My Lady Rotha Part 31

After that my lady composed herself anew, and the day wore on, in desultory conversation and a grim kind of picnic. Noon came, and afternoon, and the Countess grew nervous and irritable. But General Tzerclas, though the hours, as they pa.s.sed without event, without bringing that for which he waited, must have tried him severely, showed to advantage throughout. He was ready to talk, satisfied to be silent. Late in the day, when my lady, drowsy with the heat, dozed a little, he brought out his Caesar, and read, in it, as if nothing depended on the day, and he were the most indifferent of spectators.

She awoke and found him reading, and, for a time, sat staring at him, wondering where she was. At last she remembered. She sat up with a start, and gazed at him.

'Are we still waiting?' she said.

'We are still waiting,' he answered, closing his book with a smile.

'But,' he continued, a moment later, 'I think I hear something now.

Keep back a little, if you please, Countess.'

We all stood up among the trees, listening, and presently, though the murmuring of the river in the pa.s.s prevented us hearing duller sounds, a sharp noise, often repeated, came to our ears. It resembled the snapping of sticks under foot.

'Whips!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Stand back, if you please.'

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a handful of hors.e.m.e.n appeared on a sudden in the road below us. They came on like tired men, some with their feet dangling, some sitting sideways on their horses. Many had kerchiefs wound round their heads, and carried their steel caps at the saddle-bow; others nodded in their seats, as if asleep. They were abreast of our pikemen when we first saw them, and we watched them advance, until a couple of hundred yards brought them into line with the musketmen. These, too, they pa.s.sed without suspicion, and so went jolting and clinking down the valley, every man with a bundle at his crupper, and strange odds and ends banging and swinging against his horse's sides.

Two hundred paces behind them the first waggon appeared, dragged slowly on by four labouring horses, and guarded by a dozen foot soldiers--heavy-browed fellows, lounging along beside the wheels, with their hands in their breeches pockets. Their long, trailing weapons they had tied at the tail of the waggon. Close on their heels came another waggon creaking and groaning, and another, and another, with a drowsy, stumbling train of teamsters and horse-boys, and here and there an officer or a knot of men-at-arms. But the foot soldiers had mostly climbed up into the waggons, and lay sprawling on the loads, with arms thrown wide, and heads rolling from side to side with each movement of the straining team.

We watched eighty of these waggons go by; the first must have been a mile and more in front of the last. After them followed a disorderly band of stragglers, among whom were some women. Then a thick, solid cloud of dust, far exceeding all that had gone before, came down the pa.s.s. It advanced by fits and starts, now plunging forward, now halting, while the heart of it gave forth a dull roaring sound that rose above the murmur of the river.

'Cattle!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Five hundred head, I should say.

There can be nothing behind that dust. Be ready, trumpeter.'

The man he addressed stood a few paces behind us; and at intervals along the ridge others lay hidden, ready to pa.s.s the signal to an officer stationed on the farthest k.n.o.b, who as soon as he heard the call would spring up, and with a flag pa.s.s the order to the cavalry below him.

The suspense of the moment was such, it seemed an age before the general gave the word. He stood and appeared to calculate, now looking keenly towards the head of the convoy, which was fast disappearing in a haze of dust, now gazing down at the bellowing, struggling, wavering ma.s.s below us. At length, when the cattle had all but cleared the pa.s.s, he raised his hand and cried sharply--

'Now!'

The harsh blare of the trumpet pierced the upper stillness in which we stood. It was repeated--repeated again; then it died away shrilly in the distance. In its place, hoa.r.s.e clamour filled the valley below us.

We pressed forward to see what was happening.

The surprise was complete; and yet it was a sorry sight we saw down in the bottom, where the suns.h.i.+ne was dying, and guns were flas.h.i.+ng, and men were chasing one another in the grey evening light. Our musketmen, springing out of ambush, had shot down the horses of the last half-dozen waggons, and, when we looked, were falling pell-mell upon the unlucky troop of stragglers who followed. These, flying all ways, filled the air with horrid screams. Farther to the rear, our pikemen had seized the pa.s.s, and penning the cattle into it rendered escape by that road hopeless. Forward, however, despite the confusion and dismay, things were different. Our cavalry did not appear--the dust prevented us seeing what they were doing. And here the enemy had a moment's respite, a moment in which to think, to fly, to stand on their defence.

And soon, while we looked on breathless, it was evident that they were taking advantage of it. Possibly the general had not counted on the dust or the lateness of the hour. He began to gaze forward towards the head of the column, and to mutter savagely at the footmen below us, who seemed more eager to overtake the fugitives and strip the dead, than to press forward and break down opposition. He sent down Ludwig with orders; then another.

But the mischief was done already, and still the cavalry did not appear; being delayed, as we afterwards learned, by an unforeseen brook. Some one with a head on his shoulders had quickly drawn together all those among the enemy who could fight, or had a mind to fight. We saw two waggons driven out of the line, and in a moment overturned; in a twinkling the panic-stricken troopers and teamsters had a haven in which they could stand at bay.

