The Bronze Eagle: A Story of the Hundred Days

When Maurice opened his eyes again, Bobby was sitting on the ground by the roadside: the horse was nibbling a clump of fresh, green grass.

For the first time since that awful moment when stumbling and falling against a pile of dead, with Death behind and all around him, he had heard the welcome call: "Can you pull yourself up?" and felt the steadying grip upon his elbow—Maurice de St. Genis looked upon the man to whom he owed his life.

With that stained bandage round his head, dulled and bloodshot eyes, face blackened with powder and smoke and features drawn and haggard, Bobby Clyffurde was indeed almost unrecognisable. But Maurice knew him on the instant. Hitherto, he had not thought of how he had come out of that terrible hell-fire behind La Haye Sainte—indeed, he had quickly lost consciousness and never regained it till now: and now he knew that the same man who in the narrow hotel room near Lyons had ungrudgingly rendered him a signal service—had risked his life to-day for his—Maurice's sake.

No one could have entered that awful mêlée and faced the bayonet charge of Pelet's cuirassiers and the hail of bullets from their tirailleurs without taking imminent risk of death. Yet Clyffurde had done it. Why? Maurice—wide-eyed and sullen—could only find one answer to that insistent question.

That same deadly pang of jealousy which had assailed his heart after the midnight interview at the inn now held him in its cruel grip again. He felt that he hated the man to whom he owed his life, and that he hated himself for this mean and base ingratitude. He would not trust himself to speak or to look on Bobby at all, lest the ugly thoughts which were floating through his mind set their stamp upon his face.

"Will you ride on to Brussels?" he said at last. "I can wait here . . . and perhaps you could send a conveyance for me later on. M. le Comte de Cambray would . . ."

"M. le Comte de Cambray and Mademoiselle Crystal are even now devoured with anxiety about you," broke in Clyffurde as firmly as he could. "And I could not ride to Brussels—even though some one were waiting for me there—I really am not able to ride further. I would prefer to sit here and rest."

"I don't like to leave you . . . after . . . after what you have done for me . . . I would like to . . ."

"I would like you to scramble into that saddle and go," retorted Bobby with a momentary return to his usual good-natured irony, "and to leave me in peace."

"I'll send out a conveyance for you," rejoined St. Genis. "I know M. le Comte de Cambray would wish . . ."

"Mention my name to M. le Comte at your peril . . ." began Clyffurde.

"But . . ."

"By the Lord, man," now exclaimed Bobby with a sudden burst of energy, "if you do not go, I vow that sick as I am, and sick though you may be, I'll yet manage to punch your aching head."

Then as the other—still reluctantly—turned to take hold of the horse's bridle, he added more gently: "Can you mount?"

"Oh, yes! I am better now."

"You won't turn giddy, and fall off your horse?"

"I don't think so."

"Talk about the halt leading the blind!" murmured Clyffurde as he stretched himself out once more upon the soft ground, whilst Maurice contrived to hoist himself up into the saddle. "Are you safe now?" he added as the young man collected the reins in his hand, and planted his feet firmly into the stirrups.

"Yes! I am safe enough," replied St. Genis. "It is only my head that aches: and Brussels is not far."

Then he paused a moment ere he started to go—with lips set tight and looking down on Bobby, whose pale face had taken on an ashen hue:

"How you must despise me," he said bitterly.

But Bobby made no reply: he was just longing to be left alone, whilst the other still seemed inclined to linger.

"Would to God," Maurice said with a sigh, "that M. le Comte heard the evil news from other lips than mine."

"Evil news?" And Bobby, whom semi-consciousness was already taking off once more to the land of visions and of dreams—was brought back to reality—as if with a sudden jerk—with those two preposterous little words.

"What evil news?" he asked.

"The allied armies have retreated all along the line . . . the Corsican adventurer is victorious . . . our poor King . . ."

"Hold your tongue, you young fool," cried Bobby hoarsely. "The Lord help you but I do believe you are about to blaspheme . . ."

"But . . ."

