CHAPTER XIV.
THE WHISPERED ORDER.
In his rage, Bourgneuf, with each ironical bow, shook from his brigadier wig the white powder which he wore in great profusion.
The danger was imminent; peril menaced me in front and rear; the winter storm without, and an absurdly jealous foe within. I drew the pistol from my belt; but, alas! the pan was open, and the snow, when I fell into the ditch of the schloss, had replaced the priming. It was useless; however, as Bourgneuf was levelling his first weapon at my head, I rushed upon him, struck up the muzzle with my left hand, so that in exploding the ball pierced the ceiling. With my pistol-butt I struck the weapon from his other hand, and seized him by the throat; but the room was almost immediately filled by soldiers of the Regiment de Bretagne, who beat me down and disarmed me.
The count drew my sword from its scabbard, and contemptuously snapped the blade under his foot, saying, "Ha! pst-sacré coquin-pst!" as I was dragged into another apartment, and the door of the countess's room was closed and locked upon her and her attendant, whose cries I could hear ringing through the mansion; and as they seemed the prelude to some deed of cruelty and violence, I felt that in hands so unscrupulous I was helpless and completely lost.
However, I did not give in without a desperate struggle. From Tom Kirkton, who in his wilder days had practised at Marybone and Hockly-in-the-Hole, I had picked up a little of the good old English science of self-defence, so I struck out right and left, and knocked over the crapauds like ninepins, till the butt-end of a musket laid me on the field of battle, and for a time I thought all was over.
I was now rifled. The two louis of kind Boisguiller were speedily appropriated. The pass of the Duc de Broglie and the little laced handkerchief of Aurora, which I still preserved as a souvenir of my only relative, were handed to the count. He laughed at the first, but the sight of the second transported him with a fury only equal to that of the Moor on the loss of that important handkerchief which the Egyptian to his mother gave, and which had "magic in the web of it."
"Count Bourgneuf," I exclaimed, resolutely, on recovering my breath, for timidity, I found, would be of little avail here; "you have in your hand the signed passport of the Duc de Broglie; how dare you thus to violate it?"
"Dare—parbleu! from whom did you receive it?"
"From yourself, in presence of M. Monjoy and the Chevalier de Boisguiller."
"Signed, you say?"
"Yes—look at it."
"I have looked; but it bears a signature Monseigneur de Broglie would scarcely recognise, and which no French soldier is bound to respect."
"A forgery! Mean you to say that it is a forgery of yours?" I exclaimed, furiously.
"Term it as you please," said he, tearing the paper to pieces; "'tis thus that I respect it."
"The duke released me," I began, with some emotion of alarm—"released me on parole, and complimented me——"
"Because you saved the life of his daughter from an outlaw—or pretend that you did so."
"But you, her husband, M. le Comte——"
"Mean to put you to death as a spy, who remained as such in Bretagne for several weeks, and who now as a prisoner seeks to escape, after lurking behind the French lines, of which the river Lahn is the present boundary."
"Say, rather," said I, with unwise bitterness, "that with a jealous cowardice which has no parallel, you resolve to destroy me as one who loved the countess before she had the misfortune to become your wife."
Enraged that this remark was made before the listening soldiers who crowded all the room, Bourgneuf said, with an oath and a scornful laugh—
"Ha!—think you so?"
"I both think and say so."
"What an intolerable world it would be if every man said all he thought, as you do; but I will meet you with the sword if you choose."
"I will not fight with a would-be assassin."
"The pistol then," he continued, grinding his teeth.
"I will not fight with an assassin, even though he wear the uniform of a colonel of the French Line," I replied, resolutely, though the soldiers began to mutter angrily, and beat the floor with the butts of their muskets.
"Bah—-pst! ce pistolet est en arrêt!" said Bourgneuf, turning on his heel with a sneer on his cruel lip, and this pet phrase of the French soldiers (implying the "white feather") so enraged me, that I could with pleasure have pistolled him on the spot.
Looking round for a man in whom he could trust, he selected a corporal, a most sinister-looking fellow, whose nose was quite awry, and whose shaggy eyebrows met over it in one. To him he gave a whispered order, and though my ear was painfully acute at such a time, I could only detect the words, "distance—sound of firing might not disturb—buried in the snow."
