Part 34 (1/2)

Among the rest were three waggons laden with wounded. Awnings had been spread to veil them from the sun, and she was spared the sight of their sufferings. But their meanings and cries, as the waggons jolted and creaked over the rough road, drove the blood from her cheeks. She pa.s.sed them quickly--they were many and she was one, and she could do nothing--and rode on, little thinking who lay under the awnings, or whose eyes followed her as she went.

CHAPTER XXI.

AMONG THE WOUNDED.

When a man lies fettered at the bottom of a jolting waggon, and, unable to help himself, is made a pillow for wounded wretches, whose feverish struggles go near to stifling him; and when to these miseries are added the heat of a sultry night, thirst, and the near prospect of death, pa.s.sion soon dies down. Anger gives place to pain and the chill of apprehension. The man begins to know himself again--forgets his enemies, thinks of his friends.

It was so with me. The general's back was not turned before I ceased to cry out; and that gained me the one alleviation I had--that I was not gagged. They piled the waggon with bleeding, groaning men,--of our side, of course, for no quarter was given to the other,--and I shuddered as each mangled wretch came in. Still, I had my mouth free.

If I could not move, I could breathe, and hear what pa.s.sed round me. I could see the dark night sky lit up by the glare of the fires, or, later, watch the stars s.h.i.+ning coldly and indifferently down on this scene of pain and misery.

When the waggon was full they drove us, jolting and wailing, to an appointed place, and took out some, leaving only enough to cover the floor thickly. And then, ah me! the night began. That which at first had been an inconvenience, became in time intolerable pain. The ropes cut into my flesh, the boards burned my back; we were so closely packed, and I was so tightly bound that I could not move a limb. Every moment the wounded cried for water, and those in pain wailed and lamented, while all night the wolves howled round the camp. In one corner, a man whose eyes were injured babbled unceasingly of his mother and his home. Hour by hour, for the frenzy held him all night, he rolled his head, and chattered, and laughed! In the morning he died, and we thanked G.o.d for it.

The peasant and the soldier sup the real miseries of war; the n.o.ble and the officer, whose it is to dare death in the field, but rarely, very rarely to lie wounded under the burning sun or through the freezing night, only taste them. A place of arms falls; there is quarter for my lord and a pa.s.s and courtesy for my lady, but edge and point for the common herd. To risk all and get nothing--or a penny a day, unpaid--is the lot of most.

When morning at last dawned, I was half dead. My head seemed bursting; my hands were purple with the tightness of my bonds. Deep groans broke from me. I moved my eyes--the only things I could move--in an agony.

Round me I heard the sick thanking G.o.d as the light grew stronger, and muttering words of hope. But the light helped me little. Where I lay, trussed like a fowl, I could see nothing except the sky--whence the sun would soon add to my miseries--and the heads of the two men who sat propped against the waggon boards next to me.

I took one of these to be dead, for he had slipped to one side, and the arm with which he had stayed himself against the floor of the waggon stood out stiff and stark. The other man had the comfort of the corner; there was a cloak under him and a pad behind him. But his head was sunk on his breast, and for a while I thought him dead too, and had a horrible dread that he would slide over on to my face and stifle me. But he did not, and by-and-by, when the sun had risen, and I felt that I could bear it no longer, he woke up and raised his fierce, white face and groaned.

It was Ludwig. He stared at me for a minute or more in a dazed, stupid fas.h.i.+on. Then he moved his leg and cried out with pain. After that he looked at me more sensibly, and by-and-by spoke.

'Donner, man!' he said. 'What is it? You look like a ripe mulberry.'

I tried to answer him, but my lips and throat were so parched and swollen I could only murmur. He saw my lips move, however, and guessed how it was with me.

'They have tied you up with a vengeance!' he said with a grim smile.

'Here, Franz! Willibrod! Who is there? Come, some one. Do you hear, you lazy knaves?' he continued in a hoa.r.s.e croak. 'When I am about again I will find some of you quicker heels!'

A man just risen came grumbling to the side of the waggon. Ludwig bade him climb in and loosen my bonds, and set me up against the side.

'And take away that carrion!' he added brutally. 'Dead men pay no fares. That is better. Ay, give him some water. He will come round.'

I did presently, though for a time the blood flowing where it had been before restrained, caused me horrible pain, and my tongue, when I tried to thank him, seemed to be too large for my mouth. But I could now sit up, and stretch my limbs, and even raise my hands to my mouth.

Hope returned. My thoughts flew back to Marie Wort. Her pale face and large eyes rose before my eyes, and filled them with tears. Then there was my lady. And the Waldgrave. Doubtless he, poor fellow, was dead.

But the rest lived--lived, and would soon look to me, look to any one for help. On that I became myself again. I shook off the pain and lethargy and despair of the night, and took up the burden of life. If my wits could save us, or, failing them, some happy accident, I would not be wanting. I had still a day or two, and all the chances of a journey.

Ludwig gave me food and a drink from his flask. I thanked him again.

'You are a man!' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'It was a pity you would knot your own rope. As for these chicken-hearted tremblers,' he continued, squinting askance at our companions, 'a fico for them! To call themselves soldiers and pule like women! Faugh! I am sick of them!'

For my part, the sights I saw from the waggon seemed more depressing.

In every direction parties were moving, burying our dead, putting wounded horses out of their misery, collecting plunder. One division was at work driving the poor lowing cattle, already over-driven, back the way they had come, through the pa.s.s and up the river bank. Another was righting such of the waggons as had been overturned, or dragging them out of the nether part of the valley. Everywhere men were working, shouting, swearing, spurning the dead. All showed that the general did not mean to linger, but would secure his booty by a timely retreat to his camp.

They came by-and-by and horsed our waggon and turned us round, and presently we took our place in the slow, creaking procession, and began to move up the pa.s.s. I looked everywhere for my lady, but could see nothing of her. The noise was prodigious, the dust terrible, the glare intolerable. I was thankful when some kind heart brought a waggon cloth and stretched it over us. After that things were better; and between the heat and the monotony of the motion I fell asleep, and slept until the afternoon was well advanced.

Then a singular thing occurred. The waggon which followed ours was drawn by four horses abreast, whose heads as they plodded wearily along at the tail of our waggon were so close to us that we could see easily into the vehicle, which was full of wounded men, and covered with an awning. We could see easily, I say; but the steady cloud of dust through which we moved and the white glare of the sunlight gave to everything so phantom-like an appearance that it was hard to say whether we were looking on real things.