at my lady's table. The men, I remember, stared; the women looked
thoughtful.

For all that, it was Marie who on this occasion broke the trance. The
town clock struck ten, and at the sound hundreds, I dare swear, turned
on their pillows, thinking of the husbands and sons and lovers whom
the next light must imperil. My girl stirred.

'Ah!' she murmured, 'the poor Countess! Can we do nothing?'

'Do?' I said. 'What should, we do? The Waldgrave is back, and in his
right mind; which of all the things I have ever known, is the oddest.
That a man should lose his senses under one blow, and recover them
under another, and remember nothing that has happened in the
interval--it almost passes belief.'

'Yet it is true.'

'I suppose so,' I answered. 'The Waldgrave was mad--I can bear witness
to it--and now he is sane. There is no more to be said.'

'But the Countess, Martin?'

'Well, I do not know that she is the worse,' I answered stupidly. 'She
sent off the Count with a flea in his ear, and a poor return it was.
But she can explain it to him, and after all, she has got the
Waldgrave back, safe and sound. That is the main thing.'

Marie sighed, and moved restlessly. 'Is it?' she said. 'I wish I
knew.'

'What?' I asked, drawing her little head on to my shoulder.

'What my lady wishes?'

'Eh?'

'Which?'

My jaw fell. I stared into the darkness open-mouthed. 'Why,' I
exclaimed at last, 'he is sixty--or fifty-five at least, girl!'

Marie laughed softly, with her face on my breast. 'If she loves him,'
she murmured. 'If she loves him.' And she hung on me.

I sat amazed, confounded, thinking no more of Marie, though my arm was
round her, than of a doll. 'But he is fifty five,' I said.

'And if you were fifty-five, do you think that I should not love you?'
she whispered. 'When you are fifty-five, do you think that I shall not
love you? Besides, he is strong, brave, famous--a man; and she is not
a girl, but a woman. If the Count be too old, is not the Waldgrave too
young?'

'Yes,' I said cunningly. 'But why either?'

'Because love is in the air,' Marie answered; and I knew that she
smiled, though the gloom hid her face. 'Because there is a change in
her. Because she knows things and sees things and feels things of
which she was ignorant before. And because--because it is so, my
lord.'

I whistled. This was beyond me. 'And yet you don't know which?' I
said.

'No; I suspect.'

'Well--but the Waldgrave?' I exclaimed. 'Why, mädchen, he is one of
the handsomest men I have ever seen. An Apollo! A Fairy Prince! It is
not possible that she should prefer the other.'

Marie laughed. 'Ah!' she said, 'if men chose all the husbands, there
would be few wives.'

                          *   *   *   *   *

                           CHAPTER XXXIII.

                               TWO MEN.

The Waldgrave's return to his old self, and to the frankness and
gaiety that, when we first knew him at Heritzburg, had surrounded him
with a halo of youth, was perhaps the most noteworthy event of all
within my experience. For the return proved permanent, the
transformation was perfect. The moodiness, the crookedness, the crafty
humours that for weeks had darkened and distorted the man's nature--so
that another and a worse man seemed to look out of his eyes and speak
with his mouth--were gone, leaving no cloud or remembrance. He had
been mad; he was now as sane as the best. Only one peculiarity
remained--and for a few days a little pallor and weakness--of all the
things that had befallen him between his first wound and his second,
he could remember nothing, not a jot or tittle; nor could any amount
of allusion or questioning bring these things back to him. After many
attempts we desisted; but there were always some who, from this date,
regarded him with a certain degree of awe--as a man who had been for a
time in the flesh, and yet not of it.

With sanity returned also all the wholesome ambitions and desires that
had formerly moved the man; and amongst these his passion for my lady.
He lay at our house that night, and spent the next two days there,
recovering his strength; and I had more than one opportunity of
marking the assiduity with which he followed all the Countess's
movements with his eyes, the change which his voice underwent when he
spoke to her, and his manner when he came into her presence. In a
word, he seemed to take up his love where he had dropped it--at the
point it had reached when he rode down into the green valley and
secured his rival's victory at so great a cost; at the point at which
Tzerclas' admiration and my lady's rebuff had at once strengthened and
purified it.

Now Tzerclas was gone from the field--magically, as it seemed
to the Waldgrave. And, magically also--for he knew nothing of its
flight--time had passed; days and weeks running into months--a
sufficiency of time, he hoped, to remove unfavourable impressions from
her mind, to obliterate the memory of that unhappy banquet, and
replace him on the pinnacle he had occupied at Heritzburg.

But he soon found that, though Tzerclas was gone and the field seemed
open, all was not to be had for the asking. My lady was kind; she had
a smile for him, and pleasant words, and a ready ear. But before he
had been in the house twenty-four hours, he came and confided to me
that something was wrong. The Countess was changed; was pettish as
he had never seen her before; absent and thoughtful, traits equally
new; restless--and placid dignity had been one of her chief
characteristics.

'What is it, Martin?' he said, knitting his brows and striding to and
fro in frank perplexity. 'It cannot be that, after all that has
passed, she is fretting for that villain Tzerclas?'

'After risking her life to escape from him?' I answered dryly. 'No, I
think not, my lord.'

'If I ever set eyes on him again I will end him!' the Waldgrave cried,
still clinging, I think, to his idea, and exasperated by it. He strode
up and down a time or two, and did not grow cooler. 'If it is not
that, what is it?' he said at last.

'There are not many light hearts in Nuremberg,' I suggested. 'And of
those, few are women's. There must be an end of this soon.'

'You think it is that?' he said.

'Why not?' I answered. 'I am told that the horses are dying by
hundreds in the camp. The men will die next. In the end the King will
have to march away, or see his army perish piecemeal. In either case
the city will pay for all. Wallenstein will swoop down on it, and make
of it another and greater Magdeburg. That is a poor prospect for the
weak and helpless.'

'It is those rascally Croats!' the Waldgrave groaned. 'They cover the
country like flies--are here and there and nowhere all in the same
minute, and burn and harry and leave us nothing. We have no troops of
that kind.'

'There was plundering in the Wert suburb last night,' I said. 'The
King blames the Germans.'

'Soldiers are bad to starve,' the Waldgrave answered.

'Yes; they will see the townsfolk suffer first,' I rejoined, with a
touch of bitterness. 'But look whichever way you please, it is a
gloomy outlook, my lord, and I do not wonder that my lady is
down-hearted.'

He nodded, but presently he said something that showed that he was not
satisfied. 'The Countess used to be of a bolder spirit,' he muttered.
'I don't understand it.'

I did not know how to answer him, and fortunately, at that moment,
Marie came down to say that my lady proposed to visit Count
Leuchtenstein, and that I was to go to her. The Waldgrave heard, and
raced up before me, crying out that he would go too. I followed. When
I reached the parlour I found them confronting one another, my lady
standing in the oriel with her back to the street.

'But would it not be more seemly?' the Waldgrave was saying as I
entered. 'As your cousin, and----'

'I would rather go alone,' the Countess replied curtly.

'To the camp?' he exclaimed. 'He is not in his city quarters.'

'Yes, to the camp,' my lady answered, with, a spark of anger in her
eyes.

On that he stood, fidgety and discomfited, and the Countess gave me
her orders. But he could not believe that she did not need him, and
the moment she was silent, he began again.

'You do not want me; but you do not object to my company, I suppose?'
he said airily. 'I have to thank the Count, cousin, and I must go
to-day or to-morrow. There is no time like the present, and if you are
going now----'

'I should prefer to go alone,' my lady said stiffly.

His face fell; he stood looking foolish. 'Oh, I did not know,' he
stammered at last; 'I thought----'

'What?' the Countess said.

'That you liked me well enough--to--to be glad of my company,' he
answered, half offended, half in deprecation.

'I liked you well enough to abase myself for you!' my lady retorted
cruelly. And I dare say that she said more, but I did not hear it. I
had to go down and prepare for her visit.

When I next saw him, he was much subdued. He seemed to be turning
something over in his mind, and by-and-by he asked me a question about
Count Leuchtenstein. I saw which way his thoughts were tending, or
fancied that I did; but it was not my business to interfere one way or
the other, and I answered him and made no comment. The horses were at
the door then, and in a moment my lady came down, looking pale and
depressed. The Waldgrave went humbly to her, and put her into her
saddle, touching her foot as if it had been glass; and I mounted
Marie, who was to attend her. I expected that my lady--who had a very
tender heart under her queenly manner--would say something to him
before we started; but she seemed to be quite taken up with her
thoughts, and to be barely conscious, if conscious at all, of his
presence. She said 'Thank you,' but it was mechanically. And the next
moment we were moving, Ernst making up the escort.

