Part 34 (2/2)

Be that as it may, the first thing I saw when I awoke and rubbed my eyes, was the Waldgrave's face! He lay in the front part of the waggon, his head on the side-board. Thinking I dreamed, or that the dust deceived me, I rubbed my eyes again and looked. Still it was he.

His eyes were closed. He was pale, where the dust did not hide all colour; his head moved with the motion of the wheels. But he seemed to be alive, for even while I looked, a man who sat by him leaned forward and moistened his forehead with water.

Trembling with excitement, I touched Ludwig on the shoulder. 'Look!' I said. 'The Waldgrave!'

He looked and nodded. 'Yes,' he said, chuckling. 'Now you see what you have done for yourself. And all for nothing!'

'But who took him up?' I persisted.

'The general,' he answered sententiously. 'Who else?'

'Why?' I cried in a fever. 'Why did he do it?'

Ludwig shrugged his shoulders. 'He knows his own business,' he said.

'I suppose that he found he had life in him.'

'Did he take him up at once? After I was seized?'

'Of course. Whether he will live or no is another matter.'

The helpless way in which the dusty, bedraggled head rolled as the waggon jolted, warned me of that. Still, he was alive. He might live; and I longed to be beside him, to tend and nurse him, to make the most of the least hope. But my eyes fell on my fettered hands; and when I looked again he had disappeared. He had sunk down in the cart, and was out of sight. I was left to wonder whether he was dead, or had only changed his posture for another more comfortable. And the dust growing ever thicker, and the sun-glare less as the day advanced, I presently lost sight even of the waggon.

We lay that night in a coppice on the left bank of the river. Each waggon halted where it stood at sunset, so that there was no common camp, but all along the road a line of bivouacs. But for the cloud of anxiety which darkened my mind, and the cords which bound my hands and constantly reminded me of my troubles, I might have enjoyed the comparative quietness of that night, the evening coolness, the soft green light, the freshness of leaf and bough, which lapped us round and seemed so much the more refres.h.i.+ng, as we had pa.s.sed the day in a fever of heat and dust. But the unexpected sight of the Waldgrave had excited me; and I confess that as we came nearer to the camp, the tremors I felt on my own account grew more violent. I recalled with a shudder the shooting-match at which I had been present, and the leather targets. I drew vivid pictures of another shooting-match in the same valley--of my lady looking on in ignorance, of minutes of suspense, of a sudden pang, a gagged scream, of hours of lingering torture.

Against such dreams the silence and beauty of the night were powerless, and the morning found me wakeful and unrefreshed, divided between reluctance to desert my lady and the instinct which bade me make an attempt at escape by the way, and while the chances of the journey were still mine. How I might have acted had a favourable opportunity presented itself, I cannot say; but as things went, I did nothing, and a little before sunset on the third day we gained the camp.

Then, I confess, I wished with all my heart that I had taken any chance, however slight. At sight of the familiar lines, the dusty, littered roads, the squalid crowds that came out to meet us, my gorge rose. The very smell of the place which I had so hated gave me qualms.

I turned hot and cold as we rumbled slowly through the throng and one pointed me out to another, and I saw round me again the dark, lowering faces, the uns.e.xed women, the horde of vile sutlers and footboys. They surged round the waggon, jeering and staring; and if I had shrunk from them when my hands were free, I loathed them still more now that I lay a prisoner and any moment might place me at their mercy.

I had seen nothing of the Waldgrave or the waggon which carried him for nearly two days, but as we pa.s.sed through the gates I caught sight of the latter moving slowly on, a little way in front of us. Both waggons halted inside the camp while the wounded were taken out. I prepared to follow, but was bidden to stay. Then I began to realize my position. When the waggon bore me on alone--alone, though two or three pikemen and a rabble of gibing, grinning horse-boys marched beside me--I felt my blood run cold, and found my only consolation in the fact that the other waggon still went in front, and seemed to be bound for the same goal.

'What are you going to do with me?' I asked one of the ruffians who guarded me.

'Prison,' he answered laconically.

And a strange prison it was. On the verge of the camp, near the river, where a snug farmhouse had once stood, rose four gaunt walls, blackened with smoke. The roof was gone--burned off; but the rooftree, charred and soot-begrimed, still ran from gable to gable. A strong, high gate filled the room of the door; the windows had been bricked up. When I saw the waggon which preceded me halt before this melancholy place, I looked out between hope and fear--fearing some act of treachery, hoping to see the Waldgrave. But the blackguard crowd which surrounded the doorway was so great that it hid everything; and I had to curb my impatience until in turn my waggon stopped in the midst of them.

A mocking voice called to me to descend, and though I liked the look of the place little, and the aspect of the gang still less, I had no choice but to obey. I scrambled down, and pa.s.sed as quickly as I could down the lane opened for me. A row of more villainous faces it has seldom been my fate to see, but the last on the right by the gate was so much the worst, that it caught my eye instantly. It was seamed with scars and bloated with drink, and it wore a ferocious grin. I was not surprised when the knave, a huge pikeman, dealt me, as I pa.s.sed, a brutal shove with his knee, which sent me staggering into the enclosure, where I fell all at length on my face.

The blow hurt my hip cruelly, and yet the sight of that drunken, ugly giant filled me with a rush of joy and hope that effaced all other feelings. I forgot my fellow-prisoners, I forgot even the Waldgrave--who to be sure was there, sitting doubled up against the wall, and looking very white and sick. For the man with the seamed face was Drunken Steve of Heritzburg, whom we had left behind us in the castle, to be cured of his wounds. I had punished him a dozen times; almost as often my lady had threatened to drive him from the place and her service. Always he had had the name of a sullen, wilful fellow. But I had found him staunch as any tyke in time of need. For dogged fidelity and a ferocious courage, proof against the utmost danger, I knew that I could depend on him against the world; while the prompt line of conduct he had adopted at sight of me led me to hope something from wits which drink had not yet deadened.

It was well I had this spark of hope, for I found the Waldgrave so ill as to be beyond comfort or counsel, and without it I should have been in a parlous state. The place of our confinement was roofless, ill-smelling, strewn with refuse and filth, a mere dog-yard. A little straw alone protected us from the soil. Everything we did was watched through the open bars of the gate; and bad as this place was, we shared it with two soldiers, who lay, heavily shackled, in one corner, and sullenly eyed my movements.

I did what I could for the Waldgrave, and then, as darkness fell, I sat down with my back to the wall and thought over our position--miserably enough. Half an hour pa.s.sed, and I was beginning to nod, when a slight noise as of a rat gnawing a board caught my ear.

I raised my head and listened; the sound came from the gate. I stood up and crept towards it. As I expected, I found Steve on guard outside. Even in the darkness it was impossible to mistake his huge figure.

'Hus.h.!.+' he muttered. 'Is it you, master?'

<script>