The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood

"For Mr. Faulks," he said, and with an air of the greatest importance the hard-worked, indispensable official tore open the cover.

It contained a few hurried lines from Sir Humphrey Fothergill to the following effect:—

"A telegram has just been received from Lord Raglan. It contains painful news for you; but I thought it best to let you have it at once."

He opened the telegram with trembling hands and read—

"Yesterday, Mr. McKay, of the quartermaster-general's staff, ventured through the enemy's lines in the direction of the Tchernaya to make a special reconnaissance. He unfortunately was captured. I sent a flag of truce into Sebastopol, asking that he might be exchanged, but have been peremptorily refused. Gortschakoff asserts that he is a Russian subject and was taken red-handed as a spy. He is to be executed immediately. Will renew request with strong protest, but fear there is no hope."

Mr. Faulks groaned heavily and let the telegram fall on the ground.

"What has happened?" asked Mrs. Wilders, eagerly.

"You were right—too right. That poor boy—"

"Stanislas?"

"Yes; my poor nephew has fallen into the hands of these bloodthirsty Russians, who are resolved to execute him as a traitor and a spy."

CHAPTER VI.

MARIQUITA'S QUEST

Hyde's unfortunate affair with the sailor had ended in a broken rib and a dislocated arm. He was taken back senseless to the camp of the Royal Picts, and for some days required the closest care. It was nearly a week before he so far recovered himself as to be able to give any account of what had occurred, and longer before he remembered accurately what was taking him to headquarters at the time of the accident.

It flashed across him quite suddenly, and with something of a shock, that while he lay there helpless his friend McKay was still in danger.

"When shall I be able to get about again?" he asked the doctor, anxiously.

"You won't be fit for duty, if that's what you're driving at, for many a long day to come."

"I can go about with my arm in a sling. I am beginning to feel perfectly well otherwise."

"What's the good of a soldier with his arm in a sling? No: as soon as you are fit to move I shall have you sent down to Scutari."

"But I don't want to go: I had much rather stay here with the old corps."

He was thinking of the business he had still in hand.

"You will have to obey orders, anyhow, so make up your mind to go."

The regimental surgeon of the Royal Picts was a morose old Scotchman, very obstinate and intolerant of opposition. What he said he stuck to, and Hyde knew that he must prepare to leave the Crimea in a short time, probably before he was strong enough to go in person to headquarters and find out McKay.

It would be necessary, therefore, to find some other messenger, and, after considering what was best to be done, he resolved to beg Colonel Blythe to come and see him, intending to make him his confidant.

"Well, Rupert," said the Colonel—they were alone together—"this is a bad business. Macinlay tells me you won't be fit for duty for months. He is going to send you at once before a medical board."

"It is very aggravating, Colonel, as I particularly wished to be here for the next few weeks.

"To be in at the death, I suppose? We are bound to take the place at the next attack."

"I hope you may. But it is not that. Our friend McKay is in imminent danger."

"What is the nature of the danger?"

"He is pursued by the relentless hate of an infamous woman: one who has never yet spared any who dared to thwart or oppose her."

"What on earth do you mean, Hyde?" The colonel thought the old sergeant was wandering in his mind. "There are no women out here except Mother Charcoal, and a few French vivandières. How can any of them threaten McKay?"

"It is as I say, colonel. By-and-by I will tell you everything. But let me implore you to find out McKay at once and bring him to me. I cannot, you see, go to him."

"Is this very urgent?"

"A matter of life and death, I assure you."

"I will order a horse at once. It is all very mysterious and extraordinary; but then you have been a mystery, Rupert Hyde, a riddle and a puzzle, ever since I have known you."

"It will all be unravelled some day, colonel, never fear; but lose no time, let me beg;" and, thus adjured, the colonel presently mounted his horse and galloped over to headquarters.

He arrived there the day after McKay's excursion into the Russian lines. The young staff-officer was still absent, and fears were already entertained as to his safety, although it was not positively known as yet that he had come to harm.

Let us leave Colonel Blythe and other friends exchanging anxious conjectures as to McKay's fate and return to Mariquita, whose misgivings had steadily increased from the day she had last seen Hyde.

