My Lady Rotha Part 20

With a sudden gesture he leaned over and laid his hand on the withers of my lady's horse. 'Tell me, what is the matter, fair cousin?' he said in a softened tone. 'What have I done?'

'You should know,' she answered, giving him one keen glance, but speaking more gently than before.

'I know?' he replied hardily. 'I am sure I don't.'

My lady shook her head. 'I think you do,' she said.

'I suppose you are angry with me for--for standing up for Germany last night?' he muttered, withdrawing his hand and speaking coldly in his turn.

'No, not for that,' my lady rejoined. 'Certainly not for that. But for being too German in one of your habits, Rupert. Which do you think made the better figure last night--you who were flushed with wine, or General Tzerclas who kept his head cool? You who bragged like a boy, or General Tzerclas who said less than he meant? You who were rude to your host; or he who made every allowance for his guest?'

'Allowance!' my lord cried, firing up at the word. And I could see that he reddened to the nape of his neck with anger. 'There was no need!'

'Yes, allowance,' my lady answered firmly. 'There was every need.'

'You would have me drink nothing, I suppose?' he said fretting and fuming.

'I would rather you drank nothing than too much,' she replied.

'Because a German and a drunkard have come to mean the same thing, is that a reason for deepening the reproach? For shame, Rupert!'

'You treat me like a boy!' he cried bitterly. And I thought that she was hard on him.

'Well, you have only yourself to thank,' she retorted cruelly, 'if I do. You behave like a boy. And I do not like to have to blush for my friends.'

That cut him deeply. He uttered a half-stifled cry of anger and reined in his horse. 'You have said enough,' he said, speaking thickly. 'You shall have no farther cause to blush in my case. I will relieve you.'

And on the instant, with a low bow, he turned his horse's head and rode down the column towards the rear, leaving my lady to go on alone.

I confess I thought that she had been hard on him; perhaps she thought so too, now he was gone. And here were the beginnings of a pretty quarrel. But I did not guess the direction it was likely to take, until a horseman spurred quickly by me, and in a moment General Tzerclas, his velvet cloak hanging at his shoulder, had taken the Waldgrave's place, and with his head bent low over his horse's neck was talking to my lady. I saw him indicate this and that quarter with his gauntleted hand. I could fancy that this was Ca.s.sel, and that Frankfort, and another his camp, and that he was proposing plans and routes. But what he said I could not hear. He had a low, quiet way of talking, very characteristic of him, which flattered those to whom he addressed himself and baffled others.

And this, I suppose, it was that made me suspicious. For the longer I rode behind him and the more I considered him, the less I liked both him and the prospect. He was in the prime of his age and strength, inferior to the Waldgrave in height and the air of youth, but superior in that which the other lacked--the bearing of a man of the world, tried by good and evil fortune, and versed in many perils. Cool and resolute, handsome in a hard-bitten fashion, gifted, as I guessed, with infinite address, he possessed much to take the fancy of a woman; particularly of such a one as my lady, long used to comfort, and now learning in ill-fortune the value of a strong arm.

The possibility of such an alliance, thus suddenly thrust on my notice, chilled me. Anything, I said, rather than that. The Waldgrave had not left his post five minutes before I began to think of him with longing, before I began to invest him with all manner of virtues. At least, he was a German, of a great and n.o.ble family, tied to the soil, and fettered in his dealings by a hundred traditions; while this man riding before me possessed not one of these qualities!

Von Werder's warning, which the loss of Marie Wort's necklace had driven from my mind for a time, recurred with double force now, and did not tend to rea.s.sure me. I listened with all my might, trying to learn whether my lady was pledging herself to any course, for I knew that if she once promised I should find it hard to move her. But I could not catch a syllable, and presently there came an interruption which diverted my thoughts.

One of the two men who rode in front, and served for the advanced guard of our party, came galloping back with his hand raised and a grin on his dark face. He pulled up his horse a few paces short of General Tzerclas and my lady, and reported that he had found the Saxon.

'What! h.e.l.ler?' the general exclaimed. 'Here, Ludwig! Where are you?'

Ludwig, and I, and two or three more, spurred forward, and pa.s.sing by my lady, who reined in her horse, came a hundred paces farther on upon the other trooper. He had dismounted and was stooping over a man's body, which lay under a great tree that stood a few yards from the track.

'So, so? He is dead, is he?' the captain cried, leaping from his saddle.

'Ay, this hour or more,' the trooper answered with a grunt. 'And robbed!'

'Robbed?' Ludwig shrieked. 'Then you have done it, you scoundrel.'

'Not I!' the fellow said coolly. 'Who ever it was killed him, robbed him. You can see for yourself that he has been dead an hour or more.'

The sudden hope which had dawned in my breast sank again. The man lay on his back, with his one eye staring, and his mean, livid face turned up to the tree and the sunshine. His cap had fallen off, and a shock of hay-coloured hair added to the horror of his appearance. I tried in vain to hide a qualm as I watched the soldiers pa.s.sing their practised hands over his clothes; but I was alone in this. No one else seemed to feel any emotion. The dead man lay and his comrades searched him, and I heard a hundred ribald and loose things said, but not one that smacked of pity or regret. So the man had lived, without love or mercy, and so he died.

Ludwig stood up at last. 'He has not the worth of his boots upon him!'

he said, with a savage snarl. And he kicked the body.

'Look in his cap!' I said.

A man took it up, but only to hold it out to me. Some one had already ripped it up with a knife.

'His boots!' I suggested desperately.

