Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  They were Black Hussars.

  A distant movement came to his ear at the same time, the soft shock of thousands of footfalls on the highway. He sprang up and started forward, but a trooper warned him back with a stern gesture, and he stood at the foot of the shrine, excited but outwardly cool, listening to the approaching trample.

  He knew what it meant now; these passing videttes were the dust before the tempest, the prophecy of the deluge. For the sound on the distant highway was the sound of infantry, and a host was on the march, a host helmeted with steel and shod with steel, a vast live bulk, gigantic, scaled in mail, whose limbs were human, whose claws were lances and bayonets, whose red tongues were flame-jets from a thousand cannon.

  The German army had entered France and the province of Lorraine was a name.

  Like a hydra of three hideous heads the German army had pushed its course over the Saar, over the Rhine, over the Lauter; it sniffed at the frontier line; licked Wissembourg and the Spicheren with flaming tongues, shuddered, coiled, and glided over the boundary into the fair land of Lorraine. Then, like some dreadful ringed monster, it cast off two segments, north, south, and moved forward on its belly, while the two new segments, already turned to living bodies, with heads and eyes and contracted scales, struggled on alone, diverging to the north and south, creeping, squirming, undulating, penetrating villages and cities, stretching across hills and rivers, until all the land was shining with shed scales and the sky reeked with the smoke of flaming tongues. This was the invasion of France. Before it Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet of the Garde Impériale.

  On the hill-sides of Lorraine were letters of fire, writing for all France to read, and every separate letter was a flaming village. The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards Châlons; Bazaine read it and said, “There is time;” MacMahon, Canrobert, Lebœuf, Ladmirault read it and wondered idly what it meant, till Vinoy turned a retreat into a triumph, and Gambetta, flabby, pompous, unbalanced, bawled platitudes from the Palais Bourbon.

  In three splendid armies the tide of invasion set in; the Red Prince tearing a bloody path to Metz, the Crown Prince riding west by south, resting in Nancy, snubbing Toul, spreading out into the valley of the Marne to build three monuments of bloody bones — Saint-Marie, Amanvilliers, Saint-Privat.

  Metz, crouching behind Saint-Quentin and Les Bottes, turned her anxious eyes from Thionville to Saint-Julien and back to where MacMahon’s three rockets should have starred the sky; and what she saw was the Red Prince riding like a fiery spectre from east to west; what she saw was the spiked helmets of the Feldwache and the sodded parapets of Longeau. Chained and naked, the beautiful city crouched in the tempest that was to free her forever and give her the life she scorned, the life more bitter than death.

  Something of this ominous prophecy came to Jack, standing below the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn, listening to the on-coming shock of German feet, as he watched the cavalry riding past in the glow of the setting sun.

  And now the infantry burst into view, a gloomy, solid column tramp, tramp along the road — jägers, with their stiff fore-and-aft shakos, dull-green tunics, and snuffy, red-striped trousers tucked into dusty half-boots. On they came, on, on — would they never pass? At last they were gone, somewhere into the flaming west, and now the red sunbeams slanted on eagle crests and tipped the sea of polished spiked helmets with fire, for a line regiment was coming, shaking the earth with its rhythmical tramp — thud! thud! thud!

  He looked across the fields to the hills beyond; more regiments, dark masses moving against the sky, covered the landscape far as the eye could reach; cavalry, too, were riding on the Saint-Avold road through the woods; and beyond that, vague silhouettes of moving wagons and horsemen, crawling out into the world of valleys that stretched to Bar-le-Duc and Avricourt.

  Oppressed, almost choked, as though a rising tide had washed against his breast, ever mounting, seething, creeping, climbing, he moved forward, waiting for a chance to cross the road and gain the Château, where he could see the servants huddling over the lawn, and the old vicomte, erect, motionless, on the terrace beside his wife and Lorraine.

  Already in the meadow behind him the first bivouac was pitched; on the left stood a park of field artillery, ammunition-wagons in the rear, and in front the long lines of picket-ropes to which the horses were fastened, their harness piled on the grass behind them.

  The forge was alight, the farriers busy shoeing horses; the armourer also bent beside his blazing forge, and the tinkling of his hammer on small-arms rose musically above the dull shuffle of leather-shod feet on the road.

  To the right of the artillery, bisected as is the German fashion, lay two halves of a battalion of infantry. In the foreground the officers sat on their camp-chairs, smoking long faïence pipes; in the rear, driven deep into the turf, the battalion flag stood furled in its water-proof case, with the drum-major’s halberd beside it, and drums and band instruments around it on the grass. Behind this lay a straight row of knapsacks, surrounded by the rolled great-coats; ten paces to the rear another similar row; between these two rows stood stacks of needle-guns, then another row of knapsacks, another stack of needle-guns, stretching with mathematical exactness to the grove of poplars by the river. A cordon of sentinels surrounded the bivouac; there was a group of soldiers around a beer-cart, another throng near the wine-cart. All was quiet, orderly, and terribly sombre.

