Under the Meteor Flag Part 12

The way, which was being enlivened with such delectable converse, led back through the forest which I had already traversed, only we were now pa.s.sing along the road, such as it was. It consisted simply of a path of varying width, but nowhere very wide, cleared through the trees, the undergrowth of the forest forming a sort of hedge on either side of the way. The branches met overhead, veiling the path in semi-obscurity, and so completely intercepting all but an occasional ray of the sun that the ground appeared to be in a perpetual state of dampness, the clayey soil being in consequence so much cut up, notwithstanding the small amount of traffic which seemed to pa.s.s over it, that it had become almost impracticable for foot-pa.s.sengers. Here and there an old tree-stump projected out of the ground, while in other places the stumps had been removed without filling in the corresponding hole. These holes were now full of water, and as they sometimes occurred in places where there was a general depression of the ground, flooded by the heavy rain of the previous night, their presence only became known when one of the party floundered in and found himself, if lucky enough to avoid going head over heels, and so securing entire immersion, up to the waist in muddy water of about the consistency of pea-soup. To add still farther to the discomfort of the journey, the ground was excessively slippery, so that, what with one difficulty and another, we made but very slow progress.

We had reached and become involved in an exceptionally bad spot--a spring apparently rendering the clay so soft that the entire road for about thirty yards had been worked into a perfect quagmire, into which we sank above our knees at every step, the tenacious clay holding our feet almost as though they had been in a vice--when, without the slightest warning of any kind, a withering volley of musketry was poured in upon the devoted band from the bushes on both sides of the road, and while the smoke still enveloped us out dashed some thirty or forty Corsicans, armed, some only with their clubbed muskets, others flourishing in addition long double-edged knives of a most bloodthirsty appearance.

Every man of us went down before that deadly discharge; some being killed outright, while a few, myself among the number, were only wounded. But the tragedy was soon completed; hampered as we were with the difficulties of the road, and disabled by our wounds, resistance was impossible, and before the smoke of the musketry discharge had cleared away every Frenchman had received the _coup-de-grace_. I also should undoubtedly have received my quietus, had I not had the presence of mind to exclaim in French, just as a stalwart mountaineer was bending over me with his long glittering blade upraised, that I was an Englishman. The man hesitated for an instant, and that slight pause saved me. I rapidly explained who and what I was, and another individual, apparently the leader of the band, approaching at the moment, I was reprieved until an opportunity could be found for verifying my statement. In the meantime, however, my captors were kind enough to take charge of my watch, my money, and one or two other valuables which they found in my pockets.

The bodies of the Frenchmen were rifled with a thoroughness and celerity which I could not but admire, their pockets being turned inside-out, and every article of the slightest value, including their weapons and ammunition, appropriated. One individual especially, who was working away with his back turned towards me, appeared to possess all the coolness and dexterity of a London pick-pocket.

He was certainly not much troubled with squeamishness either; for while operating upon the body of the sergeant, he discovered upon one of the fingers a ring, which, being unable to remove, he without hesitation drew his keen blade across the member, severing it from the body at a single stroke; he then removed the ring, dropped it coolly into his pouch, and jauntily jerked the dismembered finger in among the shrubs by the roadside. Then, animated apparently by a sudden frenzy, he plunged his blade again and again into the lifeless body, his fury increasing with every stroke, until the uniform was slashed almost to rags, finishing off by drawing his weapon across and across the face, until it was mutilated beyond all possibility of recognition. He then rose to his feet with a sigh of satisfaction, while the admiring laughter and jocular remarks of his comrades evinced their high appreciation of the performance.

Turning round, he faced me just in good time to catch on my features the expression of sickening disgust with which I had viewed his actions. A threatening scowl instantly overspread his repulsive features, and, raising his knife, he advanced with such an evident intention of using it upon me, that three or four of his companions interposed, and with considerable difficulty at length succeeded in dissuading him from his purpose.

It was the traitor Guiseppe.

The booty, such as it was, being secured, the party marched off the ground, taking a contrary direction to that pursued by the Frenchmen. I was placed in the centre of the band, the leader of which was kind enough to warn me that any attempt at escape would be promptly met by an effectual application of the knife. It thus appeared that I had only escaped from one danger to fall into a second, almost, if not equally, as great. Had my captors been merely insurgents, I should not have felt any very great anxiety; but, though I was not directly addressed, I gathered within the first few minutes of our march that I had fallen into the hands of a party of brigands, and from all that I had heard of the unscrupulous character of these gentry, I believed that they would not have the slightest hesitation about murdering me, it the whim seized them, merely by way of "divarshin."

