John Bloundelle-Burton

“ Above, the rooks were cawing as though no such thing as powder and ball had ever disturbed them, and now and again a rabbit or two, which had escaped the general pillage and search for food, ran away at the sound of Andrew's footsteps on the soft springy turf, whisking the underwhite of their tails before his eyes.
"A better spot for love-making than for killing," he thought to himself; "for an arm to fold itself around a maiden's waist, than to press down a scoundrel's guard--ah! ”

“ They were two enormous hounds--half boarhounds, as it appeared to him gazing in through the keyhole, of the sort much used in Alsace and Lorraine, and all the region; yet, it seemed also, as though with something of the bloodhound, too, since their great heads rose conical, and their huge ears swept the ground.
"I must away," said Andrew to himself, "there is danger here. By heavens! my presence is known to them already." Yet, with that danger which now threatened him--as it had not threatened from the other sleepers--impending near, he felt himself fascinated by the monstrous creatures. ”

“ For a moment the hunted wretch--the man caught like a rat in a trap--glared round his hall; even in the dim light and gloom Andrew could see his tongue rolling over his lips as though to moisten their feverish burning, then, urged by God knows what desperation--the desperation perhaps of despair, perhaps of tigerish rage and ferocity!--he leapt up the last remaining rungs of the ladder, carrying the carbines in his hand. ”

“ I know my own people."
"He will not escape me," Andrew replied. "As you know your own people, so I know myself. If I live through this night--this day which is now dawning--I will find him. And then his last chance is gone. I spared him once when he lay stretched at my feet--I saved his life--to-night I have let him trick me and so save himself. Well! 'tis the last. When next we stand face to face I slay him like some poisonous reptile."
While, as he spoke, he gazed down on Clemence, and saw her great starry eyes gleaming out at him through what was not, now, all the darkness of night. ”

“ There was no recklessness now in either combatant, no thrust made heedlessly or thrown away; instead a devilish, cruel determination in each man to strike firm and sure when next he struck at all, through heart or lung. Their weapons clashed no longer, but hissed and scraped softly against each other; once the Frenchman tried his botte again, failing utterly this time, and once Andrew's blade darted forth like an adder's tongue, failing in its turn, but ripping an inch of flesh from his opponent's side.
He saw, though, that De Bois-Vallée's lips were flaky with slight streaks of foam now ”

“ It was his own sword, the one that, below, had dropped from his numbed hand as the bludgeon, or other weapon, had struck him down at the same time that the flash from the pistol had blinded him.
"What does it mean?" he whispered to himself, as, lovingly, he ran his finger along the keen, sharp blade. "What? That I am to have a chance for life even though against tremendous odds; even though outnumbered. Ha! well, no matter! Better that, with this true friend to my hand, than poison or a swift fall down that hellish shaft to regions unknown. ”

“ And, Andrew," the old woman said, laying her hand on the sleeve of the great stalwart soldier whom, as a lad, she had dandled on her knee, "I think he cherishes hopes of revenge on her; above all, on him who did the greater wrong."
"Revenge! Why! what can he do? Unable to leave his chamber, a poor scholar who knows neither passado nor cunning fence of any kind," and the fingers of his left hand played lovingly with the hilt of his sword as he spoke, "nor has ever wandered fifty miles from this old Surrey home of ours--poor Philip! what can he do?" ”

“ See, listen. I am an Englishman, well-to-do now, though not long ago I had nought but that which I could earn with this," and he let his left hand fall on his sword hilt. "Well-to-do, I tell you, might live at home in my own land, run no greater danger than a man encounters in his own fields and gardens. Yet I am here. To slay him."
"To slay him!" the dissolute, good-looking peasant repeated. "To slay him! Camille De Bois-Vallée! To slay him!"
"Ay! From England to Paris I came, from Paris to Turenne's army, from that army here. ”

“ Also they danced and capered round and round that pyre, Andrew seeing two men clasp hands and waists and execute a grim fantastic dance about the hall! They stirred, too, with pikes and halberds wrenched from off the walls, the logs; some even thrust the swords they carried into the flames to make the fire burn more fiercely. Then, all stood away from the great open doorway, from which the door had long since been torn, so that the breeze of morning--for the day was nigh at hand--might blow in and fan those flames. ”

“ The wheel is an open death for all to see, set up at cross-roads or in market places--such things are not for De Bois-Vallée. Go, give him my service, and say so!"
"You wish me to repeat that?"
"Ay, repeat it. Repeat also this. That, though I lie here with a chain round my leg like an ox at the shambles; though I am here in his topmost garret a prisoner, I shall ere long be free again. I know it--feel it. Tell him, also, that Andrew Vause was never born to die at his hands--but, instead, to slay him--as I will! ”

“ And the sword old Bridget had spoken of was there, its hilt reposing against one of those thighs, while its long length ran behind him. A wicked-looking, fighting rapier this, with its great pas d'âne and enormous quillons; a rapier that looked as though, once out of its sheath, mischief was meant and to be dreaded from it. For the rest, his handsome face was bronzed to copper hue, his brown moustache--Bridget's "beard on the upper lip"--hung down below his under jaw, his thick brown hair fell to his shoulders, and above it flapped a loose sombrero hat ornamented with a single black feather. ”

