Sunset, red and glowing, in a lovely land where a long spur of the Balkan mountains overlooks the current of the Morava, and where fair fields of rice and maize, hemp and tobacco, cover the upland slopes, for it is early in September, and the days are of great heat still. The golden shafts or rays of the setting sun shot upward from the flank of the mountain range, and shed their ruddy gleam upon the shining river. Slowly sank the glorious sun, as if reluctant to quit the strange and terrible scenes it was leaving: on one side the camp and bivouac of an army, with its fires for cooking and scaring wild animals, its piles of baggage and arms, groups of soldiers in thousands; on the other, the awful débris of a newly-fought field, covered with killed and wounded men and horses, broken caissons and gun-carriages, drums and standards, pools of blood in which the flies were battening; and paler then grew the upturned faces of the dead, as the last segment of the sun disappeared, and the brightness it left behind began to deepen from gold and red to sombre violet in the plain, though light yet lingered on the mountain summits.
In the tents and around the fires, men spoke little of the artillery duel that had preluded the conflict, of whether the Servians had broken the armistice, or the Turks had done so by opening with their guns, and little even of the victory; for the soldiers fresh from it and flushed with triumph and carnage, Servians and Russians alike, spoke only of the gallant but nameless British volunteer who had saved the life of the general, the terrible old Tchernaieff, and that of his chief aide-de-camp, the gallant Count Michail Palenka, and who had been made a sub-lieutenant on the field, and decorated after it with the gold cross of the order called the Takovo of Servia, and welcomed back with shouts of,
'Dobro—dobro! Ghivo—ghivo! (Well done—long life); hourah!'
In one of the terrible charges of cavalry, led by himself, Tchernaieff had his horse killed under him by a cannon shot, but this volunteer had remounted him on his own, and also dragged Count Palenka out of the terrible mêlée.
The Turkish horse were led, not by a Pasha or other officer, but by a frantic dervish, wielding on high a long staff, furnished at the end with a shining brass knob, and shouting:
'Allah is here! Allah and the angels who fought at Bedr!'
The Servian Hussars and Lancers, with the Russian Dragoons, advanced to join issue in the charge for a third time, not sorry to exchange close quarters for a desultory carbine-fire. Both sides came thundering on, the Lancers with their spears in the rest, the Dragoons with swords pointed to the front, and all with their horses well in hand, till within a few yards, when they let them go at racing speed, and dashed with terrible force and fury among the Turkish squadron.
Anon the Lancers, finding their weapons useless at such close quarters, slung them, and smote heavily on every side with their keen bright swords. Long and hard was the fight, and for a time the mingling masses were too closely wedged in some places to use even their swords, and grappled with each other, while the entangled chargers, enraged and frightened, reared, plunged, struck out and brained or trampled into gore the dead and wounded.
Here it was the volunteer saved the general and his faithful aide-de-camp, covering them as they struggled back, faint and breathless, out of the débris; thrusting with his lance till it snapped in two, and then hacking his way out with the sword; and it was only after it was all over, and he came afoot out of the field, dazed in aspect, with teeth set, eyes dilated and glaring with the fierce fever of battle, and clutching a sword, the blade and hilt of which were literally covered with blood, that he fairly knew what he had done, and the burst seams of his uniform showed all how well he had plied his weapon that day.
Thirstily and gratefully he took a draught from a tin canteen of Negotin wine, which a passing sutler gave him.
Cecil Falconer, for the volunteer was he, though in that blood-stained foreign uniform few would have recognised the once fashionable Cameronian officer, was sorely changed in aspect. He was browner visaged, bearded to the eyes, yet his face was worn and lined, and his eyes seemed sunk and keen, with the wolfish expression worn by those of men who are daily facing peril and death.
As a volunteer, he wore the uniform of a private—a brown tunic faced with scarlet, crimson pantaloons, now covered with blood and mud, and a grey cloth cap, not unlike the Scottish glengarry. Fighting in a cause for which—and in that of a prince for whom—he cared nothing; fighting in battle as a weaker spirit might have betaken itself to alcohol to drown the past and give oblivion to the present, poor Cecil had found his way to Servia, and had that day done wonders, setting little store on the lives of those he fought against—the barbarous and brutal Turks—and certainly none whatever on his own life.
