Francezka Part 12

Francezka raised her hand warningly.

"My aunt takes no risks for me that she takes not for herself. G.o.d made her entirely without fear, and so must we quarrel, not with her, but with G.o.d, for making her what she is."

Francezka rose and came toward the little fire we had made. I noticed some of Schnelling's rascals watching us through the screen of boughs, but there was nothing to see except the three of us, sitting around the fire under the solemn larches and firs, and our voices were kept low.

We told her our only plan was to take her to Uzmaiz, and from thence try to communicate with Madame Riano. None of us believed that any very severe measures would be taken against Madame Riano, and we spoke cheerfully of Francezka's speedily rejoining her. To this Francezka listened attentively.

For an hour we sat thus, in the light of the fire's red blaze.

Francezka kept her mantle about her so that her masculine dress was concealed; with her cavalier's hat upon her head, and her rich hair curling upon her shoulders, as Gaston had described, she made a beautiful boy--but one bound to excite suspicion. The innate coquetry of her glance, the frequent changes of color, the sudden frowns and smiles made any real masculine disguise impossible.

It was the first time I had really any conversation with Francezka.

How far removed in every way from the scene of our first meeting--the ancient, well ordered garden of a splendid Paris hotel. But there is certainly a subtile fascination in these singular and unexpected meetings. No one with a taste for the wine of life, but relishes the unusual, least of all Francezka; for I saw plainly, under all her softness, a soul like Peggy Kirkpatrick's. And the more I knew of her in after years, the more I knew that she had the courage of a Crusader only partly concealed by a pretty, affected shyness. After she had done her will, she trembled, hesitated, blushed, looked down in timidity, looked up for approval--and was very ready with tears, when she required them.

We three sat together for an hour, Francezka doing most of the speaking. She told us something of her travels with Madame Riano. They had set out from Paris very shortly after Count Saxe's departure, and had spent nearly a year in visiting the various German courts. She was unflinchingly loyal to her aunt, but she would have been more or less than human could she have told without laughing of Madame Riano's adventures, and Francezka was, herself, a wit, and a child of laughter. She told us some of the most vivid events of their scamperings over Europe--Francezka looking away meanwhile to avoid seeing me smile, and sometimes covering her face with her mantle to smother her merriment.

Scotch Peg had caused panics, earthquakes and convulsions at every court she had visited, especially the smaller German ones, where the pettiness, the rigidity and the absurdity of things were manifest to others besides Peggy Kirkpatrick. She had hectored over grand dukes, had flouted their mistresses, gibed at their prime ministers, and argued with their ecclesiastics. All this would have been easily checked in an ordinary woman; but Madame the Countess Riano del Valdozo y Kirkpatrick, with a vast fortune, with a powerful backing at the courts of France and Spain--for she never lacked friends--was a considerable person, and as Francezka told us, with dancing eyes, Madame Riano had made good her promise never to leave any place until she was ready.

When the fire was dying to a bed of coals, Francezka rose to leave us.

She thanked me with tears in her eyes for coming after her; stipulated that Schnelling must give up her clothes--I believe she would have lived and died in that forest if she could not have got her garments and her laced hat--and then, making us a curtsy, as if she were in her aunt's great saloon at Paris, retired to her bed of boughs. Then I had some supper. Gaston Cheverny, wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down at Francezka's feet. I slept, sitting with my back against the trunk of a tree; and though I had marched long and hard that day, I envied the two their quiet and unbroken slumber from then until daylight came.

We were up with the lark. The flush of dawn was in the pearly sky, but under the thick black fir trees all was darkly shadowed still. We went in search of Schnelling, who was already stirring. I had meant to ask him civilly for Mademoiselle Capello's clothes, but this is the way Gaston Cheverny, with the hot blood of twenty, went about getting them:

"Schnelling," he said, "give us Mademoiselle Capello's clothes."

"Or what?" asked Schnelling laughing.

"There are two of us who will have your heart's blood!"

Schnelling, to my surprise, laughed again, and chose to accede to the request with mock humility; but no doubt he saw that it was actually the part of wisdom to give them up. Gaston Cheverny told me afterward that when he took the clothes to Francezka she was overjoyed, and only consented to wear her masculine attire after his representing to her that she would tear her skirts to shreds in our march to Uzmaiz.

I was taken to Colonel Pintsch, who reiterated to me his story about being a part of Bibikoff's force, which was a lie on the face of it, and a Courland lie at that. And then, some breakfast having been given us, we were suffered to depart. Schnelling went with us to guide us through the gloomy mazes of the forest. It was a brilliant August day, but all was dark in that melancholy region of chasms, rocks and hardy trees of the North. Francezka walked between Gaston Cheverny and me.

We helped her as we could, over the rough places, but she was singularly active, and made her way lightly along. Happiness shone in her face. I began to fear that the lucky result of this catastrophe would not go far toward teaching her prudence.