My eyes soon furnished me with other matter for thought than the
Waldgrave. Throughout the city the summer drought had dried up the
foliage of the trees; and the grass, where it had not been plucked by
the poor and boiled for food, had been eaten to the roots by starving
cattle. The whole city under the blaze of sunshine wore an arid,
dusty, parched appearance, and seemed to reflect on its face the look
of dreary endurance which was worn by too many of the countenances we
observed in the streets. Pain creeps by instinct to some dark and
solitary place; but here was a whole city in pain, gasping and
suffering under the pitiless sunshine; and the contrast between the
blue sky above and the scene below added indescribably to the gloom
and dreariness of the latter. I know that I got a horror of sunshine
there that lasted for many a month after.

Either twenty-four hours had aggravated the pinch of famine, which was
possible, or I had a more open mind to perceive it. I marked more
hollow cheeks than ever, more hungry eyes, more faces with the
glare of brutes. And in the bearing of the crowd that filled the
streets--though no business was done, no trade carried on--I thought
that I saw a change. Wherever it was thickest, I noticed that men
walked in one of two ways, either hurrying along feverishly and in
haste, as if time were of the utmost value, or moving listlessly, with
dragging feet and lacklustre eyes, as if nothing had any longer power
to stir them. I even noticed that the same men went in both ways
within the space of a minute, passing in a second and apparently
without intention from feverish activity to the moodiness of despair.

And no wonder. Not only famine, but pestilence had tightened its grasp
on the city; and from this the rich had as much to fear as the poor.
As we drew near the walls the smell of carrion, which had hitherto but
spoiled the air, filled the nostrils and sickened the whole man. In
some places scores of horses lay unburied, while it was whispered that
in obscure corners death had so far outstripped the grave-diggers that
corpses lay in the houses and the living slept with the dead. There
was fighting in front of the bakers' shops in more than one place--my
lady had to throw money before we could pass; in the kennels women
screamed and fought for offal; from the open doors of churches prayers
and wailing poured forth; at the gates, where gibbets, laden with
corpses, rose for a warning, multitudes stood waiting and listening
for news. And on all, dead and living, the sun shone hotly, steadily,
ruthlessly, so that men asked with one voice, 'How long? How long?'

In the camp, which had just received huge reinforcements of men and
horses, we found order and discipline at least. Rows of kettles and
piles of arms proclaimed it, and lines of pennons that stretched
almost as far as the eye could reach. But here, too, were knitted
brows, and gloomy looks, and loud murmurings, that grew and swelled as
we passed. Count Leuchtenstein's quarters were on the border of the
Swedish camp, near the Finland regiments, and not far from the King's.
A knot of officers, who stood talking in front of them and knew my
lady, came to place themselves at her service. But the offer proved to
be abortive, for the first thing she learned was that the Count was
absent. He had gone at dawn in the direction of Altdorf to cover the
entrance of a convoy.

I felt that she was grievously disappointed, for whether she loved him
or not, I could understand the humiliation under which she smarted,
and would smart until she had set herself right with him. But she
veiled her chagrin admirably, and, lightly refusing the offer of
refreshment, turned her horse's head at once, so that in a twinkling
we were on our road home again.

By the way, I saw only what I had seen before. But the Countess, whose
figure began to droop, saw, I think, with other eyes than those
through which she had looked on the outward journey. Her thoughts no
longer occupied, she saw in their fulness the ravages which famine and
plague were making in the town, once so prosperous. When she reached
her lodgings her first act was to send money, of which we had no great
store, to the magistrates, that a free meal in addition to the
starvation rations might be given to the poor; and her next, to
declare that henceforth she would keep the house.

Accordingly, instead of going again to the Count's, she sent me next
day with a letter. I found the camp in an uproar, which was fast
spreading to the city. A rumour had just got wind that the King was
about to break up his camp and give battle to the enemy at all
hazards; and so many were riding and running into the city with the
news that I could scarcely make head against the current.

Arriving at last, however, I was fortunate enough to find the Count in
his quarters and alone. My lady had charged me--with a blushing cheek
but stern eyes--to deliver the letter with my own hands, and I
dismounted. I thought that I had nothing to do but deliver it; I
foresaw no trouble. But at the last moment, as a trooper led me
through the antechamber, who should appear at my side but the
Waldgrave!

'You did not expect to see me?' he said, nodding grimly.

'No, my lord,' I answered.

'So I thought,' he rejoined. 'But before you give the Count that
letter, I have a word to say to him.'

I looked at him in astonishment. What had the letter to do with him?
My first idea was that he had been drinking, for his colour was high
and his eye bright. But a second glance showed that he was sober,
though excited. And while I hesitated the trooper held up the curtain,
and perforce I marched in.

Count Leuchtenstein, wearing his plain buff suit, sat writing at a
table. His corselet, steel cap, and gauntlets lay beside him, and
seemed to show that he had just come in from the field. He looked up
and nodded to me; I had been announced before. Then he saw the
Waldgrave and rose; reluctantly, I fancied. I thought, too, that a
shade of gloom fell on his face; but as the table was laden with
papers and despatches and maps and lists, and the sight reminded me
that he bore on his shoulders all the affairs of Hesse, and the
responsibility for the boldest course taken by any German prince in
these troubles, I reflected that this might arise from a hundred
causes.

He greeted the Waldgrave civilly nevertheless; then he turned to me.
'You have a letter for me, have you not, my friend?' he said.

'Yes, my lord,' I answered.

'But,' the Waldgrave interposed, 'before you read it, I have a word to
say, by your leave, Count Leuchtenstein.'

I think I never saw a man more astonished than the Count. 'To me?' he
said.

'By your leave, yes.'

'In regard to--this letter?'

'Yes.'

'But what do you know about this letter?'

'Too much, I am afraid,' the Waldgrave answered; and I am bound to say
that, putting aside the extraordinary character of his interference,
he bore himself well. I could detect nothing of wildness or delusion
in his manner. His face glowed, and he threw back his head with a hint
of defiance; but he seemed sane. 'Too much,' he continued rapidly,
before the Count could stop him; 'and, before the matter goes farther,
I will have my say.'

The Count stared at him. 'By what right?' he said at last.

'As the Countess Rotha's nearest kinsman,' the Waldgrave answered.

'Indeed?' I could see that the Count was hard put to it to keep his
temper; that the old lion in him was stirring, and would soon have
way. But for the moment he controlled himself. 'Say on,' he cried.

'I will, in a few words,' the Waldgrave answered. 'And what I have to
say amounts to this: I have become aware--no matter how--of the
bargain you have made, Count Leuchtenstein, and I will not have it.'

'The bargain!' the Count ejaculated; 'you will not have it!'

'The bargain; and I will not have it!' the Waldgrave rejoined.

Count Leuchtenstein drew a deep breath, and stared at him like a man
demented. 'I think that you must be mad,' he said at last. 'If not,
tell me what you mean.'

'What I say,' the Waldgrave answered stubbornly. 'I forbid the bargain
to which I have no doubt that that letter relates.'

'In Heaven's name, what bargain?' the Count cried.

'You think that I do not know,' the Waldgrave replied, with a touch of
bitterness; 'it did not require a Solomon to read the riddle. I found
my cousin distrait, absent, moody, sad, preoccupied, unlike herself.
She had moved heaven and earth, I was told, to save me; in the last
resort, had come to you, and you saved me. Yet when she saw me safe,
she met me as much in sorrow as in joy. The mere mention of your name
clouded her face; and she must see you, and she must write to you, and
all in a fever. I say, it does not require a Solomon to read this
riddle, Count Leuchtenstein.'

'You think?' said the Count, bluntly. 'I do not yet know what you
think.'

'I think that she sold herself to you to win my pardon,' the Waldgrave
answered.

For a moment I did not know how Count Leuchtenstein would take it. He
stood gazing at the Waldgrave, his hand on a chair, his face purple,
his eyes starting. At length, to my relief and the Waldgrave's utter
dismay and shame, he sank into the chair and broke into a hoarse shout
of laughter--laughter that was not all merriment, but rolled, in its
depths something stern and sardonic.

The Waldgrave changed colour, glared and fumed; but the Count was
pitiless, and laughed on. At last: 'Thanks, Waldgrave, thanks,' he
said. 'I am glad I let you go on to the end. But pardon me if I say
that you seem to do the Lady Rotha something less than justice, and
yourself something more.'

'How?' the Waldgrave stammered. He was quite out of countenance.

