Francezka Part 9

"The Russians are but poor tacticians," he said, "or they would never have freed us from Peggy Kirkpatrick. As it is, we must not be captured with this fair girl among us. Fancy what story of it would go forth to the world. No; we must save her or die with her."

"Yes," repeated Gaston Cheverny, standing near us, "we must save her or die with her."

For, in spite of Count Saxe's rea.s.suring words to Mademoiselle Capello, that was really the sum of it. The Russians had begun a heavy fusillade which, in truth, was no more than hail against our nine feet of stone walls. Could we but exist without ammunition and food, and could we do without sleep, we twenty men could laugh at the eight hundred Russians. But, unluckily, men must eat and sleep. I was turning this over in my mind while our men were replying briskly out of the loopholes--and with effect, for soon cries went up to the heavens; our bullets had found their billets. At the first sight of blood the Russians howled like hungry wolves. I believe they would have torn us limb from limb could they have caught us. There is nothing on earth more horrible, or more terrifying, than a great and loud cry for blood.

I, Babache, a soldier from my fourteenth year, trembled behind nine feet of stone, at this yell from the beast in man. Nor is it without its effect on the most seasoned soldiers. They, the common men, laugh at it at first, but it soon penetrates to the marrow of their bones, and they perform miracles of valor under the spur of _fear_--for it is as often fear as courage that drives a storming party into the breach.

I have read in the essays of Monsieur Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, of Perigord, that he feared nothing but _fear_--and it is a wise saying of that Perigord gentleman. So it was in the schloss at Mitau that August night--we were afraid of nothing but fear, for we were certainly not afraid to meet death in any shape. There was plenty for all of us to do, Count Saxe himself shouldering a musket, and firing through the slits of windows; but I knew that he was not the man to be trapped like a rat in a hole, and I made sure he had some scheme in his head by which we were to be saved from hoisting a handkerchief on a ramrod--and waited for him to tell us what it was.

Meanwhile, the demoniac yelling kept up, together with the volleys of musketry. The Russians had not then learned to transport light guns on wheels, the King of Prussia having to teach them that trick near twenty years later; so that we knew, what men do not often know in our circ.u.mstances, exactly what we had to contend against. After an hour of this volleying and yelling on the part of the Russians to which we replied by putting leaden bullets in them, Count Saxe came up to me.

It was then after one o'clock--in those lat.i.tudes a time that is neither day nor night, nor morning, nor evening, but a ghostlike hour, in which all shapes, all things, the very sky and earth, are strange to human beings. I saw by the faint half-light a smile on my master's face; he was ever the handsomest man alive, and when he had the light of battle in his eye, he was more beautiful than Apollo, lord of the unerring bow. He was still in his court costume, but there was a great rent in his velvet coat made by the musket he had occasionally used, his gem-embroidered waistcoat was soiled with powder, and his lace cravat and ruffles were in rags.

"Babache," said he, "I have it. Do you see yonder brick wall to the left where the Russians have just tethered thirty or forty horses? The moon is sinking fast,--and as soon as it fades, the drawbridge goes down like lightning; you and I and Beauvais on horseback dash across it to the left, the other sixteen men rush after us, seize each man a horse, and make for the highway to Uzmaiz, not a quarter of a mile away. I believe every man of us stands a good chance to escape."

"And Mademoiselle Capello and Gaston Cheverny?" I asked.

"They must go by way of the tunnel. It will bring them out at the market-place, where there will be a crowd long before sunrise and they may easily escape notice. Gaston will take Mademoiselle Capello to the palace, and presenting himself boldly, ask refuge for her, which could hardly be refused. As for himself, he may be thrown in prison, he may be torn limb from limb; he must take his desperate chance, as the rest of us take ours."

"He takes it cheerfully," said Gaston, at my elbow. He was grimed with powder, and was rubbing his shoulder, which his piece had greatly bruised, but I never saw a more smiling countenance. At the idea of being charged with Mademoiselle Capello's safety, he looked as if he had just come into a great estate.

