Under Two Flags Part 85

They were the words that his sister had spoken. Cecil's white lips quivered as he heard them; his voice was scarcely audible as it panted through them.

"I was accused--"

"Aye! But by whom? Not by me! Never by me!"

Cecil's eyes filled with slow, blinding tears; tears sweet as a woman's in her joy, bitter as a man's in his agony. He knew that in this one heart at least no base suspicion ever had harbored; he knew that this love, at least, had cleaved to him through all shame and against all evil.

"G.o.d reward you!" he murmured. "You have never doubted?"

"Doubted? Was your honor not as my own?"

"I can die at peace then; you know me guiltless--"

"Great G.o.d! Death shall not touch you. As I stand here not a hair of your head shall be harmed--"

"Hush! Justice must take its course. One thing only--has she heard?"

"Nothing. She has left Africa. But you can be saved; you shall be saved!

They do not know what they do!"

"Yes! They but follow the sentence of the law. Do not regret it. It is best thus."

"Best!--that you should be slaughtered in cold blood!" His voice was hoa.r.s.e with the horror which, despite his words, possessed him. He knew what the demands of discipline exacted, he knew what the inexorable tyranny of the army enforced, he knew that he had found the life lost to him for so long only to stand by and see it struck down like a shot stag's.

Cecil's eyes looked at him with a regard in which all the sacrifice, all the patience, all the martyrdom of his life spoke.

"Best, because a lie I could never speak to you, and the truth I can never tell to you. Do not let her know; it might give her pain. I have loved her; that is useless, like all the rest. Give me your hand once more, and then--let them do their duty. Turn your head away; it will soon be over!"

Almost ere he asked it, his friend's hands closed upon both is own, keeping the promise made so long before in the old years gone; great, tearless sobs heaved the depths of his broad chest; those gentle, weary words had rent his very soul, and he knew that he was powerless here; he knew that he could no more stay this doom of death than he could stay the rising of the sun up over the eastern heavens. The clear voice of the officer in command rang shrilly through the stillness.

"Monsieur, make your farewell. I can wait no longer."

The Seraph started, and flung himself round with the grand challenge of a lion, struck by a puny spear. His face flushed crimson; his words were choked in his throbbing throat.

"As I live, you shall not fire! I forbid you! I swear by my honor and the honor of England that he shall not die like a dog. He is of my country; he is of my Order. I will appeal to your Emperor; he will accord me his life the instant I ask it. Give me only an hour's reprieve--a few moments' s.p.a.ce to speak to your chiefs, to seek out your general--"

"It is impossible, monsieur."

The curt, calm answer was inflexible; against the sentence and its execution there could be no appeal.

Cecil laid his hand upon his old friend's shoulders.

"It will be useless," he murmured. "Let them act; the quicker the better."

"What! you think I would look on and see you die?"

"Would to Heaven you had never known I lived----"

The officer made a gesture to the guard to separate them.

"Monsieur, submit to the execution of the law, or I must arrest you."

Lyonnesse flung off the detaining hand of the guard, and swung round so that his agonized eyes gazed close into the adjutant's immovable face, which before that gaze lost its coldness and its rigor, and changed to a great pity for this stranger who had found the friend of his youth in the man who stood condemned to perish there.

"An hour's reprieve; for mercy's sake, grant that!"

"I have said, it is impossible."

"But you do not dream who is--"

"It matters not."

"He is an English n.o.ble, I tell you--"

"He is a soldier who has broken the law; that suffices."

"O Heaven! have you no humanity?"

"We have justice."

"Justice! If you have justice, let your chiefs hear his story; let his name be made known; give me an hour's s.p.a.ce to plead for him. Your Emperor would grant me his life, were he here; yield me an hour--a half hour--anything that will give me time to serve him--"

"It is out of the question; I must obey my orders. I regret you should have this pain; but if you do not cease to interfere, my soldiers must make you."

Where the guards held him, Cecil saw and heard. His voice rose with all its old strength and sweetness.

"My friend, do not plead for me. For the sake of our common country and our old love, let us both meet this with silence and with courage."

"You are a madman!" cried the man, whose heart felt breaking under this doom he could neither avert nor share. "You think that they shall kill you before my eyes!--you think I shall stand by to see you murdered!

What crime have you done? None, I dare swear, save being moved, under insult, to act as the men of your race ever acted! Ah, G.o.d! why have lived as you have done? Why not have trusted my faith and my love?

If you had believed in my faith as I believed in your innocence, this misery never had come to us!"

"Hush! hush! or you will make me die like a coward."

He dreaded lest he should do so; this ordeal was greater than his power to bear it. With the mere sound of this man's voice a longing, so intense in its despairing desire, came on him for this life which they were about to kill in him forever.

The words stung his hearer well-nigh to madness; he turned on the soldiers with all the fury of his race that slumbered so long, but when it awoke was like the lion's rage. Invective, entreaty, conjuration, command, imploring prayer, and ungoverned pa.s.sion poured in tumultuous words, in agonized eloquence, from his lips; all answer was a quick sign of the hand, and, ere he saw them, a dozen soldiers were round him, his arms were seized, his splendid frame was held as powerless as a la.s.soed bull; for a moment there was a horrible struggle, then a score of ruthless hands locked him as in iron gyves, and forced his mouth to silence and his eyes to blindness. This was all the mercy they could give--to spare him the sight of his friend's slaughter.

Cecil's eyes strained in him with one last, longing look; then he raised his hand and gave the signal for his own death-shot.

The leveled carbines covered him; he stood erect with his face full toward the sun. Ere they could fire, a shrill cry pierced the air.

"Wait! In the name of France."

Dismounted, breathless, staggering, with her arms flung upward, and her face bloodless with fear, Cigarette appeared upon the ridge of rising ground.

The cry of command pealed out upon the silence in the voice that the Army of Africa loved as the voice of their Little One. And the cry came too late; the volley was fired, the crash of sound thrilled across the words that bade them pause, the heavy smoke rolled out upon the air; the death that was doomed was dealt.

But beyond the smoke-cloud he staggered slightly, and then stood erect still, almost unharmed, grazed only by some few of the b.a.l.l.s. The flash of fire was not so fleet as the swiftness of her love; and on his breast she threw herself, and flung her arms about him, and turned her head backward with her old, dauntless, sunlit smile as the b.a.l.l.s pierced her bosom, and broke her limbs, and were turned away by the shield of warm young life from him.