'By flattering yourself that she could rate you so highly,' Count
Leuchtenstein retorted, 'or fall herself so low. Nay, do not threaten
me,' he continued with grim severity. 'It was not I who brought her
name into question. I never dreamed of, never heard of, never
conceived such a bargain as you have described; nor, I may add, ever
thought of the Lady Rotha except with reverence and chivalrous regard.
Have I said enough?' he continued, rising, and speaking with growing
indignation, with eyes that seemed to search the culprit; 'or must I
say too, Waldgrave, that I do not traffic in men's lives, nor buy
women's favours, nor sell pardons? That such power as God and my
master have given me I use to their honour and not for my own
pleasure? And, finally, that this, of which you accuse me, I would not
do, though to do it were to prolong my race through a dozen centuries?
For shame, boy, for shame!' he continued more calmly. 'If my mind has
gone the way you trace it, I call it back to-day. I have done with
love; I am too old for aught but duty, if love can lead even a young
man's mind so far astray.'

The Waldgrave shivered; but the position was beyond words, and he
essayed none. With a slight movement of his hand, as if he would have
shielded himself, or deprecated the other's wrath, he turned towards
the door. I saw his face for an instant; it was pale, despairing--and
with reason. He had exposed my lady. He had exposed himself. He had
invited such a chastisement as must for ever bring the blood to his
cheeks. And his cousin: what would she say? He had lost her. She would
never forgive him--never! He groped blindly for the opening in the
curtain.

His hand was on it--and I think that, for all his manhood, the tears
were very near his eyes--when the other called after him in an altered
tone.

'Stay!' Count Leuchtenstein said. 'We will not part thus. I can see
that you are sorry. Do not be so hasty another time, and do not be too
quick to think evil. For the rest, our friend here will be silent, and
I will be silent.'

The Waldgrave gazed at him, his lips quivering, his eyes full. At
last: 'You will not tell--the Countess Rotha?' he said almost in a
whisper.

The Count looked down at his table, and pettishly pushed some
papers together. For an instant he did not answer. Then he said
gruffly,--'No. Why should she know? If she chooses you, well and good;
if not, why trouble her with tales?'

'Then!' the Waldgrave cried with a sob in his voice, 'you are a better
man than I am!'

The Count shrugged his shoulders rather sadly. 'No,' he said, 'only an
older one.'

                            CHAPTER XXXIV.

                              SUSPENSE.

For a little while after the Waldgrave had retired, Count
Leuchtenstein stood turning my lady's letter over in his hands, his
thoughts apparently busy. I had leisure during this time to compare
the plainness of his dress with the greatness of his part, to which
his conduct a moment before had called my attention; and the man with
his reputation. No German had at this time so much influence with the
King of Sweden as he; nor did the world ever doubt that it was at his
instance that the Landgrave, first of all German princes, flung his
sword into the Swedish scale. Yet no man could be more unlike the dark
Wallenstein, the crafty Arnim, the imperious Oxenstierna, or the
sleepless French cardinal, whose star has since risen--as I have heard
these men described; for Leuchtenstein carried his credentials in his
face. An honest, massive downrightness and a plain sagacity seemed to
mark him, and commend him to all who loved the German blood.

My eyes presently wandered from him, and detected among the papers on
the table the two stands I had seen in his town quarters--the one
bearing his child's necklace, the other his wife's portrait. Doubtless
they lay on the table wherever he went--among assessments and imposts,
regimental tallies and state papers. I confess that my heart warmed at
the sight; that I found something pleasing in it; greatness had not
choked the man. And then my thoughts were diverted: he broke open my
lady's letter, and turning his back on me began to read.

I waited, somewhat impatiently. He seemed to be a long time over it,
and still he read, his eyes glued to the page. I heard the paper
rustle in his hands. At last he turned, and I saw with a kind of shock
that his face was dark and flushed. There was a strange gleam in his
eyes as he looked at me. He struck the paper twice with his hand.

'Why was this kept from me?' he exclaimed. 'Why? Why?'

'My lord!' I said in astonishment. 'It was delivered to me only an
hour ago.'

'Fool!' he answered harshly, bending his bushy eyebrows. 'When did
that girl get free?'

'That girl?'

'Ay, that girl! Girl, I said. What is her name? Marie Wort?'

'This is Saturday. Wednesday night,' I said.

'Wednesday night? And she told you of the child then; of my
child--that this villain has it yonder! And you kept it from me all
Thursday and Friday--Thursday and Friday,' he repeated with a fierce
gesture, 'when I might have done something, when I might have acted!
Now you tell me of it, when we march out to-morrow, and it is too
late. Ah! It was ungenerous of her--it was not like her!'

'The Countess came yesterday in person,' I muttered.

'Ay, but the day before!' he retorted. 'You saw me in the morning! You
said nothing. In the evening I called at the Countess's lodgings; she
would not see me. A mistake was it? Yes, but grant the mistake; was it
kind, was it generous to withhold _this?_ If I had been as remiss as
she thought me, as slack a friend--was it just, was it womanly? In
Heaven's name, no! No!' he repeated fiercely.

'We were taken up with the Waldgrave's peril,' I muttered,
conscience-stricken. 'And yesterday, my lady----'

'Ay, yesterday!' he retorted bitterly. 'She would have told me
yesterday. But why not the day before? The truth is, you thought
much of your own concerns and your lady's kin, but of mine and my
child--nothing! Nothing!' he repeated sternly.

And I could not but feel that his anger was justified. For myself, I
had clean forgotten the child; hence my silence at my former
interview. For my lady, I think that at first the Waldgrave's danger
and later, when she knew of his safety, remorse for the part she had
played, occupied her wholly, yet, every allowance made, I felt that
the thing had an evil appearance; and I did not know what to say to
him.

He sighed, staring absently before him. At last, after a prolonged
silence, 'Well, it is too late now,' he said. 'Too late. The King
moves out to-morrow, and my hands are full, and God only knows the
issue, or who of us will be living three days hence. So there is an
end.'

'My lord!' I cried impulsively. 'God forgive me, I forgot.'

He shrugged his shoulders with a grand kind of patience. 'Just so,' he
said. 'And now, go back to your mistress. If I live I will answer her
letter. If not--it matters not.'

I was terribly afraid of him, but my love for Marie had taught me some
things; and though he waved me to the door, I stood my ground a
moment.

'To you, my lord, no,' I said. 'Nothing. But to her, if you fall
without answering her letter----'

'What?'he said.

'You can best judge from the letter, my lord.'

'You think that she would suffer?' he answered harshly, his
face growing red again. 'Well, what say you, man? Does she not
deserve to suffer? Do you know what this delay may cost me? What it
may mean for my child? Mein Gott,' he continued, raising his voice and
striking his hand heavily on the table, 'you try me too far! Your
mistress was angry. Have I no right to be angry? Have I no right to
punish? Go! I have no more to say.'

And I had to go, then and there, enraged with myself, and fearful that
I had said too much in my lady's behalf. I had invited this last
rebuff, and I did not see how I should dare to tell her of it, or that
I had exposed her to it. I had made things worse instead of better,
and perhaps, after all, the message he had framed might not have hurt
her much, or fallen far short of her expectations.

I should have troubled myself longer about this, but for the
increasing bustle and stir of preparation that had spread by this time
from the camp to the city; and filling the way with a throng of people
whom the news affected in the most different ways, soon diverted my
attention. While some, ready to welcome any change, shouted with joy,
others wept and wrung their hands, crying out that the city was
betrayed, and that the King was abandoning it. Others again
anticipated an easy victory, looked on the frowning heights of the
Alta Veste as already conquered, and divided Wallenstein's spoils.
Everywhere I saw men laughing, wailing, or shaking hands; some eating
of their private hoards, others buying and selling horses, others
again whooping like lunatics.

In the city the shops, long shut, were being opened, orderlies were
riding to and fro, crowds were hurrying to the churches to pray for
the King's success; a general stir of relief and expectancy was
abroad. The sunshine still fell hot on the streets, but under it life
moved and throbbed. The apathy of suffering was gone, and with it the
savage gloom that had darkened innumerable brows. From window and
dormer, from low door-ways, from carven eaves and gables, gaunt faces
looked down on the stir, and pale lips prayed, and dull eyes glowed
with hope.

While I was still a long way off I saw my lady at the oriel watching
for me. I saw her face light up when she caught sight of me; and if,
after that, I could have found any excuse for loitering in the street,
or putting off my report, I should have been thankful. But there was
no escape. In a moment the animation of the street was behind me, the
silence of the house 'fell round me, and I stood before her. She was
alone. I think that Marie had been with her; if so, she had sent her
away.

