CHAPTER XXX.
SEUL AU MONDE.
The errand on which he went was one, as he was well aware, from which itwere a thousand chances to one that he ever issued alive.
It was to reach a distant branch of the Army of Occupation withdispatches for the chief in command there, and to do this he had to passthrough a fiercely hostile region, occupied by Arabs with whom nosort of peace had ever been made, the most savage as well as the mostpredatory of the wandering tribes. His knowledge of their tongue, andhis friendship with some men of their nation, would avail him nothinghere; for their fury against the Franks was intense, and it was saidthat all prisoners who had fallen into their hands had been put to deathwith merciless barbarities. This might be true or not true; wild taleswere common among Algerian campaigners; whichever it were, he thoughtlittle of it as he rode out on to the lonely plains. Every kind ofhazardous adventure and every variety of peril had been familiar withhim in the African life; and now there were thoughts and memories on himwhich deadened every recollection of merely physical risk.
"We must ride as hard and as fast as we can, and as silently," were theonly words he exchanged with Rake, as he loosened his gray to a gallop.
"All right, sir," answered the trooper, whose warm blood was dancing,and whose blue eyes were alive like fire with delight. That he hadbeen absent on a far-away foraging raid on the day of Zaraila had beennothing short of agony to Rake, and the choice made of him for this dutywas to him a gift of paradise. He loved fighting for fighting's sake;and to be beside Cecil was the greatest happiness life held for him.
They had two hundred miles to traverse, and had received only thecommand he had passed to Rake, to ride "hard, fast, and silently." Tothe hero of Zaraila the general had felt too much soldierly sympathy toadd the superfluous injunction to do his uttermost to carry safely andsuccessfully to their destination the papers that were placed in hiscare. He knew well that the errand would be done, or the Chasseur wouldbe dead.
It was just nightfall; the after-glow had faded only a few momentsbefore. Giving their horses, which they were to change once, ten hoursfor the distance, and two for bait and for rest, he reckoned that theywould reach the camp before the noon of the coming day, as the beasts,fresh and fast in the camp, flew like greyhounds beneath them.
Another night ride that they had ridden together came to the minds ofboth; but they spoke not a word as they swept on, their sabers shakenloose in their sheaths, their lances well gripped, and the pistols withwhich they had been supplied sprung in their belts, ready for instantaction if a call should come for it. Every rood of the way was as fullof unseen danger as if laid over mines. They might pass in safety;they might any moment be cut down by ten score against two. From everyhanging scarp of rugged rock a storm of musket-balls might pour; fromevery screen of wild-fig foliage a shower of lances might whistlethrough the air; from every darkling grove of fir trees an Arab bandmight spring and swoop on them; but the knowledge scarcely recurredto the one save to make him shake his sword more loose for quickdisengagement, and only made the sunny blue eyes of the other sparklewith a vivid and longing zest.
The night grew very chill as it wore on; the north wind rose, rushingagainst them with a force and icy touch that seemed to freeze theirbones to the marrow after the heat of the day and the sun that hadscorched them so long. There was no regular road; they went across thecountry, their way sometimes leading over level land, over which theyswept like lightning, great plains succeeding one another with wearisomemonotony; sometimes on the contrary, lying through ravines, and defiles,and gloomy woods, and broken, hilly spaces, where rent, bare rocks werethrown on one another in gigantic confusion, and the fantastic shapes ofthe wild fig and the dwarf palm gathered a hideous grotesqueness in thedarkness. For there was no moon, and the stars were often hidden bythe storm-rack of leaden clouds that drifted over the sky; and the onlysound they heard was the cry of the jackal, or the shriek of the nightbird, and now and then the sound of shallow water-courses, where theparched beds of hidden brooks had been filled by the autumnal rain.
The first five-and-twenty miles passed without interruption, and thehorses lay well and warmly to their work. They halted to rest and baitthe beasts in a rocky hollow, sheltered from the blasts of the bise,and green with short, sweet grass, sprung up afresh after the summerdrought.
