Complete weird tales of.., p.66
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 66
“Shall I tell you what I saw across the Rhine? I saw the machinery at work — the little wheels and cogs turning and grinding and setting in motion that stupendous machine that Gneisenau patented and Von Moltke improved — the great Mobilization Machine! How this machine does its work it is not easy to realize unless one has actually watched its operation. I saw it — and what I saw left me divided between admiration and — well, damn it all! — sadness.
“You know, Marche, that there are three strata of fighting men in Germany — the regular army, the ‘reserve,’ and the Landwehr. It is a mistake into which many fall to believe that the reserve is the rear of the regular army. The war strength of a regiment is just double its peace strength, and the increment is the reserve. The blending of the two in time of war is complete; the medalled men of 1866 and of the Holstein campaign, called up from the reserve, are welded into the same ranks with the young soldiers who are serving their first period of three years. It is an utter mistake to think of the Prussian army or the Prussian reserves as a militia like yours or ours. The Prussian reserve man has three years active service with his colours to point back to. Have ours? The mobilization machine grinds its grinding in this wise. The whole country is divided into districts, in the central city of each of which are the headquarters of the army corps recruited from that district. Thence is sent forth the edict for mobilization to the towns, the villages, and the quiet country parishes. From the forge, from the harvest, from the store, from the school-room, blacksmiths, farmers, clerks, school-masters drop everything at an hour’s notice.
“The contingent of a village is sent to headquarters. On the route it meets other contingents until the rendezvous is reached. And then — the transformation! A yokel enters — a soldier leaves. The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown forward, his legs straightened, his chin ‘well off the stock,’ his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, and the barrack gates are never infested by those hordes of soldiers’ women.”
He paused and puffed at his cigar thoughtfully.
“They are such soldiers as the world has not yet seen. Marching? I saw them striding steadily forward with the thermometer at eighty-five in the shade, with needle-gun, heavy knapsack, eighty rounds of ammunition, huge great-coat, camp-kettle, sword, spade, water-bottle, haversack, and lots of odds and ends dangling about them, with perhaps a loaf or two under one arm. Sunstroke? No. Why? Sobriety. No absinthe there, Mr. Marche.”
“We beat those men at Saarbrück,” said Jack.
Grahame laughed good-humouredly.
“At Saarbrück, when war was declared, the total German garrison consisted of a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Uhlans. Frossard and his whole corps were looking across at Saarbrück over the ridges of the Spicheren, and nobody had the means of knowing what everybody knows now, the reason, so discreditable to French organization, which prevented him from blowing out of his path the few pickets and patrols, and invading the territory which had its frontier only nominally guarded. I was in Saarbrück at the time, and I had the pleasure of dodging shells there, too. Why, we were all asking each other if it were possible that the Frenchmen did not know the weakness of the land. Our Uhlans and infantry were manipulated dexterously to make a battalion look like a brigade; but we had an army corps in front of us. We held the place by sheer impudence.”
“I know it,” said Jack; “it makes me ill to think of it.”
“It ought to make Frossard ill! Had a French army of invasion pushed on through Saint-Johann on the 2d of August and marched rapidly into the interior, the Germans could not possibly have concentrated their scattered regiments, and it is my firm conviction that Napoleon would have seen the Rhine without having had to fight a pitched battle. Well, Marche, I drink to neither one side nor the other, but — here’s to the men with backbones. Prosit!”
They laughed and clinked glasses. Grahame finished his bottle, rose, politely stifled a yawn, and looked humourously at Jack.
“There are two beds in my room; will you take one?” said the young fellow.
“Thank you, I will,” said Grahame, “and as soon as you please, my dear fellow.”
So Jack led the way and ushered the other into a huge room with two beds, seemingly lost in distant diagonal corners. Grahame promptly kicked off his boots, and sat down on his bed.
“I saw a funny thing in Saarbrück,” he said. “It was right in the midst of a cannonade — the shells were smashing the chimneys on the Hotel Hagen and raising hell generally. And right in the midst of the whole blessed mess, cool as a cucumber, came sauntering a real live British swell with a coat adorned with field-glasses and girdle and a dozen pockets, an eye-glass, a dog that seemed dearer to him than life, and a drawl that had not been perceptibly quickened by the French cannon. He-aw-had been going eastward somewhere to-aw-Constantinople, or Saint-Petersburg, or-aw-somewhere, when he-aw-heard that it might be amusing at Saarbrück. A shell knocked a cart-load of tiles around his head, and he looked at it through his eye-glass. Marche, I never laughed so in my life. He’s a good fellow, though — he’s trotting about with the Hohenzollern Regiment now, and, really, I miss him. His name is Hesketh—”
“Not Sir Thorald?” cried Jack.
“Eh? — yes, that’s the man. Know him?”
“A little,” said Jack, laughing, and went out, bidding Graham good-night, and promising to have him roused at dawn.
“Aren’t you going to turn in?” called Grahame, fearful of having inconvenienced Jack in his own quarters.
“Yes,” said the young fellow. “I won’t wake you — I’ll be back in an hour.” And he closed the door, and went down-stairs.