'Well?' she said, looking keenly at me, and doubtless drawing her
conclusions from my face. 'The Count was away?'

'No, my lady.'

'Then--you saw him?' with surprise.

'Yes.'

'And gave him the letter?'

'Yes, my lady.'

'Well'--this with impatience, and her foot began to tap the
floor--'did he give you no answer?'

'No, my lady.'

She looked astonished, offended, then troubled. 'Neither in writing
nor by word of mouth?' she said faintly.

'Only--that the King was about to give battle,' I stammered; 'and
that if he survived, he would answer your excellency.'

She started, and looked at me searchingly, her colour fading
gradually. 'That was all!' she said at last, a quaver in her voice.
'Tell me all, Martin. Count Leuchtenstein was offended, was he not?'

'I think that he was hurt, your excellency,' I confessed. 'He thought
that the news about his child--should have been sent to him sooner.
That was all.'

'All!' she ejaculated; and for a moment she said no more, but with
that word, which thrilled me, she began to pace the floor. 'All!' she
repeated presently. 'But I--yes, I am justly punished. I cannot
confess to him; I will confess to you. Your girl would have had me
tell him this, or let her tell him this. She pressed me; she went on
her knees to me that evening. But I hardened my heart, and now I am
punished. I am justly punished.'

I was astonished. Not that she took it lightly, for there was that in
her tone as well as in her face that forbade the thought; but that she
took it with so little passion, without tears or anger, and having
been schooled so seldom in her life bore this schooling so patiently.
She stood for a time after she had spoken, looking from the window
with a wistful air, and her head drooping; and I fancied that she had
forgotten my presence. But by-and-by she began to ask questions about
the camp, and the preparations, and what men thought of the issue, and
whether Wallenstein would come down from his heights or the King be
driven to the desperate task of assaulting them. I told her all that I
had heard. Then she said quietly that she would go to church; and she
sent me to call Fraulein Max to go with her.

I found the Dutch girl sitting in a corner with her back to the
windows, through which Marie and the women were gazing at the bustle
and uproar and growing excitement of the street. She was reading in a
great dusty book, and did not look up when I entered. Seeing her so
engrossed, I had the curiosity to ask her, before I gave her my lady's
message, what the book was.

'"The Siege of Leyden,"' she said, lifting her pale face for an
instant, and then returning to her reading. 'By Bor.'

I could not refrain from smiling. It seemed to me so whimsical that
she could find interest in the printed page, in this second-hand
account of a siege, and none in the actual thing, though she had only
to go to the window to see it passing before her eyes. Doubtless she
read in Bor how men and women thronged the streets of Leyden to hear
each new rumour; how at every crisis the bells summoned the unarmed to
church; how through long days and nights the citizens waited for
relief--and she found these things of interest. But here were the same
portents passing before her eyes, and she read Bor!

'You are busy, I am afraid,' I said.

'I am using my time,' she answered primly.

'I am sorry,' I rejoined; 'for my lady wants you to go to church with
her.'

She shut up her book with peevish violence, and looked at me with her
weak eyes. 'Why does not your Papist go with her?' she said
spitefully. 'And then you could do without me. As you do without me
when you have secrets to tell! But I suppose you have brought things
to such a pass now that there is nothing for it but church. And so I
am called in!'

'I have given my lady's message,' I said patiently.

'Oh, I know that you are a faithful messenger!' she replied mockingly.
'Who writes love letters grows thin; who carries them, fat. You are
growing a big man, Master Martin.'

                            CHAPTER XXXV.

                        ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

That was a night that saw few in Nuremberg sleep soundly. Under the
moon the great city lay waiting; watching and fasting through the
short summer night. Hour by hour the solemn voices of sentinels,
tramping the walls and towers, told the tale of time; to men, who,
hearing it, muttered a prayer, and, turning on the other side, slept
again; to women, who lay, trembling and sleepless, their every breath
a prayer. For who would see the next night? Who that went out would
come in? How many, parting at dawn, would meet again? The howling of
the dogs that, wild as wolves, roved round the camp and scratched in
the shallow graveyards, made dreary answer. Many there were, even then
I remember, who thought the King foolhardy, and preached patience; and
would have had him still sit quiet and play the game of starvation
against his enemy, even to the bitter end. But these were of the
harder sort--men who, with brain, might have been Wallensteins. And
few of them knew the real state of things. I say nothing of the city.
Who died there in those months, in holes and corners and dark places,
the magistrates may have known, no others. But in the camp, for many
days before the King marched out, a hundred men died of plague and
want every day; so that in the sum, twenty thousand men entered his
lines who never left them. Moderate men set the loss of the city at
ten thousand more. Add to these items that the plague was increasing,
that all stores of food were nearly exhausted, that if the issue were
longer delayed the cavalry would have no horses on which to advance or
retreat, and it will be clear, I think, that the King, whose judgment
had never yet deceived him, was right in this also. Or, if he erred,
it was on the side of mercy.

At dawn all the northern walls and battlements were covered with
white-faced women, come together to see the army leave the camp, in
which it had lain so many weeks. I went up with my lady to the Burg,
whence we could command, not only the city with its necklace of walls
and towers, but the camp encircling it like another and greater city,
encompassed in its turn with gates and ramparts and bastions. And,
beyond this, we had an incomparable view of the country; of our own
stream, the Pegnitz, gliding away through the level plain, to fall
presently into the Rednitz; of the Rednitz, a low line of willows,
running athwart the western meadows; and beyond this, a league and a
half away, of the frowning heights of the Alta Veste, where
Wallenstein hung, vulture-like, waiting to pounce on the city.

As the sun rose behind us, the shadow of the Burg on which we stood
fell almost to the foot of the distant heights, and covered, as with a
pall, the departing army, which was beginning to pass out of the camp
by the northern and western gates. At the same time the level beams
shone on the dark brow of the Alta Veste, and caught there the flash
of lurking steel. I think that the hearts of many among us sank at the
omen.

If so, it was not for long, for the sun rose swiftly in the summer sky
and, as it overtopped our little eminence, showed us an innumerable
host pressing out of the camp in long lines, like ants from a hill.
While we gazed, they began to swarm on the plain between the city and
the Rednitz. The colours of a thousand waving pennons, the sheen of a
forest of lances, the duller gleam of cannon crawling slowly along the
roads, caught the sun and the eye; but between them moved other and
darker masses--the regiments of East and West Gothland, the Smäland
horse, Stalhanske's Finns, the Yellow and Blue regiments, the sombre,
steady veterans of the Swedish force, marching with a neatness and
wheeling with a precision, noticeable even at that distance.

Doubtless it was a grand and splendid sight, this marching out of a
hundred thousand men--for the army fell little short of that
prodigious number--under the first captain of the age, to fight before
the walls of the richest city in the world. And I have often taken
blame to myself and regretted that I did not regard it with closer
attention, and imprint it more carefully on my memory. But at the time
I was anxious. Somewhere in that great host rode the Waldgrave and
Count Leuchtenstein; and I looked for them, though I had no hope of
finding them. Then little things continually diverted the mind. A
single waggon, which broke down at the gate below us, and could not
for a time be removed, swelled into a matter that obstructed my view
of the whole army; an officer, whose horse ran away in an orchard at
our feet, became, for a moment, more important than a hundred banners.
When I had done with these trifles, the sun had climbed halfway up the
sky, and the foremost troops were already crossing the Rednitz by
Furth, with a sound of trumpets and the flashing of corselets.

A cannon shot, and then another, and then long rolling thunder from
the heights, over which a pillar of smoke began to gather. My lady
sighed. Below us, in the streets, on the walls, on the towers, women
and men fell on their knees and prayed aloud. Across the plain
horsemen galloped this way or that, hurrying the laggards through the
dust. The great battle was beginning.

And then on a sudden the firing ceased; the pillar of smoke on the
heights melted away; the rear-guard and the cloud of dust in which it
moved, rolled farther and farther towards the Rednitz and Furth--and
still the guns remained silent. It was noon by this time; soon it was
afternoon. But the suspense was so great that no one went away to eat;
and still the silence prevailed.

Towards two o'clock I persuaded the Countess to go to her lodgings to
eat; but within the hour she was back again. An officer on the Burg,
who had a perspective glass, reported that Wallenstein was moving;
that cannon and troops could be seen passing through the trees on the
Alta Veste, as if he were descending to meet the King; and for a time
our excitement rose to the highest pitch. But before sunset, news came
that he was quiet; that the King was forming a new camp beyond the
Rednitz, and almost under the enemy's guns; and that the battle would
take place on the morrow.

