"Jack Marche!"
"Eh!" cried Jack, startled.
Then he looked more closely at the young officer before him, who was laughing in his face.
"Well, upon my word! No--it can"t be little Georges Carriere?"
"Yes, it can!" cried the other, briskly; "none of your d.a.m.ned airs, Jack! Embrace me, my son!"
"My son, I won"t!" said Jack, leaning forward joyously--"the idea! Little Georges calls me his son! And he"s learning the paternal tricks of the old generals, and doubtless he calls his troopers "mes enfants," and--"
"Oh, shut up!" said Georges, giving him an impetuous hug; "what are you up to now--more war correspondence? For the same old _Herald_? Nom d"une pipe! It"s cooler here than in Oran. It"ll be hotter, too--in another way," with a gay gesture towards the valley below. "Jack Marche, tell me all about everything!"
On either side the blue-jacketed troopers fell back, grinning with sympathy as Georges guided his horse into a field on the right, motioning Jack to follow.
"We can talk here a bit," he said; "you"ve lots of time to ride on. Now, fire ahead!"
Jack told him of the three years spent in idleness, of the vapid life in Paris, the long summers in Brittany, his desire to learn to paint, and his despair when he found he couldn"t.
"I can sketch like the mischief, though," he said. "Now tell me about Oran, and our dear General Chanzy, and that devil"s own "Legion," and the h.e.l.l"s Selected 2d Zouaves! Do you remember that day at Damas when Chanzy visited the Emir Abd-el-Kader at Doummar, and the fifteen Spahis of the escort, and that little imp of the Legion who was caught roaming around the harem, and--"
Georges burst into a laugh.
"I can"t answer all that in a second! Wait! Do you want to know about Chanzy? Well, he"s still in Bel-Abbes, and he"s been named commander of the Legion of Honour, and he"s no end of a swell. He"ll be coming back now that we"ve got to chase these sausage-eaters across the Rhine. Look at me! You used to say that I"d stopped growing and could never aspire to a mustache! Now look! Eh? Five feet eleven and--_what_ do you think of my mustache? Oh, that African sun sets things growing!
I"m lieutenant, too."
"Does the African sun also influence your growth in the line of promotion?" asked Jack, grinning.
"Same old farceur, too!" mused Georges. "Now, what the mischief are you doing here? Oh, you are staying at Morteyn?"
"Yes."
"I--er--I used to visit another house--er--near by. You know the Marquis de Nesville?" asked Georges, innocently.
"I? Oh yes."
"You have--perhaps you have met Mademoiselle de Nesville?"
"Yes," said Jack, shortly.
"Oh."
There was a silence. Jack shuffled his booted toes in his stirrups; Georges looked out across the valley.
In the valley the vapours were rising; behind the curtain of shredded mist the landscape lay hilly, nearly treeless, cut by winding roads and rank on rank of spare poplars. Farther away clumps of woods appeared, and little hillocks, and now, as the air cleared, the spire of a church glimmered. Suddenly a thin line of silver cut the landscape beyond the retreating fog. The Saar!
"Where are the Prussians?" asked Jack, breaking the silence.
Georges laid his gloved hand on his companion"s arm.
"Do you see that spire? That is Saarbruck. They are there."
"This side of the Rhine, too?"
"Yes," said Georges, reddening a little; "wait, my friend."
"They must have crossed the Saar on the bridges from Saint-Johann, then. I heard that Uhlans had been signalled near the Saar, but I didn"t believe it. Uhlans in France? Georges, when are you fellows going to chase them back?"
"This morning--you"re just in time, as usual," said Georges, airily. "Do you want me to give you an idea of our positions?
Listen, then: we"re ma.s.sed along the frontier from Sierk and Metz to Hagenau and Strasbourg. The Prussians lie at right angles to us, from Mainz to Lauterburg and from Trier to Saarbruck. Except near Saarbruck they are on their side of the boundary, let me tell you! Look! Now you can see Forbach through the trees. We"re there and we"re at Saint-Avold and Bitsch and Saargemund, too. As for me, I"m with this d.a.m.ned rear-guard, and I count tents and tin pails, and I raise the devil with stragglers and generally ennui myself. I"m no gendarme! There"s a regiment of gendarmes five miles north, and I don"t see why they can"t do depot duty and police this country."
