Lorraine

CHAPTER XI

"KEEP THY FAITH"

Jack was startled, and he instinctively stood up very straight, as he always did when surprised.

Under the Emperor's crimson képi, heavy with gold, the old, old eyes, half closed, peered at him, as a drowsy buzzard watches the sky, with filmy, changeless gaze. His face was the colour of clay, the loose folds of the cheeks hung pallid over a heavy chin; his lips were hidden beneath a mustache and imperial, unkempt but waxed at the ends. From the shadow of his crimson cap the hair straggled forward, half hiding two large, wrinkled, yellow ears.

With a smile and a slight gesture exquisitely courteous, the Emperor said: "Pray do not allow me to interrupt you, monsieur; old soldiers are of small account when a nation's newspapers wait."

"Sire!" protested Jack, flushing.

Napoleon III.'s eyes twinkled, and he picked up his letter again, still smiling.

"Such good news, monsieur, should not be kept waiting. You are English? No? Then American? Oh!"

The Emperor rolled a cigarette, gazing into vacancy with dreamy eyes, narrow as slits in a mask. Jack sat down again, pencil in hand, a little flustered and uncertain.

The Emperor struck a wax-match on a gold matchbox, leaning his elbow on the table to steady his shaking hand. Presently he slowly crossed one baggy red-trouser knee over the other and, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into the sunshine, said: "I suppose your despatch will arrive considerably in advance of the telegrams of the other correspondents, who seem to be blocked in Saarbrück?"

He glanced obliquely at Jack, grave and impassible.

"I trust so, sire," said Jack, seriously.

The Emperor laughed outright, crumpled the letter in his gloved hand, tossed the cigarette away, and rose painfully, leaning for support on the table.

Jack rose, too.

"Monsieur," said Napoleon, playfully, as though attempting to conceal intense physical suffering, "I am in search of a motto—for reasons. I shall have a regiment or two carry 'Saarbrück' on their colours. What motto should they also carry?"

Jack spoke before he intended it—he never knew why: "Sire, the only motto I know is this: 'Tiens ta Foy!'"

The Man of December turned his narrow eyes on him. Then, bowing with the dignity and grace that he, of all living monarchs, possessed, the Emperor passed slowly through the garden and entered the little hôtel, the clash of presented carbines ringing in the still air behind him.

Jack sat down, considerably exercised in his mind, thinking of what he had said. The splendid old crusader's motto, "Keep thy Faith," was scarcely the motto to suggest to the man of the Coup d'État, the man of Rome, the man of Mexico. The very bones of Victor Noir would twist in their coffin at the words; and the lungs of that other Victor, the one named Hugo, would swell and expand until the bellowing voice rang like a Jersey fog-siren over the channel, over the ocean, till the seven seas vibrated and the four winds swept it to the four ends of the earth.

Very soberly he finished his despatch, picked up his gloves and crop, and again walked over to the telegraph station.

The censor read the pencilled scrawl, smiled, drew a red pencil through some of it, smiled again, and said: "I trust it will not inconvenience monsieur too much."

"Not at all," said Jack, pleasantly.

He had not expected to get it all through, and he bowed and thanked the censor, and went out to where his horse stood, cropping the tender leaves of a spreading chestnut-tree.

It was five o'clock by his watch when he trotted out into the Morteyn road, now entirely deserted except by a peasant or two, staring, under their inverted hands, at the distant spire of Saarbrück.

Far away in the valley he caught glimpses of troops, glancing at times over his shoulder, but the distant squares and columns on hill-side and road seemed to be motionless. Already the thin, glimmering line of the Saar had faded from view; the afternoon haze hung blue on every hill-side; the woods were purple and vague as streaks of cloud at evening.

He passed Saint-Avold far to the south, too far to see anything of the division that lay encamped there; and presently he turned into the river road that follows the Saar until the great highway to Metz cuts it at an acute angle. From this cross-road he could see the railway, where a line of freight-cars, drawn by a puffing locomotive, was passing—cars of all colours, marked on one end "Elsass-Lothringen," on the other "Alsace-Lorraine."

He had brought with him a slice of bread and a flask of Moselle, and, as he had had no time to eat since daybreak, he gravely began munching away, drinking now and then from his flask and absently eying the road ahead.

He thought of Lorraine and of his promise. If only all promises were as easily kept! He had plenty of time to reach Morteyn before dark, taking it at an easy canter, so he let his horse walk up the hills while he swallowed his bread and wine and mused on war and love and emperors.

He had been riding in this abstracted study for some time, and had lighted a pipe to aid his dreams, when, from the hill-side ahead, he caught a glimpse of something that sparkled in the afternoon sunshine, and he rose in his saddle and looked to see what it might be. After a moment he made out five mounted troopers, moving about on the crest of the hill, the sun slanting on stirrup metal and lance-tip. As he was about to resume his meditations, something about these lancers caught his eye—something that did not seem quite right—he couldn't tell what. Of course they were French lancers, they could be nothing else, here in the rear of the army, but still they were rather odd-looking lancers, after all.