"Do you ever think of him, sir?" said Rake softly, with a lingering lovein his voice, as he stroked the grays and tethered them.
"Of whom?"
"Of the King, sir. If he's alive, he's getting a rare old horse now."
"Think of him! I wish I did not, Rake."
"Wouldn't you like to see him agen, sir?"
"What folly to ask! You know--"
"Yes, sir, I know," said Rake slowly. "And I know--leastways I pickedit out of a old paper--that your elder brother died, sir, like the oldlord, and Mr. Berk's got the title."
Rake had longed and pined for an opportunity to dare say this thingwhich he had learned, and which he could not tell whether or no Cecilknew likewise. His eyes looked with straining eagerness through thegloom into his master's; he was uncertain how his words would be taken.To his bitter disappointment, Cecil's face showed no change, no wonder.
"I have heard that," he said calmly--as calmly as though the news had nobearing on his fortunes, but was some stranger's history.
"Well, sir, but he ain't the lord!" pleaded Rake passionately. "He won'tnever be while you're living, sir!"
"Oh, yes, he is! I am dead, you know."
"But he won't, sir!" reiterated Rake. "You're Lord Royallieu if everthere was a Lord Royallieu, and if ever there will be one."
"You mistake. An outlaw has no civil rights, and can claim none."
The man looked very wistfully at him; all these years through he hadnever learned why his master was thus "dead" in Africa, and he had tooloyal a love and faith ever to ask, or ever to doubt but that Cecil wasthe wronged and not the wrong-doer.
"You ain't a outlaw, sir," he muttered. "You could take the title, ifyou would."
"Oh, no! I left England under a criminal charge. I should have todisprove that before I could inherit."
Rake crushed bitter oaths into muttered words as he heard. "You coulddisprove it, sir, of course, right and away, if you chose."
"No; or I should not have come here. Let us leave the subject. It wassettled long ago. My brother is Lord Royallieu. I would not disturb him,if I had the power, and I have not it. Look, the horses are taking wellto their feed."
Rake asked him no more. He had never had a harsh word from Cecil intheir lives; but he knew him too well, for all that, to venture to presson him a question thus firmly put aside. But his heart ached sorely forhis master; he would so gladly have seen "the king among his own again,"and would have striven for the restoration as strenuously as ever aCavalier strove for the White Rose; and he sat in silence, perplexedand ill satisfied, under the shelter of the rock, with the great, dim,desolate African landscape stretching before him, with here and therea gleam of light upon it when the wind swept the clouds apart. Hisvolatile speech was chilled, and his buoyant spirits were checked. ThatCecil was justly outlawed he would have thought it the foulest treasonto believe for one instant; yet he felt that he might as soon seek towrench up the great stones above him from their base as seek to changethe resolution of this man, whom he had once known pliant as a reed andcareless as a child.
They were before long in saddle again and off, the country growingwilder at each stride the horses took.
"It is all alive with Arabs for the next ten leagues," said Cecil, ashe settled himself in his saddle. "They have come northward and beensweeping the country like a locust-swarm, and we shall blunder on someof them sooner or later. If they cut me down, don't wait; but slash mypouch loose and ride off with it."
"All right, sir," said Rake obediently; but he thought to himself,"Leave you alone with them demons? Damn me if I will!"
And away they went once more, in speed and i
n silence, the darknessof full night closing in on them, the skies being black with the heavydrift of rising storm-clouds.
Meanwhile Cigarette was feasting with the officers of the regiment. Thedinner was the best that the camp-scullions could furnish in honorof the two or three illustrious tourists who were on a visit to theheadquarters of the Algerian Army; and the Little One, the heroineof Zaraila, and the toast of every mess throughout Algeria, was asindispensable as the champagnes.
