Lorraine Part 44

"They are holding the Chateau to protect the retreat, I think.

Hark! The gatling is roaring like a furnace! What has happened?"

"I don't know. The old general came to speak to me when I awoke.

He was very good and kind. Then suddenly the sentinel on the stairs fell down and we ran out. He was dead; a bullet had entered from the window at the end of the hall. After that I went into my room to dress, and the general hurried down-stairs, telling me to wait until he called for me. He did not come back; the firing began, and some sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.t the house. All the troops in the garden began to leave, and I did not know what to do, so I waited for you."

Jack glanced right and left. The artillery were leaving by the stable road; from every side the infantry streamed past across the lawn, running when they came to the garden, where a shower of bullets fell among the shrubbery. A captain hastening towards the terrace looked at them in surprise.

"What is it?" cried Jack. "Can't you hold the Chateau?"

"The other Chateau has been carried," said the captain. "They are taking us on the left flank. Madame," he added, "should go at once; this place will be untenable in a few moments."

Lorraine spoke breathlessly: "Are you to hold the Chateau with the gatling until the army is safe?"

"Yes, madame," said the captain. "We are obliged to."

There came a sudden lull in the firing. Lorraine caught Jack's arm.

"Come," cried Jack, "we've got to go now!"

"I shall stay!" she said; "I know my work is here!"

The German rifle-flames began to sparkle and flicker along the river-bank; a bullet rang out against the granite facade behind them.

"Come!" he cried, sharply, but she slipped from him and ran towards the house.

Drums were beating somewhere in the distant forest--shrill, treble drums--and from every hill-side the hollow, harsh Prussian trumpets spoke. Then came a sound, deep, menacing--a far cry:

"Hourra! Preussen!"

"Why don't you cheer?" faltered Lorraine, mounting the terrace.

The artillerymen looked at her in surprise. Jack caught her arm; she shook him off impatiently.

"Cheer!" she cried again. "Is France dumb?" She raised her hand.

"Vive la France!" shouted the artillerymen, catching her ardour.

"Vive la Patrie! Vive Lorraine!"

Again the short, barking, Prussian cheer sounded, and again the artillerymen answered it, cheer on cheer, for France, for the Land, for the Province of Lorraine. Up in the windows of the Chateau the line soldiers were cheering, too; the engineers on the roof, stamping out the sparks and flames, swung their caps and echoed the shouts from terrace and window.

In the sudden silence that followed they caught the vibration of hundreds of hoofs--there came a rush, a shout:

"Hourra! Preussen! Hourra! Hourra!" and into the lawn dashed the German cavalry, banging away with carbine and revolver. At the same moment, over the park walls swarmed the Bavarians in a forest of bayonets. The Chateau vomited flame from every window; the gatling, pulled back into the front door, roared out in a hundred streaks of fire. Jack dragged Lorraine to the first floor; she was terribly excited. Almost at once she knelt down and began to load rifles, pa.s.sing them to Jack, who pa.s.sed them to the soldiers at the windows. Once, when a whole window was torn in and the mattress on fire, she quenched the flames with water from her pitcher; and when the soldiers hesitated at the breach, she started herself, but Jack held her back and led the cheering, and piled more mattresses into the shattered window.

Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house, hammering with rifle-b.u.t.ts at the closed shutters, crouching, dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.

Suddenly they all gave way; the garden and lawns were emptied save for the writhing wounded and motionless dead.

"Cheer!" gasped Lorraine; and the battered Chateau rang again with frenzied cries of triumph.

The wounded were calling for water, and Jack and Lorraine brought it in bowls. Here and there the bedding and wood-work had caught fire, but the line soldiers knocked it out with their rifle-b.u.t.ts.

Whenever Lorraine entered a room they cheered her--the young officers waved their caps, even a dying bugler raised himself and feebly sounded the salute to the colours.

By the light of the candles Jack noticed for the first time that Lorraine wore the dress of the Province--that costume that he had first seen her in--the scarlet skirt, the velvet bodice, the chains of silver. And as she stood loading the rifles in the smoke-choked room, the soldiers saw more than that: they saw the Province itself in battle there--the Province of Lorraine. And they cheered and leaped to the windows, firing frenziedly, crying the old battle-cry of Lorraine: "Tiens ta Foy! Frappe! Pour le Roy!" while the child in the bodice and scarlet skirt stood up straight and snapped back the locks of the loaded cha.s.sepots, one by one.

"Once again! For France!" cried Lorraine, as the clamour of the Prussian drums broke out on the hill-side, and the hoa.r.s.e trumpets signalled from wood to wood.

A thundering cry arose from the Chateau:

"France!"

The sullen boom of a Prussian cannon drowned it; the house shook with the impact of a sh.e.l.l, bursting in fury on the terrace.

White faces turned to faces whiter still.

"Cannon!"

"Hold on! For France!" cried Lorraine, feverishly.

"Cannon!" echoed the voices, one to another.

Again the solid walls shook with the shock of a solid shot.

Jack stuffed the steel box into his breast and turned to Lorraine.

"It is ended, we cannot stay--" he began; but at that instant something struck him a violent blow on the chest, and he fell, striking the floor with his head.

In a second Lorraine was at his side, lifting him with all the strength of her arms, calling to him: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"

The soldiers were leaving the windows now; the house rocked and tottered under the blows of sh.e.l.l and solid shot. Down-stairs an officer cried: "Save yourselves!" There was a hurry of feet through the halls and on the stairs. A young soldier touched Lorraine timidly on the shoulder.

"Give him to me; I will carry him down," he said.

She clung to Jack and turned a blank gaze on the soldier.

"Give him to me," he repeated; "the house is burning." But she would not move nor relinquish her hold. Then the soldier seized Jack and threw him over his shoulder, running swiftly down the stairs, that rocked under his feet. Lorraine cried out and followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and thunder of the exploding sh.e.l.ls dazed and stunned her; but the soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she followed, stumbling to his side.

"To the trees--yonder--the forest--" he gasped.

They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.

"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"

"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his.

XXV