Count Saxe then gave him a pocket map, and took him within to give him a considerable sum of money. When they were gone, I heard a soft voice behind me whispering my name, and, turning, I saw Francezka's fair face at a lower window, near to me.

"So we have met but to part," she said, leaning out of the window, her delicate round chin on her hand.

"We shall perhaps meet again, Mademoiselle," said I. "I think it will not be long before you will be setting out for Paris with Madame Riano. This, no doubt, will cure Madame Riano of traveling for the present."

Francezka shook her head. "You do not know my aunt. As long as she can have adventures, she is in heaven. And I like adventures, too. I have heard of some one who said he cared not much which way the coach was going, so it went at a rattling gait and he was inside. So do I feel."

"If you like adventures, Mademoiselle, you will always have them," I replied.

"Do you think," she said, after a pause, "that in taking care of me Monsieur Cheverny is running a greater risk than any of you?"

"No, Mademoiselle. His chance seems to me rather the better. At best, he can demand to be sent to the palace, while for us, we must run the gantlet of the Russians; sixteen men must take their chances of getting horses, and we must travel in company. But Count Saxe is with us, and he is the favorite of fortune as well as of nature."

She remained silent a while, then spoke again:

"So this may be the last time we shall speak together in this world."

"I hope not, Mademoiselle," I replied. "I hope to have the honor of speaking to you in Paris before the year is out."

"No, not Paris, but at my chateau of Capello. It is only twelve miles from the highroad between Brussels and Paris. I would not be boastful, but it is the charmingest place, at the foot of the Ardennes. I have not seen it since I was a child. Monsieur Gaston Cheverny remembers it better than I. He says he even remembers me, a little child but six years old, and so did Monsieur Regnard Cheverny tell me that at Paris last year. I think I remember Monsieur Gaston Cheverny a little--perhaps because he is nearer my age."

"Then," said I, humoring her as a child, "we shall stop and dine with you on our way to Paris, for, of course, I can not go anywhere unless my master, Count Saxe, be asked, too."

"He will be asked, never fear. Good fortune will attend us all, no doubt. I do not feel the least afraid of what is before me, unless the tunnel be damp, and there be toads in it, then I shall die of fright, for all that I am a Kirkpatrick."

How light-hearted she was, in the midst of things terrifying to most women!

Count Saxe, wishing to spare her the sight of our outrush, then returned with Gaston Cheverny, who had received his money and instructions. Gaston wore a black hat and cloak of Count Saxe's; and, since the count is a very tall man, and Gaston only of the middle height, the cloak hung down upon his heels, and we could but smile at the figure he made. Yet he looked not ungraceful. Then Mademoiselle Capello came out, wearing her hat and mantle. She said to Count Saxe, very earnestly:

"Monsieur, you may depend upon it, that whatever dangers encompa.s.s Monsieur Cheverny and me, I will not play the coward."

"I am sure of it, Mademoiselle," replied Count Saxe, smiling, "but I do not look for any dangers for either of you."

This was not strictly true, for there was great danger for Gaston Cheverny, although little, if any, for Mademoiselle Capello, as we then thought.

"Do you mean, Monsieur," asked Francezka, "you think we shall be suffered to walk quietly from the market-place to the palace?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"And if we reach the palace, there will not be a price put upon our heads?"

"No, indeed, Mademoiselle. I think you will find Madame Riano at the palace, and may resume your journey to-morrow."

"Then," cried Francezka, rather crossly, "the only real danger seems to be from the toads in the tunnel! Come, Monsieur Cheverny, let us begin our promenade."

"Certainly, Mademoiselle," said Gaston, and then to Count Saxe: "Monsieur, may we meet at Uzmaiz, and may we return in triumph to Mitau, to take our own. Good by, Babache--the next time I see you I hope your face will be washed, for it is like a blackamoor's now, with burnt powder."

Mademoiselle curtsied low to Count Saxe, and said sweetly, as if in amends for her pettishness:

"Good by, and a thousand thanks for your goodness, Monsieur de Saxe.

