Complete weird tales of.., p.64
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 64
They hurried a little on the way to the Château, and he laughed at her appetite, which made her laugh, too, only she pretended not to like it.
At the porch she left him to change her gown, and slipped away up-stairs, while he found old Pierre and was dusted and fussed over until he couldn’t stand it another moment. Luckily he heard Lorraine calling her maid on the porch, and he went to her at once.
“Papa says you may lunch here — I spoke to him through the key-hole. It is all ready; will you come?”
A serious-minded maid served them with salad and thin bread-and-butter.
“Tea!” exclaimed Jack.
“Isn’t that very American?” asked Lorraine, timidly. “I thought you might like it; I understood that all Americans drank tea.”
“They do,” he said, gravely; “it is a terrible habit — a national vice — but they do.”
“Now you are laughing at me!” she cried. “Marianne, please to remove that tea! No, no, I won’t leave it — and you can suffer if you wish. And to think that I—”
They were both laughing so that the maid’s face grew more serious, and she removed the teapot as though she were bearing some strange and poisonous creature to a deserved doom.
As they sat opposite each other, smiling, a little flurried at finding themselves alone at table together, but eating with the appetites of very young lovers, the warm summer wind, blowing through the open windows, bore to their ears the songs of forest birds. It bore another sound, too; Jack had heard it for the last two hours, or had imagined he heard it — a low, monotonous vibration, now almost distinct, now lost, now again discernible, but too vague, too indefinite to be anything but that faint summer harmony which comes from distant breezes, distant movements, mingling with the stir of drowsy field insects, half torpid in the heat of noon.
Still it was always there; and now, turning his ear to the window, he laid down knife and fork to listen.
“I have also noticed it,” said Lorraine, answering his unasked question.
“Do you hear it now?”
“Yes — more distinctly now.”
A few moments later Jack leaned back in his chair and listened again.
“Yes,” said Lorraine, “it seems to come nearer. What is it?”
“It comes from the southeast. I don’t know,” he answered.
They rose and walked to the window. She was so near that he breathed the subtle fragrance of her hair, the fresh sweetness of her white gown, that rustled beside him.
“Hark!” whispered Lorraine; “I can almost hear voices in the breezes — the murmur of voices, as if millions of tiny people were calling us from the ends and outer edges of the earth.”
“There is a throbbing, too. Do you notice it?”
“Yes — like one’s heart at night. Ah, now it comes nearer — oh, nearer! nearer! Oh, what can it be?”
He knew now; he knew that indefinable battle — rumour that steals into the senses long before it is really audible. It is not a sound — not even a vibration; it is an immense foreboding that weights the air with prophecy.
“From the south and east,” he repeated; “from the Landesgrenze.”
“The frontier?”
“Yes. Hark!”
“I hear.”
“From the frontier,” he said again. “From the river Lauter and from Wissembourg.”
“What is it?” she whispered, close beside him.
“Cannon!”
Yes, it was cannon — they knew it now — cannon throbbing, throbbing, throbbing along the horizon where the crags of the Geisberg echoed the dull thunder and shook it far out across the vineyards of Wissembourg, where the heights of Kapsweyer, resounding, hurled back the echoes to the mountains in the north.
“Why — why does it seem to come nearer?” asked Lorraine.
“Nearer?” He knew it had come nearer, but how could he tell her what that meant?
“It is a battle — is it not?” she asked again.
“Yes, a battle.”
She said nothing more, but stood leaning along the wall, her white forehead pressed against the edge of the raised window-sash. Outside, the little birds had grown suddenly silent; there was a stillness that comes before a rain; the leaves on the shrubbery scarcely moved.
And now, nearer and nearer swelled the rumour of battle, undulating, quavering over forest and hill, and the muttering of the cannon grew to a rumble that jarred the air.
As currents in the upper atmosphere shift and settle north, south, east, west, so the tide of sound wavered and drifted, and set westward, flowing nearer and nearer and louder and louder, until the hoarse, crashing tumult, still vague and distant, was cut by the sharper notes of single cannon that spoke out, suddenly impetuous, in the dull din.