"The same child--kicking, kicking, kicking!" observed Jack. "You ought to thank your luck that you are a spectator for once. Give me your gla.s.s."
He raised the binoculars and levelled them at the valley.
"h.e.l.lo! I didn"t see those troops before. Infantry, eh? And there goes a regiment--no, a brigade--no, a division, at least, of cavalry. I see cuira.s.siers, too. Good heavens! Their breastplates take the sun like heliographs! There are troops everywhere; there"s an artillery train on that road beyond Saint-Avold. Here, take the gla.s.ses."
"Keep them--I know where they are. What time is it, Jack? My repeater is running wild--as if it were chasing Prussians."
"It"s half-past nine; I had no idea that it was so late! Ha!
there goes a ma.s.s of infantry along the hill. See it? They"re headed for Saarbruck! Georges, what"s that big marquee in the wheat-field?"
"The Emperor is there," said Georges, proudly; "those troopers are the Cuira.s.siers of the Hundred-Guards. See their white mantles? The Prince Imperial is there, too. Poor little man--he looks so tired and bewildered."
Jack kept his gla.s.ses fixed on the white dot that marked the imperial headquarters, but the air was hazy and the distance too great to see anything except specks and points of white and black, slowly shifting, gathering, and collecting again in the grain-field, that looked like a tiny square of pale gilt on the hill-top.
Suddenly a spot of white vapour appeared over the spire of Saarbruck, then another, then three together, little round clouds that hung motionless, wavered, split, and disappeared in the sunshine, only to be followed by more round cloud clots. A moment later the dull mutter of cannon disturbed the morning air, distant rumblings and faint shocks that seemed to come from an infinite distance.
Jack handed back the binoculars and opened his own field-gla.s.ses in silence. Neither spoke, but they instinctively leaned forward, side by side, sweeping the panorama with slow, methodical movements, gla.s.ses firmly levelled. And now, in the valley below, the long roads grew black with moving columns of cavalry and artillery; the fields on either side were alive with infantry, dim red squares and oblongs, creeping across the landscape towards that line of silver, the Saar.
"It"s a flank movement on Wissembourg," said Jack, suddenly; "or are they swinging around to take Saint-Johann from the north?"
"Watch Saarbruck," muttered Georges between his teeth.
The slow seconds crept into minutes, the minutes into hours, as they waited there, fascinated. Already the sharper rattle of musketry broke out on the hills south of the Saar, and the projectiles fell fast in the little river, beyond which the single spire of Saarbruck rose, capped with the smoke of exploding sh.e.l.ls.
Jack sat sketching in a canvas-covered book, raising his brown eyes from time to time, or writing on a pad laid flat on his saddle-pommel.
The two young fellows conversed in low tones, laughing quietly or smoking in absorbed silence, and even their subdued voices were louder than the roll of the distant cannonade.
Suddenly the wind changed and their ears were filled with the hollow boom of cannon. And now, nearer than they could have believed, the crash of volley firing mingled with the whirring crackle of gatlings and the spattering rattle of Montigny mitrailleuses from the Guard artillery.
"Fichtre!" said Georges, with a shrug, "not only dancing, but music! What are you sketching, Jack? Let me see. Hm! Pretty good--for you. You"ve got Forbach too near, though. I wonder what the Emperor is doing. It seems too bad to drag that sick child of his out to see a lot of men fall over dead. Poor little Lulu!"
"Kicking, kicking ever!" murmured Jack; "the same fierce Republican, eh? I"ve no sympathy with you--I"m too American."
"Cheap cynicism," observed Georges. "h.e.l.lo!--here"s an aide-de-camp with orders. Wait a second, will you?" and the young fellow gathered bridle and galloped out into the high-road, where his troopers stood around an officer wearing the black-and-scarlet of the artillery. A moment later a bugle began to sound the a.s.sembly; blue-clad cavalrymen appeared as by magic from every thicket, every field, every hollow, while below, in the nearer valley, another bugle, shrill and fantastic, summoned the squadrons to the colours. Already the better part of a regiment had gathered, four abreast, along the red road. Jack could see their eagles now, gilt and circled with gilded wreaths.
He pocketed sketch-book and pad and turned his horse out through the fields to the road.