The Child Wife

“Excuse me for putting the question. I only asked in case you might require a stake. If you do, my little pile’s at your service.”

“Thanks – thanks! I’m weady for spawt – stake all pawvided.”

Lucas led the way, from the Fifth Avenue to Broadway, and down Broadway to a “hell;” one of those snug little establishments in an off-street, with supper set out, to be eaten only by the initiated.

Swinton became one of them. Lucas had reasons for introducing him. His reflections were:

“This Englishman appears to have money – more than he knows what to do with. But he didn’t drop any of it in Newport. On the contrary, he must have increased his capital by the plucking of certain pigeons to whom I introduced him. I’m curious to see how he’ll get along with the hawks. He’s among them now.”

The introducer of Swinton had an additional reflection suggested by the remembrance of Julia Girdwood.

“I hope they’ll get his dollars – clear him out, the cur – and serve him right too. I believe he’s a devilish schemer.” The wish had jealousy for its basis.

Before the gambler proclaimed his bank closed for the night, the false friend saw the realisation of his hopes.

Despite his customary astuteness, the ex-guardsman was not cunning in his cups. The free supper, with its cheap champagne, had reduced him to a condition of innocence resembling the pigeons he was so fain to pluck, and he left the hawks’ nest without a dollar in his pocket!

Lucas lent him one to pay for the hack that carried him to his hotel; and thus the two parted!

Chapter Twenty Six.

Eljen Kossuth!

An autumn sun was just rising over the plains of the yellow Theiss, when two travellers, issuing from the gates of the old fortified city of Arad, took their way toward the village of Vilagos, some twenty miles distant.

It is scarce necessary to say they were on horseback. Men do not journey afoot on the plains of the “Puszta.”

Their military costume was in keeping with the scene around. Not as it would have been in its normal and usual state, with the ihaz quietly attending his swine drove, and the csiko galloping after his half-wild colts and cattle. For Arad was now the headquarters of the Hungarian army, and the roads around it hourly echoed the tread of the Honved, and hoofstroke of the hussar.

The patriot force of less than thirty thousand men had moved upon Vilagos, there to meet the Austro-Russian advance, of just four times their number; Geörgei the commanding general on one side, and Rüdiger on the other.

The two horsemen had reached Arad but the night before, coming from the West. They had arrived too late to go out with the patriot troops, and seemed now hurrying on to overtake them.

Though in uniform, as we have already said, it was not that belonging to any branch of the Hungarian service. No more did it resemble any one of the varied military costumes worn by the allied enemy. Both were habited very much alike; in simple undress frocks of dark-blue cloth, with gold-lace pantaloons of brighter blue, and banded forage-caps.

With Colt’s revolver pistols – then an arm scarce known – worn in a holstered waistbelt, steel sabres hanging handy against their thighs, and short Jäger rifles slung, en bandolier; behind them, the dress looked warlike enough; and, on whatever side, it was evident the two travellers intended fighting.

This was further manifest from their anxious glances cast ahead, and the way they pressed their horses forward, as if fearing to be too late for the field.

They were of different ages; one over forty, the other about twenty-five.

“I don’t like the look of things about Arad,” said the elder, as they checked up for a time, to breathe their horses.

“Why, Count?” asked his companion.

“There seems to be a bad electricity in the air – a sort of general distrust.”

“In what, or whom?”

“In Geörgei. I could see that the people have lost confidence in him. They even suspect that he’s playing traitor, and has thoughts of surrendering to the enemy.”

“What! Geörgei – their favourite general! Is he not so?”

“Of the old army, yes. But not of the new levies or the people. In my opinion, the worst thing that could have happened to them is his having become so. It’s the old story of regulars versus volunteers. He hates the Honveds, and Kossuth for creating them, just as in our little Mexican skirmish, there was a jealousy between West Pointers and the newly-raised regiments.