He had promised she should see him again, and, perhaps, Stanislas, without delay. Yet this was more than a week since. What had become of the old soldier? Had he fulfilled his mission of warning, or had he been involved in the dire intrigues that threatened her lover?

Her lover, too; her Stanislas—to save whom she had come so far, braving so many dangers, and at the peril of her maidenly self-respect—had anything happened to him?

The terrible uncertainty was crushing her. She must know something, even the worst, or her apprehensions, ever present and hourly increasing, would kill her.

To whom could she turn in this time of cruel suspense? Hyde had deserted her, seemingly; in spite of her heartfelt anxiety she could not bring herself to approach McKay.

One other man there was; that villain, Benito Villegas—the source, in truth, of all her trouble—might give her news. Bad news, possibly, but still news, if only she could lay hands on him. Where and how was he hiding? Every effort to find him had been fruitless hitherto.

At Valetta Joe's they knew no such name, so they told her when she inquired cautiously for Benito from some of the loafers hanging about the shop.

Yet that was the place to which he was to proceed on arrival. The letter she had picked up in Bombardier Lane said so. He must be hiding, or in disguise; and now, when her anxiety for her beloved Stanislas was at its highest pitch, she was more than ever resolved to find out somehow what Benito was doing.

One afternoon, when business was rather slack at Mother Charcoal's, she seized a chance of visiting the hut-town.

"Any work?" she asked, in Spanish, of Valetta Joe himself, whom she met at the door of his shanty.

"What can you do? Where do you come from? Spain?" replied the baker in the same tongue.

"Yes, from Malaga. I can do anything—try me."

"Can you sell bread through the camp? I am a man short, and could take you on, perhaps, until he is better. Come down below, and I will give you a basketful to hawk about."

"I shall have to tell them at the canteen—Mother Charcoal's—that I am going to leave."

"That won't do. You must come at once if you come at all. Which will you do?"

While she still hesitated, a voice from the subterranean regions at the end of the shop fell upon her ear. Her heart gave a great jump at the sound—it was Benito's. "Joe! Joe!" he was crying, in feeble accents.

"It's take it or leave it. There are plenty of your sort about. Well, what do you say?"

"I accept," said Mariquita, eagerly. "When shall I begin work?"

"Now, this minute. Come down and help me to get a batch of bread out of the oven."

They passed down into the cellar by a short ladder, and Mariquita found herself in a dimly-lighted cavernous den, hot and stifling, at one end of which glowed the grate below the oven.

"Joe! Joe!" repeated Benito's voice, and Mariquita, with difficulty, made out his figure lying on a heap of rags in a corner of the cellar.

"Well?" answered Joe, roughly, as soon as he had pointed out the bread-trays and desired her to get them in order. "What's wrong with you now? You are always groaning and calling out."

"Water!" asked Benito, piteously. "This place is like a furnace. I am suffering torments from raging thirst and this cruel wound. Accursed Englishman! may I live to repay him!"

"You will have to hurry and get well, or the Russians will save you the trouble," remarked Joe.

"That is my only consolation. It was I who gave him to them."

Although bending busily over her task, Mariquita felt her heart beat faster and faster. These words, which she now overheard through such a strange chance, clearly referred to her lover.

"Will they hang him, do you think?" asked Benito.

"As sure as the sun breeds flies. We have done our business too well to give him a chance of escape."

"Would that I might hold the rope, that I might see his agony, his last convulsions! That I might myself revenge the tortures he has made me bear!"

And Benito sank back upon his miserable bed, groaning with pain.

"Don't whine like that, you miserable cur!" said Joe, brutally. "It's bad enough to have you here at all, without your disturbing the whole place. Why did you come here?"

"Where else could I go? I never expected to get so far. I was faint from loss of blood, and in frightful pain. I thought I should die as I crawled along."

"Better you had than bring me into trouble, as you will if the provost-marshal finds you here."

"It is cowardly of you to ill-treat and upbraid me. Take care! I am helpless now, but by-and-by, when I am well and strong, you shall suffer for your cruelty."

"What! you threaten me? But there, it is idle to waste words on such a wretched rogue; I have other work to do. Now, young imp!" cried Joe, turning to Mariquita, "stir yourself, and let us get out this batch of bread."

