The Young Franc Tireurs Part 36

In another instant a rope struck his face. He grasped it, twisted it tightly round Percy's body and his own, tied a rough knot with his last strength, and then lost consciousness.

When he recovered his senses, his first sensation was that of intense pain--so intense that it extracted a groan from him.

"That's right, rub away; and pour some more brandy down his throat," a voice said.

Then he became conscious that he was being rubbed with hot flannels. He opened his eyes, and saw a gleaming of moving machinery, and the red glare of furnaces.

"Where am I?" he asked, at last.

"In the engine room of the gunboat Farcey," a voice said.

"I am suffering agony," Ralph murmured, between his teeth.

"I daresay," the officer who was standing by him answered. "You were pretty near frozen to death. Luckily your life belts kept you from taking in any water, but it was a near squeak. Another three minutes in the water, and the doctor says it would have been all up with you."

"Where is my brother?" Ralph asked suddenly; sitting up, with a full consciousness of all that had pa.s.sed.

"He is coming round," the officer said. "He was farther gone than you were; and his heart's action was altogether suspended, from the cold. His limbs are twitching now, and the doctor says he will do.

"You call him your brother, but I suppose you mean your son?"

"Please lend me some clothes," Ralph said. "I can stand, now."

Some clothes had already been got in readiness, and warmed; and in a couple of minutes Ralph was kneeling by his brother's side. Percy was now coming to, and was suffering agonies similar to those which Ralph himself had experienced, from the recommencement of circulation in his limbs. He looked round, utterly bewildered; for he had become insensible before the Farcey's gun had given notice of her proximity. He smiled, however, when his eyes fell on Ralph's face.

"It is all right, Percy, thank G.o.d," Ralph said. "We are on board the gunboat Farcey and, in ten minutes, we shall be landed in the heart of Paris."

In another five minutes, Percy was sufficiently recovered to begin to dress. The commander of the Farcey now turned to Ralph.

"Your son has had a very narrow shave of it, sir."

"Son!" Ralph said, "He is my brother."

The officer looked surprised.

"How old do you take me to be?" Ralph asked.

"Forty-five or fifty," the officer said.

"I shall not be seventeen for some months," Ralph answered.

The officer looked at him with an air of intense astonishment, and there was a burst of laughter from the men standing round. The commandant frowned angrily at them.

"Quite so, my dear sir," he said, soothingly. "I was only joking with you. It is evident that you are not yet seventeen."

"You think I have lost my senses, with the shock," Ralph said, smiling. "I can a.s.sure you that that is my age. My beard and whiskers are so firmly fixed on, with cobbler's wax, that I shall have an awful trouble to get them off; and my hair the same. If you feel along here, from one ear to the other, you will feel a ridge.

That is the cobbler's wax, that sticks all this ma.s.s of frizzled hair on.

"Did you not notice that both my brother's and my face and hands were much darker than the rest of our skin?"

"Yes, the doctor did notice that," the captain said--now beginning to think that Ralph was not insane, after all.

Pa.s.sing his finger where Ralph directed him, he felt the ridge of the false hair.

"Who are you then, may I ask?" he said.

"My brother and myself are named Barclay," Ralph said. "We are lieutenants in the army, and are both decorated for service in the field. We left Tours four days ago, and are bearers of dispatches from Gambetta to General Trochu."

A cheer broke from all who were standing within hearing; and the boys' hands--for Percy came up at the moment--were warmly shaken by the officers of the boat, one after another. Congratulations of all sorts were heaped upon them, and those around were unable to make enough of them.

"No pigeon has come in, for ten days," the commander said. "You will indeed be welcome."

At this moment, a sailor came down to say that they were pa.s.sing the Louvre and, in another two minutes, the gunboat lay alongside the wharf.

"You do not know, I suppose, where Trochu is to be found?" the commander of the Farcey asked.

"No, indeed," Ralph said.

"I will go with you, myself," the officer said. "If the general has gone to bed, we must knock him up. He won't mind, when he hears the reason."

It was but a short distance to walk, but the boys had great difficulty in getting there; for their limbs were stiff and aching, and they felt a burning sensation all over them, as if they had been dipped in boiling water. General Trochu had not yet gone to bed and--upon the message being delivered by the orderly, "The commander of the Farcey, with officers bearing dispatches, from Tours,"--he ordered them to be instantly admitted.

"These are the Lieutenants Barclay, general," the commander of the Farcey said. "A heavy firing broke out, suddenly, from the water side at Lower Meudon. It was answered from our side and--thinking that it might be someone trying to swim across--I fired a round of grape into the Germans, and ordered a sharp lookout to be kept. I had scarcely spoken the words before we were hailed for a rope; and in another minute these officers--both insensible from cold--were pulled on board. Thinking they might have dispatches, I at once started up the river; and when they were brought round, by the surgeon, they stated that they were the Lieutenants Barclay, bearers of dispatches from Tours."

"Gallantly done, gentlemen! Bravely done!" the general said warmly, shaking both boys by the hand.

The burning heat of Percy's hand struck him, at once.

"Where are your dispatches, gentlemen? You have preserved them, I hope?"

Ralph produced the two quills.

"They are duplicate, general," he said. "We each carried one, in case any accident might befall one of us."

"Thank you," the general said. "I need now detain you no longer. I have work here for all night, and you had better go instantly to bed. Your brother is in a high state of fever."

He touched a bell, and an officer in waiting came in.

"Captain Bar, will you kindly take these gentlemen to a hotel, at once. The horses are, as usual, in the carriage I suppose; and,"--he dropped his voice--"send a message from me to request Doctor Marcey to see them, at once. The younger one is in a state of high fever."

In another quarter of an hour the boys were in comfortable beds, in rooms adjoining each other. Ralph--who was heavy and stupid, with the effects of the cold--was asleep almost the instant his head touched the pillow. He was roused a short time afterwards by being shaken and, opening his eyes, he saw someone leaning over him.

"Drink this," the gentleman said, holding a gla.s.s to his lips.

Ralph mechanically did as he was told; and fell off again into a heavy sleep, from which he did not awake until late the next afternoon.

His first impulse was to look at his watch. It had stopped at eleven o'clock, the night before--the hour at which he had entered the Seine. Then he rang the bell.

"What o'clock is it?" he asked, when the servant entered.