When we reached, by degrees, the open champaign country, Schnelling bade us farewell, courteously. He had behaved handsomely about the clothes, so Francezka bade him the friendliest possible adieu. Then, with gaiety of heart, we fared on, at our leisure. When the forests were left behind, we had before us green fields, sweet streams, mills and homesteads, and a pleasant highroad. We marched slowly on Francezka's account. Toward noon we pa.s.sed a cottage, before which a peasant was feeding a stout cart-horse. At the cottage door stood a pleasant-faced woman, with a little army of bright-eyed children around her. By an inspiration it came to me to offer the peasant a gold piece for the use of his horse for Mademoiselle Capello, as far as Uzmaiz. He gaped with delight at the sight of the money. Then, Francezka, blushing, proposed to go into the cottage and put on her own clothes. When she came out, dressed in her handsome robe of brown cloth, richly embroidered, her crimson mantle, and her laced hat, the little children all set up a cry of "Beautiful lady!" Francezka was openly charmed by such innocent flattery. Even our old clear-the-way boys paid her the tribute of an admiring grin; and Gaston Cheverny, like a young fool, showed his rapture.

But in truth she seemed to me as beautiful then as the rosy dawn. We perched her upon her charger, and put off again. Francezka was in the highest spirits, and was a fountain of laughter, like a child. She had seemed completely the woman up to this time, and now she seemed nothing more than a joyful, unthinking child. Never was any merrier journey than the last few miles, before we reached Uzmaiz. I judged that the payment of the ten thousand crowns would about swallow up Gaston Cheverny's modest estate; but apparently he gave no more thought to it than he did to last year's birds' nests.

It was in the middle of the glorious summer afternoon that the fair blue lake of Uzmaiz came into view. As soon as we reached the sh.o.r.e of the lake we were perceived, and boats were sent for us. Count Saxe awaited us at the landing on the island. When Francezka stepped ash.o.r.e he greeted her as if he had not paid ten thousand crowns out of his military chest for her, so great was the chivalry and gallantry of the man. Nor did he give the smallest indication of the cruel embarra.s.sment it was for a man in his position to have charge of a young and beautiful girl, an heiress of high quality. Francezka herself realized that and spoke to me of it later, with tears in her eyes; but the helplessness of her situation swallowed up, with every man of us, all thought of inconvenience.

The most habitable of the two or three rooms in the old tower had been made ready for her. Count Saxe had given up his own pailla.s.se.

Beauvais, who was the prince of valets, had got together such rude comforts as the stores on the island permitted. It is astonishing how much comfort can be achieved by simple means--so said Francezka, when Count Saxe led her into her apartment. It had a window giving upon the old terrace, where the rose trees were now in bloom and the ivy and periwinkle shone darkly green upon the crumbling parapet. From this window, where Beauvais had hung a blanket by way of a curtain, could be seen the blue lake lying between the terrace and the sunset. On one side were the far-off black gorges and purple forests we had left; and on the other, the rich, green-knolled cultivated country, with fields and orchards ripening under the August sun.

Francezka's arrival scarcely for a moment interrupted the work of intrenching the island. As to her fate, or ours, no one could tell. We waited and worked from day to day, thinking every morning might see the Russians swarming toward us, and our great guns, of which we had four good loud bellowers, to say nothing of smaller pieces, pouring death from their iron throats upon every man who attempted to cross that narrow blue strip of placid water. But yet, the Russians came not.

Francezka to me, in those days, was a marvel. This girl, so rash, and with a secret taste for danger, proved herself to be the most prudent as well as the most modest of women when thrown upon herself. In this she showed that vein of sound sense--Scotch sense, probably--that distinguished Madame Riano in spite of her vagaries. At the end of all Madame Riano's outlandish proceedings she generally came out victorious with colors flying; or, if she was defeated, she, like Count Saxe, sold her defeats so dearly that the victor was nigh ruined.

Francezka kept herself as much as possible from the gaze of the three hundred and twenty men who were her sole companions on this island.

The only time she showed herself was in the purple evening, when she would come out upon the terrace and take the air. That was at the hour when a little time of rest from our labors was given to us. Most of the men spent it in sleep, but not all of us. Count Saxe always took the occasion to go upon the terrace and pay Francezka his respects. So would Gaston Cheverny and a few of the other gentlemen with us. I never went unless I was sent for, but Francezka seldom let an evening pa.s.s without beckoning to me, or sending for me to speak a few kind words to me. There was nothing childish about her then. Not the most experienced lady of the great Paris world could have surpa.s.sed her in dignity. But withal, she was too guileless to conceal wholly her preference for Gaston Cheverny. They had pa.s.sed through such adventures together; they had lived a whole lifetime in those weeks of wandering, and it was not strange they had much to say to each other.

At this time, after Francezka had talked with Count Saxe and others a little, she would retire to her room in the half ruined tower. Then Gaston would bring his viol and, sitting near her window in the twilight, would sing to his own accompaniment. The singing helped us all. It made us forget for a while our solitary and dangerous situation--for we looked to be fighting for our lives and dying in the last ditch at any moment. It seemed to make us once more members of the great human family which lives peaceably and tranquilly, and whose breath is not war and conquest and defeat and war again.

