The Eagle of the Empire Part 47

At the feet of the English officer lay a French officer wearing the insignia of a Colonel of the Guard. He was covered with wounds, bayonet thrusts, a saber-slash, and was delirious. Although helpless, he was really in much better case than the young Englishman. He, too, in his delirium muttered a woman's name.

They spoke different tongues, these two. They were born in different lands. They were children of the same G.o.d, although one might have doubted it, but no one could mistake the woman's name. For there Frank Yeovil and Jean Marteau, incapable of doing each other any further harm, each thought of the same woman.

Did Laure d'Aumenier back in England waiting anxiously for news of battle, fearing for one of those men, hear those piteous, broken murmurs of a woman's name--her own?

Around these two were piled the dead. Marteau had seized the Eagle.

Yes, he and a few brave men had stayed on the field when the great Ney, raging like a madman, and seeking in vain the happy fortune of a bullet or sword-thrust, had been swept away, and on him had fallen Yeovil with another group of resolute English, and together they had fought their little battle for the Eagle. And Marteau had proved the Englishman's master. He had beaten him down. He had shortened his sword to strike when he recognized him. Well, the battle was over, the Eagle was lost, the Emperor was a fugitive, hope died with the retreating Guard, the Empire was ended. Marteau might have killed him, but to what end?

"For your wife's sake," he cried, lowering his sword, and the next minute he paid for his mercy, for the other English threw themselves upon him.

But Frank Yeovil did not get off scot free. There was one lad who had followed Marteau, who had marched with the Guard, who had no compunctions of conscience whatever, and with his last pistol Pierre gave the reeling Englishman the fatal shot. Yes, Pierre paid too.

They would certainly have spared him, since he was only a boy, but maddened by the death of their officer, half a dozen bayonets were plunged into his breast.

Thither the next day came Sir Gervaise Yeovil, who had been with the Duke at the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond's famous ball in Brussels. Young Frank had left that ball at four o'clock in the morning, according to order, only to find that later orders had directed the army to march at two and that his baggage had gone. He had fought that day in pumps and silk stockings which he had worn at the ball; dabbled, gory, muddy, they were now.

Sir Gervaise Yeovil was an old friend of the Duke of Wellington. The Iron Duke, as they called him, was nevertheless very tender-hearted that morning. He told the Baronet that his son was somewhere on the field. Colonel Colborne of the Fifty-second had marked him in the charge, but that was all. Neither Vivian nor Vandeleur could throw any light on the situation. There were twenty thousand of the allied armies on that field and thirty thousand French.

"My G.o.d," said Sir Gervaise, staring along the line of the French retreat, "what is so terrible as a defeat?"

"Nothing," said the Duke gravely. Then looking at the nearer hillside he added those tremendous words which epitomized war in a way in which no one save a great modern captain has ever epitomized it. "Nothing,"

he said slowly, "unless it be a victory."

They found the Guard. That was easy. There they lay in lines where they had fallen; the tall bearskins on their heads, the muskets still clasped in their hands. There, too, they found young Yeovil at last.

They revived him. Someone sought to take the Eagle from him, but with a sudden accession of strength he protested against it.

"Father," he whispered to the old man bending over him, his red face pale and working, "mine."

"True," said the Duke. "He captured it. Let him keep it."

"O G.o.d!" broke out the Baronet. "Frank! Can nothing be done?"

"Nothing. Stop." His lips moved, his father bent nearer. "Laure----"

he whispered.

"Yes, yes, what of her?"

"That Frenchman she loved----"

"Marteau?"

The young Englishman closed his eyes in a.s.sent.

"He could have killed me but spared--for her--he--is there," he faltered presently.

"There is life in this Frenchman yet," said one of the surgeons, looking up at the moment.

"My Lord!" said old Sir Gervaise Yeovil, starting up, choking down a sob and endeavoring to keep his voice steady. "My boy yonder----"

"Yes," said the Duke, "a brave lad."

"He's---- It is all up with him. You will let me take him back to England, and--the Frenchman and the Eagle?"

"Certainly. I wish to G.o.d it had never happened, Yeovil," went on the soldier. "But it had to be. Bonaparte had to be put down, the world freed. And somebody had to pay."

"I thank G.o.d," said the old man, "that my boy dies for his King and his country and for human liberty."

"Nor shall he die in vain," said the soldier.

Frank Yeovil died on the vessel Sir Gervaise chartered to carry him and Marteau and some other wounded officers of his acquaintance back to England. They did not bury him at sea. At his earnest request they took him back to his own land to be laid with his ancestors, none of whom had spent themselves more gloriously or for a greater cause than he.

Marteau, frightfully weak, heart-broken and helpless, by Sir Gervaise Yeovil's command was taken to the Baronet's own house.

"I did my best," he said brokenly from the bed on which he lay as Laure d'Aumenier bent over him, Sir Gervaise standing grim and silent with folded arms in the background.

"For France and the Emperor," whispered the woman.

"Yes, that, but for your husband as well. He fell upon me. I was trying to rally the Guard--the Eagle--he was beaten down--but I recognized him. I would not have harmed him."

"He told me," said the Baronet, "what you said. 'For your wife's sake,'" he quoted in his deep voice, looking curiously at the girl.

"Sir Gervaise," said the Countess, looking up at him entreatingly, "I am alone in this world but for you. I was to have been your daughter.

May I speak?"

"I wish it."

"Marteau--Jean," she said softly, "I was not his wife. Perhaps now that he is dead it would have been better if I had been, but----"

"And you are free?"

Again the Countess looked at the Englishman. Simple and homely though he was, he showed the qualities of his birth and rank.

"Mademoiselle," he began gravely, almost tenderly. He looked a long time at her. "Little Laure," he continued at last, taking her slender hand in his own great one, "I had hoped that you might some day call me father but that hope is gone--since Waterloo. If I were your real father now I should say----"

"Monsieur!" whispered the woman, her eyes brightening, her hand tightening in the clasp of the other.

"And I think the old Marquis would say that it is the will of G.o.d, now----" He bit his lip. It was all so different from what he imagined.

"Go on, if you please," whispered Marteau. "I am ill. I cannot bear----"

"If she be guided by me she will be your wife, young sir," said Sir Gervaise decisively.

He dropped the woman's hand. He turned and walked heavily out of the room without a backward glance. He could do no more.

"And will you stoop to me?" pleaded Marteau.

For answer the woman knelt by his bed and slipped her arm tenderly under his head. She bent and kissed him.

"When you are stronger," she replied, "you shall raise me up to your own high level of courage and devotion and self-sacrifice, but meanwhile it is upon my bosom that your head must lie."