For a few moments he stood on the cool terrace, listening to the movement of the host below; and always the tramp of feet, the snort of horses, and the metallic jingle of passing cannon filled his ears.
The big cuirassier sentinel had been joined by two more, all of the Hundred-Guards. Jack noticed their carbines, wondering a little to see cuirassiers so armed, and marvelling at the long, slender, lance-like bayonets that were attached to the muzzles.
Presently he went into the house, and, entering the smoking-room, met his aunt coming out.
“Jack,” she said, “I am a little nervous — the Emperor is still in the dining-room with a crowd of officers, and he has just sent an aide-de-camp to the Château de Nesville to summon the marquis. It will be most awkward; your uncle and he are not friendly, and the Marquis de Nesville hates the Emperor.”
“Why did the Emperor send for him?” asked Jack, wondering.
“I don’t know — he wishes for a private interview with the marquis. He may refuse to come — he is a very strange man, you know.”
“Then, if he is, he may come; that would be stranger still,” said Jack.
“Your uncle is not well, Jack,” continued Madame de Morteyn; “he is quite upset by being obliged to entertain the Emperor. You know how all the Royalists feel. But, Jack, dear, if you could have seen your uncle it would have been a lesson in chivalry to you which any young man could ill afford to miss — he was so perfectly simple, so proudly courteous — ah, Jack, your uncle is one in a nation!”
“He is — and so are you!” said Jack, kissing her faded cheek. “Are you going to retire now?”
“Yes; your uncle needs me. The lights are out everywhere. Lorraine, dear child, is asleep in the next room to mine. Is Mr. Grahame comfortable? I am glad. The Prince Imperial is sleeping too, poor child — sleeping like a worn-out baby.”
Jack conducted his aunt to her chamber, and bade her good-night. Then he went softly back through the darkened house, and across the hall to the dining-room. The door was open, letting out a flood of lamp-light, and the generals and staff-officers were taking leave of the Emperor and filing out one by one, Frossard leading, his head bent on his breast. Some went away to rooms assigned them, guided by a flunky, some passed across the terrace with swords trailing and spurs ringing, and disappeared in the darkness. They had not all left the Emperor, when, suddenly, Jack heard behind him the voice of the Marquis de Nesville, cold, sneering, ironical.
“Oh,” he said, seeing Jack standing by the door, “can you tell me where I may find the Emperor of the French? I am sent for.” Turning on the aide-de-camp at his side: “This gentleman courteously notified me that the Emperor desired my presence. I am here, but I do not choose to go alone, and I shall demand, Monsieur Marche, that you accompany me and remain during the interview.”
The aide-de-camp looked at him darkly, but the marquis sneered in his face.
“I want a witness,” he said, insolently; “you can tell that to your Emperor.”
The aide-de-camp, helmet under his arm, from which streamed a horse-hair plume, entered the dining-room as the last officer left it.
Jack looked uneasily at the marquis, and was about to speak when the aid returned and requested the marquis to enter.
“Monsieur Marche, remain here, I beg you,” said the marquis, coolly; “I shall call you presently. It is a service I ask of you. Will you oblige me?”
“Yes,” said Jack.
The door opened for a second.
Napoleon III. sat at the long table, his head drooping on his breast; he was picking absently at threads in the texture of the table-cloth. That was all Jack saw — a glimpse of a table covered with half-empty glasses and fruit, an old man picking at the cloth in the lamplight; then the door shut, and he was alone in the dark hall. Out on the terrace he heard the tramp of the cuirassier sentinels, and beyond that the uproar of artillery, passing, always passing. He stared about in the darkness, he peered up the staircase into the gloom. A bat was flying somewhere near — he felt the wind from its mousy wings.
Suddenly the door was flung open beside him, and the marquis called to him in a voice vibrating with passion. As he entered and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised his impassible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged the young man’s respectful salutation.
“You have asked me a question,” said the marquis, harshly, “and I demanded to answer it in the presence of a witness. Is your majesty willing that this gentleman shall hear my reply?”
The Emperor looked at him with half-closed, inscrutable eyes, then, turning his heavy face to Jack’s, smiled wearily and inclined his head.
“Good,” said the marquis, apparently labouring under tremendous excitement. “You ask me to give you, or sell you, or loan you my secret for military balloons. My answer is, ‘No!’”
The Emperor’s face did not change as he said, “I ask it for your country, not for myself, monsieur.”
“And I will give it to my country, not to you!” said the marquis, violently.
Jack looked at the Emperor. He noticed his unkempt hair brushed forward, his short thumbs pinching the table-cloth, his closed eyes.
The Marquis de Nesville took a step towards him.
“Does your majesty remember the night that Morny lay dying in the shadows? And that horrible croak from the darkness when he raised himself on one elbow and gasped, ‘Sire, prenez garde à la Prusse!’ Then he died. That was all — a warning, a groan, the death-rattle in the shadows by the bed. Then he died.”
The Emperor never moved.
“‘Look out for Prussia!’ That was Morny’s last gasp. And now? Prussia is there, you are here! And you need aid, and you send for me, and I tell you that my secrets are for my country, not for you! No, not for you — you who said, ‘It is easy to govern the French, they only need a war every four years!’ Now — here is your war! Govern!”