Its value was soon proved. A company of our musketeers, pursuing some stragglers through the medley of flying horses and maddened cattle which covered the ground near the pa.s.s, came upon this rude fortress, and charged against it, recklessly, or in ignorance. In a moment a volley from the waggons laid half a dozen on the ground. The rest fell back, and scattered hither and thither. They were scarcely dispersed before a handful of the enemy's officers and mounted men came riding back from the front. Stabbing their horses in the intervals between the waggons, they took post inside. Every moment others, some with arms and some without, came straggling up. When our cavalry at last arrived on the scene, there were full three hundred men in the waggon work, and these the flower of the enemy. All except one had dismounted. This one, a man on a white charger, seemed to be the soul of the defence.

Our horse, flushed with triumph and yelling loudly, came down the line like a torrent, sabreing all who fell in their way. Half rode on one side of the convoy and half on the other. They had met with no resistance hitherto, and expected none, and, like the musketmen, were on the barricade before they knew of its existence. In the open, the stoutest hedgehog of pikes could scarcely have resisted a charge driven home with such blind recklessness; but behind the waggons it was different. Every interstice bristled with pike-heads, while the musketmen poured in a deadly fire from the waggon-tops. For a few seconds the place belched flame and smoke. Two or three score of the foremost a.s.sailants went down horse and man. The rest, saving themselves as best they could, swerved off to either side amid a roar of execrations and shouts of triumph.

My lady, trembling with horror, had long ago retired. She would no longer look. The Waldgrave, too, was gone; with her, I supposed. Half the general's attendants had been sent down the hill, some with one order, some with another. In this crisis--for I saw clearly that it was a crisis, and that if the defenders could hold out until darkness fell, the issue must be doubtful--I turned to look at our commander.

He was still cool, but his brow was dark with pa.s.sion. At one moment he stepped forward as if to go down into the _melee_; the next he repressed the impulse. The level rays of the sun which just caught the top of the hill shone in our eyes, while dust and smoke began to veil the field. We could still make out that the cavalry were sweeping round and round the barricade, pouring in now and then a volley of pistol shots; but they appeared to be suffering more loss than they caused.

Given a ring of waggons in the open, stoutly defended by resolute men, and I know nothing more difficult to reduce. Gazing in a kind of fascination into the depths where the smoke whirled and eddied, as the steam rolls this way and that on a caldron, I was wondering what I should do were I in command, when I saw on a sudden what some one was doing; and I heard General Tzerclas utter an oath of relief. Back from the front of the convoy came three waggons, surrounded and urged on by a mob of footmen; jolting and b.u.mping over the uneven ground, and often nearly overturned, still they came on, and behind them a larger troop of men. Finally they came almost abreast of the enemy's position, and some thirty paces to one side of it. There perforce they stayed, for the leading horses fell shot; but it was near enough. In an instant our men swarmed up behind them and began to fire volleys into the enemy's fortress, while the horse moving to and fro at a little distance forbade any attempt at a sally.

'That man has a head on his shoulders!' General Tzerclas muttered between his teeth. 'That is Ludwig! Now we have them!'

But I saw that it was not Ludwig; and presently the general saw it too. I read it in his face. The man who had brought up the waggons, and who could still be seen exposing himself, mounted and bare-headed in the hottest of the fire, ordering, threatening, inciting, leading, so that we could almost hear his voice where we stood, was the Waldgrave! His blue velvet cloak and bright fair head were unmistakable, though darkness was fast closing over the fight, and it was only at intervals that we could see anything through the pall of smoke.

'Vivat Weimar!' I cried involuntarily, a glow of warmth and pride coursing through my veins. In that moment I loved the young man as if he had been my son.

The next I fell from the clouds. What would my lady say if anything happened to him? What should I say if I stood by and saw him fall?

And he with no headpiece, breast or back! It was madness of him to expose himself! I started forward, stung by the thought, and before I knew what I was doing--for, in fact, I could have done no good--I was on the slope and descending the hill. Almost at the same moment the general gave the word to those who remained with him, and began to descend also. The hill was steep there, and it took us five minutes to reach the scene of action.

If I had foolishly thought that I could do anything, I was disappointed. By this time the battle was over. Manning every waggon within range, and pouring in a steady fire, our sharp-shooters had thinned the ranks behind the barricade. The enemy's fire had first slackened, and then ceased. A little later, one wing, unable to bear the shower of shot, had broken and tried to fly, and in a moment our pikemen had gained the work.