"The Allied Armies—the British Army, God bless it!—have covered themselves with glory—Napoleon and his Empire have ceased to be. The Grand Army is in full retreat . . . the Prussians are in pursuit. . . . The British have won the day by their pluck and their endurance. . . . Thank God I lived just long enough to see it all, ere I fell . . ."

"But when we charged the cuirassiers . . ." began St. Genis, not knowing really if Bobby was raving in delirium, or speaking of what he knew. He wanted to ask further questions, to hear something more before he started for Brussels . . . the only thing which he remembered with absolute certainty was that awful charge of his regiment against the cuirassiers, then the panic and the rout: and he judged the whole issue of the battle by what had happened to a detachment of Brunswickers.

And yet, of course—before the charge—he had seen and known all that Bobby told him now. That rush of the Brunswickers and the Dutch down the hillside was only a part of the huge and glorious charge of the whole of the Allied troops against the routed Grand Army of Napoleon. He had neither the physical strength nor the desire to think out all that it would mean to him personally if what Bobby now told him was indeed absolutely true.

He was longing to make the wounded man rouse himself just once more and reiterate the glad news which meant so much to him—Maurice—and to Crystal. But it was useless to think of that now. Bobby was either unconscious or asleep. For a moment a twinge of real pity made St. Genis' heart ache for the man who seemed to be left so lonely and so desolate: jealousy itself gave way before that more gentle feeling. After all, Crystal could only be true to the love of her childhood; her heart belonged to the companion, the lover, the ideal of her girlish dreams. This stranger here loved her—that was obvious—but Crystal had never looked on him with anything but indifference. Even that dance last night . . . but of this Maurice would not think lest pity die out of his heart again . . . and jealousy and hate walk hand in hand with base ingratitude.

He turned his horse's head round to the road, pressed his knees into its sides, and then as the poor, weary beast started to amble leisurely down the road, Maurice looked back for the last time on the prostrate, pathetic figure of the lonely man who had given his all for him: he looked at every landmark which would enable him to find that man again—the angle of the forest where it touched the meadow,—the milestone, the trees by the roadside—oh! he meant to do his duty, to do it well and quickly, to send the conveyance, to neglect nothing; then, with a sigh—half of bitterness, yet full of satisfaction—he finally turned away and looked straight out before him into the distance where Brussels lay, and where the happiness of Crystal's love called to him, and he would find rest and peace in the warm affection of her faithful heart.

CHAPTER XI

THE LOSING HANDS

I

An hour later Maurice de St. Genis was in Brussels. Though his head still ached his mind was clear, and thoughts of Crystal—of happiness with her now at last within sight—had chased every other thought away.

His home had been with the de Cambrays ever since those old, sad days in England; he had a home to go to now:—a home where the kindly friendship of the Comte as well as the love of Crystal was ready to welcome him. The warmth of anticipated happiness and well-being warmed his heart and gave strength to his body. The horrors of the past few hours seemed all to have melted away behind him on the Brussels road as did the remembrance of a man—wounded himself and spent—risking his life for the sake of a friend. Not that St. Genis meant to be ungrateful—nor did he forget that wounded man—lying alone and sick on the fringe of the wood by the roadside.

As soon as he had taken his horse round to the barracks in the rue des Comédiens, and before even he had a wash or had his uniform cleaned of stains and mud, he rushed to the headquarters of the Army Service to see how soon a conveyance could be sent out to his friend—and when he was unable to obtain what he wanted there, he rushed from hospital to hospital, thence to two or three doctors whom he knew of to see what could be done. But the hospitals were already over-full and over-busy: their ambulances were all already on the way: as for the doctors, they were all from home—all at work where their skill was most needed—an army of doctors, of ambulances and drivers would not suffice at this hour to bring all the wounded in from the spot where that awful battle was raging.

And Maurice saw time slipping by: he had already spent an hour in a fruitless quest. He longed to see Crystal and waxed impatient at the delay. Anon at the English hospital a kindly person—who listened sympathetically to his tale—promised him that the ambulance which was just setting out in the direction of Mont Saint Jean would be on the look-out for his wounded friend by the roadside; and Maurice with a sigh of relief felt that he had indeed done his duty and done his best.