The morrow! It seemed to some of us, it was always the morrow. Yet I
think that we slept better that night. Earliest dawn saw us again on
the Burg, staring and straining our eyes westwards. But minutes
passed, hours passed, the sun rose and declined, and still no sound of
battle reached us. Women, with pinched faces, clutched babies to their
breasts; men, pale and stern, gazed into the distance. Those who had
murmured that the King was too hasty, murmured now that he dallied;
for every day the grip of famine grew tighter, its signs more marked.
This evening all my lady's horses were requisitioned and carried off,
to mount the King's staff, it was said, of whom some were going afoot.

A third day rose on the anxious city, and yet a fourth, and still the
armies stood inactive. Communication with the new camp was easy, but
as each day, and all day, a battle was expected, such news as we heard
rather heightened than relieved our fears. On this fourth morning, I
received a message from the Waldgrave, asking me to come to him in the
camp; that he had something to say to me, and could not leave.

I was not unwilling to see for myself how things stood there; and I
determined to go. I did not tell the Countess, however, nor Marie,
thinking it useless to alarm them; but I left Steve in charge, and,
bidding him be on his guard, promised to be back by noon at the
latest. As I had no horse, I had to do the journey on foot, and soon
was down in the plain myself, threading the orchards and plodding
along the trampled roads, where so many thousands had preceded me. The
ground in some spots was actually ploughed up; dust covered
everything; the trees were bruised, the fences broken down. Old
boots and shattered pike-staves marked the route, and here and
there--saddest sight of all--dead horses, fast breeding the plague.
The sky, for the first time for days, was clouded, and making the most
of the coolness I gained the river bank by nine o'clock, and crossing
found myself close to the new camp.

The army had just marched out, yet the lines seemed full. The King had
strictly forbidden all women and camp-followers to cross the Rednitz;
but an army in these days needs so many drivers and sutlers that I
found myself one among thousands. I asked for the Waldgrave, and got
as many answers as there were men within hearing. One said that he was
with his regiment of horse on the left flank; another, that he was
with Duke Bernard's staff; a third, that he was not with the army at
all. Despairing of hearing anything in the confusion, I was in two
minds about turning back; but in the end I took heart of grace and
determined to seek him in the field.

Fortunately, the last regiments had barely cleared the lines, and a
few minutes' rapid walking set me abreast of the rearmost, which
was hastening into position. Here also at the first glance I saw
nothing but confusion; but a second resolved the mass into two
parts, and then I saw that the King's army lay in two long lines
facing the heights. An interval of about three hundred paces
divided the lines, but behind each was a small reserve. In the
first were most of the German regiments, the second being composed
of Finns, Swedes, and Northerners. The cavalry were grouped on the
flanks, and seemed stronger on the left flank. In the rear of all,
as well as in gaps left between the pikes and musketmen, were the
King's ordnance--drakes, serpents, falcons, and cartows, with the
light two- and four-pounders for which he was famous.

Such an array--so many thousand men, gay with steel, and a thousand
pennons--seemed to the eye to be invincible; and I looked for the
enemy. He was not to be seen, but fronting the lines at a distance of
three or four hundred paces rose the Alta Veste--a steep, rugged hill,
scarred and seamed, and planted thickly with pines and jagged stumps
and undergrowth. Here and there among the trees great rocks peeped
out, or dark holes yawned. The dry beds of two torrents furrowed this
natural glacis; and opposite these I noticed that our strongest
regiments were placed. But of the enemy I could see nothing, except
here and there a sparkle of steel among the trees; I could hear
nothing, except now and then the fall of a stone, that, slipping under
an unseen foot, fell from ledge to ledge until it reached the plain.

Everywhere the hush of expectation stirred the heart; for in the
presence of that great host silence seemed a thing supernatural. As
the regiment I had joined, the last to arrive, wheeled into position
in the middle of the right wing, I asked one of the officers, who
stood near me, if the enemy had retired.

'Wait!' he said grimly--he spoke with a foreign accent--'and you will
see. But to what regiment do you belong, comrade?'

'To none here,' I said.

He looked astonished, and asked me what I was doing there, then.

I had my lips apart to answer him, when a trumpet sounded, and in an
instant, all along the line, the Swedish cannon began to fire, shaking
the earth and filling the air round us with smoke, that in a twinkling
hid everything. This lasted for two or three minutes with a deafening
noise; but as far as I could hear, the enemy were still silent. I was
wondering what would happen next, and hoping that they had given up
the position, when my new friend touched my arm and pointed to the
front. I peered through the smoke, and saw dimly that the regiment
before us, a German brigade about eight hundred strong, was moving on
at a run and making for the hill. A minute elapsed, the smoke rolled
between. I listened, trembling. Afterwards I learned that at the same
moment two other parties sprang forward and dashed to the assault.

Then, at last, with an ear-splitting roar that seemed to silence our
guns, the enemy spoke. The hill in front, hidden the second before by
smoke, became in a moment visible, lit up by a thousand darting
flames. Dark masses seemed to topple down, rocks hung midway in air,
and involuntarily I stepped back and uttered a cry of horror. Out of
that hell of fire came an answering wail of shrieks and curses--the
feeble voice of man!

'Ach Gott!' I said, trembling. My hair stood on end.

'Steady, comrade, steady!' muttered the man who had before spoken to
me. 'Presently it will be our turn.'

He had scarcely spoken, when a man came riding along the front with
his hat in his hand. He rode a white horse, and wore no back or
breast, nor, as far as I could see, any armour.

'Steady, Swedes, steady!' he cried in a loud voice--he was a big,
stout man with a fine presence. 'Your time will come by-and-by. Then
remember Breitenfeld!'

It was the King of Sweden. In a moment he was gone, passing along the
lines; and I drew breath again, wondering what would happen next. I
had not long to wait. Men came straggling back across our front, some
wounded, some helping their comrades along, all with faces ghastly
under the powder-stains. And then like magic a new regiment stood
before us, where the other had stood. Again the King's guns pealed
along the line, again I heard the hoarse cry 'Vorwärts!' waited a
minute, and once more the hill seemed to be rent by the explosion.
From every cave and ledge guns flashed forth, lighting up the smoke.
The roar died away again--slowly, from west to east--in cries and
shrieks; and presently a few men, scores where there had been
hundreds, came wandering back like ghosts through the reek.

'This looks ill!' I muttered. I was no longer scared. The gunpowder
was getting into my head.

'Pooh!' my friend answered. 'This is only the beginning. It will take
men to fill that gap. Wait till our turn comes.'

By this time the Waldgrave and my errand were forgotten, and I thought
only of the battle. I watched two more assaults, saw two more
regiments hurl themselves vainly against the fiery breast of the hill;
then came a diversion. As the scattered fragments of the last came
reeling back, a sudden roar of many voices startled me. The ground
seemed to shake, and right across our front came a charge of
horse--out of the smoke and into the smoke! In an instant our
stragglers were trodden down, cut up, and swept away, before our eyes
and within shot of us.

The men round me uttered shouts of rage. The line swayed, there was an
instant's confusion. Then a harsh voice cried above the tumult,
'Steady, Gothlanders, steady! Pikes forward! Blow your matches!
Steady! steady!' and in a twinkling, with a crash, such as the ninth
wave makes when it falls on a pebbly beach, the horse were on us. I
had a glimpse through the smoke of rearing breasts, and floating
manes, and grinning teeth, and of men's faces grim and white, held low
behind the steel; and I struck out blindly with my half-pike. Still
they came on, and something hit me on the chest and I fell: but
instantly a clash of long pikes met over my body, and I scrambled to
my feet unhurt! Then a dozen spurts of flame leapt out round me, and
the horsemen seemed to melt away.

Into the smoke; but before I had time to know that they were gone,
they had wheeled and were back again like the wind, led by a man on a
black horse, who came on so gallantly to the very pike-points, that I
thought it must be Pappenheim himself. He wore the black breastplate
and helmet of Pappenheim's cuirassiers; and it was only when his horse
reared up on end within a pike's length of me, and he fired his pistol
among us, wounding two men, that I espied under the helmet the stern
face and flashing eyes of Tzerclas. He recognised me at the same
moment, and hurling his empty pistol in my face, tried to spur his
horse over me. But the long pikes meeting before me kept him off, his
men vanished, some falling, some flying, and in a moment he stood
almost alone.

Even then his courage did not fail him. Scornfully eyeing our line
from end to end, he hurled a bitter taunt at us, and wheeling his
horse coolly, prepared to ride off. I think that we should have let
him go, in pure admiration of his courage. But a wounded man on whom
he trod houghed the horse with his sword. In a moment he was down, and
two men running out of the line, fixed him to the earth with their
pikes.