In a moment they were drawn off, turned up, and shaken. But nothing fell out. The dead man had been stripped clean. There was not so much as a silver piece upon him.

We got to horse gloomily, one man the richer by his belt, another by his boots. His arms were gone already. And so we left him lying under the tree for the next traveller to bury, if he pleased. I know it has an ill sound now, but we were in an evil mood, and the times were rough.

'The dog is dead, let the dog lie!' one growled. And that was his epitaph.

With him disappeared, as it seemed to me, my last chance of recovering the necklace. Whoever had robbed him, that was gone. A week might see it pa.s.s through a score of hands, a day might see it broken up, and spent, a link here and a link there. It was gone, and I had to face the fact and make up my mind to its consequences.

I am bound to say that the reflection gave me less pain than I could have believed possible a few hours before. Then it would almost have maddened me. Now it troubled me, but not beyond endurance, leading me to go over with a jealous eye all the particulars of my interview with Marie, but renewing none of the shame which had attended the first discovery of my loss. By turning my head I could see the girl plodding patiently on, a little behind me in the ranks; and I turned often. It no longer pained me to meet her eyes.

An hour before sunset we crossed the brow of a low, furze-covered hill, and saw before us a shallow green valley or basin, through which the river wound in a hundred zigzags. The hovels of a small village, with one or two houses of a better size, stood dotted about the banks of the stream. Over the largest of the buildings a banner hung idly on a pole, and from this as from the centre of a circle ran out long rows of wattled huts, which in the distance looked like bee-hives. Endless ranks of horses stood hobbled in another place, with a forest of carts and sledges, and here a drove of oxen, and there a monstrous flock of sheep. One of the men with us blew a few notes on a trumpet; and the sound, being taken up at once and repeated, in a moment filled the mimic streets with a hurrying, buzzing crowd, that lent the scene all the animation possible.

'So, this is your camp?' my lady exclaimed, her eyes sparkling.

'This is my camp,' General Tzerclas answered quietly. 'And it and I are equally at your service. Presently we will bid you welcome after a more fitting fashion, Countess.'

'And how many men have you here?' she asked quickly.

'Two thousand,' he answered, with a faint smile.

CHAPTER XIII.

OUR QUARTERS.

At this time I had never seen a camp, nor viewed any large number of armed men together, and my curiosity, as we dropped gently down the hill, while the sun set and the shadows of evening fell upon the busy scene, was mingled with some uneasiness. The babble of voices, of traders crying their wares, of men quarrelling at play, of women screaming and scolding, rose up continually, as from a fair; and the nearer we approached the more like a fair, the less like my antic.i.p.ations, seemed the place we were entering. I looked to see something gay and splendid, the glitter of weapons and the gleam of flags, some reflection of the rich surroundings the general allowed himself. I saw nothing of the kind; no show of ordered lines, no battalia drilling, no picquets, outposts, or sentinels. On the contrary, all before us seemed squalid, noisy, turbulent; so that as I descended into the midst of it, and left the quiet uplands and the evening behind us, I felt my gorge rise, and shivered as with cold.

A furlong short of the camp a troop of officers on horseback came to meet us, and saluting their general--some with hiccoughs--fell in tumultuously behind us; and their feathered hats and haphazard armour took the eye finely. But the next to meet us were of a different kind--beggars; troops of whom, men, women, and children, a.s.sailed us with loud cries, and, wailing and imploring aid, ran beside our horses, until Tzerclas' men rode out at them and beat them off. To these succeeded a second horde, this time of gaudy, slatternly women, who hung about the entrance to the camp, with hucksters, peddlers, thieves, and the like, without number; so that our way seemed to lie through the lowest haunts of a great city. Not one in four of all I saw had the air of a soldier or counted himself one.

And this was the case inside the camp as well as outside. Everywhere booths and stalls stood among the huts, and sutlers plied their trade.

Everywhere men wrangled, and women screamed, and naked children scuttered up and down. While we pa.s.sed, the general's presence procured momentary respect and silence. The moment we were gone, the stream of ribaldry poured across our path, and the tide of riot set in. I saw plenty of bearded ruffians, dark men with scowling faces, chaffering, gaming or sleeping; but little that was soldierly, little that was orderly, nothing to proclaim that this was the lager of a military force, until we had left the camp itself behind us and entered the village.

Here in a few scattered houses were the quarters of the princ.i.p.al officers; and here a degree of quiet and decency and some show met the eye. A watch was set in the street, which was ankle-deep in filth. A few pennons fluttered from the eaves, or before the doors. In front of the largest house a dozen cannon, the wheels locked together with chains, were drawn up, and behind the buildings were groups of tethered horses. Two trumpeters, who seemed to be waiting for us, blew a blast as we appeared, and a dozen officers on foot, some with pikes and some with partisans, came up to greet the general. But even here ugly looks and insolent faces were plentiful. The splendour was faded, the rich garments were set on awry. Hard by the cannon, in the shadow of the house, a corpse hung and dangled from the branch of an oak. The man had kicked off his shoes before he died, or some one had taken them, and the naked feet, shining in the dusk, brushed the shoulders of the pa.s.sers-by.

Some might have taken it for an evil omen; I found it a good one, yet wished more than ever that we had not met General Tzerclas. But my lady, riding beside him and listening to his low-voiced talk, seemed not a whit disappointed by what she saw, by the lack of discipline, or the sordid crowd. Either she had known better than I what to expect in a camp, or she had eyes only for such brightness as existed. Possibly Von Werder's warning had so coloured my vision that I saw everything in sombre tints.