“ Nerved to desperation, De Bois-Vallée thrust in tierce, disengaged, and thrust again, and a moment afterwards, with a hoarse cry, staggered forward against Andrew, letting his weapon fall to the ground, and clutching at the grass with his hands as he dropped face downwards.
"Humph!" said Andrew, bending over him, after plucking a long wisp of grass from a tussock growing near, and wiping his rapier with it. "I have missed after all. It will have to be done over again." And as he rolled his late opponent on to his back, he muttered, "My eyes are failing me, or is't the evening light? ”

“ Are there any as bad as he to come after, and have all who went before him been equally as bad?"
No, they answered, each telling the tale by little pieces; no, there were none to come after of whom they knew; he had neither brother nor sister, nor was he married.
"Wherefore," interjected Gaspard, who seemed the most anxious for the destruction by flames of the mansion of Bois-le-Vaux, "it may properly be burned down. All of this country hate it and him; after his death we desire no memorial of his race."
"And of those before him. Were they like him?" again asked Andrew. ”

“ Seeing the great form before her, regarding with amazement--perhaps alarm--the bronzed face and long black hair of Andrew; observing also that the clothes he wore were torn and smirched by the efforts he had made in crossing the chasm and reaching the roof above; noticing, too, his unbooted feet--the woman raised her hand involuntarily to her breast and exclaimed, though in a whisper--
"You! You Philip's brother!"
"In truth, lady, I am. And you? There can be no mistake. You are Marion Wyatt." ”

“ Once his foot caught in a mass of tangled chain lying at the base of a shaft to which one end of it was attached, and, stooping to look at it, Andrew saw amidst the coils of that chain some bones, and, a little farther off, more bones--of a hand! Yet, when he put his own hand out to touch them, they lost their shape, the fingers were gone at that touch; there lay but a feathery mass of white dust upon the earth a moment later. ”

“ All here are doomed, all must die----"
"You lie," Clemence hissed, "you lie. Your father knew of one, you know it too."
"Quick," again said Andrew, "trifle no longer." And now he advanced to him, his own sword raised level with the other's breast. "Lead us to it, or this through you."
"Come then," the other said. "Come. Yet," he continued, muttering to himself, as though he meant them not to hear the savage words which he could not repress in his hate, "yet, if I had my way as I hoped to have had it, you should all have perished. All. All." ”

“ Nor even when, bending down as low as possible in another position, he tried to touch something solid with his sword!
Nothing!
He was not cold now; instead, all over him he felt the perspiration ooze out at the idea that here was a guet-apens, into which he had almost stumbled.
"Doubtless an oubliette," he thought, "a death-trap for any coming hastily down. Heavens! those loups de Lorraine forgot no precaution. Have any others ever passed the way that I have come, found an entrance from across the chasm to the roof, only to perish here?" ”

“ There is one of our soldiers hanging head downwards on a tree not half a league from here, riddled with a score of bullets, and, they say, some are being burnt if surprised when by themselves. Forward at once and find the Dragoons--they are not, at least, heated to boiling point!" and, as he spoke, Andrew heard the thud of his heels against his horse's flank and saw him rush on, followed by his men. And in the last rays of daylight, aided by the glow of countless fires, he observed that he was hatless and wigless, and that, behind him, streamed a mass of long, red-brown hair. ”

“ Told him he was a coward, a villain, to thus betray a woman, bring her a prisoner from her own land. Yet--listen--there is one thing you do not know, neither of you know. It was no fault of his that they were not man and wife--as he tricked you into believing they had become, Valentin Debrasques. He loved the woman dearly, madly--again and again he besought her to marry him. In that respect he was no villain."
"Thank God!" broke from the Marquis's lips as he heard these words--from Andrew Vause there came no utterance. ”

“ Valentin called back. "'Tis nothing. And the rope will surely bear both."
"It needs but to bear one," Andrew replied. "I have reached a platform, a half platform--crescent-moon shaped--leaving still, however, room for the passage of a man below, to further depths. He has gone that way."
"I come," Debrasques called once more--and, heedless of Andrew's warning him to remember that he was still weak from his wounds, he seized the rope and slung his slight young form down it--the other holding up the lantern so that he might better see as he descended. ”

“ Of the seigneurie of Remiremont!
The bargaining came to an end as the clue rose to his mind; pushing the peasants aside, Andrew swiftly went down the ladder, his scabbard clanking on each rung, and the boors following--offering their wares at half, at a quarter, what they had previously demanded, now that they saw that there was no more huckstering to be done. Also, because their eyes had glinted into the leather purse and had seen many other gold pieces therein!
"Nay No more," he said; "I have done. Your treasures are too tempting. You will beggar me if I stay here. ”

“ Monsieur suggests he is a soldier. Yet he is here--as we are."
"A cunning riposte," said Andrew to himself, while he exclaimed aloud. "My friend, I do not count. I am an auxiliary, or what you choose to call me--volunteer, nay, mercenary, if you please--and can do as I desire, only if I do not fight I am not paid. But for you, you are Frenchmen, and the war is not over. Turenne will engage the Imperialists again, Condé is in full campaign. Fine fellows like you should be earning laurels--and louis d'ors." ”