Not that she was altogether herself to-night; she was feverish, she wasbitter, she was full of stinging ironies; but that delicious gayety,like a kitten's play, was gone from her, and its place, for the firsttime in her life was supplied by unreal and hectic excitation. In truth,while she laughed, and coquetted, and fenced with the bright two-edgedblade of her wit, and tossed down the wines into her little throat likea trooper, she was thinking nothing at all of what was around her,and very little of what she said or she did. She was thinking of thestarless night out yonder, of the bleak, arid country, of the great,dim, measureless plains; of one who was passing through them all, andone who might never return.
It was the first time that the absent had ever troubled her present;it was the first time that ever this foolish, senseless, haunting,unconquerable fear for another had approached her: fear--she had neverknown it for herself, why should she feel it now for him--a man whoselips had touched her own as lightly, as indifferently, as they mighthave touched the leaves of a rose or the curls of a dog!
She felt her face burn with the flash of a keen, unbearable passionateshame. Men by the score had wooed her love, to be flouted with theinsouciant mischief of her coquetry, and forgotten to-morrow if theywere shot to-day; and now he--he whose careless, calm caress would makeher heart vibrate and her limbs tremble with an emotion she had neverknown--he valued her love so little that he never even knew that he hadroused it! To the proud young warrior of France a greater degradation, adeadlier humiliation, than this could not have come.
Yet she was true as steel to him; true with the strong and loyal fealtythat is inborn with such natures as hers. To have betrayed what he hadtrusted to her, because she was neglected and wounded by him, would havebeen a feminine baseness of which the soldier-like soul of Cigarettewould have been totally incapable. Her revenge might be fierce, andrapid, and sure, like the revenge of a soldier; but it could never bestealing and traitorous, and never like the revenge of a woman.
Not a word escaped her that could have given a clew to the secret withwhich he had involuntarily weighted her; she only studied with interestand keenness the face and the words of this man whom he had loved, andfrom whom he had fled as criminals flee from their accusers.
"What is your name?" she asked him curtly, in one of the pauses of theamorous and witty nonsense that circulated in the tent in which theofficers of Chasseurs were entertaining him.
"Well--some call me Seraph."
"Ah! you have petite names, then, in Albion? I should have though shewas too somber and too stiff for them. Besides?"
"Lyonnesse."
"What a droll name! What are you?"
"A soldier."
"Good! What grade?"
"A Colonel of Guards."
Cigarette gave a little whistle to herself; she remembered that aMarshal of France had once said of a certain Chasseur, "He has the seatof the English Guards."
"My pretty catechist, M. le Duc does not tell you his title," cried oneof the officers.
Cigarette interrupted him with a toss of her head.
"Ouf! Titles are nothing to me. I am a child of the People. So you area Duke, are you, M. le Seraph? Well, that is not much, to my thinking.Bah! there is Fialin made a Duke in Paris, and there are aristocratshere wearing privates' uniforms, and littering down their own horses.Bah! Have you that sort of thing in Albion?"
"Attorneys throned on high, and gentlemen glad to sweep crossings? Oh,yes!" laughed her interlocutor. "But you speak of aristocrats in yourranks--that reminds me. Have you not in this corps a soldier calledLouis Victor?"
He had turned as he spoke to one of the officers, who answered him inthe affirmative; while Cigarette listened with all her curiosity and allher interest, that needed a deeper name, heightened and tight-strung.
"A fine fellow," continued the Chef d'Escadron to whom he had appealed."He behaved magnificently the other day at Zaraila; he must bedistinguished for it. He is just sent on a perilous errand, but thoughso quiet he is a croc-mitaine, and woe to the Arabs who slay him! Areyou acquainted with him?"
"Not in the least. But I wished to hear all I could of him. I have beentold he seems above his present position. Is it so?"
"Likely enough, monsieur; he seems a gentleman. But then we havemany gentlemen in the ranks, and we can make no difference for that.Cigarette can tell you more of him; she used to complain that he bowedlike a Court chamberlain."
"Oh, ha!--I did!" cried Cigarette, stung into instant irony becausepained and irritated by being appealed to on the subject. "And ofcourse, when so many of his officers have the manners of Pyrenean bears,it is a little awkward for him to bring us the manner of a Palace!"
