White Lies Part 76

Colonel Raynal interfered hastily. "Think what you do. He can tell you nothing but what we know, not so much, in fact, as we know; for, now I look at him, I think this is the very sergeant we found lying insensible under the bastion. He must have been struck before the bastion was taken even."

"I was, colonel, I was. I remember nothing but losing my senses, and feeling the colors go out of my hand."

"There, you see, he knows nothing," said Raynal.

"It was hot work, colonel, under that bastion, but it was hotter to the poor fellows that got in. I heard all about it from Private Dard here."

"So, then, it was you who carried the colors?"

"Yes, I was struck down with the colors of the brigade in my hand,"

cried La Croix.

"See how people blunder about, everything; they told me the colonel carried the colors."

"Why, of course he did. You don't think our colonel, the fighting colonel, would let me hold the colors of the brigade so long as he was alive. No; he was struck by a Prussian bullet, and he had just time to hand the colors to me, and point with his sword to the bastion, and down he went. It was hot work, I can tell you. I did not hold them long, not thirty seconds, and if we could know their history, they pa.s.sed through more hands than that before they got to the Prussian flag-staff."

Raynal suddenly rose, and walked rapidly to and fro, with his hands behind him.

"Poor colonel!" continued La Croix. "Well, I love to think he died like a soldier, and not like some of my poor comrades, hashed to atoms, and not a volley fired over him. I hope they put a stone over him, for he was the best soldier and the best general in the army."

"O sir!" cried Josephine, "there is no stone even to mark the spot where he fell," and she sobbed despairingly.

"Why, how is this, Private Dard?" inquired La Croix, sternly.

Dard apologized for his comrade, and touching his own head significantly told them that since his wound the sergeant's memory was defective.

"Now, sergeant, didn't I tell you the colonel must have got the better of his wound, and got into the battery?"

"It's false, Private Dard; don't I know our colonel better than that?

Would ever he have let those colors out of his hand, if there had been an ounce of life left in him?"

"He died at the foot of the battery, I tell you."

"Then why didn't we find him?"

Here Jacintha put in a word with the quiet subdued meaning of her cla.s.s.

"I can't find that anybody ever saw the colonel dead."

"They did not find him, because they did not look for him," said Sergeant La Croix.

"G.o.d forgive you, sergeant!" said Dard, with some feeling. "Not look for OUR COLONEL! We turned over every body that lay there,--full thirty there were,--and you were one of them."

"Only thirty! Why, we settled more Prussians than that, I'll swear."

"Oh! they carried off their dead."

"Ay! but I don't see why they should carry our colonel off. His epaulets was all the thieves could do any good with. Stop! yet I do, Private Dard; I have a horrible suspicion. No, I have not; it is a certainty.

What! don't you see, ye ninny? Thunder and thousands of devils, here's a disgrace. Dogs of Prussians! they have got our colonel, they have taken him prisoner."

"O G.o.d bless them!" cried Josephine; "O G.o.d bless the mouth that tells me so! O sir, I am his wife, his poor heart-broken wife. You would not be so cruel as to mock my despair. Say again that he may be alive, pray, say it again!"

"His wife! Private Dard, why didn't you tell me? You tell me nothing.

Yes, my pretty lady, I'll say it again, and I'll prove it. Here is an enemy in full retreat, would they enc.u.mber themselves with the colonel?

If he was dead, they'd have whipped off his epaulets, and left him there. Alive? why not? Look at me: I am alive, and I was worse wounded than he was. They took me for dead, you see. Courage, madame! you will see him again, take an old soldier's word for it. Dard, attention! this is the colonel's wife."

She gazed on the speaker like one in a trance.

Every eye and every soul had been so bent on Sergeant La Croix that it was only now Raynal was observed to be missing. The next minute he came riding out of the stable-yard, and went full gallop down the road.

"Ah!" cried Rose, with a burst of hope; "he thinks so too; he has hopes.

He is gone somewhere for information. Perhaps to Paris."

Josephine's excitement and alternations of hope and fear were now alarming. Rose held her hand, and implored her to try and be calm till they could see Raynal.

Just before dark he came riding fiercely home. Josephine flew down the stairs. Raynal at sight of her forgot all his caution. He waved his c.o.c.ked hat in the air. She fell on her knees and thanked G.o.d. He gasped out,--

"Prisoner--exchanged for two Prussian lieutenants--sent home--they say he is in France!"

The tears of joy gushed in streams from her.

Some days pa.s.sed in hope and joy inexpressible; but the good doctor was uneasy for Josephine. She was always listening with supernatural keenness and starting from her chair, and every fibre of her lovely person seemed to be on the quiver.

Nor was Rose without a serious misgiving. Would husband and wife ever meet? He evidently looked on her as Madame Raynal, and made it a point of honor to keep away from Beaurepaire.

They had recourse to that ever-soothing influence--her child. Madame Jouvenel was settled in the village, and Josephine visited her every day, and came back often with red eyes, but always soothed.

One day Rose and she went to Madame Jouvenel, and, entering the house without ceremony, found the nurse out, and no one watching the child.

"How careless!" said Rose.

Josephine stopped eagerly to kiss him. But instead of kissing him, she uttered a loud cry. There was a locket hanging round his neck.

It was a locket containing some of Josephine's hair and Camille's. She had given it him in the happy days that followed their marriage. She stood gasping in the middle of the room. Madame Jouvenel came running in soon after. Josephine, by a wonderful effort over herself, asked her calmly and cunningly,--

"Where is the gentleman who put this locket round my child's neck? I want to speak with him."

Madame Jouvenel stammered and looked confused.

"A soldier--an officer?--come, tell me!"

"Woman," cried Rose, "why do you hesitate?"

"What am I to do?" said Madame Jouvenel. "He made me swear never to mention his coming here. He goes away, or hides whenever you come. And since Madame does not love the poor wounded gentleman, what can he do better?"

"Not love him!" cried Rose: "why, she is his wife, his lawful wedded wife; he is a fool or a monster to run away for her. She loves him as no woman ever loved before. She pines for him. She dies for him."

The door of a little back room opened at these words of Rose, and there stood Camille, with his arm in a sling, pale and astounded, but great joy and wonder working in his face.

Josephine gave a cry of love that made the other two women weep, and in a moment they were sobbing for joy upon each other's neck.