  Near the poplar-trees the pioneers had dug their trenches and lighted fires. Across the trenches, on poles of green wood, were slung simmering camp-kettles.

  He turned again towards the Château; a regiment of Saxon riders was passing — had just passed — and he could get across now, for the long line had ended and the last Prussian cuirassiers were vanishing over the hill, straight into the blaze of the setting sun.

  As he entered the gate, behind him, from the meadow, an infantry band crashed out into a splendid hymn — a hymn in praise of the Most High God, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.

  And the soldiers’ hoarse voices chimed in —

  “Thou, who in the hollow of Thy Hand—”

  And the deep drums boomed His praise.

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE

  The candles were lighted again in the ballroom, and again the delicate, gilded canapés were covered with officers, great stalwart fellows with blond hair and blue eyes, cuirassiers in white tunics faced with red, cuirassiers in green and white, black, yellow, and white, orange and white; dragoons in blue and salmon colour, bearing the number “7” on their shoulder-straps, dragoons of the Guard in blue and white, dragoons of the 2d Regiment in black and blue. There were hussars too, dandies of the 19th in their tasselled boots and crimson busby-crowns; Black Hussars, bearing, even on their soft fatigue-caps, the emblems of death, the skull and crossed thigh-bones. An Uhlan or two of the 2d Guard Regiment, trimmed with white and piped with scarlet, dawdled around the salon, staring at gilded clock and candelabra, or touching the grand-piano with hesitating but itching fingers. Here and there officers of the general staff stood in consultation, great, stiff, strapping men, faultlessly clothed in scarlet and black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms. The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals, some officer from Von Werder’s army, attentive, shy, saying little even when questioned. The huge Saxon officers, beaming with good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men and the stiff-necked Prussians.

  In the long dining-room dinner was nearly ended. Facing each other sat the old Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, he pale, dignified, exquisitely courteous, she equally pale but more gentle in her sweet dignity. On the right sat the Red Prince, stiff as steel, jerky in every movement, stern, forbidding, unbending as much as his black Prussian blood w
ould let him; on the left sat a thin old man, bald as an ivory ball, pallid, hairless of face, a frame of iron in a sombre, wrinkled tunic, without a single decoration. His short hawk’s nose, keen and fine as a falcon’s beak, quivered with every breath; his thin lips rested one upon the other in stern, delicate curves. It was Moltke, the master expert, come from Berlin to watch the wheels turning in that vast complicated network of machinery which he controlled with one fragile finger pressing the button.

  There, too, was Von Zastrow, destined to make his error at Gravelotte, there was Steinmetz, and the handsome Saxon prince, and great, flabby August of Würtemberg, talking with Alvensleben, dainty, pious, aristocratic. Behind, in the shadow, stood Manstein and Goben, a grim, gray pair, with menacing eyes. Perhaps they were thinking of the Red Prince’s parting words at the Spicheren: “Your duty is to march forward, always forward, find the enemy, prevent his escape, and fight him wherever you find him.” To which the fastidious and devout Alvensleben muttered, “In the name of God,” and poor, brave Kamecke, shuddering as he thought of his Westphalians and the cul-de-sac where he had sent them on the 6th day of August, sighed and looked out into deepening twilight.

  Outside a Saxon infantry band began to play a masterpiece of Beethoven. It seemed to be the signal for breaking up, and the Red Prince, with abrupt deference, turned to Madame de Morteyn, who gave the signal and rose. The Red Prince stepped back as the old vicomte gave his wife a trembling arm. Then he bowed where he stood, clothed in his tight, blood-red tunic, tall, powerful, square-jawed, cruel-mouthed, and eyed like a wolf. But his forehead was fine, broad, and benevolent, and his beard softened the wicked curve of his lips.

  Jack and Lorraine had again dined together in the little gilded salon above, served by Lorraine’s maid and wept over by the old house-keeper.

  The terrified servants scarcely dared to breathe as they crept through the halls where, “like a flight of devils from hell” the “Prussian ogres” had settled in the house. They came whimpering to their mistress, but took courage at the calm, dignified attitude of the old vicomte, and began to think that these “children-eating Prussians” might perhaps forego their craving for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to their own plumpness and possible desirability for ragoûts.

  The old marquis himself received his unwelcome guests as though he were receiving travelling strangers, to whom, now that they were under his roof, faultless hospitality was due, nothing more, merely the courtesy of a French nobleman to an uninvited guest.

