Part 36 (1/2)

”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 Chateau 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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 pa.s.sed into the grove beyond the hills. What the mischief are those cannon sh.e.l.ling, 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 gra.s.ses, 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 cuira.s.s 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 gla.s.s, it was not possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer forest that hid the Chateau de Nesville. Somewhere within those sombre woods lay the dead marquis.

With a sigh he rose to his knees, s.h.i.+vered in the suns.h.i.+ne, pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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.