We heard the flight and pursuit go wailing up the valley, but the disorder, and darkness, and noise at the foot of the hill where we found ourselves, were such that I stood scared and bewildered, uncertain which way to turn or whither to go. On every side of me men were stripping the dead, the wounded were crying for water, and cattle and horses, wounded or maddened, were rus.h.i.+ng up and down among broken waggons and prostrate loads. Such eyes of cruelty and greed glared at me out of the gloom, such shouts cursed me across dead men that I drew my sword and carried it drawn. But the scene robbed me of half my faculties; I did not know which way to turn; I did not know what to do; and until I came upon Ludwig, I wandered aimlessly about, looking for the Waldgrave without plan or system. It was my first experience of the darker side of war, and it surpa.s.sed in horror anything I had imagined or thought possible.

Ludwig, badly wounded in the leg, I found under a waggon. I had stood beside him some time without seeing him, and he had not spoken. But when I moved away I suppose he recognized my figure or step, for when I had gone a few paces I heard a hoa.r.s.e voice calling my name. I went cautiously back to the waggon, and after a moment's search detected him peering from under it with a white, fierce face, which reminded me of a savage creature at bay.

'Hallo!' I said. 'Why did you not speak before, man?'

'Get me some water,' he whispered painfully. 'Water, for the love of Heaven!'

I told him that I had no flask or bottle, or I should before this have fetched some for others'. He gave me his, and I was starting off when I remembered that he might know how the Waldgrave had fared. I asked him.

'He led the pursuit,' he muttered. 'He is all right.' Then, as I was again turning away, he clutched my arm and continued, 'Have you a pistol?'

'Yes,' I said.

'Lend it to me until you come back,' he gasped. 'If these vultures find me they will finish me. I know them. That is better. I shall win through yet.'

I marked where his waggon stood, and left him. The river was distant less than a quarter of a mile, but it lay low, and the banks were steep; and in the darkness it was not easy to find a way down to the water. Succeeding at last--and how still and peaceful it seemed as I bent over the gently flowing surface and heard the plash and gurgle of the willows in the stream!--I filled my bottle and climbed back to the plain level. Here I found a change in progress. At intervals up and down the valley great fires had been kindled. Some of these, burning high already, lit up the wrecked convoy and the dark groups that moved round it, and even threw a red, uncertain glare far up the slopes of the hills. Aided by the light, I hastened back, and finding Ludwig without much difficulty, held the bottle to his lips. He seemed nearly gone, but the draught revived him marvellously.

When he had drunk I asked him if I could do anything else for him. He looked already more like himself.

'Yes,' he said, propping his back against the wheel and speaking with his usual hardihood. 'Tell our little general where I am. That is all.

I shall do now we have light. I am not afraid of these skulkers any longer. But here, friend Martin. You asked about your Waldgrave just now?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Has he returned?'

'He never went,' he replied coolly. 'But if I had told you when you first asked me, you would not have gone for water for me. He is down.

He fell, as nearly as I can remember, on the farther side of the second fire from here.'

With a curse I ran from him, raging, and searched round that fire and the next, like one beside himself. Many of the dead lay stripped to the skin, so that it was necessary to examine faces. And this ghastly task, performed with trembling fingers and by an uncertain light, took a long time. There were men prowling about with knives and bundles, whom I more than once interrupted in their work; but the sight of my pistol, and my face--for I was full of fierce loathing and would have shot them like rats--drove them off wherever I came. Not once but many times the wounded and dying begged me to stay by them and protect them; but my water was at an end and my time was not my own. I left them, and ran from place to place in a fever of dread, which allowed of no rest or relaxation. At last, when I had well-nigh given up hope, I found him lying half-stripped among a heap of dead and wounded, at the farthest corner of the barricade.

All his finery was gone, and his handsome face and fair hair were stained and bedabbled with dust and blood. But he was not dead. I could feel his heart beating faintly in his breast; and though he lay senseless and showed no other signs of life, I was thankful to find hope remained. I bore him out tenderly, and laid him down by himself and moistened his lips with the drainings of my flask. But what next?

I could not leave him; the plunderers who had already robbed him might return at any moment. And yet, without cordials, and coverings, and many things I had not, the feeble spark of life left in him must go out. I stood up and looked round in despair. A lurid glare, a pitiful wailing, a pa.s.sing of dark figures filled the valley. A hundred round us needed help; a hundred were beyond help. There were none to give it.

I was about to raise him in my arms and carry him in search of it--though I feared the effect of the motion on his wounds--when, to my joy and relief, the measured tramp of footsteps broke on my ears, and I distinguished with delight a party of men approaching with torches. A few mounted officers followed them, and two waggons creaked slowly behind. They were collecting the wounded.

I ran to meet them. 'Quick!' I cried breathlessly. 'This way!'

'Not so fast!' a harsh voice interposed; and, looking up, I saw that the general himself was directing the party. 'Not so fast, my friend,'

he repeated. 'Who is it?' and leaning forward in his saddle, he looked down at me.

'The Waldgrave Rupert,' I answered impatiently. 'He is hurt almost to death. But he is alive, and may live, your excellency. Only direct them to come quickly.'

Sitting on his horse in the full glare of the torches, he gazed down at me, his face wearing a strange expression of hesitation. 'He is alive?' he said at last.