Grahame"s face sobered.
"I"ll tell you the truth," he said; "I don"t know, and I can"t find out. One thing is certain--we"ve pa.s.sed the last German post, that is all I know. We ought to be near the frontier."
He looked back at Jack, smiled again, and lowered his voice:
"It"s fortunate we have pa.s.sed the German lines, because that last cavalry outpost took all my papers and refused to return them. I haven"t an idea what to do now, except to go on as far as we can. I wish we could find a village; the horses are not exhausted, but they need rest."
Lorraine listened, scarcely conscious of what he said. She leaned over Jack, looking down into his face, brushing the dust from his brow with her finger-tips, smoothing his hair, with a timid, hesitating glance at Grahame, who understood and gravely turned his back.
Jack slept. She nestled down, pressing her soft, cool cheek close to his; her eyes drooped; her lips parted. So they slept together, cheek to cheek.
A mist drove across the meadows; from the plains, dotted with poplars, a damp wind blew in puffs, driving the fog before it until the blank vapour dulled the faint morning light and the dawn faded into a colourless twilight. Spectral poplars, rank on rank, loomed up in the mist, endless rows of them, fading from sight as the vapours crowded in, appearing again as the fog thinned in a current of cooler wind.
Grahame, driving slowly, began to nod in the thickening fog. At moments he roused himself; the horses walked on and the wheels creaked in the red dust. Hour after hour pa.s.sed, but it grew no lighter. Drowsy and listless-eyed the horses toiled up and down the little hills, and moved stiffly on along the interminable road, shrouded in a gray fog that hid the very road-side shrubbery from sight, choked thicket and grove, and blotted the grimy carriage windows.
Jack was awakened with startling abruptness by Grahame, who shook his shoulders, leaning into the post-chaise from the driver"s seat.
"There"s something in front, Marche," he said. "We"ve fallen in with a baggage convoy, I fancy. Listen! Don"t you hear the camp-wagons? Confound this fog! I can"t see a rod ahead."
Lorraine, also now wide awake, leaned from the window. The blank vapour choked everything. Jack rubbed his eyes; his limbs ached; he could scarcely move. Somebody was running on the road in front--the sound of heavy boots in the dust came nearer and nearer.
"Look out!" shouted Grahame, in French; "there"s a team here in the road! Pa.s.sez au large!"
At the sound of his voice phantoms surged up in the mist around them; from every side faces looked into the carriage windows, pa.s.sing, repa.s.sing, disappearing, only to appear again--ghostly, shadowy, spectral.
"Soldiers!" muttered Jack.
At the same instant Grahame seized the lines and wheeled his horses just in time to avoid collision with a big wagon in front.
As the post-chaise pa.s.sed, more wagons loomed up in the fog, one behind another; soldiers took form around them, voices came to their ears, dulled by the mist.
Suddenly a pale shaft of light streamed through the fog above; the restless, shifting vapours glimmered; a dazzling blot grew from the mist. It was the sun. Little by little the landscape became more distinct; the pallid, watery sky lightened; a streak of blue cut the zenith. Everywhere in the road great, lumbering wagons stood, loaded with straw; the sickly morning light fell on silent files of infantry, lining the road on either hand.
"It"s a convoy of wounded," said Grahame. "We"re in the middle of it. Shall we go back?"
A wagon in front of them started on; at the first jolt a cry sounded from the straw, another, another--the deep sighs of the dying, the groans of the stricken, the muttered curses of teamsters--rose in one terrible plaint. Another wagon started--the wounded wailed; another started--another--another--and the long train creaked on, the air vibrating with the weak protestations of miserable, mangled creatures tossing their thin arms towards the sky. And now, too, the soldiers were moving out into the road-side bushes, unslinging rifles and fixing bayonets; a mounted officer galloped past, shouting something; other mounted officers followed; a bugle sounded persistently from the distant head of the column.
Everywhere soldiers were running along the road now, grouping together under the poplar-trees, heads turned to the plain. Some teamsters pushed an empty wagon out beyond the line of trees and overturned it; others stood up in their wagons, reins gathered, long whips swinging. The wounded moaned incessantly; some sat up in the straw, heads turned also towards the dim, gray plain.
"It"s an attack," said Grahame, coolly. "Marche, we"re in for it now!"
After a moment, he added, "What did I tell you? Look there!"
Out on the plain, where the mist was clearing along the edge of a belt of trees, something was moving.
"What is it?" asked Lorraine, in a scarcely audible voice.
Before Grahame could speak a tumult of cries and groans burst out along the line of wagons; a bugle clanged furiously; the teamsters shouted and pointed with their whips.