Refused a commission in the service by the Servian minister of war—for, by the influence of long conquest, there is much of the Ottoman in the character of the Servian people, who are fatalists, and as distrustful of all strangers as a John Bull of the last century—he had joined 'Tchernaieff's Own' as a volunteer trooper, and on that day by the Morava had won his commission, and the cross of the Takovo; but what a mockery they were to him, and how little he cared about them!
Since joining in the humble and apparently hopeless capacity he had taken, he had undergone all the perils and miseries of the Servian campaign; had been compelled to consort, at times, with fierce and lawless comrades, who were most repugnant to his refined nature; he had been generous to all with his money, when he had any, which was not often now; he had nursed the wounded, buried the dead, and won golden opinions from all; he had groomed his own horse and the horses of others; had to hew wood, to cook coarse rations, when there were any to cook; slept on the bare earth in the rain and the storm, or sharing a tente-d'abri when one could be got, and sharing it with a comrade—some unsavoury and unwashed Servian trooper, whose vicinity was, in itself, a horror.
As most people know, but a very short time ago the Christians in Bosnia and elsewhere took arms against their oppressors, the Turks, who were unable to suppress the insurrection, and soon after the disturbance was intensified by a declaration of war against the Porte by Prince Milano Obrenovitch of Servia, who, by his army, was proclaimed King of Bosnia, and whose father, the alleged slayer of the famous Cerni Georges, began life as a cattle-driver, and first distinguished himself in battle so far back as 1807. Born in 1854, Prince Milano succeeded Michail III. (who was assassinated); and as the new war spread into Bulgaria, as we all know, it took the form of atrocities unparalleled in modern Europe, unless we except the Cromwellians at Wexford and the Williamites at Glencoe. The villages of the Christians were plundered and given to the flames; their male inhabitants slain without mercy, under nameless tortures; women and girls carried off to slavery. The dead lay heaped in the churches to which they had fled for shelter, and dogs and hungry kites tore their flesh as they lay unburied by the wayside.
And now it was within forty British miles of that Bulgaria, where so much wild work was being done, that on the evening of the 28th of September, after Tchernaieff had crossed to the left bank of the Morava below Boboviste, and fought one of the greatest battles in the Servian war—a battle in which Prince Milan lost 3000 men, killed and wounded, while the Russians lost in proportion, and had sixty dead officers on the field—a battle in which the explosion of seven Turkish powder-caissons added to the horror and slaughter—that Cecil Falconer found himself warmly complimented, and again and again shaken by the hand, by old Tchernaieff, as the saviour of himself and his favourite aide-de-camp, Palenka.
'We shall never forget your services and your bravery this day!' said the latter—a pleasing and handsome man—in French.
'And your promotion, monsieur,' added the general, in the same language, 'will be my future care, either with the young King of Servia, or with our Father the Emperor, if you choose to take service in Russia, as so many, of your countrymen, like Bruce, Wilson, Greig, and Ochterlony, have done, attaining fame and fortune.'
The offer was not an inviting one, but Cecil thanked the general for his gracious notice of his service, and for the rank and cross conferred upon him; and the former then rode off to his head-quarters, accompanied by Count Palenka.
He was a short, thick-set man, reserved and haughty in manner and bearing, and covered with Russian orders and medals, won in no petty wars. His eyes were small, the lids heavy; his nose was large; his complexion a ruddy bistre colour, and his hair and thick moustache were somewhat of a mouse-skin hue. Whether it was the occasion or not, we cannot say, but his face, figure, and voice dwelt long in Cecil's memory. And now, to obtain some of that food and other refreshment of which he stood so much in need after a day of such terrible work, he joined a group of officers of his own corps, who were lounging on the grass near a fire, at which their servants were preparing a meal for them, and all made Cecil—the hero of the hour—most welcome, proffering him their flasks and cigar-cases.