The conversation which she had overheard, conveying as it did the confirmation of her worst fears, had agitated Mariquita exceedingly, but she knew that she must control her emotion, and arouse no suspicions in the minds of these villains. Benito, wounded, and in desperate case, was in no position to recognise her, and Joe was, of course, completely in the dark as to whom he had admitted within his shop.

The work in the cellar was not completed and the bread carried upstairs for an hour or more, during which time Mariquita was able to think over and decide what she would do. She had matured her plan when they got upstairs.

"Pay me!" she said, saucily, to Valetta Joe. "I shan't stop here."

"Pay you, vile imp? Why, I only took you on trial!"

"Pay me!" she repeated. "You shan't cheat me."

"I owe you nothing. Be off out of this or you shall feel the weight of my hand."

"Pay me, you swindling old rogue!" shouted Mariquita, in a shrill voice. "I won't go till I get my rights."

"You won't!" cried Joe, as he seized her roughly by the collar and dragged her towards the door.

"Villain! Thief! Murder! Help, help! He is killing me!" cried Mariquita, now at the top of her voice, and this frenzied appeal had the exact effect she hoped. A crowd of camp-followers quickly gathered around the door of the shanty, and with it came a couple of stalwart assistants of the provost-marshal.

"What's all this?" asked one of them, in a peremptory tone. "Leave that lad alone, you old rascal!"

"What's he doing to you?" asked the other.

"He won't pay me my wages," said Mariquita, in a whining, piteous voice. "He owes me three shillings."

"I don't, you lying little ragamuffin! I only took you on trial."

"He does; and he was beating me, ill-using me," went on Mariquita.

"We can't have no disturbance here," said one of the provost-marshal's men. "You must come before the provost, both of you; he'll settle your case in a brace of shakes. Bill, you bring the old man; I'll take charge of the youngster."

And the two guardians of order marched their prisoners through the hut-town to a wooden building at the end, where Major Shervinton dealt out a simple, rough-and-ready justice to the turbulent characters he ruled.

This was precisely what Mariquita had hoped for. What she sought at all hazards was to gain speech of the provost-marshal.

They had to wait for him half-an-hour, and when he appeared there were other cases to be dealt with first.

When it came to Valetta Joe's turn, he stoutly denied the charge of defrauding and ill-using the lad.

"I don't know about the wages, sir," said one of the assistants, "but we caught him in the act of cuffing the boy."

"What does he owe you, my lad?" asked Major Shervinton.

"Nothing," replied Mariquita, trembling and in very imperfect English. "I only wanted to get him here to denounce him as a friend of the Russians and a spy."

"There's not a word of truth in what he says!" cried Joe, looking at her with open-mouthed astonishment.

"We have long had our eye upon you, my friend, you know that; and I shall inquire into this more closely."

"At this moment there is a man—his name is Benito Villegas—in the bakehouse below the shop," said Mariquita. "He is wounded; you will find him there. Go and seize him; make him tell you what he has done with the English officer, Mr. McKay."

"Mr. McKay!" said the provost-marshal, deeply interested at once. "He is absent—missing! Have you heard anything of him or his fate?"

"Make Benito tell you. He has betrayed him into the Russians' hands."

"This is very important intelligence. What you say shall be verified at once. See to the prisoners, one of you, and let some one come with me to Joe's shop."

Major Shervinton made short work of Benito.

"Look here, my fine fellow, you had better make a clean breast of it all. What have you done with Mr. McKay?"

Benito shook his head, groaned, and pointed to his wounded arm.

"I see you have been hit; but that won't prevent your talking. Tell me exactly what happened—it's your only chance; if you don't, we will wait till your arm is healed, and then hang you here in the middle of the hut-town. Come, speak out."

"You will spare my life if I tell you?"

"Perhaps: if it is the truth. We shall have means of finding out. But look sharp!"

In feeble, faltering accents Benito told his story, laying stress on the villainy of others and making light of the part he had himself played.

While the provost-marshal was examining the trembling wretch his assistants had been making a thorough search of the shop. They came presently to their chief, laden with a number of papers: letters, passes signed by Gortschakoff, and other documents of a compromising character, plainly proving that this place had long been the centre of a cunningly-devised secret correspondence with the enemy.