I confess, for myself, I would have spared him for his courage; and I
ran to him to see if he was dead. He was not quite gone. He recognised
me, and tried to speak. Forgetting the dangers round me, the uproar
and tumult, the dim figures of men and horses flying through the
smoke, I knelt down by him.

'What is it?' I said. After all, he was my lady's cousin.

'Tell him--tell him--the child! He will never get it!' he breathed.
With each word the blood-stained froth rose to his lips, and he
clutched my hand in a cold grip.

He strove to say something more, and raised himself with a last effort
on his elbow. 'Tell her,' he gasped, his dark face distorted--'tell
her--I--I----'

No more. His eyes turned, his head fell back. He was dead. What he
would have said of my lady, whether he would have sent her a message
or what, no man will know here. But I fancied it like the man, who
might have been great had he ever given a thought to others, that his
last word was--"I."

His head was scarcely down before I had to run back within the pikes.
A fresh charge of horse swept over him, we received them with a
volley; they broke, and a Swedish regiment, the West Gothland horse,
rode them down. Meanwhile our man[oe]uvres had brought us insensibly
into the first line. I found that we were close under the hill, and I
was not surprised when a handful of horse whirled up to us out of the
_mêlée_, and one, disengaging himself from the others, rode along our
front. It was the King. His face was stained with powder, his horse
was bleeding, a ball had ripped up his boot; it was said that he had
been placing and pointing cannon with his own hands. But as the
regiment greeted him with a hoarse cheer, he smiled as if he had been
in a ball-room.

He raised his hand for silence; such silence as could be obtained
where every moment men shot off a cannon, and at no great distance a
mortal combat was in progress.

'Men of Gothland!' he cried, in a clear, ringing voice, 'it is your
turn now! You are My children. Take me this hill! Be steady, strike
home, flinch not! Show these Germans what you can do! The word is, God
with us. Remember St. Bartholomew's, and Forward! Forward! Forward!'

My heart beat furiously; but there was no retreat. Rather than be left
standing on the ground, I would have died there. In a moment we were
moving on elbow to elbow, with a stern, heavy step. Some one struck up
a Swedish psalm, and to the thunder of its rhythm we strode on--on to
the very foot of the hill; on, until we reached the rough shale, and
the rugged steep stood above us. With a gallant shout an officer flung
his hat on to the slope, a score of Ritt-Meisters sprang forward
together; and then for a moment we and all things seemed to stand
still. The wood above us belched fire, the eyes were blinded, the ears
stunned, rocks and stones rolled down, all creation seemed to be
falling on us in fearful ruin. Men were hurled this way and that, or
fell in their places, or, reeling to and fro, clutched one another.
For an instant, I say, we stood still.

But for an instant only. Then with a shout of rage the Swedes
sprang forward, and grasping boughs, stumps, rocks, swung themselves
up, doing such things in their fury as no cool man could do.
A row of jagged stakes barred the way; men set their naked breasts
against them, and others climbed over on their shoulders. Bleeding,
wounded, singed, torn by splinters, all who lived climbed. To get
up--up--up--higher, in face of the storm of shot and iron; up, over
the bursting mines and through the smoke; up, to where they stood and
butchered us, was the only instinct left.

And we did get up--to a bastion, jutting from the hillside, where a
company of picked men with pikes and three cannons waited for us
behind a breastwork. They thought to stop us, and stood firm; our men
were mad. Flinging themselves against the mouths of the cannon, they
scaled the work in a moment, and left not one defender alive!

God with us!

Stern and high the shout rang out; but breath was everything, and the
scarp still rose above us and the shot still tore our ranks! On! Up a
torrent bed now, round one corner and another, to where we were a
little out of the line of fire, and an overhanging shoulder covered
us. Here we had room to take breath; and for the first time, some
hope of life, of ultimate escape, entered my breast. The officer
who led us--I learned afterwards that he was the great General
Torstensohn--cried, 'Well done, Swedes!' and with the confidence of
giants we were once more breasting the ascent, when a withering
volley, poured in at short range, checked the head of the column.
Before we could recover way, a body of pikes rushed to meet us, and in
an instant, having the vantage of the ground, rolled us, still
fighting desperately, down the steep. The general was swept away, the
Ritt-Meisters were down. Once we rallied, but ineffectually. The enemy
were reinforced, and in a moment the rout was complete.

At the moment the tide turned and our men fell back, I happened to be
against the rock-wall, in something of a niche; and the stream passed
me by. I had two slight wounds, and I stood an instant, giddy and
confused, taking breath. The instant showed me my comrades in the act
of being slaughtered one by one, and a great horror seized me. I found
no hope anywhere. Below were the cruel pikes, in a moment their savage
bearers would be reascending; above were the enemy. But above, if I
climbed on, I might live a little while; and in that desperate hope I
scrambled out of the torrent bed and up the sheer hill on the right.
Two or three saw me from the torrent bed, and fired at me; and others
shouted, and began to follow. But I only pressed on, right up the
scarp, which was there like the side of a house.

A dozen times I all but fell back; still in a fever of dread I kept
on. The sweat poured down me; I had no hope or aim, I thought only of
the pikes behind. Presently I came to a jutting shoulder that all but
overhung me; to pass it seemed to be impossible. But in my frenzy I
did the impossible. I swung myself from root to root; where one stone
gave, I clutched another, and yet another; I hung on with tooth and
nail. I flattened myself against the rock. I heard the pursuers rail
and curse, heard the bullets strike the earth round me, and then in a
moment I was up.

Up; but only to come instantly on a wall crossing the steep and
barring my way, and to find a dozen pikes levelled at my breast.
Desperate, giving up hope at last--I had long dropped my weapon--I
cried mechanically, 'God with us!' and threw up my arms.

I nearly fell backwards--for what did it matter? But the men were
quick. In a moment one had me by the collar. 'And God! They were
friends! They were friends, and I was saved.

One of the first faces that I saw, as I leaned breathless against the
wall, unable for the time to answer the questions that poured upon me,
was the Waldgrave's--the Waldgrave's, with the light of battle in his
eyes, a laugh of triumph on his lips. He was wounded, bandaged,
blackened, his fair hair singed; but he was happy. Presently I
understood why; and why I was safe and among friends.

'A little earlier,' he said--he seemed in his exaltation not a whit
surprised to see me--'and you would have had a different reception,
Martin. We only turned them out of this an hour ago!'

All his superior officers had fallen, and his had been the voice that
had cheered on the forlorn, to which he was attached--acting from the
right flank--and heartened them, just when all seemed lost, to make
one more effort, ending in the capture of this sconce. Joined to the
mass of the hill only by a narrow neck, it commanded the enemy's
position.

'We only want cannon!' he said, and in a moment I was as one of the
garrison. 'Three guns, and the day is ours. When will they come? When
will they come?'

'You have sent for them?'

'I have sent a dozen times.'

And he sent as many times more; while we, a mere handful, tired and
worn and famished, but every man with a hero's thoughts, leaned
against the breastwork, and gazed down into the plain, where, under
the smoke, pigmy troops rushed to and fro, and Nuremberg's fate hung
in the balance. In an hour it would be night. And still no
reinforcements came, no cannon.

Thrice the enemy tried to drive us out. But the neck was narrow,
and, pressed along their front by three assaults, they came on
half-heartedly and fell back lightly; and we held it. In the mean
time, it became more and more clear that elsewhere the day was going
against us. Until night fell, and through long hours of darkness,
forlorn after forlorn was flung against the heights--in vain. Regiment
after regiment, the core of the Swedish army, came on undaunted, only
to be repulsed with awful loss; with the single exception of the
Waldgrave's little sconce not a foot of the hill was captured.

About nine o'clock reinforcements reached us, and some food, but no
guns. Two hours later the King drew sullenly back into his lines, and
the attack ceased. Even then we looked to see the fight resumed with
the dawn; we looked still for victory and revenge. We could not
believe that all was over. But towards three o'clock in the morning
rain fell, rendering the slopes slippery and impassable; and with the
first flush of sunrise came an order from Prince Bernard directing us
to withdraw.

Perhaps the defeat fell as lightly on the Waldgrave as on any man,
though to him it was a huge disappointment. For he alone of all had
made his footing good. I thought that it was that which made him look
so cheerful; but while the rank and file were falling in, he came to
me.

'Well, Martin,' he said. 'We are both veterans now.'

I laughed. The rain had ceased. The sun was getting up, and the air
was fresh. Far off in the plain the city sparkled with a thousand
gems. I thought of Marie, I thought of life, and I thanked God that I
was alive.