My house of Capello is yours whenever you are in its neighborhood.

Good by, Captain Babache. When my eyes rest on you again, you will be the welcomest sight in the world."

If I had been a ready man, like Francois Marie Voltaire, for example, I could have replied to this kind speech with something handsome. But being only Babache, a Tatar prince from the Marais, all I could think of to say was:

"Good by, Mademoiselle; may G.o.d help you."

I saw them depart and my heart was heavy. True, it would require some ingenuity on their part to get them into trouble, but I suspected both of them had talents as well as a taste in that line.

But now we had serious business of our own on hand. Beauvais brought us the three horses, which had been tethered in the courtyard.

Everything was arranged; the firing kept up to the last, although our last was done with bits of broken nails and of silver pieces of money.

At last the great dusky moon showed only a rim upon the far horizon, and then seemed suddenly engulfed in a great abyss of darkness.

At a signal, the drawbridge fell with a crash. We were already on horseback, and dashed across the bridge into the open place and toward the brick wall. Every man of ours was at our heels. The Russians were completely dazed. Half of them rushed into the courtyard only to find it empty. The rest ran hither and thither, afraid to fire in the darkness, and before they could rally, or could find out what we were really after, every man of us was mounted and away. We had a good twenty minutes' start, for the noise among the Russians drowned the sound of our hoofbeats. We had only one street of the town to traverse before we struck the highway. The Russians had no inkling that we were making for Uzmaiz, and not half an hour from the time we started came a deluge of rain, the welcomest imaginable; for in that downpour the Russians lost us and never found us again. We fared on, knowing every foot of the way, for Count Saxe had made himself thoroughly familiar with this road to his island fortress. Bridges were down, and the roads were mere quagmires, but these were small difficulties to nineteen seasoned men, riding for their lives.

We bivouacked that night, and for four other nights, in those rocky and almost impa.s.sable woods with which that country abounds, and which seem devised for the security of the hunted. It was easy enough to get food and forage, for we were well supplied with money. The argument of gold was supplemented by another argument of death, if the seller was disobliging; we had twenty good horse pistols, and their united reasoning never failed to convince. From the first day until the last but one of our flight, the weather was bad: torrents of rain, wild winds roaring, nature in a tumult night and day. At last the air grew soft, the sun shone, and on a heavenly August evening, after pa.s.sing through a country green with deep-embosoming woods, and with sunny, verdant slopes and many trickling crystal waters, we came upon a great mirror of a lake, with a fair, wooded island in the midst of it; and that was our city of refuge--the lake and island of Uzmaiz.

CHAPTER IX

A CRIMSON MANTLE

I shall never forget the August evening when first we saw that island of enchanted beauty in Lake Uzmaiz. The lake lay blue and still, with an opaline sky, shot with gold, reflected in it. The green island, fringed with trees, and with a small, half-ruined castle on a gentle knoll in the middle, was mirrored in that fair expanse. There were two towers of the castle left standing, and they gave upon a broad terrace of which the escarpment was gone to soft decay, moss-grown and beautiful. There was a little point of land, rock-fringed, against which the water lapped like a mother crooning to her babe, and opposite to it, a point on the mainland, gra.s.sy and bordered with alder bushes. It was still and quiet and placid, like a dream of peace. Over all, the declining sun shone golden, bathing the wooded peaks afar with soft splendor. The beauty and the peacefulness of it went to the heart of one. Oh, what loveliness there was in that lake, that island, that darkly blue horizon, that sunset sky, glowing with amethyst and pale green!

But there were beauties other than those of nature on the island. The first I reckon to be our three hundred stout fellows, who owned as much ragged valor as any three hundred soldiers in the world. They were delighted to see Count Saxe, and each man had a kind of leathern grin upon his countenance that was as satisfactory to us as beauty's most bewitching smile. They had not lost a day in intrenching, and the natural strength of the island was such that Count Saxe declared, if he could have but a few weeks, even with his small force, he could intrench himself so that it would take ten thousand to dislodge him.