The Mercenary Part 45

The aide-de-camp inclined his head in token of a.s.sent.

"We obey orders!" he said softly.

"What is the matter with me?"

"You had a pike-thrust through your left shoulder, a musket-shot grazed your ribs, you were knocked unconscious from a blow from the raft as you fell into the water. The poleman just s.n.a.t.c.hed you from the gates of heaven!" The Jesuit sighed as he said the last words. "As for myself, it is not time yet."

Nigel had no reply ready. He decided however that, as he did not feel any resentment against the poleman, he was not yet prepared for the end his companion, evidently in good faith, desired for him.

A night and a day at Neuburg and the army with its men and its waggons, its artillery, its swarms of camp-followers, pa.s.sed on to Ingolstadt.

Count Tilly still lived, and while he lived Maximilian acted upon his advice.

"Defend Ingolstadt as long as possible. Throw troops forward into Ratisbon and hold that. Holding the two you hold the Danube!"

Other advice he gave, that all wounded and camp-followers should be sent forward to Ratisbon. Ingolstadt was strongly fortified and might turn the edge of Gustavus' sword if it contained nothing but fighting men.

Ratisbon would be a safe refuge for a few weeks.

Nigel was carried into the presence of Count Tilly at Ingolstadt.

The old general, looking shrivelled, sunken, his eyes feverishly bright, lay in his bed. His hat with the red feather and his sword hung upon the wall.

He looked up and recognised Nigel.

"You too, boy?"

"Not badly!" said Nigel.

"Go on to Ratisbon! You'll be well enough to fight the Swede again in three weeks!" His voice faltered even in its weakness. He turned his head away a minute or two. Nigel knew what the old warrior was thinking, and could not find it in him to utter the worthless consolatory hopes that he might.

"But _I_ shall never fight again! The Swede has beaten me. I would that we had fought in the open and not cooped up behind trenches and rivers.

Well! It is Wallenstein's chance now, and for _me_ nothing but the priest's viatic.u.m. G.o.d be with you, boy!"

Nigel clasped his thin sword-hand with his own, and the young soldier of fortune looked into the eyes, the stern, sharp, wistful, wild eyes of the old soldier, who was doomed beyond possible help of army surgeon, and the old man knew that the young one held him for a brave man, who had been staunch to his profession, and loyal to the Emperor even to the death. There was more comfort in Nigel's eyes than in a thousand protestations from men who had never faced ball and pike-thrust on a hard-fought field.

Nigel gulped down something and whispered hoa.r.s.ely--

"Good-bye, General. The Holy Saints help you!"

His orderlies carried him out, and two days afterwards Tilly died, the sound of Gustavus' cannon, without the walls of Ingolstadt, ringing in his ears.

Nigel reached Ratisbon in the train of the troops sent on to defend it.

Every day he was under the ministrations of the Jesuit, who combined the art of the healer with that of spiritual director, as if he had never, sword in hand, hewn down Swedish pikemen on the bridge at the Lech.

Every day made him gain something of ease. And once lodged in a comfortable upper room at Ratisbon he began to recover the usage of his legs.

But he was still far from the recovery of his full vigour, and spent most of the day looking from a window seat, his shoulders leaning against cushions because of his wounds, upon the pa.s.sing trivialities of the street, while the aide-de-camp was out about his military duties.

It was while he was thus employed that his soldier servant announced, "A high-born lady visiting the sick, colonel!"

Wondering what new adventure this might be, he bade the soldier bring her up.

First came a sour-visaged dame, whom Nigel half recognised and then decided that he did not. Hard on her heels came one that brought a sudden flush into his pallor. It was the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie.

It was clearly as unexpected on her part. But with wonderful presence of mind she entreated him not to rise, and bade her maid set down her basket and wait below.

Then as the door closed she sprang to him.

"Nigel! My love, Nigel! In Ratisbon!"

She knelt at his side, and placing his arm about her neck laid her face against his, and crooned softly to him as she would have done to a babe.

And he could say little but press her dear hand closer to him and whisper "Stephanie! You too in Ratisbon!"

"We came, my brother Ferdinand and I, to strengthen the hands of the Elector Maximilian, so that he fell not into the sin of neutrality."

"You and Ferdinand?" There was a world of inquiry in his tone.

"Yes, Nigel! Ferdinand was to play the fisherman and I the bait." She sprang from him and dropped a stately curtsey, pulling her face straight, serene and wonderful to behold for any one, but to Nigel not the Queen of Sheba nor Zen.o.bia of Palmyra would have seemed more wonderful.

"And I the bait!" she repeated and laughed.

"But Maximilian had hopelessly broken his neutrality by the time you arrived!" said Nigel.

"We could not know it till we came! And then I told the Elector what I had told him in any hazard, I would not wed him were he twenty times Elector and the Great Mogul besides. It is not in my blood or my humour."

Nigel's eyes spoke the admiration for her boldness that he felt.

"Then you have tricked the Emperor, and Father Lamormain, and flouted Maximilian----"

"To follow you, Tall Captain, or carry you off in my arms, or what shall I do? I had no certain knowledge you were here. I had learned that the camp had been broken up, that Tilly had retired to Ingolstadt, and when I heard that the wounded were sent on to Ratisbon I began my search, wondering how much of you I might find."

"It is naught!" said Nigel, getting up. "I have lost blood. I have a scratch in the ribs, a thrust of pike in my left shoulder, but they heal. A Jesuit is living with me, Captain von Gratz, salving me, preaching to me, and doing military duty too."

"Not a word to him! Father Lamormain suspects! I know not how much, but much!"

"You must plan, and I must plan!" said Nigel. "We are in a serious case.

If we be not wedded in a little, wedded we two shall never be. It is too much to set the Emperor and the Elector at defiance and not expect reprisals. But if we be wedded, beloved Stephanie, we may even get off with a hair shirt and smock, saving your Highness, and exile to some remote castle in the Grisons."

Nigel was no screech-owl, nor in the way of seeing ill before it came except to prevent it, so his tone was gay; but there was doubt beneath.

"How did the Elector take it?" he went on.

"Faith, Nigel mine, but like as a pinch of sunshine peeps out between the gathering clouds and is now quite shut out, so he seemed to smile, but his brows were threatening black and his teeth gleamed a little.

"There is a touch of fantasy about the Wittelsbachers. Born in a lowlier station, Maximilian might have become a sad kind of troubadour, or a prophesying friar. Being a prince, he is capable of carrying out any wild imagining he might have to s.n.a.t.c.h me to him, or to wreak his disappointment."

"And we are in his hands here!" said Nigel.

"To-morrow, think you, Tall Captain, if I took the air on horseback without the walls, the Swede not yet being come up, that you could mount a charger and meet me by chance three leagues distance. If there were no guards out we might perchance slip further still and make our way----"