The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps
Page 10
CHAPTER VIII.
CAPTAIN MARION.
Early in the morning I repaired to Victoria's residence. The humblehouse of the Mother of the Camps was reached through a long narrow path,skirted on either side by high ramparts that constituted the outerfortifications of one of the gates of Mayence. I was about twenty pacesfrom the house when I heard behind me the following cries uttered interror:
"Save yourself! Save yourself!"
Looking back, I saw with no little fright a two-wheeled cart dashingrapidly towards me. The cart was drawn by two horses whose driver hadlost control over them.
I could jump off neither to the right nor the left of the narrow path tolet the cart pass; its wheels almost grazed the opposite walls; I wasstill too far from Victoria's residence to hope for escape in thatdirection; however swiftly I might run, I would be overtaken by thehorses and trampled under their hoofs long before I could have reachedthe door. There was nothing left for me to do but to face the runaways,and, however hopeless the prospect, to seize them by the bit and attemptto stop them. Accordingly, I rushed forward upon the animals with myhands raised. Oh! A prodigy! Hardly did I touch the horses' reins whenthey suddenly reared upon their haunches. It was almost as if my meregesture had sufficed to check their impetuous course. Happy at havingescaped what seemed certain death, but aware that I was not a magician,endowed with the power to arrest a runaway team with a mere motion of myhand, I asked myself while leaping back what the cause might be of theextraordinary spectacle. I noticed that the horses still made violentefforts to proceed on their career; they reared, tugged forward andstretched out their necks, but were unable to advance, as if the cart'swheels were locked, or some superior power restrained them.
My curiosity stirred to a high pitch, I drew near, and gliding betweenthe horses and the wall, succeeded in climbing over the dashboard of thecart whose driver I found crouching under the seat, looking more deadthan alive. As the mystery seemed to deepen, my curiosity was prickedstill more. I ran to the rear of the vehicle and noticed with no slightamazement that a large sized man, robust as a Hercules, was clinging totwo ornamental pieces that projected from the rear of the cart. It wasthanks to his weight, and to the superhuman resistance that his greatstrength enabled him to offer, that the team was held back.
"Captain Marion!" I cried. "I should have known as much! There is noneother in the whole Gallic army able to hold back a cart going at fullspeed."
"Tell that fool of a driver to pull in the reins. My wrists begin totire."
I was transmitting the orders to the driver who was beginning to recoverhis senses, when I saw several soldiers, on guard at Victoria'sdwelling, pour out of the house attracted by the noise. They opened theyard gate and thus offered a safe exit to the cart.
"There is no longer any danger," I said to the driver; "lead your horseson. But whom does this conveyance belong to?"
"To Tetrik, the Governor of Gascony, who arrived yesterday at Mayence.He stops at Victoria's house," answered the driver, while calming downhis horses.
While the cart proceeded into the yard of Victoria's residence, I walkedback towards the captain to thank him for his timely aid.
Marion had left his blacksmith's anvil for the army many years previous.He was well known and generally beloved among the soldiers, as much forhis heroic courage and extraordinary strength, as for his exceptionalgood judgment, his sound reasoning powers, the austerity of his morals,and his extreme good fellowship. He now stood on the road, and with hiscasque in his hand wiped the sweat off his brow. He wore a cuirass ofsteel scales over his Gallic blouse, and a long sword at his side. Hisdusty boots told of a recent and long ride on horseback. His largesunburnt face, partly covered by a thick beard that began to be streakedwith grey, was open and pleasing.
"Captain Marion," I said to him, "I must thank you for having saved mefrom being ground under the wheels of that cart."
"I did not know it was you who ran the risk of being trampled under thehoofs of those horses like a dog! A stupid sort of a death for a bravesoldier like you, Schanvoch! But when I heard that devil of a drivercrying: 'Save yourself!' I surmised he was about to kill somebody and Itried to hold the cart back. Fortunately my mother endowed me with agood pair of wrists. But where is my dear friend Eustace?" added thecaptain looking around.
"Whom do you refer to?"
"To a brave fellow, the old companion of my blacksmith days. Like me, heleft the hammer for the lance. The fortune of war served me better thanit did him. Despite his bravery, my friend Eustace has remained a simplehorseman, while I have been promoted to captain. But there he is,yonder, with his arms crossed, and motionless as a signpost. Ho!Eustace! Eustace!"
At the call, the companion of Captain Marion approached slowly, with hisarms crossed over his breast. He was a man of middle size and vigorousframe. His pale blonde hair and beard, his bilious complexion, his harshand sullen physiognomy offered a striking contrast to the pleasantexterior of the captain. I asked myself what singular affinity coulddraw two men of such different appearance, and doubtless also suchdissimilar characters, into close and constant friendship.