One of Gaston's favorite songs was that old, old one, _O Richard, O mon roi, l'univers t'abandonne_. There was some mutual understanding about this song between Francezka and Gaston Cheverny. They had sung it together sometimes in those black wastes and wilds where they had spent their time together. Gaston had several names besides Gaston--Richard was one of them; so this song appeared to refer particularly to him. When he sang it I noticed Francezka was always listening at her window, and although the curtain was drawn, and the room dark within, there would be some faint sign, such as a movement of the curtain, which showed that the singer was heard and attended to.

And so the days pa.s.sed on. Every hour we improved our position, and at last the day came, when Count Saxe said to us:

"One more week of work, and we can stay here as long as this island stays."

But those last days were the most important of all. Work relaxed not, and our time of rest in the evening was to be shortened still more.

And on this evening, as Gaston Cheverny sat in the twilight on the terrace, all of us listening to his singing, after a day of labor, and a night of toil to come, Gaston stopped suddenly, rising to his feet--and so rose Count Saxe and all of us. For in the gray evening we saw on the mainland a moving ma.s.s, like a huge black serpent, unfolding itself from the distant woods and boscage upon the open country. The Russians were upon us.

Instantly all was life and movement. Count Saxe did not, even in that moment, forget Francezka, for tapping at her window, he said, when she appeared:

"Mademoiselle, here are our friends, the Russians. Be not alarmed; there is a place of safety for you below the terrace if there should be fighting."

"I am not alarmed, Monsieur," quietly replied Francezka. She had been reading by the light of a single candle that volume of Villon which Gaston Cheverny had carried in his pocket or at his saddle bow ever since we left France. She kept her finger at the page, and spoke in a calm voice, although she grew a little pale. "Whenever and wherever you will have me go, I am ready."

As Gaston Cheverny said, she was the most docile creature alive when real danger was at hand. She knew how to obey like a soldier, and as she came of good soldierly stock, this was not strange.

The Russians, however, having now got within hearing of us, sounded a parley on the trumpet. Count Saxe instantly determined to send Gaston Cheverny to the parley. Gaston had picked up some understanding of the Russian language while we were at Mitau, and especially while he was with Pintsch's highwaymen, and had been artful enough to conceal it. So, Gaston, with a small escort, put off in a boat to meet the Russian envoys. The main body had halted about a mile from the sh.o.r.e, while we could see, by the starlight, a considerable number of them, presumably officers, making for the point of land which dipped into the lake.

We were all at our posts awaiting the outcome quietly. But one more week, and we should have been secure! Now, we were very far from secure; and we waited for Gaston Cheverny's return and the news he might bring to know whether we should have a chance to fight, or be marched off to Russian prisons--as we supposed. As for Francezka--it was not yet time for her to seek a safe place--she came to the window and stood there in the half darkness, her one candle being out.

I made bold for once to go up and speak to her without being invited.

"Mademoiselle," said I, "you may see your chateau of Capello sooner than you think, for surely the Russians will not detain you, but will provide you with a suitable escort and take you to a place of safety."

"It will be as G.o.d wills," replied Francezka, as coolly as you please.

We waited an hour before Gaston Cheverny's return. Count Saxe took him into the other half-ruined tower room, where there were pens and ink, and a candle in a bottle. I was prepared to write anything required.

Gaston Cheverny had a queer look on his face, like a man who has seen for the first time, and unexpectedly, something hideous.

"It is General Bibikoff," he said to Count Saxe, "with twelve hundred men, and he desires to speak with you, Monsieur, in person; and begs that you will come to the parley; but by my knack of understanding the Russian tongue, I found out that it is a ruse to get you away from the island and carry you off. Twelve hundred against one man--and that man, Count Saxe!"

Never saw I Maurice of Saxe in such a rage as at this scandalous breach of military honor. He roared out his wrath like a wild bull--oh, the lion voice of him! The old towers and escarpments echoed with it. When he grew a little calm he said to Gaston Cheverny:

"Bring Bibikoff to me. I warrant this traitor will not hesitate to trust my word."

Which was true; and I ever thought it the highest tribute to Count Saxe's honor that this treacherous general who himself had no honor knew that Maurice of Saxe had--and to it trusted his life and all his fortunes.

Gaston Cheverny again crossed to the mainland. The evening was clear, though moonless, and the pitying stars came out in the eastern sky, while the west glowed warmly with the great sinking sun, that left a track of glory behind it. In half an hour Gaston returned with Bibikoff. Count Saxe awaited them in the tower room. The Russian was, of course, blindfolded. He was a great bear of a man, with a goatlike face, very dirty and unshaven, but splendidly dressed.

There was present at that interview no one except Count Saxe, General Bibikoff, Gaston Cheverny and myself. When Bibikoff's bandage over the eyes was removed he found himself standing before Count Saxe, from whose eyes sparks seemed to be flying. And then in a voice that would have shriveled up an honest man as if he were a dead leaf, Count Saxe said:

"If I were not more generous than you I would poniard you on the spot.

You would have enticed me to a place where I should have been bagged like a bird. Twelve hundred men against one! Thank you, my friend.

Tell that to your commanding general, Lacy, and see what he will say to it."