Out of the shadow of the grove two glittering double lines of hors.e.m.e.n trotted, halted, formed, extended right and left, and trotted on again. To the right another darker and more compact square of hors.e.m.e.n broke into a gallop, swinging a thicket of lances above their heads, from which fluttered a ma.s.s of black and white pennons.
"Cuira.s.siers and Uhlans!" muttered Grahame, under his breath. He stood up in his seat; Jack rose also, straining his eyes, but Lorraine hid her face in her hands and crouched in the chaise, her head buried in the cushions.
The silence was enervating; even the horses turned their gentle eyes wonderingly to that line of steel and lances; even the wounded, tremulous, haggard, held their breath between clenched teeth and stiff, swollen lips.
"Nom de Dieu! Serrez les rangs, tas de bleus!" yelled an officer, riding along the edge of the road, revolver in one hand, naked sabre flashing in the other.
A dozen artillerymen were pushing a mitrailleuse up behind the overturned wagon. It stuck in the ditch.
"a nous, la ligne!" they shouted, dragging at the wheels until a handful of fanta.s.sins ran out and pulled the little death machine into place.
"Du calme! Du calme! Ne tirez pas trop vite, menagez vos cartouches! Tenez ferme, mes enfants!" said an old officer, dismounting and walking coolly out beyond the line of trees.
"Oui! oui! comptez sur nous! Vive le Colonel!" shouted the soldiers, shaking their cha.s.sepots in the air.
On came the long lines, distinct now--the blue and yellow of the Uhlans, the white and scarlet of the cuira.s.siers, plain against the gray trees and grayer pastures. Suddenly a level sheet of flame played around the stalled wagons; the smoke gushed out over the dark ground; the air split with the crash of rifles. In the uproar bugles blew furiously and the harsh German cavalry trumpets, peal on peal, nearer, nearer, nearer, answered their clangour.
"Hourra! Preussen!"
The deep, thundering shout rose hoa.r.s.ely through the rifles"
roaring fusillade; horses reared; teamsters lashed and swore, and the rattle of harness and wheel broke out and was smothered in the sheeted crashing of the volleys and the shock of the coming charge.
And now it burst like an ocean roller, smashing into the wagon lines, a turmoil of smoke and flashes, a chaos of maddened, plunging horses and bayonets, and the flashing downward strokes of heavy sabres. Grahame seized the reins, and lashed his horses; a cuira.s.sier drove his b.l.o.o.d.y, foam-covered charger into the road in front and fell, butchered by a dozen bayonets.
Three Uhlans followed, whirling their lances and crashing through the lines, their frantic horses crazed by blows and wounds. More cuira.s.siers galloped up; the crush became horrible. A horse and steel-clad rider were hurled bodily under the wagon-wheels--an Uhlan, transfixed by a bayonet, still clung to his shattered lance-b.u.t.t, screaming, staggering in his stirrups. Suddenly the window of the post-chaise was smashed in and a horse and rider pitched under the wheels, almost overturning carriage and occupants.
"Easy, Marche!" shouted Grahame. "Don"t try to get out!"
Jack heard him, but sprang into the road. For an instant he reeled about in the crush and smoke, then, stooping, he seized a prostrate man, lifted him, and with one tremendous effort pitched him into the chaise.
Grahame, standing up in the driver"s seat, watched him in amazement for a moment; but his horses demanded all his attention now, for they were backing under the pressure of the cart in front.
As for Jack, once in the chaise again he pulled the unconscious man to the seat, calling Lorraine to hold him up. Then he tore the Uhlan"s helmet from the stunned man"s head and flung it out into the road; after it he threw sabre and revolver.
"Give me that rug!" he cried to Lorraine, and he seized it and wrapped it around the Uhlan"s legs.
Grahame had managed to get clear of the other wagon now and was driving out into the pasture, almost obscured by rifle smoke.
"Oh, Jack!" faltered Lorraine--"it is Rickerl!"
It was Rickerl, stunned by the fall from his horse, lying back between them.
"They"d kill him if they saw his uniform!" muttered Jack. "Hark!
the French are cheering! They"ve repulsed the charge! Grahame, do you hear?--do you hear?"
"I hear!" shouted Grahame. "These horses are crazy; I can"t hold them."
The troops around them, hidden in the smoke, began to cheer frantically; the mitrailleuse whirred and rolled out its hail of death.
"Vive la France! Mort aux Prussiens!" howled the soldiers. A mounted officer, his cap on the point of his sabre, his face laid open by a lance-thrust, stood shouting, "Vive la Nation! Vive la Nation!" while a boyish bugler shook his bra.s.s bugle in the air, speechless with joy.