“There are thousands of donkeys in Hungary, as in the United States, who believe that to be a soldier a man must go through some sort of a routine training – forgetting all about Cromwell of England, Jackson of America, and a score of the like that might be quoted. Well, these common minds, running in the usual groove, believe that Geörgei, because he was once an officer in the Austrian regular army, should be the trusted man of the time; and they’ve taken him up, and trusted him without further questioning. I know him well. We were at the military school together. A cool, scheming fellow, with the head of a chemist and the heart of an alchemist. Of himself he has accomplished nothing yet. The brilliant victories gained on the Hungarian side – and brilliant have they been – have all been due to the romantic enthusiasm of these fiery Magyars, and the dash of such generals as Nagy Sandor, Damjanich, and Guyon. There can be no doubt that, after the successes on the Upper Danube, the patriot army could have marched unmolested into Vienna, and there dictated terms to the Austrian Empire. The emperor’s panic-stricken troops were absolutely evacuating the place, when, instead of a pursuing enemy, news came after them that the victorious general had turned back with his whole army, to lay siege to the fortress of Ofen! To capture an insignificant garrison of less than six thousand men! Six weeks were spent in this absurd side movement, contrary to the counsels of Kossuth, who had never ceased to urge the advance on Vienna. Geörgei did just what the Austrians wanted him to do – giving their northern allies time to come down; and down they have come.”

“But Kossuth was Governor – Dictator! Could he not command the advance you speak of?”

“He commanded it all he could, but was not obeyed. Geörgei had already sapped his influence, by poisoning the minds of the military leaders against him – that is, the factious who adhered to himself, the old regulars, whom he had set against the new levies and Honveds. ‘Kossuth is not a soldier, only a lawyer,’ said they; and this was sufficient. For all their talk, Kossuth has given more proofs of soldiership and true generalship than Geörgei and his whole clique. He has put an army of two hundred thousand men in the field; armed and equipped it. And he created it absolutely out of nothing! The patriots had only two hundred pounds weight of gunpowder, and scarce such a thing as a gun, when this rising commenced. And the saltpetre was dug out of the mine, and the iron smelted, and the cannon cast. Ay, in three months there was a force in the field such as Napoleon would have been proud of. My dear captain, there is more proof of military genius in this, than in the winning of a dozen battles. It was due to Kossuth alone. Alone he accomplished it all – every detail of it. Louis Kossuth not a general, indeed! In the true sense of the word, there has been none such since Napoleon. Even in this last affair of Ofen, it is now acknowledged, he was right; and that they should have listened to his cry, ‘On to Vienna!’”

“Clearly it has been a sad blunder.”

“Not so clearly, Captain; not so clearly. I wish it were. There is reason to fear it is worse.”

“What mean you, Count?”

“I mean, treason.”

“Ha!”

“The turning back for that useless siege looks confoundedly like it. And this constantly retreating down the right bank of the Theiss, without crossing over and forming a junction with Sandor. Every day the army melting away, becoming reduced by thousands! Sacré! if it be so, we’ve had our long journey for nothing; and poor liberty will soon see her last hopeless struggle on the plains of the Puszta, perhaps her last in all Europe! Ach!”

The Count, as he made this exclamation, drove the spur hard against the ribs of his horse, and broke off into a gallop, as if determined to take part in that struggle, however hopeless.

The younger man, seemingly inspired by the same impulse, rode rapidly after.

Then gallop was kept up until the spire of Vilagos came in sight, shooting up over the groves of olive and acacia embowering the Puszta village.

Outside on the skirts of the far-spreading town they could see tents pitched upon the plain, with standards floating over them – cavalry moving about in squadrons – infantry standing in serried ranks – here and there horsemen in hussar uniforms hurrying from point to point, their loose dolmans trailing behind them. They could hear the rolling of drums, the braying of bugles, and, away far beyond, the booming of great guns.

“Who goes there?” came the abrupt hail of a sentry speaking in the Magyar tongue, while a soldier in Honved dress showed himself in the door of a shepherd’s hut. He was the spokesman of a picket-guard concealed within the house.

“Friends!” answered the Austrian Count, in the same language in which the hail had been given. “Friends to the cause: Eljen Kossuth!”

At the magic words the soldier lowered his carbine, while his half-dozen comrades came crowding out from their concealment.

A pass to headquarters, obtained by the Count in Arad, made the parley short, and the two travellers continued their journey amidst cries of “Eljen Kossuth!”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

The Broken Swords

In half an hour afterwards, Count Roseveldt and Captain Maynard – for it was they who were thus rapidly travelling – reached Vilagos, and passed on to the camp of the Hungarian army.

They halted near its centre, in front of the marquee occupied by its commander-in-chief. They had arrived just in time to witness a remarkable scene – none more so on military record.

Around them were officers of all ranks, and of every conceivable arm of service. They were standing in groups talking excitedly, now and then an individual crossing hastily from one to the other.