"Are you going to inform the mayor of Saint-Lys?" asked Jack.
"Of course," muttered Pa.s.serat, gathering up his reins; "heu!
da-da! heu! cocotte! en route!" and he rattled sulkily away, perhaps a little uncertain himself as to the concreteness of his recent vision.
Jack looked after him.
"There might be something in it," he mused, "but, dear me! his nose is unpleasantly--sunburned."
That same morning, Lorraine had announced her decision. It was that Jack might accept the position of special, or rather occasional, war correspondent for the New York _Herald_ if he would promise not to remain absent for more than a day at a time.
This, Jack thought, practically nullified the consent, for what in the world could a man see of the campaign under such circ.u.mstances? Still, he did not object; he was too happy.
"However," he thought, "I might ride over to Saarbruck. Suppose I should be on hand at the first battle of the war?"
As a mere lad he had already seen service with the Austrians at Sadowa; he had risked his modest head more than once in the murderous province of Oran, where General Chanzy scoured the hot plains like a scourge of Allah.
He had lived, too, at headquarters, and shared the officers" mess where "cherba," "tadjines," "kous-kous," and "mechoin" formed the menu, and a "Kreima Kebira" served as his roof. He had done his duty as correspondent, merely because it was his duty; he would have preferred an easier a.s.signment, for he took no pleasure in cruelty and death and the never-to-be-forgotten agony of proud, dark faces, where mud-stained turbans hung in ribbons and tinselled saddles reeked with Arab horses" blood.
War correspondent? It had happened to be his calling; but the accident of his profession had been none of his own seeking. Now that he needed nothing in the way of recompense, he hesitated to take it up again. Instinctive loyalty to his old newspaper was all that had induced him to entertain the idea. Loyalty and deference to Lorraine compelled him to modify his acceptance.
Therefore it was not altogether idle curiosity, but partly a sense of obligation, that made him think of riding to Saarbruck to see what he could see for his journal within the twenty-four-hour limit that Lorraine had set.
It was too late to ride over that evening and return in time to keep his word to Lorraine, so he decided to start at daybreak, realizing at the same time, with a pang, that it meant not seeing Lorraine all day.
He went up to his chamber and sat down to think. He would write a note to Lorraine; he had never done such a thing, and he hoped she might not find fault with him.
He tossed his riding-crop on to the desk, picked up a pen, and wrote carefully, ending the single page with, "It is reported that Uhlans have been encountered in the direction of Saarbruck, and, although I do not believe it, I shall go there to-morrow and see for myself. I will be back within the twelve hours. May I ride over to tell you about these mythical Uhlans when I return?"
He called a groom and bade him drive to the Chateau de Nesville with the note. Then he went down to sit with the old vicomte and Madame de Morteyn until it came dinner-time, and the oil-lamps in the gilded salon were lighted, and the candles blazed up on either side of the gilt French clock.
After dinner he played chess with his uncle until the old man fell asleep in his chair. There was an interval of silence.
"Jack," said his aunt, "you are a dear, good boy. Tell me, do you love our little Lorraine?"
The suddenness of the question struck him dumb. His aunt smiled; her faded eyes were very tender and kindly, and she laid both frail hands on his shoulders.
"It is my wish," she said, in a low voice; "remember that, Jack.
Now go and walk on the terrace, for she will surely answer your note."
"How--how did you know I wrote her?" he stammered.
"When a young man sends his aunt"s servants on such very unorthodox errands, what can he expect, especially when those servants are faithful?"
"That groom told you, Aunt Helen?"
"Yes. Jack, these French servants don"t understand such things.
Be more careful, for Lorraine"s sake."
"But--I will--but did the note reach her?"
His aunt smiled. "Yes. I took the responsibility upon myself, and there will be no gossip."
Jack leaned over and kissed the amused mouth, and the old lady gave him a little hug and told him to go and walk on the terrace.
The groom was already there, holding a note in one hand, gilt-banded cap in the other.