At the English hospital Clyffurde would be splendidly looked after—nowhere else could he find such sympathetic treatment! And Maurice with a light heart went back to the barracks in the rue des Comédiens, where he had a wash and had his uniform cleaned. Somewhat refreshed, though still very tired, he hurried round to the rue du Marais, where the Comte de Cambray had his lodgings. The first sight of Brussels had already told him the whole pitiable tale of panic and of desolation which had filled the city in the wake of the fugitive troops. The streets were encumbered with vehicles of every kind—carts, barouches, barrows—with horses loosely tethered, with the wounded who lay about on litters of straw along the edges of the pavement, in doorways, under archways in the centre of open places, with crowds of weeping women and crying children wandering aimlessly from place to place trying to find the loved one who might be lying here, hurt or mayhap dying.

And everywhere men in tattered uniforms, with grimy hands and faces, and boots knee-deep in stains of mud, stood about or sat in the empty carts, talking, gesticulating, giving sundry, confused and contradictory accounts of the great battle—describing Napoleon's decisive victory—Wellington's rout—the prolonged absence of Blücher and the Prussians, cause of the terrible disaster.

M. le Comte d'Artois had rushed precipitately from Brussels up to Ghent to warn His Majesty the King of France that all hope of saving his throne was now at an end, and that the wisest course to pursue was to return to England and resign himself once more to obscurity and exile.

M. le Prince de Condé too had gone off to Antwerp in a huge barouche, having under his care the treasure and jewels of the crown hastily collected three months ago at the Tuileries.

In every open space a number of prisoners were being guarded by mixed patrols of Dutch, Belgian or German soldiers, and their cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" which they reiterated with unshakable obstinacy roused the ire of their captors, and provoked many a savage blow, and many a broken head.

But St. Genis did not pause to look on these sights: he had not the strength to stand up in the midst of these confused masses of terror-driven men and women, and to shout to them that they were fools—that all their panic must be turned to joy, their lamentations to shouts of jubilation. News of victory was bound to spread through the city within the next hour, and he himself longed only to see Crystal, to reassure her as to his own safety, to see the light of happiness kindled in her eyes by the news which he brought. He had not the strength for more.

It was old Jeanne who opened the door at the lodgings in the rue du Marais when Maurice finally rang the bell there.

"M. le Marquis!" she exclaimed. "Oh! but you are ill."

"Only very tired and weak, Jeanne," he said. "It has been an awful day."

"Ah! but M. le Comte will be pleased!"

"And Mademoiselle Crystal?" asked Maurice with a smile which had in it all the self-confidence of the accepted lover.

"Mademoiselle Crystal will be happy too," said Jeanne. "She has been so unhappy, so desperately anxious all day."

"Can I see her?"

"Mademoiselle is out for the moment, M. le Marquis. And M. le Comte has gone to the Cercle des Légitimistes in the rue des Cendres—perhaps M. le Marquis knows—it is not far."

"I would like to see Mademoiselle Crystal first. You understand, don't you, Jeanne?"

"Yes, I do, M. le Marquis," sighed faithful Jeanne, who was always inclined to be sentimental.

"How long will she be, do you think?"

"Oh! another half hour. Perhaps more. Mademoiselle has gone to the cathedral. If M. le Marquis will give himself the trouble to walk so far, he cannot fail to see Mademoiselle when she comes out of church."

But already—before Jeanne had finished speaking—Maurice had turned on his heel and was speeding back down the narrow street. Tired and weak as he was, his one idea was to see Crystal, to hear her voice, to see the love-light in her eyes. He felt that at sight of her all fatigue would be gone, all recollections of the horrors of this day wiped out with the first look of joy and relief with which she would greet him.

II

The service was over, and the congregation had filed out of the cathedral. Crystal was one of the last to go. She stood for a long while in the porch looking down with unseeing eyes on the bustle and excitement which went on in the Place down below. Her mind was not here. It was far indeed from the crowd of terror-stricken or gossiping men and women, of wounded soldiers, terrified peasantry and anxious townsfolk that encumbered the precincts of the stately edifice.