My left arm had been broken above the elbow by a musket-shot in the fusillade which had destroyed the Frenchmen, and, dangling helplessly at my side, gave me exquisite pain, as I stumbled along over the uneven and slippery road. The injury was plainly perceptible, yet no one offered to bind up the bleeding limb, and of course it was quite impossible for me to do so myself. I might have requested one of my captors to perform the service for me, but a scrutiny of their countenances afforded me so little encouragement that I decided to suffer on, rather than place myself in their rough and merciless hands.

On emerging from the wood, we turned off to the left, and, forsaking the road altogether, made across the moor in the direction of another wood, which entirely clothed the sides to the very summit of a high hill about five miles distant. We were a couple of hours performing the journey across the open moor, and another hour was occupied in threading our way through the wood, the ground being very rugged and rising steeply all the while. At length, however, we reached a wide open s.p.a.ce along one side of which a mountain-stream was noisily rushing "in spate," as they say in Scotland; the surroundings of the place being very similar to those of the spot where I had quenched my thirst, and bathed on the previous evening--the princ.i.p.al difference being that here there was no waterfall. Instead, however, of this being a picturesque solitude, it had all the bustle and animation of a camp upon a small scale.

As we drew near the place, although there had been no visible sign of the proximity of other human beings, signal-whistles had been given and answered, and I was consequently in a measure prepared for the scene which suddenly burst upon us on emerging into the open.

Some twenty or more bell-shaped tents were disposed in a circle on the greensward, the little tri-coloured bannerets, which in some cases still fluttered at their apex, seeming to indicate that they had at no very distant period been French property. In the centre of the circle a large wood fire was blazing and crackling, with an immense cauldron hanging suspended over it, gipsy fashion, from a tripod.

A man in white cap and ap.r.o.n--he turned out to be a French prisoner--was standing over this pot, armed with a long iron ladle with which he kept diligently stirring up its contents, the savoury steam from which was greeted with e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of approval from my hungry captors. Outside the doors of some of the tents the muskets of its occupants were piled, the owners of the weapons, for the most part, being scattered about the sward in picturesque groups; some laughing, talking, and smoking together, while others were deeply interested in games of cards--played with packs so greasy, worn, and thumb-marked, that those who had used them a few times would as readily recognise a particular card on seeing its back as they would by looking at its face--while a few, more industriously disposed, were diligently cleaning and polishing their weapons. There must have been quite a hundred men in the camp altogether, counting the detachment which had brought me in, all wearing the garb of Corsican mountaineers; and a fine, stalwart set of men they were, almost without exception. Their countenances, however, wore an expression of reckless, relentless ferocity, which augured ill for any unfortunate against whom they might fancy they had a grievance, should he chance to fall into their clutches.

My captors were dismissed immediately on our arrival in camp, with the exception of two who mounted guard over me, while their leader entered a tent somewhat larger than the rest. We were quickly surrounded by a group of curious and eager questioners, anxious apparently to learn the result of the expedition, and to "take stock" of the prisoner--my unlucky self.

The information supplied by my custodians evidently afforded them great gratification, and though they spoke a patois which was quite unintelligible to me, the gesticulations which accompanied the closing portion of the narrative, and the shouts of laughter and applause with which it was received, showed me that the exploit of the amiable Guiseppe was duly receiving honourable mention.

After an absence of about twenty minutes, the individual whom I have designated as the leader of the party which brought me in, issued from the tent, and, coming up to where I stood, said, with much greater courtesy than I had hitherto received,--

"Be good enough to step this way, Signor Englishman, if you please."

I followed him into the tent from which he had just emerged, and found myself in the presence of an individual whose appearance differed so entirely from that of the rest of the band, that I could not help wondering what could possibly have induced her to a.s.sociate herself with them.

Start not, reader, at the word _her_--it is no misprint; I actually found myself in the presence of a _woman_. Not such an one, either, as might be expected to be found--if indeed one would expect to find a woman at all--amid such surroundings; not an old, withered, vindictive- looking hag, repulsive alike in appearance and manner, but a woman, youthful, handsome, and to all appearance gentle, though her demeanour was somewhat cold and distant.

I set her down at about three or four and twenty years of age. She was reclining on a pile of rugs when I entered the tent, so I could not just then judge of her stature, but before the interview terminated she had risen to her feet, and I then saw that she was rather above medium height. Her skin was dazzling fair, hair and eyes black as night; the beauty of the latter being rather marred, according to my taste, by a curious glitter, which, but for the calmness of their owner's demeanour, I should have regarded as slightly suggestive of incipient insanity.

Her figure, clothed in a picturesque, if somewhat theatrical, adaptation of the costume of her comrades, was somewhat slight, but eminently graceful, while her hands and feet would have delighted a sculptor with their symmetry. Her voice was especially beautiful, being a full, rich, and powerful contralto.