His first letter from Lorraine! He opened it feverishly. In the middle of a thin sheet of note-paper was written the motto of the De Nesvilles, "Tiens ta Foy."
Beneath, in a girlish hand, a single line:
"I shall wait for you at dusk. Lorraine."
All night long, as he lay half asleep on his pillow, the words repeated themselves in his drowsy brain: "Tiens ta Foy!" "Tiens ta Foy!" (Keep thy Faith!). Aye, he would keep it unto death--he knew it even in his slumber. But he did not know how near to death that faith might lead him.
The wood-sparrows were chirping outside his window when he awoke.
It was scarcely dawn, but he heard the maid knocking at his door, and the rattle of silver and china announced the morning coffee.
He stepped from his bed into the tub of cold water, yawning and shivering, but the pallor of his skin soon gave place to a healthy glow, and his clean-cut body and strong young limbs hardened and grew pink and firm again under the coa.r.s.e towel.
Breakfast he ate hastily by candle-light, and presently he dressed, buckled his spurs over the insteps, caught up gloves, cap, and riding-crop, and, slinging a field-gla.s.s over his Norfolk jacket, lighted a pipe and went noiselessly down-stairs.
There was a chill in the gray dawn as he mounted and rode out through the shadowy portals of the wrought-iron grille; a vapour, floating like loose cobwebs, undulated above the placid river; the tree-tops were festooned with mist. Save for the distant chatter of wood-sparrows, stirring under the eaves of the Chateau, the stillness was profound.
As he left the park and cantered into the broad red highway, he turned in his saddle and looked towards the Chateau de Nesville.
At first he could not see it, but as he rode over the bridge he caught a glimpse of the pointed roof and single turret, a dim silhouette through the mist. Then it vanished in the films of fog.
The road to Saarbruck was a military road, and easy travelling.
The character of the country had changed as suddenly as a drop-scene falls in a theatre; for now all around stretched fields cut into squares by hedges--fields deep-laden with heavy-fruited strawberries, white and crimson. Currants, too, glowed like strung rubies frosted with the dew; plum-trees spread little pale shadows across the ruddy earth, and beyond them the disk of the sun appeared, pushing upward behind a half-ploughed hill. Everywhere slender fruit-trees spread their grafted branches; everywhere in the crumbling furrows of the soil, warm as ochre, the bunched strawberries hung like drops of red wine under the sun-bronzed leaves.
The sun was an hour high when he walked his horse up the last hill that hides the valley of the Saar. Already, through the constant rushing melody of bird music, his ears had distinguished another sound--a low, incessant hum, monotonous, interminable as the noise of a stream in a gorge. It was not the river Saar moving over its bed of sand and yellow pebbles; it was not the breeze in the furze. He knew what it was; he had heard it before, in Oran--in the stillness of dawn, where, below, among the shadowy plains, an army was awaking under dim tents.
And now his horse"s head rose up black against the sky; now the valley broke into view below, gray, indistinct in the shadows, crossed by ghostly lines of poplars that dwindled away to the horizon.
At the same instant something moved in the fields to the left, and a shrill voice called: "Qui-vive?" Before he could draw bridle blue-jacketed cavalrymen were riding at either stirrup, carbine on thigh, peering curiously into his face, pushing their active light-bay horses close to his big black horse.
Jack laughed good-humouredly and fumbled in the breast of his Norfolk jacket for his papers.
"I"m only a special," he said; "I think you"ll find the papers in order--if not, you"ve only to gallop back to the Chateau Morteyn to verify them."
An officer with a bewildering series of silver arabesques on either sleeve guided a nervous horse through the throng of troopers, returned Jack"s pleasant salute, reached out a gloved hand for his papers, and read them, sitting silently in his saddle. When he finished, he removed the cigarette from his lips, looked eagerly at Jack, and said:
"You are from Morteyn?"
"Yes."
"A guest?"
"The Vicomte de Morteyn is my uncle."
The officer burst into a boyish laugh.