"How is that, friend Eustace," the captain jokingly remarked to him,"you remain yonder looking at me with crossed arms, while I am engagedin holding back a runaway team?"
"You are strong," Eustace answered; "what aid can the flesh-worm bringto the bull?"
"That man is certainly consumed with jealousy and hatred," I thought tomyself at hearing the answer and observing the sullen looks of thecaptain's friend.
"There is no flesh-worm nor bull in the case, my friend Eustace,"answered the captain with his habitual joviality and looking ratherflattered by the comparison; "but when the flesh-worm and the bull arecomrades, then, however strong the latter may be, or small the former,the one does not forsake the other--union makes strength, says theproverb."
"Captain," answered the soldier with a bitter smile, "did I ever forsakeyou in the hour of danger? Have I not always fought at your side, sincewe left the forge together?"
"I bear witness to the truth of that," cried Marion cordially, takingEustace by the hand. "As true as the sword you carry is the last weaponI forged in order to give you a token of friendship, as it is engravedon the blade, you have ever in battle 'marched in my shadow,' as thesaying goes in my country."
"What is there strange about that?" replied the soldier. "Beside you, sobrave and robust, I was what the shadow is to the body."
"By the devil! Look at the shadow! My friend Eustace!" the captainexclaimed and laughed, and addressing me he added pointing at hiscompanion Eustace:
"Let me have two or three thousand shadows like that, and the firstbattle that we fight on the other side of the Rhine, I shall bring backa herd of Frankish prisoners."
"You are a captain of renown! I, like so many other poor waifs, are goodonly to obey, to fight and to be killed. We are only meat for battles,"replied the old blacksmith with an envious look and his lips slightlylosing their color.
"Captain," I said to Marion, "I presume you wish to see Victorin and hismother?"
"Yes, I have a report to render to Victorin of a journey that my friendand I have just made."
"I followed you as a soldier," Eustace said; "the name of an obscurehorseman must not be remembered before Victoria the Great."
The captain shrugged his shoulders with impatience and jokingly shookhis enormous fist at his friend.
"Captain," I insisted, addressing Marion, "let us hasten to Victoria. Ishould have been with her since dawn. I am late."
"Friend Eustace," Marion said, starting to walk with me towardVictoria's residence, "will you stay here, or wait for me at ourlodging?"
"I shall wait here at the door--that is a subaltern's place."
"Would you believe it, Schanvoch," Marion replied laughing, "would youbelieve that it is nearly twenty years that lad and I live together andquarrel like two brothers? He will not forget that I am a captain, andwill not treat me as a simple anvil-beate
r, as he formerly used to."
"I am not the only one, Marion, to realize the difference there isbetween us," Eustace answered. "You are one of the most renownedcaptains in the army--I am only one of the least of its soldiers."
Saying this Eustace sat down on a stone near the door, and bit hisnails.
"He is incorrigible," the captain remarked to me; and we two entered thehouse of Victoria.
"Captain Marion must be strangely blinded by friendship," I thought tomyself, "to fail to perceive that his companion is consumed withmalevolent jealousy."
The residence of the Mother of the Camps was extremely simple. CaptainMarion having asked one of the soldiers on guard whether Victorin couldreceive him, the soldier answered that he could give him no informationon that head, seeing that the young general had not spent the night inthe house.
Despite the camp life, Marion preserved great austerity of morals. Heseemed shocked to learn that Victorin had not yet returned home, and hecast a dissatisfied look at me. I wished to excuse Victoria's son, andsaid to him:
"Let us not be hasty in believing evil. Tetrik, the Governor of Gascony,arrived yesterday at the camp. It may be that Victorin spent the nightin conference with him."
"So much the better. I would like to see that young man, who to-day ischief of the Gauls, free himself from the claws of that pest ofprofligacy that drives so many of us to evil deeds. As to myself, themoment I see a woman's bonnet or a short skirt, I turn my head away asif I saw the devil in person."
"Victorin improves, and he will improve still more with ripening years,"I replied to the captain. "But what can we do--he is young--he lovespleasure--and pretty girls."
"I also love pleasure, and furiously, too!" exclaimed the good captain."There is nothing that I delight more in, when my duties are done, thanto enter my lodging and empty a pot of cool beer with my friend Eustace,while we chat over our old trade, or entertain ourselves furbishing ourweapons and good armor. Those are real pleasures! And notwithstandingall the excitement that one finds in them, they are absolutelyhonorable. Let us hope, Schanvoch, that Victorin may some day preferthem to his immodest and diabolical orgies with the pretty girls, thatscandalize us."
"I am of your opinion, captain; hope is better than despair. But in theabsence of Victorin you may confer with his mother. I shall notify herof your arrival."
Saying this I left Marion alone, and passing into a neighboringapartment, encountered a serving-girl who led me to Victoria, the Motherof the Camps, my foster-sister.