"There's enough to hang you both, and perhaps others too, at home. As for you," he turned to Benito, "I will have you removed to the Balaclava hospital. You will be better looked after there, and we shall have you under our hands when required. Your accomplice, the commander-in-chief will deal with, I trust, very summarily; we have overwhelming proofs of his guilt."

Major Shervinton returned to his office, where the prisoners anxiously awaited his verdict.

"Take Joe away, and put a double sentry over him. I shall ride over to headquarters to report the whole case."

"Oh, good, kind, beneficent sir," began Joe, wringing his hands, "spare me! There no word of truth in all this. I done nothing, I swear. I unjustly accused. I—"

"March him out," said Shervinton. "Such vermin as you must be ruthlessly destroyed.

"And the lad, sir?" asked an assistant.

"To be sure; I had forgotten. Well, boy, you have behaved uncommonly well. What shall we do for you?"

"Nothing," she faltered out, "only save him—save Mr. McKay."

"Mr. McKay! Do you know him? What—when—?" asked Major Shervinton, greatly surprised at the agonised accents in which Mariquita spoke, yet more, seeing that her eyes were filled with tears. "Who are you? Where do you come from?" he went on, examining the little creature attentively.

He noticed now for the first time the delicate skin, the clear-cut, regular features, the lustrous, eyes; he remarked the fragile form, the shy, shrinking manner of the lad, who stood diffidently, deprecatingly, before him, and he said to himself, "What an exceedingly handsome boy! Boy!" he repeated, and now suddenly a doubt crossed his mind as to the proper sex of the young person who evinced such a tender interest in Stanislas McKay.

"Some secret romance, probably," he went on, smiling at the thought, but quickly changing his mood as he remembered how tragic its end was likely to be.

"I will do all I can to save him, rest assured," he went on aloud, "and if we recover him from the clutches of the enemy he shall certainly know how much he owes to you."

The vivid blush that overspread her cheeks at these words betrayed her completely.

"But, my poor child," went on the provost-marshal, in a kindly, sympathetic voice, "what are we to do with you? It was madness, surely, for you to venture here. Have you any friends? Let me see you safe back to them. Where do you live?"

Mariquita in a low voice explained that she was employed at Mother Charcoal's.

"Does she know about you?"

"Yes," acknowledged Mariquita, in a still lower, almost inaudible voice.

"She is a good old soul, and may be trusted to take care of you. Still, her canteen is no place for such as you. You shall stay with her, but only till we can send you on to one of the troopships with female nurses on board."

Having thus decided, Shervinton himself escorted Mariquita to Mother Charcoal's, and then rode on to headquarters.

He arrived there half-an-hour after Colonel Blythe, and the news he brought threw fresh light upon the disappearance of poor McKay.

"There is a woman at the bottom of it, of course," said Sir Richard Airey. "These papers prove it," putting his finger upon the bundle Shervinton had seized at the Maltese baker's.

"Two women, unless I'm much mistaken," replied the provost-marshal, and he went on to tell of Mariquita's devotion.

"Devotion, indeed," said the general, "but to no purpose, I fear. We have little hope of saving McKay. Lord Raglan is in despair. Prince Gortschakoff refuses distinctly to surrender the poor fellow, or spare his life."

"One woman's devotion outmatched by another's reckless greed. But, should McKay be sacrificed, she—his murderess—must not escape," said Blythe, hotly.

"Ah! but how shall we lay hands on her? Who knows her?" asked Sir Richard.

"One of my officers—Hyde. We shall get her through him," and Blythe repeated what the old quartermaster had said that morning.

"Yes, he evidently knows. He would be the best man to pursue her—to bring her to judgment for her villanies. There is enough in these papers to convict her. But he could hardly leave the Crimea just now."

"He happens at this moment to be going down to Scutari, on sick leave: he could easily go on."

"Is he strong enough?"

"He is gaining strength daily; it is only a wounded arm."

"That will be best. I will arrange with Lord Raglan to give him leave, provided he will accept the mission."

Without further delay Blythe went back to his camp and told Hyde all that had occurred.

"Go! Of course I will go. This very day, if the doctor will let me. I will unmask her; I will spoil her game. If I cannot save Stanislas, at least she shall not benefit by her crime."

