may have been, too, some vague, unacknowledged longing to seize the last chance of seeing her lost love once again. Might she not tend _him_ as she nursed the other wounded, without adding to the weight of her sin? If she ever entertained such an idea, her punishment may well have atoned for her offense, when she came suddenly and unprepared into that sick-chamber, and looked upon the mangled wreck lying senseless there.

Royston spoke first. "What brought you here?" If it was possible that he could feel any thing like terror, surely the hollow, tremulous voice betrayed it then.

Cecil Tresilyan sprang to her feet as if an electric shock had moved her, and stood gazing at him with her great, desolate, tearless eyes; all her misery could not make them hard or haggard, nor dispel their marvelous enchantment. Royston marked the impulse that would have drawn her to his side; and threw out one weak hand to warn her off; with the other he tried to cover his own scarred, ghastly face. "Don't come near me," he muttered; "I can't bear it." Her woman's instinct fathomed his meaning instantly: he thought that even _she_ must shrink from him. She laughed out loud (for her brain was almost turning) as she knelt down and raised his head on her arm, and smoothed his matted hair, and kissed the death-damp from his forehead, murmuring between the caresses, "You dare not keep me from you. Do you think that _I_ fear you, my own--my own!"

The glory of a great triumph--grand, even if sinful--lighted up the face of the dying man; and intense pa.s.sion made even his voice strong and steady. "I believe this is better than the paradise we dreamed of in the island of the Greek Sea."

Without a moment's pause the sweet, sad voice replied, "Yes, it is better. _Then_ I should have died first, and hopelessly. _Now_ there is no guilt between us that may not be forgiven."

Silence lasted till Royston gathered energy to speak again.

"You remember the glove? See--I have not parted with it yet." He drew from his breast a case of steel links hung round his neck by a chain: it held Cecil's gauntlet--stained and stiffened with his blood. That was the treasure he would not resign when he lay on the ground, waiting for the Russian lances. "You did not think that I should forget you, because I never answered your letter?"

As had happened once before, a portion of his fort.i.tude and self-command seemed transfused into Cecil Tresilyan. She spoke quite steadily now.

"How could I misjudge your silence, when I begged you not to write? I have been very miserable, thinking how angry you would be; and yet I could not help what I did. But I never fancied you had forgotten me.

Forgetting is not so easy. Now tell me about yourself. I have heard of that glorious charge. But those terrible wounds--how you must have suffered!"

Out of the dim, glazing eyes flashed for one moment a gleam of soldierly pride. "Yes, we rode straight, on the twenty-fifth--I among the rest. I suppose I have suffered some pain, but that is all past and gone. I am sensible of nothing but the great happiness of holding your little hand once more. See--I can hold it without shame, for my fingers have not pressed those of any woman alive since we parted."

She saw how the utterance of those few words told upon him, and refrained from the delight of listening longer to the voice that was still to her inexpressibly dear. So she checked him fondly when he would have gone on speaking. Yet the silence that ensued was first broken by Cecil.

"My own! I fear--I fear that you are in great danger. How long we may _both_ have to suffer, G.o.d alone can tell. But will you not see a clergyman? He might help you though I am weak and powerless."

A shadow of the old sardonic scorn swept across Keene's emaciated face, and pa.s.sed away as suddenly.

"It is somewhat late for any help that priests can bring. Besides, I can not dwell now on any of my past sins, save one. All my thoughts are taken up with the wrong that I have done to you."

This was true. If there were reproachful phantoms that had a right to haunt Royston's death-bed, the living presence kept them all at bay.

Cecil's eyes had never been more eloquent than they were then, but they spoke of nothing but despair.

"Ah, heaven! can not you see that all _I_ have to forgive has been forgiven long ago? What is to become of me if you die hardened in your sin? Must I live on, _hoping_ that we are parted forever? If you are pitiless to your own soul, have mercy, at least, upon me!"

All Royston's former crimes seemed to him venial by comparison, as he witnessed the misery and abas.e.m.e.nt of the glorious creature on whom he had brought such sorrow, if not shame. The remorse that a strong will and hard heart had stifled so long found voice at last in three muttered words--"G.o.d forgive me!" A very n.i.g.g.ardly and inadequate expression of contrition--was it not?--conceded to a life whose sins outnumbered its years. Yet the slight thread of hope drawn therefrom has been able since to hold back Cecil Tresilyan from the abyss of utter desperation. She forbore to press him farther then, seeing his increasing weakness, and trusting, perhaps, that a more favorable opportunity would come.

Indeed, there were a thousand things to be said about the past, in which both had borne a part, and the future, in which only one could share; but Royston had estimated rightly the extent of his remaining physical resources; and when he found how each syllable exhausted him, he became as chary of words as a miser of his gold. His right hand still grasped hers firmly; and her delicate cheek was pillowed on his shoulder; the fingers of his other hand played gently with a long, glossy chestnut tress that had escaped from the prison of the close cap she wore. So they remained, for a long time--no sound pa.s.sing between them, beyond half-formed whispers of endearment: no one came in to molest them: there was work enough and to spare, that night, for all in Scutari. The thought of interruption never crossed Cecil's mind for an instant.

Always careless and defiant of conventionality, or the world's opinion, she was tenfold more reckless now. Her head was bent down, and her eyes closed; so that she could not see how the hollows deepened on her lover's face; nor how the pallor of his cheek darkened rapidly to an ashen-gray. But inward warnings of approaching dissolution spoke plainly enough to Royston Keene. He knew what he had to do.

He raised her head from where it rested, and said, so gently, "If my time is short, there is the more reason that I should be loth to lose you, even for an hour. But you must have rest; and I feel as if I could sleep. Do not try to persuade me; but leave me now. When you think hereafter of this evening, remember what my last words were. _I loved you best of all._ Darling--wish me good-night; and come to see me early to-morrow."

He guessed, full well, how long that night would last, and what sight would meet Cecil on the morrow; but he was resolute to spare her one additional pang, and so endured alone the whole burden of the parting agony. His whole life had been full of deeds of reckless daring; but, in good truth, this achievement was its very crown of courage.