The Baron's Sons Part 27

Then the gallant band reloaded, shouldered their pieces, and marched back to join their comrades. But presently the sound of approaching cavalry was again heard on the road behind them. The hors.e.m.e.n divided to right and left, hoping to surround their foe. The latter, however, closed in about their leader, and then faced outward, presenting a bristling wall of bayonets on every side, like a monstrous hedgehog; and again their merry student song rang out defiantly. Once more the attacking cavalry was forced to fall back before the lively volleys of this determined band, which seemed ignorant of the meaning of fear, and proof against all modes of a.s.sault. Its method was to let the enemy advance until a rifle-volley was sure to do the most execution.

The student song had many stanzas, one for each attack from the pursuing cavalry; it was sung to the end, and the enemy repulsed at each onset. The slightly wounded bound up their wounds, while those who had fared the worst were laid across their comrades' rifle-barrels and so carried along, marking their path with their life-blood, and ever shouting hurrahs for the cause of liberty.

At last the cartridges ran low.

"Look here, patron," said Mausmann to odon, "we have but one round of ammunition left, and when that is gone we are lost. But there's a bridge yonder which we can easily hold, and the cavalry can't get through the bog to surround us. And now, boys, swear that you'll save this last shot, and from now on receive the enemy with your bayonets."

Thereupon the still undaunted students knelt on the highway, and, with upraised right hands, sang an oath from some opera chorus--perhaps it was from "Beatrice"--resolved to play their parts well till the ringing down of the curtain. Then they took possession of the bridge, and were preparing to receive the enemy's cavalry on the points of their bayonets, when all at once the hors.e.m.e.n slackened their pace and seemed stricken with a sudden panic. Out from the thicket that bordered the road broke a squadron of hussars, and by a flank attack scattered the cuira.s.siers in all directions.

The fight was over for that day. The enemy sounded the retreat, and the Hungarians were left to go their way unmolested. The hussars turned back to the bridge, led by their captain, a tall and muscular young man with flashing eyes and a smile that played constantly about his mouth. Two of the young men on the bridge recognised that face and form. Those two were odon and Mausmann.

"Hurrah! Baradlay! Richard Baradlay!" cried the student, throwing his cap high in the air, and rushing to meet his old acquaintance. In the warmth of his welcome he nearly pulled the other from his horse.

Then odon came forward, and the two brothers, who had not met for six years, fell into each other's arms, while hussars and legionaries embraced and kissed one another, each with words of praise on his tongue for the other.

"Heaven must have sent you to us!" exclaimed odon. "If you hadn't come when you did, you would have been by this time the head of the family."

"G.o.d forbid!" cried Richard. "But what are you doing here? The secretary of war bade me give you a good scolding for exposing your life when you are commissary-general and your place is with the transport wagons. You were not sent out to fight, and you have a young wife and infant children dependent on you. Have you forgotten them, unfeeling man? Just wait till I tell mother what you are up to!" As he spoke he grew suddenly serious. "Dear mother!" he exclaimed; "she must have foreseen this when she came to me and bade me hasten hither to your side."

CHAPTER XVIII.

GREGORY BOKSA.

The night after the battle odon and Richard pa.s.sed in a neighbouring village, and both were engaged until morning in restoring such order as they could among the defeated troops.

"If we could only offer them something to eat," said Richard. "The smell of a good roast would rally the men quickly enough."

Yes, but a good roast was not to be had. The enemy had pa.s.sed through that village twice, and had left very poor pickings for those that came after them. Bread was at hand, as the provision train had been saved, but meat was wanting.

"How glad we should be now to see Gregory Boksa, our ox-herd, with his fifty head of cattle!" exclaimed odon; and a patrol was sent out to search for the man, who, it was thought, might have found a place of safety for himself and his charge. But the search, which was continued until late in the evening, proved fruitless. At length, however, Boksa made his appearance, but without his oxen, and leading his horse behind him. Evidently he had dismounted to show how grievously lame he was. He groaned and sighed piteously as he came limping into camp, using his pole-axe for a crutch, and appearing utterly exhausted.

"Boksa, what has happened to you?" asked odon.

"Ah, sir," moaned the ox-driver, "you may well ask what has happened to me. A good deal has happened to me. I am all done up. I shall never again be the man I was. Oh, oh! my backbone is broken. That cursed cannon-ball! A big forty-pounder hit me."

Mausmann and his comrades burst into a loud laugh at this.

"But where is our herd of oxen?" was the question from every side.