"You are sure you can find her?"

"Trust me! People in her position are easily found. The first Court Guide will give you her address. She holds her head high, and must pay the penalty of greatness."

The prospect of starting soon for England on such an errand seemed to restore Hyde to energy and strength.

"Not fit to travel!" he said to the doctor, who still expressed some doubts on that head. "Why, I am fit for anything."

"Nonsense, man! You won't be able to use your arm for weeks."

"I shan't want it. My head's sound and clear; that's the chief thing. The moment I get my leave and my orders, I'm off."

They gave Hyde a passage home in the Himalaya, a man-of-war transport, and at that time one of the swiftest steamers afloat. At the most, the journey would not occupy more than twelve days or a fortnight. He might not be able or in time to do much for Stanislas in his present peril, but he at least hoped that retribution might follow fast on the betrayal of his friend.

CHAPTER VII.

INSIDE THE FORTRESS

It is time to return to Stanislas McKay, whose life, forfeited under the ruthless laws of a semi-barbarous power, still hung by a thread.

He had been taken into Sebastopol by his escort at a rapid pace. It was a ride of half-a-dozen miles, no more, and the greater part of it, when once they regained the Tchernaya, followed the low ground that margins both sides of the river.

McKay could see plainly the English cavalry vedettes in the plain; but, fast bound as he was, it was impossible for him to make any signal to his friends. It was as well that he could not try, for he would certainly have paid the penalty with his life.

They watched him very closely, these wild, unkempt, half-savage horsemen; watched him as though he were a captive animal—a beast of prey which might at any time break loose and rend them.

But the rough uncivilised Cossacks of the Don were not bad fellows after all.

Although they at first looked askance at him when he spoke to them, these simple boors were presently won over by the distress and sufferings of their prisoner.

McKay was in great pain; his bonds cut into his flesh, he was exhausted by the night's work, dejected at the ruin of his enterprise, uneasy as to his fate.

No food had crossed his lips for many hours, his throat was parched and dry under the fierce heat of the sun.

He begged piteously for water, speaking in Russian, and using the most familiar style of address. The men who rode on each side of him soon thawed as he called them "his little fathers," and implored them to give him a drink.

"Presently, at the first halt," they said.

And so he had to battle with his thirst while they still hurried on.

Suddenly the officer in command called a halt—they had now reached the picket-house at Tractir Bridge—and rode out to the flank of the party. He seemed perturbed, anxious in his mind, and raised his hand to shroud his eyes as he peered eagerly across the plain.

"Here!" he shouted, rising in his stirrups and turning round. "Bring up the prisoner."

McKay was led to his side.

"What is the meaning of that?" asked the officer haughtily, speaking in French, as he pointed to a cloud of dust in the distant plain.

"How can I tell you?" replied McKay, shortly: but in his own mind he was certain that this was the contemplated extension of the French and Sardinian lines towards the Tchernaya. For a moment his heart beat high with the hope that this movement might help him to escape.

"You know, you rogue! Tell me, or it will be the worse for you."

"I don't know," replied McKay stoutly; "and if I did I should not tell you."

"Dirty spy! You would have sold us for a price, do the same now by the others. You owe them no allegiance; besides, you are in our power. Tell me, and I will let you go."

"Your bribe is wasted on me. I am a British officer—"

"Pshaw! Officer?" and the fellow raised his whip to strike McKay, but happily held his hand.

"Here! take him back," he said angrily, and McKay was again placed in the midst of the party.

He renewed his entreaties for a drink, and a Cossack, taking pity on him, offered him a canteen.

It was full of vodkhi, an ardent spirit beloved by the Russian peasant, half-a-dozen drops of which McKay managed to gulp down, but they nearly burned his throat.

"Water! water!" he asked again.

And the Cossack, evidently surprised at his want of taste, substituted the simpler fluid; but the charitable act drew down upon him the displeasure of his chief.

"How dare you! without my permission?" cried the officer, as he dashed the water from McKay's lips, and punished the offending Cossack by a few sharp strokes with his whip.

"Come, fall in!" the officer next said. "It won't do to linger here." And the party resumed their ride, still in the valley, but as far as possible from the stream.