Lorraine

"Then," said Jack, "there are two things left for me to do—go to Paris, which I can't unless Mademoiselle de Nesville goes, or join some franc-tireur corps and give the German army as good as they send. If you Uhlans think," he continued, violently, "that you're coming into France to hang and shoot and raise hell without getting hell in return, you're a pack of idiots!"

"The war is none of your affair," said Rickerl, flushing. "You brought it on yourself—this hanging business. Good heavens! the whole thing makes me sick! I can't believe that two weeks ago we were all there together at Morteyn—"

"A pretty return you're making for Morteyn hospitality!" blurted out Jack. Then, shocked at what he had said, he begged Rickerl's pardon and bitterly took himself to task.

"I am a fool, Ricky; I know you've got to follow your regiment, and I know it must cut you to the heart. Don't mind what I say; I'm so miserable and bewildered, and I haven't got the feeling of that rope off my neck yet."

Rickerl raised his hand gently, but his face was hard set.

"Jack, you don't begin to know what a hell I am living in, I who care so much for France and the French people, to know that all, all is ended forever, that I can never again—"

His voice choked; he cleared it and went on: "The very name of Uhlan is held in horror in France now; the word Prussian is a curse when it falls from French lips. God knows why we are fighting! We Germans obey, that is all. I am a captain in a Prussian cavalry regiment; the call comes, that is all that I know. And here I am, riding through the land I love; I sit on my horse and see the torch touched to field and barn; I see railroads torn out of the ground, I see wretched peasants hung to the rafters of their own cottages." He lowered his voice; his face grew paler. "I see the friend I care most for in all the world, a rope around his neck, my own troopers dragging him to the vilest death a man can die! That is war! Why? I am a Prussian, it is not necessary for me to know; but the regiment moves, and I move! it halts, I halt! it charges, retreats, burns, tramples, rends, devastates! I am always with it, unless some bullet settles me. For this war is nearly ended, Jack, nearly ended—a battle or two, a siege or two, nothing more. What can stand against us? Not this bewildered France."

Jack was silent.

Rickerl's blue eyes sought his; he rested his square chin on one hand and spoke again:

"Jack, do you know that—that I love your sister?"

"Her last letter said as much," replied Jack, coldly.

Rickerl watched his face.

"You are sorry?"

"I don't know; I had hoped she would marry an American. Have you spoken?"

"Yes." This was a chivalrous falsehood; it was Dorothy who had spoken first, there in the gravel drive as he rode away from Morteyn.

Jack glanced at him angrily.

"It was not honourable," he said; "my aunt's permission should have been asked, as you know; also, incidentally, my own. Does—does Dorothy care for you? Oh, you need not answer that; I think she does. Well, this war may change things."

"Yes," said Rickerl, sadly.

"I don't mean that," cried Jack; "Heaven knows I wouldn't have you hurt, Ricky; don't think I meant that—"

"I don't," said Rickerl, half smiling; "you risked your skin to save me half an hour ago."

"And you called off your bloody pack of hangmen for me," said Jack; "I'm devilish grateful, Ricky—indeed I am—and you know I'd be glad to have you in the family if—if it wasn't for this cursed war. Never mind, Dorothy generally has what she wants, even if it's—"

"Even if it's an Uhlan?" suggested Rickerl, gravely.

Jack smiled and laid his hand on Rickerl's arm.

"She ought to see you now, bareheaded, dusty, in your shirt-sleeves! You're not much like the attaché at the Diplomatic ball—eh, Ricky? If you marry Dorothy I'll punch your head. Come on, we've got to find out where we are."

"That's my road," observed Rickerl, quietly, pointing across the fields.

"Where? Why?"

"Don't you see?"

Jack searched the distant landscape in vain.

"No, are the Germans there? Oh, now I see. Why, it's a squadron of your cursed Uhlans!"

"Yes," said Rickerl, mildly.

"Then they've been chased out of the Château de Nesville!"

"Probably. They may come back. Jack, can't you get out of this country?"

"Perhaps," replied Jack, soberly. He thought of Lorraine, of the marquis lying mangled and dead in the forest beside the fragments of his balloon.

"Your Lieutenant von Steyr is a dirty butcher," he said. "I hope you'll finish him when you find him."

"He fired explosive bullets, which your franc-tireurs use on us," retorted Rickerl, growing red.