'I have an errand for you,' he continued, a laugh in his eyes. 'Come
and see what we took yesterday, besides this sconce.'

At the back of the work were two low huts, that had perhaps been
guardrooms or officers' quarters. He led the way into one, bending his
head as he passed under the low lintel.

'An odd place,' he said.

'Yes, my lord.'

'Yes, but I mean--an odd place for what I found here,' he rejoined.
'Look, man.'

There were two low bunks in the hut, and on these and on the floor lay
a medley of soldiers' cloaks, pouches, weapons, and ammunition. There
was blood on the one wall and the door was shattered, and in a corner,
thrown one on another, were two corpses. The Waldgrave took no heed of
these, but stepped to the corner bunk and drew away a cloak that lay
on it. Something--the sound in that place scared me as a cannon-shot
would not have--began to wail. On the bed, staring at us between tears
and wonder, lay a child.

'So!' I said, and stared at it.

'Do you know it?' the Waldgrave asked.

'Know it? No,' I answered.

'Are you sure?' he replied, smiling. 'Look again.'

'Not I!' I said. 'How did it come here? A child! A baby! It is
horrible.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'We found it in this hut; in that bed. A
man to whom we gave quarter said it was----'

'No!' I shouted.

'Yes,' he answered, nodding.

'Tzerclas' child! Count Leuchtenstein's child! Do you mean it?' I
cried.

He nodded. 'Tzerclas' child, the man said. The other's child, I guess.
Nay, I am certain. It knows your girl's name.'

'Marie's?'

The Waldgrave nodded. 'Take it up,' he said. 'And take charge of it.'

But I only stared at it. The thing seemed too wonderful to be true. I
told the Waldgrave of Tzerclas' death, and of what he had muttered
about the child.

'Yes, he was a clever man,' the Waldgrave answered. 'But, you see, God
has proved too clever for him. Come, take it, man.'

I took it. 'I had better carry it straight to the Count's quarters?' I
said.

The Waldgrave paused, looked away, then looked at me. 'No,' he said at
last, and slowly, 'take it to Lady Rotha. Let her give it to him.'

I understood him, I guessed all he meant; but I made no answer, and we
went out together. The rain was still in the air, but the sky was
blue, the distance clear. The spire of the distant city shone like my
lady's amethysts. Below us the dead lay in thousands. But we were
alive.

                            CHAPTER XXXVI.

                          A WINGLESS CUPID.

That was a dreary procession that a little before noon on the 25th of
August wound its way back into Nuremberg. The King, repulsed but not
defeated, remained in his camp beyond the Rednitz, and with trumpets
sounding and banners displayed, strove vainly to tempt his wily
antagonist into the plain. Those who returned on this day, therefore,
carrying with them the certain news of ill-fortune, were the wounded
and the useless, a few prisoners, two or three envoys, half a dozen
horse-dealers, and a train of waggons bearing crippled and dying men
to the hospital.

Of this company I made one, and I doubt if there were six others who
bore in their breasts hearts as light, or who could look on the sunny
roofs and peaked gables of the city with eyes as cheerful. Prince
Bernard had spoken kindly to me; the King had sent for me to inquire
where I last saw General Torstensohn; I had stood up a man amongst
men; and I deemed these things cheaply bought at the cost of a little
blood. On the other hand, the horrors of the day were still so fresh
in my mind that my heart overflowed with thankfulness and the love of
life; feelings which welled up anew whenever I looked abroad and saw
the Rednitz flowing gently between the willows, or looked within and
pictured the Werra rippling swiftly down the shallows under cool shade
of oak and birch and alder.

Add to all these things one more. I had just learned that Count
Leuchtenstein lived and was unhurt, and on the saddle before me under
a cloak I bore his son. More than one asked me what booty I had taken,
where others had found only lead or steel, that I hugged my treasure
so closely and smiled to myself. But I gave them no answer. I only
held the child the tighter, and pushing on more quickly, reached the
city a little after twelve.

I say nothing of the gloomy looks and sad faces that I encountered at
the gate, of the sullen press that would hardly give way, or of the
thousand questions I had to parry. I hardened my heart, and,
disengaging myself as quickly as I could, I rode straight to my lady's
lodgings; and it was fortunate that I did so. For I was only just in
time. As I dismounted at the door--receiving such a welcome from Steve
and the other men as almost discovered my treasure, whether I would or
no--I saw Count Leuchtenstein turn into the street by the other end
and ride slowly towards me, a trooper behind him.

The men would have detained me. They wanted to hear the news and the
details of the battle, and where I had been. But I thrust my way
through them and darted in.

Quick as I was, one was still quicker, and as I went out of the light
into the cool darkness of the entrance, flew down the stairs to meet
me, and, before I could see, was in my arms, covering me with tears
and laughter and little cries of thanksgiving. How the child fared
between us I do not know, for for a minute I forgot it, my lady, the
Count, everything, in the sweetness of that greeting; in the clinging
of those slender arms round my neck, and the joy of the little face
given up to my kisses.

But in a moment, the child, being, I suppose, half choked between us,
uttered a feeble cry; and Marie sprang back, startled and scared, and
perhaps something more.

'What is it?' she cried, beginning to tremble. 'What have you got?'

I did not know how to tell her on the instant, and I had no time to
prepare her, and I stood stammering.

Suddenly,'Give it to me!' she cried in a strange voice.

But I thought that in the fulness of her joy and surprise she might
swoon or something, and I held back. 'You won't drop it,' I said
feebly, 'when you know what it is?'

Her eyes flashed in the half light. 'Fool!' she cried--yes, though I
could scarcely believe my ears. 'Give it to me.'

I was so taken aback that I gave it up meekly on the spot. She flew
off with it into a corner, and jealously turned her back on me before
she uncovered the child; then all in a moment she fell to crying, and
laughing, crooning over it and making strange noises. I heard the
Count's horse at the door, and I stepped to her.

'You are sure that it _is_ your child?' I said.

'_Sure?_' she cried; and she darted a glance at me that for scorn
outdid all my lady's.

After that I had no doubt left. 'Then bring it to the Countess, my
girl,' I said. 'He is here. And it is she who should give it to him.'

'Who is here?' she cried sharply.

'Count Leuchtenstein.'

She stared at me for a moment, and then suddenly quailed and broke
down, as it were. She blushed crimson; her eyes looked at me
piteously, like those of a beaten dog.

'Oh,' she said, 'I forgot that it was you!'

'Never mind that,' I said. 'Take the child to my lady.'

She nodded, in quick comprehension. As the Count crossed the threshold
below, she sped up the stairs, and I after her. My lady was in the
parlour, walking the length of it impatiently, with a set face; but
whether the impatience was on my account, because I had delayed below
so long, or on the Count's, whose arrival she had probably seen from
the window, I will not say, for as I entered and before she could
speak, Marie ran to her with the child and placed it in her arms.

My lady turned for a moment quite pale. 'What is it?' she said
faintly, holding it from her awkwardly.

Marie cried out between laughing and crying, 'The child! The child, my
lady.'

'And Count Leuchtenstein is on the stairs,' I said.

The colour swept back into the Countess's face in a flood and covered
it from brow to neck. For a moment, taken by surprise, she forgot her
pride and looked at us shyly, timidly. 'Where--where did you recover
it?' she murmured.

'The Waldgrave recovered it,' I answered hurriedly, 'and sent it to
your excellency, that you might give it to Count Leuchtenstein.'

'The Waldgrave!' she cried.

'Yes, my lady, with that message,' I answered strenuously.

The Countess looked to Marie for help. I could hear steps on the
stairs--at the door; and I suppose that the two women settled it with
their eyes. For no words passed, but in a twinkling Marie snatched the
child, which was just beginning to cry, from the Countess and ran away
with it through an inner door. As that door fell to, the other opened,
and Ernst announced Count Leuchtenstein.

He came in, looking embarrassed, and a little stiff. His buff coat
showed marks of the corselet--he had not changed it--and his boots
were dusty. It seemed to me that he brought in a faint reek of powder
with him, but I forgot this the next moment in the look of melancholy
kindness I espied in his eyes--a look that enabled me for the first
time to see him as my lady saw him.

She met him very quietly, with a heightened colour, but the most
perfect self-possession. I marvelled to see how in a moment she was
herself again.

'I rejoice to see you safe, Count Leuchtenstein,' she said. 'I heard
early this morning that you were unhurt.'

'Yes,' he answered. 'I have not a scratch, where so many younger men
have fallen.'

'Alas! there will be tears on many hearths,' my lady said.