From the remote distance—out toward the south—came the boom and roar of cannon and musket fire—almost incessant still. There was her heart! there her thoughts! with the brave men who were fighting for their national existence—with the British troops and with their sufferings—and she stood here, staring straight out before her—dry-eyed and pale and small white hands clasped tightly together.

The greater part of to-day she had sat by the open window in the shabby drawing-room in the rue du Marais, listening to that awful fusillade, wondering with mind well-nigh bursting with horror and with misery which of those cruel shots which she heard in the dim distance would still for ever the brave and loyal heart that had made so many silent sacrifices for her.

And her father, vaguely thinking that she was anxious about Maurice—vaguely wondering that she cared so much—had done his best to try and comfort her: "She need not fear much for Maurice," he had told her as reassuringly as he could—"the Brunswickers were not likely to suffer much. The brunt of the conflict would fall upon the British. Ah! but they would lose very heavily. Wellington had not more than seventy thousand men to put up against the Corsican's troops; and only a hundred and fifty cannon against two hundred and eighty. Yes, the British would probably be annihilated by superior forces: but no doubt the other allies—and the Brunswickers—would come off a great deal better."

But Mme. la Duchesse douairière d'Agen offered no such consolation. She contented herself with saying that she was sure in her mind that Maurice would come through quite safely, and that she prayed to God with all her heart and soul that the gallant British troops would not suffer too heavily. Then with her fine, gentle hand she patted Crystal's fair curls which were clinging matted and damp against the young girl's burning forehead. And she stooped and kissed those aching dry blue eyes and whispered quite under her breath so that Crystal could not be sure if she heard correctly: "May God protect him too! He is a brave and a good man!"

And then Crystal had gone out to seek peace and rest in beautiful old Ste. Gudule, so full of memories of other conflicts, other prayers, other deeds of heroism of long ago. Here in the dim light and the silence and the peace, her quivering nerves had become somewhat stilled: and when she came out she was able just for the moment neither to see or hear the terror-mongers down below and only to think of the heroes out there on the field of battle for whom she had just prayed with such passionate earnestness.

Suddenly in the crowd she recognised Maurice. He was coming up the cathedral steps, looking for her, no doubt—Jeanne must have directed him. When he drew near to her, he saw that a look of happy surprise and of true joy lit up the delicate pathos of her face. He ran quickly to her now. He would have taken her in his arms—here in face of the crowd—but there was something in her manner which instinctively sobered him and he had to be content with the little cold hands which she held out to him and with imprinting a kiss upon her finger tips.

Already in his eyes she had read that the news which he brought was not so bad as rumour had foretold.

"Maurice," she cried excitedly, with a little catch in her throat, "you are well and safe, thank God! And what news? . . ."

"The news is good," Maurice replied. "Victory is assured by now. It has been a hard day, but we have won."

She said nothing for a moment. But the tears gathered in her eyes, her lips quivered and Maurice knew that she was thanking God. Then she turned back to him and he could see her face glowing with excitement.

"And our allies," she asked, and now that little catch in her throat was more marked, "the British troops? . . . We heard that they behaved like heroes, and bore the brunt of this awful battle."

"I don't know much about the British troops, my sweet," he replied lightly, "but what news I have I will have to impart to your father as well as to you. So it will have to keep until I see him . . . but just now, Crystal, while we are alone . . . I have other things to say to you."

But it is doubtful if Crystal heard more than just the first words which he had spoken, for she broke in quite irrelevantly:

"You don't know about the British troops, Maurice? Oh! but you must know! . . . Don't you know what British regiments were engaged? . . ."

"I know that none of our own people were in British regiments, Crystal," he retorted somewhat drily, "whereas the Brunswickers and Nassauers were as much French as German . . . they fought gallantly all day . . . you do not ask so much about them."

"But . . ." she stammered while a hot flush spread over her cheeks, "I thought . . . you said . . ."

"Are you not content for the moment, Crystal," he called out with tender reproach, "to know that victory has crowned our King and his allies and that I have come back to you safely out of that raging hell at Waterloo? Are you not glad that I am here?"

He spoke more vehemently now, for there was something in Crystal's calm attitude which had begun to chill him. Had he not been in deadly danger all the day? Had she not heard that distant cannon's roar which had threatened his life throughout all these hours? Had he not come back out of the very jaws of Death?