"Ah, if I only knew! Just as the fight was beginning, I took my knife out of my boot-leg and opened my knapsack to get my bread and bacon, and have a quiet little lunch, when all at once the Germans began to blaze away at me, so that I dropped knife, bread, and bacon, and thought for sure my last hour had come. Whiz! a ball grazed by me, and it was a twenty-eight pounder, as sure as I'm alive. It was a chain-shot, too, a couple of twenty-eight pounders joined together."

"You ran away," said odon, interrupting the narrative, "we understand that. But where are the oxen?"

"How should I know, with cannon-b.a.l.l.s singing about my ears so that I couldn't look around without losing my head?"

"Look here, brother," interposed Richard, addressing odon, "that isn't the way to handle this case. Let me try my hand. Now, you cowardly rascal, the long and short of it is, you ran away at the first shot, and left your herd in the enemy's hands. Here, corporal, fetch out the flogging-bench and give him fifty with the strap."

At these words Gregory Boksa changed his limping, broken-backed att.i.tude and suddenly straightened up. Holding his head high and smiting his chest with his clenched fist, he burst out haughtily:

"That is more than I will submit to. My name is Gregory Boksa, n.o.bleman; and, besides, I beg to remind the captain that the Hungarian diet has done away with flogging, even for the common people."

"All right," returned Richard; "when you have received your fifty strokes you may go and appeal to the diet. We are not legislating now."

The order was faithfully executed, poor Gregory bellowing l.u.s.tily the while, after which he was obliged to return and thank the hussar officer for his lesson.

"Now, then," said Richard, "did the Germans shoot forty-pounders?"

"If you please, sir," replied Boksa humbly, "they didn't even fire a pistol at me."

"Disarm him," was the other's order, "and set him on his horse. Then let him go whither he will. A soldier who is not ashamed to run away deserves to feel the rod on that part of his body which he shows to the enemy."

Stripped of his sword and pistols and pole-axe, and with his whip hung around his neck, poor Boksa was mounted on his piebald nag and ignominiously driven out of camp.

Drawing out his pipe, he looked into the bowl, took off his cap and examined it, and then inspected his tobacco-pouch; after which he replaced his cap, pocketed his pipe, closed his tobacco-pouch, and rode on. Was he hatching some deep scheme of revenge?

He rode back over the very road by which he had that day taken his flight,--straight toward the enemy's camp. Suddenly he was challenged in the darkness:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Oh, how you frightened me," exclaimed the ox-herd. "I am a deserter."

The sentinel ordered Boksa to wait there until the patrol came to lead him away. Soon a file-leader appeared with a common soldier and received Gregory's statement that he was a runaway from the Hungarian camp and wished to speak with the commander. He had chanced upon the encampment of a cavalry regiment, whose colonel was at the moment playing cards in his tent with some of his officers. Being told that a deserter was outside, waiting to speak with him, he ordered the man to be admitted.

The officers became interested at once in the newcomer, who appeared at the same time cowardly and haughty, angry and humble; who wore the look of a suppliant and gnashed his teeth with rage, kissed every one's hand, and swore by all the saints while he was doing it.

"Why did you desert?" asked the colonel.

"Because they had me flogged; me, whose family has been n.o.ble for seventy-seven generations. And then they took away my arms, which cannot lawfully be taken from a n.o.bleman even for debt, and drove me out of the camp like a dog. All right! There are other people over the mountains, and Gregory Boksa can find a market for his services elsewhere."

"And in what capacity did you serve?" demanded the colonel.

"As ox-herd."

"As a non-combatant, then. Now I understand why you are so fierce."

"Oh, I can handle my man in an honest fight," answered Gregory, "but I'm a bit put out where loud shooting is going on."

The officers laughed at this nave confession.

"Very well," said the colonel; "it so happens that we need a man now who can manage oxen. We have captured a herd from the enemy, and you shall have the care of it."

At these words Gregory Boksa seized the colonel's hand and kissed it.

"Ah, sir," he cried, "may the saints bless you! You shall find me a faithful servant, who will go through fire and water to serve you.

I'll soon show you what an artist I am in my calling."

Being introduced to the corporal in charge, Boksa offered, with the zeal of one newly entering upon a responsible position, to take up his quarters for the night among his oxen, with his good horse at his side. Surely, when one is hired to discharge certain duties he must discharge them to the best of his ability. He had a good thick cloak to wrap himself in, and, besides, he could smoke if he chose, out there in the open air,--a solace that would be denied him if he pa.s.sed the night in the stable.