The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood Part 57

"Yesterday, Mr. McKay, of the quartermaster-general's staff, ventured through the enemy's lines in the direction of the Tchernaya to make a special reconnaissance. He unfortunately was captured. I sent a flag of truce into Sebastopol, asking that he might be exchanged, but have been peremptorily refused. Gortschakoff a.s.serts that he is a Russian subject and was taken red-handed as a spy. He is to be executed immediately. Will renew request with strong protest, but fear there is no hope."

Mr. Faulks groaned heavily and let the telegram fall on the ground.

"What has happened?" asked Mrs. Wilders, eagerly.

"You were right--too right. That poor boy--"

"Stanislas?"

"Yes; my poor nephew has fallen into the hands of these bloodthirsty Russians, who are resolved to execute him as a traitor and a spy."

CHAPTER VI.

MARIQUITA'S QUEST.

Hyde's unfortunate affair with the sailor had ended in a broken rib and a dislocated arm. He was taken back senseless to the camp of the Royal Picts, and for some days required the closest care. It was nearly a week before he so far recovered himself as to be able to give any account of what had occurred, and longer before he remembered accurately what was taking him to headquarters at the time of the accident.

It flashed across him quite suddenly, and with something of a shock, that while he lay there helpless his friend McKay was still in danger.

"When shall I be able to get about again?" he asked the doctor, anxiously.

"You won't be fit for duty, if that's what you're driving at, for many a long day to come."

"I can go about with my arm in a sling. I am beginning to feel perfectly well otherwise."

"What's the good of a soldier with his arm in a sling? No: as soon as you are fit to move I shall have you sent down to Scutari."

"But I don't want to go: I had much rather stay here with the old corps."

He was thinking of the business he had still in hand.

"You will have to obey orders, anyhow, so make up your mind to go."

The regimental surgeon of the Royal Picts was a morose old Scotchman, very obstinate and intolerant of opposition. What he said he stuck to, and Hyde knew that he must prepare to leave the Crimea in a short time, probably before he was strong enough to go in person to headquarters and find out McKay.

It would be necessary, therefore, to find some other messenger, and, after considering what was best to be done, he resolved to beg Colonel Blythe to come and see him, intending to make him his confidant.

"Well, Rupert," said the Colonel--they were alone together--"this is a bad business. Macinlay tells me you won't be fit for duty for months.

He is going to send you at once before a medical board."

"It is very aggravating, Colonel, as I particularly wished to be here for the next few weeks.

"To be in at the death, I suppose? We are bound to take the place at the next attack."

"I hope you may. But it is not that. Our friend McKay is in imminent danger."

"What is the nature of the danger?"

"He is pursued by the relentless hate of an infamous woman: one who has never yet spared any who dared to thwart or oppose her."

"What on earth do you mean, Hyde?" The colonel thought the old sergeant was wandering in his mind. "There are no women out here except Mother Charcoal, and a few French _vivandieres_. How can any of them threaten McKay?"

"It is as I say, colonel. By-and-by I will tell you everything. But let me implore you to find out McKay at once and bring him to me. I cannot, you see, go to him."

"Is this very urgent?"

"A matter of life and death, I a.s.sure you."

"I will order a horse at once. It is all very mysterious and extraordinary; but then you have been a mystery, Rupert Hyde, a riddle and a puzzle, ever since I have known you."

"It will all be unravelled some day, colonel, never fear; but lose no time, let me beg;" and, thus adjured, the colonel presently mounted his horse and galloped over to headquarters.

He arrived there the day after McKay's excursion into the Russian lines. The young staff-officer was still absent, and fears were already entertained as to his safety, although it was not positively known as yet that he had come to harm.

Let us leave Colonel Blythe and other friends exchanging anxious conjectures as to McKay's fate and return to Mariquita, whose misgivings had steadily increased from the day she had last seen Hyde.

He had promised she should see him again, and, perhaps, Stanislas, without delay. Yet this was more than a week since. What had become of the old soldier? Had he fulfilled his mission of warning, or had he been involved in the dire intrigues that threatened her lover?

Her lover, too; her Stanislas--to save whom she had come so far, braving so many dangers, and at the peril of her maidenly self-respect--had anything happened to him?

The terrible uncertainty was crushing her. She must know something, even the worst, or her apprehensions, ever present and hourly increasing, would kill her.

To whom could she turn in this time of cruel suspense? Hyde had deserted her, seemingly; in spite of her heartfelt anxiety she could not bring herself to approach McKay.

One other man there was; that villain, Benito Villegas--the source, in truth, of all her trouble--might give her news. Bad news, possibly, but still news, if only she could lay hands on him. Where and how was he hiding? Every effort to find him had been fruitless. .h.i.therto.

At Valetta Joe's they knew no such name, so they told her when she inquired cautiously for Benito from some of the loafers hanging about the shop.

Yet that was the place to which he was to proceed on arrival. The letter she had picked up in Bombardier Lane said so. He must be hiding, or in disguise; and now, when her anxiety for her beloved Stanislas was at its highest pitch, she was more than ever resolved to find out somehow what Benito was doing.

One afternoon, when business was rather slack at Mother Charcoal's, she seized a chance of visiting the hut-town.

"Any work?" she asked, in Spanish, of Valetta Joe himself, whom she met at the door of his shanty.

"What can you do? Where do you come from? Spain?" replied the baker in the same tongue.

"Yes, from Malaga. I can do anything--try me."

"Can you sell bread through the camp? I am a man short, and could take you on, perhaps, until he is better. Come down below, and I will give you a basketful to hawk about."

"I shall have to tell them at the canteen--Mother Charcoal's--that I am going to leave."

"That won't do. You must come at once if you come at all. Which will you do?"