The midshipmen of the British navy have not as yet rendered themselves especially remarkable by their bashfulness, and I was neither much better nor much worse than my neighbours in that respect; but I was so taken aback when I entered the tent and my eyes met those of its occupant, that I could only bow somewhat awkwardly, blushing like a simpleton the while.

"This, signora, is the prisoner of whom I told you," said my conductor by way of introduction.

"Why, he is a mere boy, Benedetto; and wounded, too! What is the nature of your wound, child?"

"A broken arm, signora," I replied unsteadily; the unexpected accents of pity in her voice, or the excruciating pain I had been suffering for the previous four hours, suddenly unnerving me.

"Poor fellow!" she exclaimed. "And it has not been attended to. How did it happen?"

"A stray ball struck me this morning, when the party under this gentleman surprised and shot down the French detachment," I answered.

A gleam of almost fiendish ferocity pa.s.sed like a lightning-flash across the beautiful face of my fair interrogator at the mention of the French; but it disappeared again in an instant, and, turning to Benedetto, she asked with just the slightest ring of harshness in her voice,--

"Is the Padre in camp?"

"He is not," was the reply. "He left us yesterday to go into Ajaccio, telling us not to expect him back here until late to-night."

"Then I will turn leech myself," said she. "It will not be for the first time. Fetch me a bowl of water from the stream, Benedetto, and bid them bring some wine to the tent."

Benedetto departed upon his mission with alacrity, and my hostess, or whatever she was, rising to her feet, bared her beautiful, round, white arms to the elbow, drew from a large chest a supply of lint and old linen, and, arming herself from the same depository with a pair of scissors, proceeded deftly to slit up from wrist to shoulder the left sleeve of my jacket and shirt. By the time that this was done, Benedetto had returned with a bowl of water in one hand, and a jar of wine in the other. A small quant.i.ty of the latter revived my strength and steadied my nerves, and then this curious pair went to work to dress my wound, and set the shattered limb, displaying during the operation an amount of skill on the part of the woman, and of gentleness on that of the man, for which I was wholly unprepared.

A set of splints, which had evidently seen previous service, was finally produced and applied, and the arm carefully adjusted in a sling, after which food was placed before me; and though I was suffering too much pain and in too feverish a condition to take much, I soon found myself in a condition of ease which was comfort itself compared with my state during the earlier part of the day.

At the conclusion of my meal I was advised, or I might say _ordered_, to lie down upon the pile of rugs which my strange hostess had vacated; an order which I obeyed gladly, for fatigue and pain together had produced a feeling of almost utter exhaustion, and, in spite of the anguish of my wound, I soon dropped off into a doze which was a something between sleeping and waking, in which, while my consciousness never entirely left me, my fancy, breaking away from the control of reason, rambled off and indulged in the most extraordinary vagaries. I heard the rush of the stream, the murmur of the wind through the branches of the trees with which the camp was surrounded, the hum of many voices outside the tent, the frequent s.n.a.t.c.h of song, or peal of laughter, the occasional angry altercation, and--once or twice--voices speaking in low tones within the tent; but all seemed to strike upon my ear as though the sounds reached me from an incredible distance, and then the absurd idea took possession of me that I was increasing in bulk to such an extraordinary extent, that my rec.u.mbent body covered miles of ground.

Then my sight seemed to undergo an equally extraordinary alteration, for it appeared that I was able to see away over the tree-tops down into the town of Ajaccio; the lines of the streets, the architecture of the houses, and the very features of the inhabitants being distinguishable.

Then I thought I was rising gradually in the air, my powers of vision steadily increasing at the same time. First I saw the wide stretch of blue foam-flecked ocean glittering in the sun; then the coast of France rose above the horizon, Toulon harbour, as might be expected, coming prominently forward in the picture; then the vine-clad hills and fertile plains, the populous cities and picturesque villages of the interior spread themselves out like a panorama; and finally the northern sea- board, the English Channel dotted here and there with white gleaming sails, the chalk cliffs of old England, the Hampshire downs, and my dear old home with all the loved familiar faces appeared, and I heard them speaking lovingly of poor absent me.

Then with a suddenness that was absolutely painful all these pleasant fancies pa.s.sed away, and I imagined myself to be a disembodied spirit floating helplessly in the midst of immeasurable s.p.a.ce, enveloped in murky clouds and thick darkness, and whirled hither and thither at the mercy of a furious wind.

Of course I had no idea of the actual pa.s.sage of time during this period of delirium, but it seemed that I had thus been the sport of the elements for countless ages, when the sensation gradually pa.s.sed away, and I sank into a condition of complete unconsciousness.