Singular indeed was the group, and striking too, on which fell the fitful flashes of the adjacent watch-fire, for night had fallen, and the firmament overhead was full of brilliant stars.
German, French, Italian, Serb, and English could be heard, amid the group, chattered in turn, and sometimes all at once. Rich and picturesque in contour and colour were some of the uniforms, and they were worn by men of several nations who had come to serve the newly-proclaimed King of Servia and Bosnia. In the uniform of his infantry there was a Nassauer, who had won his laurels and his iron cross at the gates of Paris, in the war of 1871; Guebhard, a captain of Lancers, a man closely shaven save his moustache, with a silent manner, and most unpleasant expression of face; a dark and handsome Bohemian baron, armed with a quaint family sword of fabulous antiquity, now captain of a Bulgarian band, wearing a sheepskin cap, a richly broidered blue jacket, and loose trousers that had once been white, with pistols and yataghan in his girdle. There were a couple of Russian Lancers in red, and a Hussar in a sky-blue jacket, laced with yellow, who wore Crimean medals and had been lads, no doubt, when our troops went up the heights of the Alma, and were too politic, or too well-bred, to show the real hatred they secretly bore to all Britons; and in the Servian uniform, as captains, with three silver stars on their scarlet-faced brown tunics, were two ex-officers of our own Foot Guards, whom we shall call Stanley and Pelham, who—in search of a new sensation—had come out to see life (and death too) in Servia; there was an English ambulance doctor in the truly awful chimney-pot hat of civilisation; and though last, not least, the ubiquitous correspondent of a London paper, in a kind of uniform—a frogged coat and forage-cap—with a revolver at his belt, and a case of writing materials slung over his shoulder, as jolly and as much at home with everyone as if he had first seen the world and been weaned in a Servian bivouac, and ready to join with hearty goodwill a few who struck up 'La Belle Serbe,' the national chant of the country, to an air of great antiquity.
A light or two in the distance indicated the locality of the rather meanly-built village of Boboviste; and ever and anon cries and shrieks on the night-wind indicated that of the battle-field, where the ambulance-parties, doctors and nurses, were at work among the wounded and dying—Christians and Moslems alike.
The ex-guardsmen were chatting gaily together, and it seemed like a leaf out of the book of his old life to Cecil as he listened to them.
'A regular wanderer's club this, by Jove!' said one, laughing; 'made up of all sorts. I little thought to find you here, Stanley.'
'As little did I expect to find you.'
'Well, I suppose, with us both, it has come of backing the wrong horse too often—the little villa and brougham at St. John's Wood—the brougham with its three-hundred-guinea horses, and all the rest of it.'
'Not with me,' said Stanley; 'I found myself riding sixteen stone, and wished to bring down the flesh somehow. Besides, I was never much of a home-bird.'
'No,' assented the other, expelling his cigar-smoke in long concentric circles; 'but there is a novelty in all this new work here, with a vengeance. Only think, Stanley, in London, a few hours hence, would find us at the opera, at a crush in Belgravia, or consecrating the time to billiards, to the joys of Bacchus, and the chaste salutes of Venus, by Jove!'
'A devil of a business that last Turkish charge was,' said Pelham; adding, in a low voice, 'I shouldn't have cared if that fellow Guebhard had been knocked on the head—well, unhorsed at least, to-day; he is a cantankerous brute—bad form, very.'
Cecil looked at the officer of Lancers indicated, but knew not then that a time was coming when he would heartily share Pelham's wish.
'This is not your baptême de feu, I believe, even in Servia?' said the latter to him, suddenly.
'No—I have received that baptism before,' replied Cecil.
'Where?'
'In India.'
'Indeed! What regiment?'
Cecil remembered the mode of his leaving the beloved corps; he felt his cheek flush hotly, and, affecting not to hear the question, turned to the war-correspondent of the London daily, who was making notes for ulterior press purposes, and took from Cecil's own lips his modest detail of the charge in which he saved the lives of General Tchernaieff and Count Palenka:—all of which episode would doubtless appear in the illustrated papers from sketches 'made on the spot, by our own artist,' whose immediate whereabouts was Fleet Street.
