Part 33 (1/2)

Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands.

Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat, leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.

Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: ”Links! vorwarts!” There came a regular tramp of feet--one, two! one, two!--across the gra.s.s, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in his arms.

The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right--tall Uhlans, b.u.t.toned to the chin in their sombre overcoats, helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.

Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a second or two before he even heard him.

”Prisoner, do you understand German?” repeated the Uhlan, harshly.

”Yes,” muttered Jack. He began to s.h.i.+ver, perhaps from the chill of the wet earth.

”Stand up!”

Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling oak-branch at the edge of the grove.

Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name p.r.o.nounced; he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispa.s.sionate voice--”accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully, maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty.”

Again he heard the same voice: ”The law of non-combatants operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty due.”

Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now he knew him--the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who had scaled the park wall with the box--that was the face he had struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face, with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in pencil on the maps--Siurd von Steyr!

Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispa.s.sionate and harsh as ever when he said: ”The prisoner Marche is at liberty to confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!”

There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with trailing spurs across the road to the tree.

From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-gla.s.ses told him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the hill-side.

One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks, saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.

”Have you any statement to make?” demanded Von Steyr.

Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was choking. Everything around him swam in darkness--a darkness lit by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their midst now, shouldered and shoved across the gra.s.s; their hot breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a swivel.

It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the first cry out of him: ”Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of G.o.d!

Not--not this--”

He was struggling now--he set his teeth and struck furiously. The crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man in their midst--more mounted men, shouting.

The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his fingers between the noose and his neck; now the thing loosened and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.

”Gott verdammt!” roared a voice above him; ”Von Steyr!--here! get back there!--get back!”

”Rickerl!” gasped Jack--”tell--tell them--they must shoot--not hang--”

He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face b.l.o.o.d.y and distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless, haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the noose, set one foot on it. All around him hors.e.m.e.n crowded up, lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive horses wheeled.