When I awoke daylight was just making itself visible through the canvas sides of the tent, and overpowering the feeble glimmer of a small lamp which hung suspended from the pole. I remained motionless for some little time after I had opened my eyes, trying to remember where I was, and what had happened, and then wondering in a vague speculative sort of way who and what was the strange being who appeared to govern the reckless band of outlaws into whose hands I had fallen. I thought at first that I was alone in the tent, but a restless movement on my part undeceived me.

A cool soft hand was laid upon my forehead, and the voice of my hostess inquired in gentle tones whether I felt better.

I replied that I did, but complained of thirst, upon which there was a faint rustle, followed by a gurgling sound, and then the beautiful unknown, kneeling beside me, raised my head and presented to my lips a br.i.m.m.i.n.g goblet containing a draught of very peculiar taste, but cold as ice, and, oh! _so_ refreshing. I drained it to the last drop, and asked for more, which was given me. I was then advised to lie down, and sleep once more.

It was evening when I next awoke, and on opening my eyes I felt more bewildered than ever.

I was stretched upon a luxurious bed, the four slender posts of which were elaborately carved into the semblance of palm-trees, the graceful foliage forming the canopy; the stems and leaves of the trees being richly gilt. The bed was draped with heavy silken hangings overlaid with magnificent lace, and the linen was pure, white, and fresh as new fallen snow. This bed occupied one end of a lofty room of moderate size.

A ma.s.sive cornice ran round the room, and was supported by decorated pilasters, which divided the walls into compartments. A coved ceiling sprang from the cornice, and both ceiling and walls were decorated with paintings, in distemper, of mythological subjects; the lower portion of the wall, however, having what is, I believe, termed a dado, ornamented with a diaper pattern, each square of which contained a conventional representation of a different flower.

The end of the room facing the bed was almost entirely occupied by a large bay-window draped with heavy curtains of silk and lace, matching the hangings of the bed. There was not much furniture in the room; an elegantly-appointed toilet-table, a couch, and one or two chairs being all that it contained, as far as I could see. One of the cas.e.m.e.nts of the window was open, and through it there stole into the room a cool gentle breeze laden with sweet odours which evidently had their origin in some contiguous garden. A hilly and heavily-wooded landscape was visible through the window and beyond all was a sky glowing with the thousand evanescent beauties of a gorgeous sunset.

I lay for some time enjoying the magnificent spectacle before me, and wondering in a feeble sort of way how much of my present and recent experiences was real, and how much was due to the delirium through which I was conscious of having pa.s.sed. Were my present surroundings, for instance, real, or was I simply dreaming a vivid dream? And had I really been present in the body at that bandit camp, or was it only fancy? The present appeared to be a waking reality, and so had the other, yet both experiences seemed so strange that I knew not what to think.

Upon one point, however, I did not long remain in doubt; whatever else might be fancy, the sensation of hunger soon forced itself upon my notice as a most prosaic and undeniable fact, and I very speedily decided that I ought to make somebody acquainted with it.

I glanced round the room in quest of a hand-bell or some other means of attracting that somebody's attention, and, seeing nothing of the kind, made a move with the intention of getting out of bed to reconnoitre, but fell back, weak and helpless as an infant. My movement, however, was not without result, for there was a sudden stir behind the curtains; a black-eyed, dark-skinned damsel emerged from her place of concealment, looked in upon me, uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n in what I imagined to be Italian, and forthwith beat a hasty retreat, notwithstanding my feeble hail for her to remain.

She returned, however, in two or three minutes, accompanied by, without exception, the most lovely being it has ever been my happy lot to behold. It was a young girl in her thirteenth year, as I subsequently learned, though I should have supposed her to be quite sixteen.

She was of about medium height, and her exquisite figure was already a.s.suming the rounded graces of budding womanhood. Her skin was a clear pale olive with just the faintest and most delicate tinge of colour in the velvety cheek; her face was a perfect oval, and her small exquisitely poised head was covered with a wealth of soft, silky, chestnut hair, so dark as to appear black in the shade, but when a ray of light fell upon it, the rippling ringlets revealed the full beauty of their deep rich colour. The eyebrows and long drooping lashes were of the same colour as her hair, and her eyes--well, they were deep hazel; but it was impossible to ascertain this until after repeated observations--they glowed and sparkled to such a bewildering extent.

Add to this a mouth "shaped like Cupid's bow" with full rich scarlet lips, just parted sufficiently to permit a glimpse of the small regular pearly teeth within, a small round deeply-dimpled chin, an ivory-white neck and shoulders, upon which the delicate head was set with fairy-like grace, and you have as accurate a portrait of this dainty beauty as it is within my poor power to paint.