'How those Montenegrins fought to-day!' exclaimed Pelham, after a pause; 'armed with their sharp yataghans they came on like a living flood, after delivering their musketry-fire, and then flinging away their firearms, fell on with their blades in the smoke, precisely as the Scottish Highlanders used to do of old.'
'We'll have to write home about all these things.'
Cecil smoked in silence, and thought what home had he, or to whom could he write save to one who dared not receive his letter!
Amid this easy kind of talk, ever and anon the cries of pain—long-drawn moans, ending in a half-scream—came on the breeze from the adjacent battle-field.
'We shall hear the howling of the evil vilas to-night,' said Guebhard, with a grim smile, as he took the meerschaum from his moustached mouth.
'Who are they?' asked Cecil, whose knowledge of Italian and German stood him in good stead amid the polyglot kind of conversation that went on around him.
'Don't you know?' said Guebhard, a little superciliously; 'but it is a Servian idea—superstition if you will—that spirits so named come at midnight to exult over the slain; these are the hideous and fiendish vilas, for there are others that are handsome and good.'
Coffee and cigarettes discussed, and a bottle or two of vina drunk to wash down mutton-chops fried in a flat earthen pot with a wooden handle, stuck into the hottest part of the bivouac fire, Cecil repaired to the place where his troop had picketed their horses, and looked after his own, which Tchernaieff had sent back to the bivouac. It was unbitted and munching some chopped forage; he relaxed the girths, and, rolled in his great coarse trooper's cloak, lay down on the bare earth beside it, though rain was beginning to fall. He was sore in every limb, and weary with the events of the day. He was without a wound, but many a buffet, blow, and strain, got he knew not how, began to make his bones ache now, as he thought over the stirring events of the day, and gave himself up—as he too often did—to sad and harrowing reflections.
Mary and the Cameronians—the regiment and Mary! was it the past life or the present one that was a dream? So far away did the old life seem now, that though some of the events we have related happened but a few months since, years seemed to have elapsed since Mary's last love-kiss lingered on his lips on that twilight evening in Edinburgh, and when he listened for the last time to the sound of her voice—the voice that had been for a time, and was still, the music of his life.
Oblivious of the pouring rain and sodden bivouac, he lay there thinking not of the past battle, or the present glory now; he was remembering the regimental ball—the lights, the music, the swift tender expression of Mary's eyes as she swept through the dance with him—their first and last dance, the returned pressure of her soft hand, the touch of her hair on his cheek; all the exultation of the time, and more than all, her secret visit to him in the old grey fortress of the city!
Could she but see him now!
His hopes—if he had any—his plans and desires, the scenes around him, his companions and his circumstances, were all changed now, as thoroughly as if he had been born in a new, or other age. The world rushes past so fast now (for steam destroys time and distance), that his troubles were beginning to seem old; or as if the whole of his former life had passed away, and that if he was to cut out fortune, fame, and at least food, in the new one, the old life could not be forgotten too soon.
But Mary Montgomerie was the central figure in that former world still.
'How completely the romance has died out of my life!' he thought; 'and our love, it seems so like a dream to me now—but a sweet and beautiful one; a dream that can come no more, yet I am glad that I have had it. I would that I had a flower her hand has touched—a glove or a ribbon she has worn! Could I but know, that on my dead face such tears as hers might fall!' he added as he gave way to his dismal thoughts, and sooth to say his other circumstances were dreary enough.
The pouring rain had long since extinguished all the camp and bivouac fires, and was adding to the miseries of the wounded and the dying. He had covered his horse with a blanket, and made a pillow of his holsters, and, with the flaps of his Servian forage cap tied over his ears, lay there sleepless and heedless of whether he was kicked, or trampled upon, by his charger's hoofs, or the hoofs of others, while ever and anon the deep thunder grumbled over the spur of the Balkans, and the red lightning flashes lit up vividly, for a moment, the waters of the fast-flowing Morava, and a strange tower close by—a tower of human skulls, erected to commemorate a victory over the Servians by the Turks under Comourgi.