Which effectually chastised the Chef d'Escadron, who was one of thosewho had a ton of the roughest manners, and piqued himself on his powersof fence much more than on his habits of delicacy.
"Has this Victor any history?" asked the English Duke.
"He has written one with his sword; a fine one," said Cigarette curtly."We are not given here to care much about any other."
"Quite right; I asked because a friend of mine who had seen his carvingswished to serve him, if it were possible; and--"
"Ho! That is Milady, is suppose!" Cigarette's eyes flashed fireinstantly, in wrath and suspicion. "What did she tell you about him?"
"I am ignorant of whom you speak?" he answered, with something ofsurprise and annoyance.
"Are you?" said Cigarette, in derision. "I doubt that. Of whom should Ispeak but of her? Bah? She insulted him, she offered him gold, she sentmy men the spoils of her table, as if they were paupers, and he thinksit all divine because it is done by Mme. la Princesse Corona d'Amague!Bah! when he was delirious, the other night, he could babble of nothingbut of her--of her--of her!"
The jealous, fiery impatience in her vanquished every other thought; shewas a child in much, she was untutored in all; she had no thought thatby the scornful vituperation of "Milady" she could either harm Cecil orbetray herself. But she was amazed to see the English guest changecolor with a haughty anger that he strove to subdue as he half rose andanswered her with an accent in his voice that reminded her--she knew notwhy--of Bel-a-faire-peur and of Marquise.
"Mme. la Princess Corona d'Amague is my sister; why do you venture tocouple the name of this Chasseur with hers?"
Cigarette sprang to her feet, vivacious, imperious, reckless, dared toanything by the mere fact of being publicly arraigned.
"Pardieu! Is it insult to couple the silver pheasant with the Eagles ofFrance?--a pretty idea, truly! So she is your sister, is she? Milady?Well, then, tell her from me to think twice before she outrages asoldier with 'patronage'; and tell her, too, that had I been he I wouldhave ground my ivory toys into powder before I would have let thembecome the playthings of a grande dame who tendered me gold for them!"
The Englishman looked at her with astonishment that was mingled with avivid sense of intense annoyance and irritated pride, that the name hecherished closest should be thus brought in, at a camp dinner, on thelips of a vivandiere and in connection with a trooper of Chasseurs.
"I do not understand your indignation, mademoiselle," he said, with animpatient stroke to his beard. "There is no occasion for it. Mme. Coronad'Amague, my sister," he continued, to the officers present, "becameaccidentally acquainted with the skill at sculpture of this Corporal ofyours; he appeared to her a man of much refinement and good breeding.She chanced to name him to me, and feeling some pity--"
"M. le Duc!" cried the ringing voice of Cigarette, loud and startlingas
a bugle-note, while she stood like a little lioness, flushed with thedraughts of champagne and with the warmth of wrath at once jealous andgenerous, "keep your compassion until it is asked of you. No soldier ofFrance needs it; that I promise you. I know this man that you talk of'pitying.' Well, I saw him at Zaraila three weeks ago; he had drawn uphis men to die with them rather than surrender and yield up the guidon;I dragged him half dead, when the field was won, from under his horse,and his first conscious act was to give the drink that I brought him toa wretch who had thieved from him. Our life here is hell upon earth tosuch as he, yet none ever heard a lament wrung out of him; he is goneto the chances of death to-night as most men go to their mistresses'kisses; he is a soldier Napoleon would have honored. Such a one is notto have the patronage of a Milady Corona, nor the pity of a stranger ofEngland. Let the first respect him; let the last imitate him!"
And Cigarette, having pronounced her defense and her eulogy with thevibrating eloquence of some orator from a tribune, threw her champagnegoblet down with a crash, and, breaking through the arms outstretched todetain her, forced her way out despite them, and left her hosts alone intheir lighted tent.