The man with the crooked nose and huge chevrons saluted his colonel, and desired me to follow him, which I did immediately, conceiving that my chances were always better with one man than with a score. As we left the room a gleam of triumphant malice sparkled in the eyes of Bourgneuf, and he gave me an ironical bow.
When next I saw his face its expression was very different.
In the vestibule of the schloss, which was full of sleeping soldiers, the corporal summoned a personage, in whom I recognised Karl Karsseboom, in whose ear he repeated the order of the count, and muttering curses at the trouble I caused them, these two worthies, after carefully loading their muskets, desired me gruffly to follow them, and leaving the schloss by a drawbridge which spanned the snow-filled ditch, we set forth, on what errand I knew not.
The storm of wind and snow was over now. Morning was at hand; the stars shone clear and brilliantly, and so bright was the reflection of the snow that every object could be discerned as distinctly as at noon-day. The silence was profound; even our foot-falls were muffled in the white waste, from amid which the fir-trees stood up like sheeted spectres.
I was weary and chilled, being without any muffling; my head was giddy with the recent blow, and the keen frosty air affected me severely.
I asked the corporal if they were conducting me to the ford of the Lahn.
"Not quite so far," replied he, gruffly.
My unexpected interview with Jacqueline, her coolness, her general bearing, had all bewildered me, and painfully wounded my self-esteem and pride, crushing my old love, and creating an emotion that wavered between wonder and—shall I term it so?—disgust. She had proved so cold-blooded, so—but enough of Jacqueline; let me to my story, or we shall never make an end.
Again I asked my guides whither they were conveying me, and their object?
"Beelzebub!" muttered the corporal; "how impatient you are. You will find out too soon, perhaps. Karl, are we a mile from the schloss yet?"
"Scarcely," grumbled Karsseboom, looking back.
I recalled the whispered order of Bourgneuf, and the terrible conviction came upon me that I was to be conducted to the distance of a mile or so, where the sound of firing might not disturb the countess—to be there shot and buried in the snow!
Thus did a keen sense of danger supply the wanting words.
What was I to do—unarmed, weak, weary, and powerless? I could grapple with neither of my guards without the risk of being shot by the other; and to be led out thus—I, an officer on parole, a prisoner of war, protected by the promise of the Duc de Broglie—led out to be butchered by two unscrupulous ruffians, and without a struggle—the thought was too dreadful for contemplation.
But such was the intended sequel to that night's adventures.
Halting close to a thicket about a mile distant from the schloss, the irregular outline of which was clearly defined against the starry sky, the corporal told me to "stand still, or march ten paces forward, and then turn round."
"For what purpose?"
"You will soon see," replied Karsseboom, as he slapped the butt of his musket with cool significance, and proceeded to kick, or scoop with his feet, a long trench in the soft snow.
"You do not—you cannot mean to butcher me here?" said I, following them closely.
"Halte là! Stand where you are," cried the corporal, "or, nom d'un Pape! I will shoot you down with my muzzle at your head. Ah, sacre!—canaille—Rosbif!"
A wild beating of the heart; a dryness of the lips, which I strove to moisten with my tongue; a dull sense of stupor and alarm, all soon to end, come over me, when cocking their pieces they retired backward close to the thicket. After carefully examining their priming, they were in the act of raising the butts to their shoulder to take aim, when thinking that all was over with me in this world, I strove to call to memory a prayer, and something like a solemn invocation of God was forming on my lips, when both muskets exploded upwards in the air, and their reports rung far away on the frosty atmosphere, making me give an involuntary and spasmodic leap nearly a yard high.
I looked, and lo! there were my corporal and his Teuton comrade lying prostrate in the snow, while a man of great stature, armed with a large cudgel, was brandishing it above them, and kicking them the while with uncommon vehemence and vigour.
"Lie there, ye loons!" he exclaimed, in a dialect I had little difficulty in recognising even in that exciting moment; "I have gi'en you a Liddesdale cloure, and you a Lockerbie lick on the chaffets—ye unco' vermin!" Then he proceeded to twirl his ponderous cudgel—a branch recently torn from a tree—round his head to dance among the snow and to sing—
"Wha daur meddle wi' me?
Wha daur meddle wi' me?
My name is wee Jock Elliot,
So wha daur meddle wi' me?"
On advancing, I found to my astonishment that my protector was my comrade, Big Hob Elliot of the Scots Greys!