The whole Château was awake now; maids, grooms, valets, gardeners, and keepers were gathering outside the iron grille of the park, whispering together and looking out across the fields.
There was nothing to see except pastures and woods, and low-rounded hills crowned with vineyards. Nothing more except a single strangely shaped cloud, sombre, slender at the base, but spreading at the top like a palm.
“I am going up to speak to your father,” said Jack, carelessly; “may I?”
Interrupt her father! Lorraine fairly gasped.
“Stay here,” he added, with the faintest touch of authority in his tone; and, before she could protest, he had sped away up the staircase and round and round the long circular stairs that led to the single turret.
A little out of breath, he knocked at the door which faced the top step. There was no answer. He rapped again, impatiently. A voice startled him: “Lorraine, I am busy!”
“Open,” called Jack; “I must see you!”
“I am busy!” replied the marquis. Irritation and surprise were in his tones.
“Open!” called Jack again; “there is no time to lose!”
Suddenly the door was jerked back and the marquis appeared, pale, handsome, his eyes cold and blue as icebergs.
“Monsieur Marche—” he began, almost discourteously.
“Pardon,” interrupted Jack; “I am going into your room. I wish to look out of that turret window. Come also — you must know what to expect.”
Astonished, almost angry, the Marquis de Nesville followed him to the turret window.
“Oh,” said Jack, softly, staring out into the sunshine, “it is time, is it not, that we knew what was going on along the frontier? Look there!”
On the horizon vast shapeless clouds lay piled, gigantic coils and masses of vapour, dark, ominous, illuminated by faint, pallid lights that played under them incessantly; and over all towered one tall column of smoke, spreading above like an enormous palm-tree. But this was not all. The vast panorama of hill and valley and plain, cut by roads that undulated like narrow satin ribbons on a brocaded surface, was covered with moving objects, swarming, inundating the landscape. To the south a green hill grew black with the human tide, to the north long lines and oblongs and squares moved across the land, slowly, almost imperceptibly — but they were moving, always moving east.
“It is an army coming,” said the marquis.
“It is a rout,” said Jack, quietly.
The marquis moved suddenly, as though to avoid a blow.
“What troops are those?” he asked, after a silence.
“It is the French army,” replied Jack. “Have you not heard the cannonade?”
“No — my machines make some noise when I’m working. I hear it now. What is that cloud — a fire?”
“It is the battle cloud.”
“And the smoke on the horizon?”
“The smoke from the guns. They are fighting beyond Saarbrück — yes, beyond Pfalzburg and Wörth; they are fighting beyond the Lauter.”
“Wissembourg?”
“I think so. They are nearer now. Monsieur de Nesville, the battle has gone against the French.”
“How do you know?” demanded the marquis, harshly.
“I have seen battles. One need only listen and look at the army yonder. They will pass Morteyn; I think they will pass for miles through the country. It looks to me like a retreat towards Metz, but I am not sure. The throngs of troops below are fugitives, not the regular geometrical figures that you see to the north. Those are regiments and divisions moving towards the west in good order.”
The two men stepped back into the room and faced each other.
“After the rain the flood, after the rout the invasion,” said Jack, firmly. “You cannot know it too quickly. You know it now, and you can make your plans.”
He was thinking of Lorraine’s safety when he spoke, but the marquis turned instinctively to a mass of machinery and chemical paraphernalia behind him.
“You will have your hands full,” said Jack, repressing an angry sneer; “if you wish, my aunt De Morteyn will charge herself with Mademoiselle de Nesville’s safety.”
“True, Lorraine might go to Morteyn,” murmured the marquis, absently, examining a smoky retort half filled with a silvery heap of dust.
“Then, may I drive her over after dinner?”
“Yes,” replied the other, indifferently.
Jack started towards the stairs, hesitated, and turned around.
“Your inventions are not safe, of course, if the German army comes. Do you need my help?”
“My inventions are my own affair,” said the marquis, angrily.