"C'est Cigarette!" said the Chef d'Escadron, with a shrug of hisshoulders, as of one who explained, by that sentence, a whole world ofirreclaimable eccentricities.
"A strange little Amazon!" said their guest. "Is she in love with thisVictor, that I have offended her so much with his name?"
The Major shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know that, monsieur," answered one. "She will defend a man inhis absence, and rate him to his face most soundly. Cigarette whirlsabout like a little paper windmill, just as the breeze blows; but, asthe windmill never leaves its stick, so she is always constant to theTricolor."
Their guest said little more on the subject; in his own thoughts he wasbitterly resentful that, by the mention of this Chasseur's fortunes, heshould have brought in the name he loved so well--the purest, fairest,haughtiest name in Europe--into a discussion with a vivandiere at a campdinner.
Chateauroy, throughout, had said nothing; he had listened in silence,the darkness lowering still more heavily upon his swarthy features; onlynow he opened his lips for a few brief words:
"Mon cher Duc, tell Madame not to waste the rare balm of her pity. Thefellow you inquire for was an outcast and an outlaw when he came to us.He fights well--it is often a blackguard's virtue!"
His guest nodded and changed the subject; his impatience and aversion atthe introduction of his sister's name into the discussion made him dropthe theme unpursued, and let it die out forgotten.
Venetia Corona associated with an Algerian trooper! If Cigarette hadbeen of his own sex he could have dashed the white teeth down her throatfor having spoken of the two in one breath.
And as, later on, he stretched his gallant limbs out on his narrow camppallet, tired with a long day in saddle under the hot African sun, theSeraph fell asleep with his right arm under his handsome golden head,and thought no more of this unknown French trooper.
But Cigarette remained wakeful.
She lay curled up in the straw against her pet horse, Etoile Filante,with her head on the beast's glossy flank and her hand among his mane.She often slept thus in camp, and the horse would lie still and crampedfor hours rather than awaken her, or, if he rose, would take the mostwatchful heed to leave unharmed the slender limbs, the flushed cheeks,the frank, fair brow of the sleeper beneath him, that one stroke of hishoof could have stamped out into a bruised and shapeless mass.
To-night Etoile Filante slept, and his mistress was awake--wide-awake,with her eyes looking out into the darkness beyond, with a passionatemist of unshed tears in them, and her mouth quivering with pain and withwrath. The vehement excitation had not died away in her, but there hadcome with it a dull, spiritless, aching depression. It had roused her tofury to hear the reference to her rival spoken--of that aristocrat whosename had been on Cecil's lips when he had been delirious. She had kepthis secret loyally, she had defended him vehemently; there was somethingthat touched her to the core in the thought of the love with which hehad recognized this friend who, in ignorance, spoke of him as of someunknown French soldier. She could not tell what the history was, butshe could divine nearly enough to feel its pathos and its pain. She hadknown, in her short life, more of men and of their passions and of theirfortunes than many lives of half a century in length can ever do; shecould guess, nearly enough to be wounded with its sorrow, the past whichhad exiled the man who had kept by him his lost mother's ring as thesole relic of years to which he was dead so utterly as though he werelying in his coffin. No matter what the precise reason was--women, ordebt, or accident, or ruin--these two, who had been familiar comrades,were now as strangers to each other; the one slumbered in ignorance nearher, the other had gone out to the close peril of death, lest the eyesof his friend recognize his face and read his secret. It troubled her,it weighed on her, it smote her with a pang. It might be that now, evennow--this very moment, while her gaze watched the dusky shadows ofthe night chase one another along the dreary plains--a shot mighthave struck down this life that had been stripped of name and fame andcountry; even now all might be over!
And Cigarette felt a cold, sickly shudder seize her that never before,at death or danger, had chilled the warm, swift current of her brightFrench blood. In bitter scorn at herself, she muttered hot oaths betweenher pretty teeth.
Mere de Dieu! he had touched her lips as carelessly as her ownkiss would have touched the rose-bud, waxen petals of a cluster ofoleander-blossoms; and she cared for him still!