The eyes of a mariner and the eyes of a soldier, or of a man who foregathers with soldiers, are quick to detect strange rigging. Therefore Jack unslung his glasses and levelled them on the group of mounted men, who were now moving towards him at an easy lope, their tall lances, butts in stirrups, swinging free from the arm-loops, their horses' manes tossing in the hill breeze.

The next moment he seized his bridle, drove both spurs into his horse, and plunged ahead, dropping pipe and flask in the road unheeded. At the same time a hoarse shout came quavering across the fields, a shout as harsh and sinister as the menacing cry of a hawk; but he dashed on, raising a whirlwind of red dust. Now he could see them plainly enough, their slim boots, their yellow facings and reverses, the shiny little helmets with the square tops like inverted goblets, the steel lances from which black and white pennons streamed.

They were Uhlans!

For a minute it was a question in his mind whether or not they would be able to cut him off. A ditch in the meadow halted them for a second or two, but they took it like chamois and came cantering up towards the high-road, shouting hoarsely and brandishing their lances.

It was true that, being a non-combatant and a foreigner with a passport, and, furthermore, an accredited newspaper correspondent, he had nothing to fear except, perhaps, a tedious detention and a long-winded explanation. But it was not that. He had promised to be at Morteyn by night, and now, if these Uhlans caught him and marched him off to their main post, he would certainly spend one night at least in the woods or fields. A sudden anger, almost a fury, seized him that these men should interfere with his promise; that they should in any way influence his own free going and coming, and he struck his horse with the riding-crop and clattered on along the highway.

"Halt!" shouted a voice, in German—"halt! or we fire!" and again in French: "Halt! We shall fire!"

They were not far from the road now, but he saw that he could pass them easily.

"Halt! halt!" they shouted, breathless.

Instinctively he ducked, and at the same moment piff! piff! their revolvers began, and two bullets sang past near enough to make his ears tingle.

Then they settled down to outride him; he heard their scurry and jingle behind, and for a minute or two they held their own, but little by little he forged ahead, and they began to shoot at him from their saddles. One of them, however, had not wasted time in shooting; Jack heard him, always behind, and now he seemed to be drawing nearer, steadily but slowly closing up the gap between them.

Jack glanced back. There he was, a big, blond, bony Uhlan, lance couched, clattering up the hill; but the others had already halted far behind, watching the race from the bottom of the incline.

"Tiens ta Foy," he muttered to himself, digging both spurs into his horse; "I'll not prove faithless to her first request—not if I know it. Good Lord! how near that Uhlan is!"

Again he glanced behind, hesitated, and finally shouted: "Go back! I am no soldier! Go back!"

"I'll show you!" bellowed the Uhlan. "Stop your horse! or when I catch you—"

"Go back!" cried Jack, angrily; "go back or I'll fire!" and he whipped out his long Colt's and shook it above his head.

With a derisive yell the Uhlan banged away—once, twice, three times—and the bullets buzzed around Jack's ears till they sang. He swung around, crimson with fury, and raised the heavy six-shooter.

"By God!" he shouted; "then take it yourself!" and he fired one shot, standing up in his stirrups to steady his aim.

He heard a cry, he saw a horse rear straight up through the dust; there was a gleam of yellow, a flash of a falling lance, a groan. Then, as he galloped on, pale and tight-lipped, a riderless horse thundered along behind him, mane tossing in the whirling dust.

With sudden instinct, Jack drew bridle and wheeled his trembling mount—the riderless horse tore past him—and he trotted soberly back to the dusty heap in the road. It may have merely been the impulse to see what he had done, it may have been a nobler impulse, for Jack dismounted and bent over the fallen man. Then he raised him in his arms by the shoulders and drew him towards the road-side. The Uhlan was heavy, his spurs dragged in the dust. Very gently Jack propped him up against a poplar-tree, looked for a moment at the wound in his head, and then ran for his horse. It was high time, too; the other Uhlans came racing and tearing uphill, hallooing like Cossacks, and he vaulted into his saddle and again set spurs to his horse.

Now it was a ride for life; he understood that thoroughly, and settled down to it, bending low in the saddle, bridle in one hand, revolver in the other. And as he rode his sobered thoughts dwelt now on Lorraine, now on the great lank Uhlan, lying stricken in the red dust of the highway. He seemed to see him yet, blond, dusty, the sweat in beads on his blanched cheeks, the crimson furrow in his colourless scalp. He had seen, too, the padded yellow shoulder-knots bearing the regimental number "11," and he knew that he had shot a trooper of the 11th Uhlans, and that the 11th Uhlan Regiment was Rickerl's regiment. He set his teeth and stared fearfully over his shoulder. The pursuit had ceased; the Uhlans, dismounted, were gathered about the tree under which their comrade lay gasping. Jack brought his horse to a gallop, to a canter, and finally to a trot. The horse was not winded, but it trembled and reeked with sweat and lather.

Beyond him lay the forest of La Bruine, red in the slanting rays of the setting sun. Beyond this the road swung into the Morteyn road, that lay cool and moist along the willows that bordered the river Lisse.

The sun glided behind the woods as he reached the bridge that crosses the Lisse, and the evening glow on feathery willow and dusty alder turned stem and leaf to shimmering rose.