Jack flushed scarlet, swung on his heels, and marched out of the room and down the stairs. On the lower steps he met Lorraine’s maid, and told her briefly to pack her mistress’s trunks for a visit to Morteyn.
Lorraine was waiting for him at the window where he had left her, a scared, uncertain little maid in truth.
“The battle is very near, isn’t it?” she asked.
“No, miles away yet.”
“Did you speak to papa? Did he send word to me? Does he want me?”
He found it hard to tell her what message her father had sent, but he did.
“I am to go to Morteyn? Oh, I cannot! I cannot! Papa will be alone here!” she said, aghast.
“Perhaps you had better see him,” he said, almost bitterly.
She hurried away up the stairs; he heard her little eager feet on the stone steps that led to the turret; climbing up, up, up, until the sound was lost in the upper stories of the house. He went out to the stables and ordered the dog-cart and a wagon for her trunks. He did not fear that this order might be premature, for he thought he had not misjudged the Marquis de Nesville. And he had not, for, before the cart was ready, Lorraine, silent, pale, tearless, came noiselessly down the stairs holding her little cloak over one arm.
“I am to stay a week,” she said; “he does not want me.” She added, hastily, “He is so busy and worried, and there is much to be done, and if the Prussians should come he must hide the balloon and the box of plans and formula—”
“I know,” said Jack, tenderly; “it will lift a weight from his mind when he knows you are safe with my aunt.”
“He is so good, he thinks only of my safety,” faltered Lorraine.
“Come,” said Jack, in a voice that sounded husky; “the horse is waiting; I am to drive you. Your maid will follow with the trunks this evening. Are you ready? Give me your cloak. There — now, are you ready?”
“Yes.”
He aided her to mount the dog-cart — her light touch was on his arm. He turned to the groom at the horse’s head, sprang to the seat, and nodded. Lorraine leaned back and looked up at the turret where her father was.
“Allons! En route!” cried Jack, cheerily, snapping his ribbon-decked whip.
At the same instant a horseless cavalryman, gray with dust and dripping with blood and sweat, staggered out on the road from among the trees. He turned a deathly face to theirs, stopped, tottered, and called out— “Jack!”
“Georges!” cried Jack, amazed.
“Give me a horse, for God’s sake!” he gasped. “I’ve just killed mine. I — I must get to Metz by midnight—”
CHAPTER XIII
AIDE-DE-CAMP
LORRAINE AND JACK sprang to the road from opposite sides of the vehicle; Georges’ drawn face was stretched into an attempt at a smile which was ghastly, for the stiff, black blood that had caked in a dripping ridge from his forehead to his chin cracked and grew moist and scarlet, and his hollow cheeks whitened under the coat of dust. But he drew himself up by an effort and saluted Lorraine with a punctilious deference that still had a touch of jauntiness to it — the jauntiness of a youthful cavalry officer in the presence of a pretty woman.
Old Pierre, who had witnessed the episode from the butler’s window, came limping down the path, holding a glass and a carafe of brandy.
“You are right, Pierre,” said Jack. “Georges, drink it up, old fellow. There, now you can stand on those pins of yours. What’s that — a sabre cut?”
“No, a scratch from an Uhlan’s lance-tip. Cut like a razor, didn’t it? I’ve just killed my horse, trying to get over a ditch. Can you give me a mount, Jack?”
“There isn’t a horse in the stable that can carry you to Metz,” said Lorraine, quietly; “Diable is lame and Porthos is not shod. I can give you my pony.”
“Can’t you get a train?” asked Jack, astonished.
“No, the Uhlans are in our rear, everywhere. The railroad is torn up, the viaducts smashed, the wires cut, and general deuce to pay. I ran into an Uhlan or two — you notice it perhaps,” he added, with a grim smile. “Could you drive me to Morteyn? Do you think the vicomte would lend me a horse?”
“Of course he would,” said Jack; “come, then — there is room for three,” with an anxious glance at Lorraine.