'Yes. Poor Germany!' he answered. 'Poor Germany! It is a fearful
thing. God forgive us who have to do with the making of war. Yet we
may hope, as long as our young men show such valour and courage as
some showed yesterday; and none more conspicuously than the Waldgrave
Rupert.'

'I am glad,' my lady said, colouring, 'that he justified your
interference on his behalf, Count Leuchtenstein. It was right that he
should; and right that I should do more--ask your pardon for the
miserable ingratitude of which my passion made me guilty a while ago.'

'Countess!' he cried.

'No,' she said, stopping him with a gesture full of dignity. 'You must
hear me out, for now that I have confessed, we are quits. I behaved
ill--so ill that I deserved a heavy punishment. You thought so--and
inflicted it!'

Her voice dropped with the last words. He turned very red, and looked
at her wistfully; but I suppose that he dared not draw conclusions.
For he remained silent, and she resumed, more lightly.

'So Rupert did well yesterday?' she said. 'I am glad, for he will be
pleased.'

'He did more than well!' Count Leuchtenstein answered, with awkward
warmth. 'He distinguished himself in the face of the whole army. His
courage and coolness were above praise. As we have----' The Count
paused, then blundered on hastily--'quarrelled, dare I say, Countess,
over him, I am anxious to make him the ground of our reconciliation
also. I have formed the highest opinion of him; and I hope to advance
his interests in every way.'

My lady raised her eyebrows. 'With me?' she said quaintly.

The Count fidgeted, and looked very ill at ease. 'May I speak quite
plainly?' he said at last.

'Surely,' the Countess answered.

'Then it can be no secret to you that he has--formed an attachment to
you. It would be strange if he had not,' the Count added gallantly.

'And he has asked you to speak for him?' my lady exclaimed, in an odd
tone.

'No, not exactly. But----'

'You think that it--it would be a good match for me,' she said, her
voice trembling, but whether with tears or laughter, I could not tell.
'You think that, being a woman, and for the present houseless, and
almost friendless, I should do well to marry him?'

'He is a brave and honest man,' the Count muttered, looking all
ways--and looking very miserable. 'And he loves you!' he added with an
effort.

'And you think that I should marry him?' my lady persisted
mercilessly. 'Answer me, if you please, Count Leuchtenstein, or you
are a poor ambassador.'

'I am not an ambassador,' he replied, thus goaded. 'But I
thought----'

'That I ought to marry him?'

'If you love him,' the Count muttered.

My lady took a turn to the window, looked out, and came back. When she
spoke at last, I could not tell whether the harshness in her voice was
real or assumed.

'I see how it is,' she said, 'very clearly, Count Leuchtenstein. I
have confessed, and I have been punished; but I am not forgiven. I
must do something more, it seems. Wait!'

He was going to protest, to remonstrate, to deny; but she was gone,
out through the door, to return on the instant with something in her
arms. She took it to the Count and held it out to him.

'See!' she said, her voice broken by sobs; 'it is your child. God has
given it back again. God has given it to you, because you trusted in
Him. It is your child.'

He stood as if turned to stone. 'Is it?' he said at last, in a low,
strained voice. 'Is it? Then thank God for His mercy to my house. But
how--shall I know it?'

'The girl knows it. Marie knows it,' my lady cried; 'and the child
knows her. And Martin--Martin will tell you how it was found--how the
Waldgrave found it.'

'The Waldgrave?' the Count cried.

'Yes, the Waldgrave,' she answered; 'and he sent it to me to give to
you.'

Then I went to him and told him all I knew; and Marie, who, like my
lady, was laughing through her tears, took the child, and showed him
how it knew her, and remembered my name and my lady's, and had this
mark and that mark, and so forth, until he was convinced; and while in
that hour all Nuremberg outside our house mourned and lamented,
within, I think, there were as thankful hearts as anywhere in the
world, so that even Steve, when he came peeping through the door to
see what was the matter, went blubbering down again.

Presently Count Leuchtenstein said something handsome to Marie about
her care of the child, and slipping off a gold chain that he was
wearing, threw it round her neck, with a pleasant word to me. Marie,
covered with blushes, took this as a signal to go, and would have left
the child with his father; but the boy objected strongly, and the
Count, with a laugh, bade her take him.

'If he were a little older!' he said. 'But I have not much
accommodation for a child in my quarters. Next week I am going to
Cassel, and then----'

'You will take him with you?' my lady said.

The Count looked at the closing door, as it fell to behind Marie, and
when the latch dropped, he spoke. 'Countess,' he said bluntly, 'have I
misunderstood you?'

My lady's eyes fell. 'I do not know,' she said softly. 'I should think
not. I have spoken very plainly.'

'I am almost an old man,' he said, looking at her kindly, 'and you are
a young woman. Have you been amusing yourself at my expense?'

The Countess shook her head. 'No,' she said, with a gleam of laughter
in her eyes; 'I have done with that. I began to amuse myself with
General Tzerclas, and I found it so perilous a pleasure that I
determined to forswear it. Though,' she added, looking down and
playing with her bracelet, 'why I should tell you this, I do not
know.'

'Because--henceforth I hope that you will tell me everything,' the
Count said suddenly.

'Very well,' my lady answered, colouring deeply.

'And will be my wife?'

'I will--if you desire it.'

The Count walked to the window and returned. 'That is not enough,' he
said, looking at her with a smile of infinite tenderness. 'It must not
be unless _you_ desire it; for I have all to gain, you little or
nothing. Consider, child,' he went on, laying his hand gently on her
shoulder as she sat, but not now looking at her. 'Consider; I am a man
past middle age. I have been married already, and the portrait of my
child's mother stands always on my table. Even of the life left to
me--a soldier's life--I can offer you only a part; the rest I owe to
my country, to the poor and the peasant who cry for peace, to my
master, than whom God has given no State a better ruler, to God
Himself, who places power in my hands. All these I cannot and will not
desert. Countess, I love you, and men can still love when youth is
past. But I would far rather never feel the touch of your hand or of
your lips than I would give up these things. Do you understand?'

'Perfectly,' my lady said, looking steadfastly before her, though her
heaving breast betrayed her emotion. 'And I desire to be your wife,
and to help you in these things as the greatest happiness God can give
me.'

The Count stooped gently and kissed her forehead. 'Thank you,' he
said.

                          *   *   *   *   *

I have very little to add. All the world knows that the King of
Sweden, unable to entice Wallenstein from his lines, remained in his
camp before Nuremberg for fifteen days longer, during which period the
city and the army suffered all the extremities of famine and plague.
After that, satisfied that he had so far reduced the Duke of
Friedland's strength that it no longer menaced the city, he marched
away with his army into Thuringia; and there, two months later, on the
immortal field of Lutzen, defeated his enemy, and fell, some say by a
traitor's hand, in the moment of victory; leaving to all who ever
looked upon his face the memory of a sovereign and soldier without a
rival, modest in sunshine and undaunted in storm. I saw him seven
times and I say this.

And all the world knows in what a welter of war and battles and sieges
and famines we have since lain, so that no man foresees the end, and
many suppose that happiness has quite fled from the earth, or at least
from German soil. Yet this is not so. It is true in comparison with
the old days, when my lady kept her maiden Court at Heritzburg, and
our greatest excitement was a visit from Count Tilly, we lead a
troubled life. My lady's eyes are often grave, and the days when she
goes with her two brave boys to the summit of the Schloss and looks
southward with a wistful face, are many; many, for the Count, though
he verges on seventy, still keeps the field and is a tower in the
councils of the north. But with all that, the life is a full one--full
of worthy things and help given to others, and a great example greatly
set, and peace honestly if vainly pursued. And for this and for other
reasons, I believe that my lady, doing her duty, hoping and praying
and training her children, is happy; perhaps as happy as in the old
days when Fraulein Anna prosed of virtue and felicity and Voetius.

The Waldgrave Rupert, still the handsomest of men, but sobered by
the stress of war, comes to see us in the intervals of battles and
sieges. On these occasions the children flock round him, and he tells
tales--of Nordlingen, and Leipzig, and the leaguer of Breysach; and
blue eyes grow stern, and chubby faces grim, and shell-white teeth are
ground together, while Marie sits pale and quaking, devouring her boys
with hungry mother's eyes. But they do not laugh at her now; they have
not since the day when the Waldgrave bade them guess who was the
bravest person he had ever known.

'Father!' my lady's sons cried. And Marie's, not to be outdone, cried
the same.

But the Waldgrave shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'try again.'

My youngest guessed the King of Sweden.

'No,' the Waldgrave answered him. 'Your mother.'

                               THE END.