And yet here she stood white as a lily and as unruffled; except for that one first exclamation of joy not a single cry from the heart had forced itself through her pale, slightly trembling lips: yet she was sweet and girlish and tender as of old and even now at the implied reproach her eyes had quickly filled with tears.

"How can you ask, Maurice?" she protested gently. "I have thought of you and prayed for you all day."

It was her quiet serenity that disconcerted him—the kindly tone of her voice—her calm, unembarrassed manner checked his passionate impulse and caused him to bite his underlip with vexation until it bled.

The shadows of evening were closing in around them: from the windows of the houses close by dim, yellow lights began to blink like eyes. Overhead, the exquisite towers of Ste. Gudule stood out against the stormy sky like perfect, delicate lace-work turned to stone, whilst the glass of the west window glittered like a sheet of sapphires and emeralds and rubies, as it caught the last rays of the sinking sun. Crystal's graceful figure stood out in its white, summer draperies, clear and crystalline as herself against the sombre background of the cathedral porch.

And Maurice watched her through the dim shadows of gathering twilight: he watched her as a fowler watches the bird which he has captured and never wholly tamed. Somehow he felt that her love for him was not quite what it had been until now: that she was no longer the same girlish, submissive creature on whose soft cheeks a word or look from him had the power to raise a flush of joy.

She was different now—in a curious, intangible way which he could not define.

And jealousy reared up its threatening head more insistently:—bitter jealousy which embraced de Marmont, Clyffurde, Fate and Circumstance—but Clyffurde above all—the stranger hitherto deemed of no account, but who now—wounded, abandoned, dying, perhaps—seemed a more formidable rival than Maurice awhile ago had deemed possible.

He cursed himself for that touch of sentiment—he called it cowardice—which the other night, after the ball, had prompted him to write to Crystal. But for that voluntary confession—he thought—she could never have despised him. And following up the train of his own thoughts, and realising that these had not been spoken aloud, he suddenly called out abruptly:

"Is it because of my letter, Crystal?"

She gave a start, and turned even paler than she had been before. Obviously she had been brought roughly back from the land of dreams.

"Your letter, Maurice?" she asked vaguely, "what do you mean?"

"I wrote you a letter the other night," he continued, speaking quickly and harshly, "after the ball. Did you receive it?"

"Yes."

"And read it?"

"Of course."

"And is it because of it that your love for me has gone?"

He had not meant to put his horrible suspicions into words. The very fact—now that he had spoken—appeared more tangible, even irremediable. She did not reply to his taunt, and he came a little closer to her and took her hand, and when she tried to withdraw it from his grasp he held it tightly and bent down his head so that in the gathering gloom he could read every line of her face.

"Because of what I told you in my letter you despised me, did you not?" he asked.

Again she made no reply. What could she say that would not hurt him far more than did her silence? The next moment he had drawn her back right into the shadow of the cathedral walls, into a dark angle, where no one could see either her or him. He placed his hands upon her shoulders and compelled her to look him straight in the face.

"Listen, Crystal," he said slowly and with desperate earnestness. "Once, long ago, I gave you up to de Marmont, to affluence and to considerations of your name and of our caste. It all but broke my heart, but I did it because your father demanded that sacrifice from you and from me. I was ready then to stand aside and to give up all the dreams of my youth. . . . But now everything is different. For one thing, the events of the past hundred days have made every man many years older: the hell I went through to-day has helped to make a more sober, more determined man of me. Now I will not give you up. I will not. My way is clear: I can win you with your father's consent and give him and you all that de Marmont had promised. The King trusts me and will give me what I ask. I am no longer a wastrel, no longer poor and obscure. And I will not give you up—I swear it by all that I have gone through to-day. I will not! if I have to kill with my own hand every one who stands in my way."

And Crystal, smiling, quite kindly and a little abstractedly at his impulsive earnestness, gently removed his hands from her shoulders and said calmly:

"You are tired, Maurice, and overwrought. Shall we go in and wait for father? He will be getting anxious about me." And without waiting to see if he followed her, she turned to walk toward the steps.