“Indeed, there is always room for a soldier of France!” cried Lorraine. At the same moment she instinctively laid one hand lightly on Jack’s arm. Their eyes spoke for an instant — the generous appeal that shone in hers was met and answered by a response that brought the delicate colour into her cheeks.
“Let me hang on behind,” pleaded Georges— “I’m so dirty, you know.” But they bundled him into the seat between them, and Jack touched his beribboned whip to the horse’s ears, and away they went speeding over the soft forest road in the cool of the fading day; old Pierre, bottle and glass in hand, gaping after them and shaking his gray head.
Jack began to fire volleys of questions at the young hussar as soon as they entered the forest, and poor Georges replied as best he could.
“I don’t know very much about it; I was detached yesterday and taken on General Douay’s staff. We were at Wissembourg — you know that little town on the Lauter where the vineyards cover everything and the mountains are pretty steep to the north and west. All I know is this: about six o’clock this morning our outposts on the hills to the south began banging way in a great panic. They had been attacked, it seems, by the 4th Bavarian Division, Count Bothmer’s, I believe. Our posts fell back to the town, where the 1st Turcos reinforced them at the railroad station. The artillery were at it on our left, too, and there was a most infernal racket. The next thing I saw was those crazy Bavarians, with their little flat drums beating, and their fur-crested helmets all bobbing, marching calmly up the Geisberg. Jack, those fellows went through the vineyards like fiends astride a tempest. That was at two o’clock. The Prussian Crown-Prince rode into the town an hour before; we couldn’t hold it — Heaven knows why. That’s all I saw — except the death of our general.”
“General Douay?” cried Lorraine, horrified.
“Yes, he was killed about ten o’clock in the morning. The town was stormed through the Hagenauer Thor by the Bavarians. After that we still held the Geisberg and the Château. You should have seen it when we left it. I’ll say it was a butcher’s shambles. I’d say more if Mademoiselle de Nesville were not here.” He was trying hard to bear up — to speak lightly of the frightful calamity that had overwhelmed General Abel Douay and his entire division.
“The fight at the Château was worth seeing,” said Georges, airily. “They went at it with drums beating and flags flying. Oh, but they fell like leaves in the gardens, there — the paths and shrubbery were littered with them, dead, dying, gasping, crawling about, like singed flies under a lamp. We had them beaten, too, if it hadn’t been for their General von Kirchbach. He stood in the garden — he’d been hit, too — and bawled for the artillery. Then they came at us again in three divisions. Where they got all their regiments, I don’t know, but their 7th Grenadier Guards were there, and their 47th, 58th, 59th, 80th, and 87th regiments of the line, not counting a Jäger battalion and no end of artillery. They carried the Three Poplars — a hill — and they began devastating everything. We couldn’t face their fire — I don’t know why, Jack; it breaks my heart when I say it, but we couldn’t hold them. Then they began howling for cannon, and, of course, that settled the Château. The town was in flames when I left.”
After a silence, Jack asked him whether it was a rout or a retreat.
“We’re falling back in very decent order,” said Georges, eagerly— “really, we are. Of course, there were some troops that got into a sort of panic — the Uhlans are annoying us considerably. The Turcos fought well. We fairly riddled the 58th Prussians — their king’s regiment, you know. It was the 2d Bavarian Corps that did for us. We will meet them later.”
“Where are you going — to Metz?” inquired Jack, soberly.
“Yes; I’ve a packet for Bazaine — I don’t know what. They’re trying to reach him by wire, but those confounded Uhlans are destroying everything. My dear fellow, you need not worry; we have been checked, that’s all. Our promenade to Berlin is postponed in deference to King Wilhelm’s earnest wishes.”
They all tried to laugh a little, and Jack chirped to his horse, but even that sober animal seemed to feel the depression, for he responded in fits and starts and jerks that were unpleasant and jarring to Georges’ aching head.
The sky had become covered with bands of wet-looking clouds, the leaves of the forest stirred noiselessly on their stems. Along the river willows quivered and aspens turned their leaves white side to the sky. In the querulous notes of the birds there was a prophecy of storms, the river muttered among its hollows of floods and tempests.