  Ah, but the steel was in his heart to the hilt. He, an old soldier of the Malakoff, of Algeria, the brother in arms of Changarnier, of Chanzy, he obliged to receive invaders — invaders belonging to the same nation which had lined the streets of Berlin so long ago, cringing, whining “Vive l’Empereur!” at the crack of the thongs of Murat’s horsemen!

  Yet now it was that he showed himself the chivalrous soldier, the old colonel of the old régime, the true beau-sabreur of an epoch dead. And the Red Prince Frederick Charles knew it, and bowed low as the vicomte left the dining-hall with his gentle, pale-faced wife on his arm.

  Jack, sitting after dinner with Lorraine in the bay-window above, looked down upon the vast camp that covered the whole land, from the hills to the Lisse, from the forest to the pastures above Saint-Lys. There were no tents — the German army carried none. Here and there a canvas-covered wagon glistened white in the moonlight; the pale radiance fell on acres of stacked rifles, on the brass rims of drums, and the spikes of the sentries’ helmets. Videttes, vaguely silhouetted on distant knolls, stood almost motionless, save for the tossing of their horses’ heads. Along the river Lisse the infantry pickets lay, the sentinels, patrolling their beats with brisk, firm steps, only pausing to bring their heavy heels together, wheel squarely, and retrace their steps, always alert and sturdy. The wind shifted to the west and the faint chimes of Saint-Lys came quavering on the breeze.

  “The bells!” said Jack; “can you hear them?”

  “Yes,” said Lorraine, listlessly.

  She had been very silent during their dinner. He wondered that she had not shown any emotion at the sight of the invading soldiers. She had not — she had scarcely even shown curiosity. He thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated, at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen, trampling the meadows of the province that he loved — the province of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of those whom she has sheltered.

  So Jack felt the shame and humiliation as though a blow had been struck at his own home and kin, and he suffered the more thinking what his uncle must suffer. And Lorraine! His heart had bled for her when the harsh treble of the little, flat Prussian drums first broke out among the hills. He looked for the deep sorrow, the patience, the proud endurance, the prouder faith that he expected in her; he met with silence, even a distrait indifference.

  Surely she could comprehend what this crushing disaster prophesied for France? Surely she of all women, sensitive, tender, and loyal, must know what love of kin and country meant?

  Far away in the southwest the great heart of Paris throbbed in silence, for the beautiful, sinful city, confused by the din of the riffraff within her walls, blinded by lies and selfish counsels, crouched in mute agony, listening for the first ominous rumbling of a rotten, tottering Empire.

  God alone knows why he gave to France, in the supreme moment of her need, the beings who filled heaven with the wind of their lungs and brought her to her knees in shame — not for brave men dead in vain, not for a wasted land, scourged and flame-shrunken from the Rhine to the Loire, not for provinces lost nor cities gone forever — but for the strange creatures that her agony brought forth, shapes simian and weird, all mouth and convulsive movement, little pigmy abortions mouthing and playing antics before high Heaven while the land ran blood in every furrow and the world was a hell of flame.

  Gambetta, that incubus of bombastic flabbiness, roaring prophecy and platitude through the dismayed city, kept his eye on the balcony of the particular edifice where, later, he should pose as an animated Jericho trumpet. So, biding his time, he bellowed, but it was the Comédie Française that was the loser, not the people, when he sailed away in his balloon, posed, squatting majestically as the god of war above the clouds of battle. And little Thiers, furtive, timid, delighting in senile efforts to stir the ferment of chaos till it boiled, he, too, was there, owl-like, squeaky-voiced, a true “Bombyx à Lunettes.” There, too, was Hugo — often ridiculous in his terrible moods, egotistical, sloppy, roaring. The Empire pinched Hugo, and he roared; and let the rest of the world judge whether, under such circumstances, there was majesty in the roar. The spectacle of Hugo, prancing on the ramparts and hurling bad names at the German armies, recalls the persistent but painful manœuvres of a lion with a flea. Both are terribly in earnest — neither is sublime.

  Jack sat leaning on the window-ledge, his chin on both hands, watching the moonlight rippling across the sea of steel below. Lorraine, also silent, buried in an arm-chair, lay huddled somewhere in the shadows, looking up at the stars, scarcely visible in the radiance of the moon.

  After a while she spoke in a low voice: “Do you remember in chapel a week ago — what—”

  “Yes, I know what you mean. Can you say it — any of it?”

  “Yes, all.”

  Presently he heard her voice in the darkness repeating the splendid lines:

  “‘In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and they that look out of the windows be darkened.

  “‘And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of
the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.

  “‘Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.

  “‘Because man goeth to his long home—’”

  Her voice broke a little.

  “‘And the mourners go about the streets—’”

  He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a moment her fingers touched his, moved a little, and were clasped close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression — a despair scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved. Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body. Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as yet by the keen shaft of grief.

  He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him, perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.

  Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, “Wait!” — so he waited, there alone in the darkness.