“ A space wide and yawning, through which, if any should fall, instant annihilation would await them at the bottom on the hard stones. A space over which projectiles might be hurled from cannon or, in older days, from catapult and warlike engine, but across which neither man nor deer could leap and hope to reach the other side below.
"Safe enough from all attack this way," said Andrew, while he gazed down at the topmost windows of the ancient house, "safe enough. A regiment might demolish it by firing on it from here, but nought else would avail. ”

“ Laurent assented. Then he muttered, "You appal me! I never thought the man lived who knew not fear. Yet now I have found him."
But Andrew only laughed and bade him push on his way by the path that, even in the sodden, rimy darkness, the Lorrainer was well able to find.
At last they were on the brink of the chasm; they stood upon the coping of the wall of rock erected, doubtless, centuries ago by some De Bois-Vallée to prevent the flattened face of the slope from falling away and filling up the gap left between it and the house itself. The gap of twenty feet across which Andrew was now to pass. ”

“ The darkness was growing more intense, there was something more than fog and mist enveloping them, they knew that the October evening was at hand by the time the fight was done, and when, from neither little nor great wood, nor from where the village of Entzheim lay, came aught but desultory firing.
"The battle is over," said Churchill as he passed Andrew; "they say we have lost two thousand men, and the enemy double." ”

“ Doubtless, it had been removed from the body of some fallen officer!
"What should a man seek, my friend," asked Andrew, looking down at him from his horse, "but that which most strangers desire at an inn? Rest and food for himself and horse."
"Strangers! mein Gott! we have had enough of strangers here," and his eyes wandered down the filthy, uncleansed and pathless street to where, at the end, the open plain between Entzheim and this village lay. "Enough of strangers! We are fools to live on this frontier-land and be devastated every few years by these infernal wars." ”

“ Then, because some cheery, pleasant memory rose to his mind, his wrinkled old face broke into a smile, and he put out a gnarled hand and placed it on the buckskin sleeve of the adventurer, and said, "You take me back a twenty year and more, Master Andrew, and I recall how, when I looked not, or was a-digging of some grave, you pelted me with mine own windfalls. And how brave you look, and great and strong. Hast none of thy great strength to spare for Master Philip?" ”

“ Why! 'twas but at Entzheim the other day that I was alone and unsupported amongst a dozen of the Duke of Holstein-Pleon's soldiers; yet, as you see, I am here, and without a scratch."
"Ay, I see," muttered Laurent, "but 'twas on an open field, your friends and comrades near you, ready at any moment to come to your assistance as, doubtless, they did. Oh! I know, I have been a soldier myself! But now, see, it is different. You will be alone in a strange house--in the dark--egress impossible during an attack on you. Mon Dieu! ”

“ The old woman did as she was bid--going to the casement and gazing along a broad, dusty road, bordered by limes almost flowering in the warm May air, which led from the Downs above to the old house in which the Vauses had lived longer than even the parish records told of; and there, in the soft light of the fast-gathering twilight, she espied a horseman riding at a good pace; a man who, she could see very well, sat his horse easily, and seemed to extract a considerable speed from it without any effort of spur or rein. ”

“ Monsieur understands that he is of Lorraine, from Remiremont. Consequently knows well the neighbourhood."
"Of Lorraine! And fighting for France! Why! all Lorrainers, with their Duke at their head, are with the Imperialists in spite of King Louis claiming their country as a province."
"Not all, Monsieur. Not all," the Court spy, for such he was, answered with a bow and a shrug, as though deprecating the necessity for contradicting Andrew. "Many of the noblesse go against the Duke and throw in their lot with France--she protecting them from Charles of Lorraine's anger. ”

“ But whether it was the terrible appearance of the brawny Englishman who towered over him with swart complexion and fierce piercing eye, or whether it was the equally terrible appearance of that rapier with its long smooth blade and enormous quilloned hilt, there was now no fight in the fellow--not, at least, when it was man to man and even chances!
"I am no fighter," he muttered. "I did but think my friend got the worst of it--and so came to his assistance."
"No fighter," said Andrew quietly, yet appalling the man by his look, "no fighter! ”

“ His soul revolted against the necessity for creeping as he had done into another man's house, although that man was his enemy and a scoundrel: if it was De Bois-Vallée, another five moments should see him on the inside of that door, or the owner of the house outside it, and their swords crossed. And then--and then! Well then the servitors below might rush up to their master's assistance, plunge their daggers and knives into his body--only, first, he would make sure of the man who had broken Philip's life and sent him to his grave. ”

“ Gone, swept away by a soft breeze that came up from across the Meurthe and sighed amongst the great fir trees all round, and amidst also those at his feet on the slopes below--at the base of which lay Remiremont--while, above his head, were the blue skies and the bright October sun. And, talking to his new friends, he learnt that he was on what is known in that fair mountain region as the Ballon d'Alsace, and that the river sparkling in the distance like a silver thread was the Moselle, while the blue mountains in the still further distance were the Jura. ”