"Oh," cried Jack in disgust, "the whole business makes me sick! Ricky, give me your hand—there! Don't let this war end our friendship. Go to your Uhlans now. As for me, I must get back to Morteyn. What Lorraine will do, where she can go, how she will stand this ghastly news, I don't know; and I wish there was somebody else to tell her. My uncle and aunt have already gone to Paris, they said they would not wait for me. Lorraine is at Morteyn, alone except for her maid, and she is probably frightened at my not returning as I promised. Do you think you can get to your Uhlans safely? They passed into the grove beyond the hills. What the mischief are those cannon shelling, anyway? Well, good-by! Better not come up the hill with me, or you'll have to part with your sabre for good. We did lose our franc-tireur friends beautifully. I'll write Dorothy; I'll tell her that I captured you, sabre and all. Good-by! Good-by, old fellow! If you'll promise not to get a bullet in your blond hide I'll promise to be a brother-in-law to you!"

Rickerl looked very manly as he stood there, booted, bareheaded, his thin shirt, soaked with sweat, outlining his muscular figure.

They lingered a moment, hands closely clasped, looking gravely into each other's faces. Then, with a gesture, half sad, half friendly, Rickerl started across the stubble towards the distant grove where his Uhlans had taken cover.

Jack watched him until his white shirt became a speck, a dot, and finally vanished among the trees on the blue hill. When he was gone, Jack turned sharply away and climbed the furze-covered slope from whence he hoped to see the cannon, now firing only at five-minute intervals. As he toiled up the incline he carefully kept himself under cover, for he had no desire to meet any lurking franc-tireurs. It is true that, even when the franc-tireurs had been closest, there in the swamp among the rank marsh grasses, the distance was too great for them to have identified him with certainty. But he thought it best to keep out of their way until within hail of the regular troops, so he took advantage of bushes and inequalities of the slope to reconnoitre the landscape before he reached the summit of the ridge. There was a tufted thicket of yellow broom in flower on the crest of the ridge; behind this he lay and looked out across the plain.

A little valley separated this hill from the vineyard, terraced up to the north, ridge upon ridge. The cannon smoke shot up from the thickets of vines, rose, and drifted to the west, blotting out the greater portion of the vineyard. The cannon themselves were invisible. At times Jack fancied he saw a human silhouette when the white smoke rushed outward, but the spectral vines loomed up everywhere through the dense cannon-fog and he could not be sure.

However, there were plenty of troops below the hill now—infantry of the line trudging along the dusty road in fairly good order, and below the vineyard, among the uncut fields of flax, more infantry crouched, probably supporting the three-gun battery on the hill.

At that distance he could not tell a franc-tireur from any regular foot-soldier except line-infantry; their red caps and trousers were never to be mistaken. As he looked, he wondered at a nation that clothed its troops in a colour that furnished such a fearfully distinct mark to the enemy. A French army, moving, cannot conceal itself; the red of trousers and caps, the mirror-like reflections of cuirass and casque and lance-tip, advertise the presence of French troops so persistently that an enemy need never fear any open landscape by daylight.

Jack watched the cannonade, lying on his stomach, chin supported by both hands. He was perfectly cool now; he neither feared the Uhlans nor the franc-tireurs. For a while he vainly tried to comprehend the reason of the cannonade; the shells shot out across the valley in tall curves, dropping into a distant bit of hazy blue woodland, or exploded above the trees; the column of infantry below plodded doggedly southward; the infantry in the flax-field lay supine. Clearly something was interfering with the retreat of the troops—something that threatened them from those distant woods. And now he could see cavalry moving about the crest of the nearer hills, but, without his glass, it was not possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer forest that hid the Château de Nesville. Somewhere within those sombre woods lay the dead marquis.

With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine, passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger had made him faint; his head grew dizzy.

"It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed it to dull his hunger. The raw place on his neck, where the rope had chafed, stung when the perspiration started. He moved quickly but warily, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. Once he passed a miniature vineyard, heavy with white-wine grapes; and, as he threaded a silent path among the vines, he ate his fill and slaked his thirst with the cool amber fruit. He had reached the edge of the little vineyard, and was about to cross a tangle of briers and stubble, when something caught his eye in the thicket; it was a man's face—and he stopped.

For a minute they stared at each other, making no movement, no sound.

"Sir Thorald!"—faltered Jack.

But Sir Thorald Hesketh could not speak, for he had a bullet through his lungs.

As Jack sprang into the brier tangle towards him, a slim figure in the black garments of the Sisters of Mercy rose from Sir Thorald's side. He saw the white cross on her breast, he saw the white face above it and the whiter lips.

It was Alixe von Elster.