The Emperor’s slow eyes rested a moment on the man before him. But the man, trembling, pallid with passion, clenched his hands and hurled an insult at the Emperor through his set teeth: “Napoleon the Little! Listen! When you have gone down in the crash of a rotten throne and a blood-bought palace, then, when the country has shaken this — this thing — from her bent back, then I will give to my country all I have! But never to you, to save your name and your race and your throne — never!”
He fairly frothed at the lips as he spoke; his eyes blazed.
“Your coup-d’état made me childless! I had a son, fairer than yours, who lies asleep in there — brave, gentle, loving — a son of mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him — shot him to death on the boulevards — him among the others — so that you could sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them — those piled corpses! I saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the heaped slain lying before Tortoni’s, where the whole street was flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honoré, and when you met the barricade you turned pale and rode back again! I saw you; I was sitting with my dead boy on my knees — I saw you—”
With a furious cry the marquis tore a revolver from his pocket and sprang on the Emperor, and at the same instant Jack seized the crazy man by the shoulders and hurled him violently to the floor.
Stunned, limp as a rag, the marquis lay at the Emperor’s feet, his clenched hands slowly relaxing.
The Emperor had not moved.
Scarcely knowing what he did, Jack stooped, drew the revolver from the extended fingers, and laid it on the table. Then, with a fearful glance at the Emperor, he dragged the marquis to the door, opened it with a shove of his foot, and half closed it again.
The aide-de-camp stood there, staring at the prostrate man.
“Here, help me with him to his carriage; he is ill,” panted Jack— “lift him!”
Together they carried him out to the terrace, and down the steps to a coupé that stood waiting.
“The marquis is ill,” said Jack again; “put him to bed at once. Drive fast.”
Before the sound of the wheels died away Jack hastened back to the dining-room. Through the half-opened door he peered, hesitated, turned away, and mounted the stairs slowly to his own chamber.
In the dining-room the lamp still burned dimly. Beside it sat the Emperor, head bent, picking absently at the table-cloth with short, shrunken thumbs.
CHAPTER XV
THE INVASION OF LORRAINE
IT WAS NOT yet dawn. Jack, sleeping with his head on his elbow, shivered in his sleep, gasped, woke, and sat up in bed. There was a quiet footfall by his bed, the scrape of a spur, then silence.
“Is that you, Mr. Grahame?” he asked.
“Yes; I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m off. I was going to leave a letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn—”
“Are you dressed? What time is it?”
“Four o’clock — twenty minutes after. It’s a shame to rouse you, my dear fellow.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Jack. “Will you strike a light — there are candles on my dresser. Ah, that’s better.”
He sat blinking at Grahame, who, booted and spurred and buttoned to the chin, looked at him quizzically.
“You were not going off without your coffee, were you?” asked Jack. “Nonsense! — wait.” He pulled a bell-rope dangling over his head. “Now that means coffee and hot rolls in twenty minutes.”
When Jack had bathed and shaved, operations he executed with great rapidity, the coffee was brought, and he and Grahame fell to by candle-light.
“I thought you were afoot?” said Jack, glancing at the older man’s spurs.
“I’m going to hunt up a horse; I’m tired of this eternal tramping,” replied Grahame. “Hello, is this package for me?”
“Yes, there’s a cold chicken and some things, and a flask to keep you until you find your Hohenzollern Regiment again.”
Grahame rose and held out his hand. “Good-by. You’ve been very kind, Marche. Will you say, for me, all that should be said to Madame de Morteyn? Good-by once more, my dear fellow. Don’t forget me — I shall never forget you!”
“Wait,” said Jack; “you are going off without a safe-conduct.”
“Don’t need it; there’s not a French soldier in Morteyn.”
“Gone?” stammered Jack— “the Emperor, General Frossard, the army—”
“Every mother’s son of them, and I must hurry—”
Their hands met again in a cordial grasp, then Grahame slipped noiselessly into the hallway, and Jack turned to finish dressing by the light of his clustered candles.
As he stood before the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with studs and buttons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impassive Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned, white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling from the glittering revolver.
Lorraine’s father! And he had laid hands on him and had flung him senseless at the feet of the Man of December! He could scarcely button his collar, his fingers trembled so. Perhaps he had killed the Marquis de Nesville. Sick at heart, he finished dressing, buttoned his coat, flung a cap on his head, and stole out into the darkness.
On the terrace below he saw a groom carrying a lantern, and he went out hastily.
“Saddle Faust at once,” he said. “Have the troops all gone?”
“All, monsieur; the last of the cavalry passed three hours ago; the Emperor drove away half an hour later with Lulu—”
“Eh?”
“The prince — pardon, monsieur — they call him Lulu in Paris.”
“Hurry,” said Jack; “I want that horse at once.”
Ten minutes later he was galloping furiously down the forest road towards the Château de Nesville. The darkness was impenetrable, so he let the horse find his own path, and gave himself up to a profound dejection that at times amounted to blind fear. Before his eyes he saw the pallid face of the Marquis de Nesville, he saw the man stretched on the floor, horribly still; that was the worst, the stillness of the body.
