The old man, in his grotesque uniform, touched his bristling mustache and muttered: "Nom d"une pipe!" several times to steady his voice.
Lorraine and Jack pressed on silently, sorrowfully, hand in hand, watching the scouts ahead, who were creeping on through the trees, heads turning from side to side, rifles raised. They pa.s.sed along the back of a thickly wooded ridge for some distance, perhaps a mile, before the thin blue line of a smouldering camp-fire rose almost in their very faces. A low challenge from a clump of birch-trees was answered, there came the sound of rifles dropping, the noise of feet among the leaves, a whisper, and before they knew it they were standing at the mouth of a hole in the bank, from which came the odour of beef-broth simmering. Two or three franc-tireurs pa.s.sed them, looking up curiously into their faces. Trica.s.se dragged a dilapidated cane-chair from the dirt-cave and placed it before Lorraine as though he were inviting her to an imperial throne.
"Thank you," she said, sweetly, and seated herself, not relinquishing Jack"s hand.
Two tin basins of soup were brought to them; they ate it, soaking bits of crust in it.
The men pretended not to watch them. With all their instinctive delicacy these clumsy peasants busied themselves in guard-mounting, weapon cleaning, and their cuisine, as though there was no such thing as a pretty woman within miles. But it tried their gallantry as Frenchmen and their tact as Lorraine peasants. Furtive glances, deprecatory and timid, were met by the sweetest of smiles from Lorraine or a kindly nod from Jack. Trica.s.se, utterly unbalanced by his new role of protector of beauty, gave orders in fierce, agitated whispers, and made sudden aimless promenades around the birch thicket.
In one of these prowls he discovered a toad staring at the camp-fire, and he drew his sword with a furious gesture, as though no living toad were good enough to intrude on the Chatelaine of the Chateau de Nesville; but the toad hopped away, and Trica.s.se unbent his brows and resumed his agitated prowl.
When Lorraine had finished her soup, Jack took both plates into the cave and gave them to a man who, squatted on his haunches, was washing dishes. Lorraine followed him and sat down on a blanket, leaning back against the side of the cave.
"Wait for me," said Jack. She drew his head down to hers.
They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and found Trica.s.se, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad ridge.
A road ran under the overhanging bank.
"I didn"t know we were so near a road," said Jack, startled.
Trica.s.se laid his finger on his lips.
"It is the high-road to Saint-Lys. We have settled more than one Uhlan dog on that curve there by the oak-tree. Look! Here comes one of our men. See! He"s got something, too."
Sure enough, around the bend in the road slunk a franc-tireur, loaded down with what appeared to be mail-sacks. Cautiously he reconnoitred the bank, the road, the forest on the other side, whistled softly, and, at Trica.s.se"s answering whistle, came puffing and blowing up the slope, and flung a mail-bag, a rifle, a Bavarian helmet, and a German knapsack to the ground.
"The big police officer?" inquired Trica.s.se, eagerly.
"Yes, the big one with the red beard. He died hard. I used the bayonet only," said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the dried blood on his hairy fists. "I got a Bavarian sentry, too; there"s the proof."
Jack looked at the helmet. Trica.s.se ripped up the mail-sack with his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal it again," observed Trica.s.se, sorting the letters and shuffling them like cards.
One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.
"There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur Marche?"
"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly.
He sat down and read them both, again and again. Trica.s.se turned his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from Trica.s.se, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.
"Put out the fire, too," called Trica.s.se, softly. "I begin to smell it."
When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Trica.s.se, folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the flat steel box was.
"Letters from Paris," he said. "The Uhlans have appeared in the Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege."
"Paris!" blurted out Trica.s.se, aghast.
Jack nodded, silently.
After a moment he resumed: "The Emperor is said to be with the army near Mezieres on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do."
Trica.s.se stared at him, incapable of speech.
"Very well," said Jack, gently, "think it over. Tell me, at least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this evening."
He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a careless footstep might perhaps be heard by pa.s.sing Uhlans. In a few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow, where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.
Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat down on the blankets beside her.
"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you must not go--it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to Brussels somehow, and from there I can pa.s.s on about my duty with a free heart."
She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.
"Hush," she said; "I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we tread it together, always together, Jack." He struggled to speak; she held him close, and laid her head against his breast, contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of France reconquered, of n.o.ble deeds and sacrifices, of the great bells of churches thundering G.o.d"s praise to a humble, thankful nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the sleeping echoes of the cave--the scuffling and thrashing of a shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.
Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they hurried from the cave another franc-tireur came up, leading a riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his rifle, the b.u.t.t dripping with blood.
"Silence," he motioned to them, pointing to the wooded ridge beyond. Jack looked intently at the cavalry horse. The schabraque was blue, edged with yellow; the saddle-cloth bore the number "11."
"Uhlan?" He formed the word with his lips.
The franc-tireur nodded with a ghastly smile and glanced down at his dripping gunstock.
Lorraine"s hand closed on Jack"s arm.
"Come to the hill," she said; "I cannot stand that."
On the crest of the wooded ridge crouched Trica.s.se, bared sabre stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts, their sinewy fingers played continually with the rifle-hammers.
Jack hesitated, his arm around Lorraine"s body, his eyes fixed nervously on the bend in the road.
Something was coming; there were cries, the trample of horses, the shuffle of footsteps. Suddenly an Uhlan rode cautiously around the bend, glanced right and left, looked back, signalled, and started on. Behind him crowded a dozen more Uhlans, lances glancing, pennants streaming in the wind.
"They"ve got a woman!" whispered Lorraine.
They had a man, too--a powerful, bearded peasant, with a great livid welt across his bloodless face. A rope hung around his neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle-bow of an Uhlan. But what made Jack"s heart fairly leap into his mouth was to see Siurd von Steyr suddenly wheel in his saddle and lash the woman across the face with his doubled bridle.
She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his stirrup.
"Get out, d.a.m.n you!" roared Von Steyr. "Here--I"ll settle this now. Shoot that French dog!"
"My husband, O G.o.d!" screamed the woman, struggling in the dust.
In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to pa.s.s his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-b.u.t.t, another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan"s face, deeper, deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.
"Fire!" shrieked Trica.s.se--"the woman"s dead!"
Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering, sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure pa.s.sed like a flash through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the franc-tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were torn from their frantic horses until only one remained--Von Steyr--drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head.
They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated the rabid thing that ran among them.