We have said that when the kites began to assail his dead horse close by him, a cry of great horror escaped the lips of Cecil. Feeble though it was, it reached the ears of Leslie Fotheringhame, just as the latter was in the act of turning, sadly, to leave the wooded hollow.
Moving his horse round a clump of wild laurel bushes, he saw a caparisoned charger lying dead, and near it a man in uniform, to all appearance dead also—he lay so motionless and still.
Fotheringhame drew near. In the strange brown Servian uniform, with his face pale as death could have made it, and obscured by blood and mud, Leslie Fotheringhame had some difficulty in recognising the young friend he had come so far to find—in knowing again the once happy and merry face that, in times past, had been so often opposite his own at the jovial mess-table; but when he did so, a half-smothered ejaculation escaped him, and a great joy, mingled with greater pity, gushed up in his breast, as he leaped from his horse and knelt beside him.
Cecil's eyes were sightless now, and, though half-closed, fixed glassily on vacancy.
'Cecil—Cecil Falconer!' exclaimed Fotheringhame, as he took in his the cold and passive hand; but the sufferer heard him not. 'Life yet, thank God!' he added, as he felt Cecil's pulse, and then his heart, but withdrew his fingers covered with blood.
Folding the broad leaf of an acanthus into the form of a cup, he brought therein some cool water from the adjacent runnel, and Cecil drank thirstily again, and again; and then his head sank back, with the eyes still unclosed, yet sightless—seeing nothing and recognising nothing.
Fotheringhame took a flask of brandy from one of his holsters, and poured some, with water, between the lips of Cecil, whose head he pillowed on his arm.
Partially restored by this, after a time the sufferer attempted to speak; but his utterances were unintelligible, and his head sank lower: his eyes closed now, and his thoughts were wandering—wandering away to Mary, and to the old regiment in feverish dreams—dreams, perhaps, suggested by the voice of Fotheringhame.
The latter found that the wound in the chest was deep, for there the ball had lodged, and not a moment was to be lost in having it attended to. Galloping up to the plateau, he soon procured some of the ambulance corps; a stretcher was improvised by a blanket and a couple of muskets, and Cecil was speedily placed in one of the waggons for conveyance to the camp at Deligrad; but so great was his agony, that the vehicle had to be stopped from time to time, and the contents of Fotheringhame's flask, by giving him artificial strength, alone prevented him from fainting.
Yet strange visions haunted him. Out of the gathering mists of death, as he deemed them, he thought he saw the face and heard the voice of his old friend and comrade; and with them the voice of Margarita, singing the sweet soft song of 'The Wishes.'
Once he seemed to see distinctly the face of Fotheringhame, and his eyes dilated with something of wonder and alarm in them. Then he closed them, muttering, 'Another dream,' believing it was an unreality.
And now, as the ambulance waggon reached the road that led from the camp to Deligrad, in the open ground Fotheringhame saw some thousand troops, horse, foot, and artillery, massed in columns, forming three sides of a hollow square, and his soldier-eye examined critically the brown ranks of the Servians, and then those in Russian green, as the bayonets were fixed, and flashed in the morning sun as the arms were shouldered.
The fourth or open side of the square was occupied by preparations for an execution, for there stood a man tied to a post, and before him a firing-party, composed of twelve Bulgarian volunteers. Deadly pale looked the culprit, who was stripped to his shirt and baggy red breeches—Mattei Guebhard, for it was he—taken prisoner in the late action, by Stanley's regiment—baffled, checkmated, standing there in dishonour, the centre of thousands of stern and unpitying eyes.
To this end had his life come!
Discipline alone kept the troops silent; but the crowds of Servian peasantry and the camp-followers hooted and yelled at him, loading the air with opprobrious cries. No braggart was he then.
He made the sign of the cross repeatedly in the Greek manner, mechanically, or in a spirit of latent superstition, for religion he had none.
Fotheringhame heard only that he was a deserter and spy, yet, checking his horse, he looked on the scene with breathless interest, little knowing how prominent a part the culprit had recently played in the life of his friend Cecil.
In attendance upon him was the old village pope of Palenka in his bell-shaped black felt hat with long tabs floating behind, and a venerable beard spread over the breast of his glittering vestments. Guebhard smoked a cigar, and for a time preserved a bearing of indifference, till the priest withdrew and the words of command were given to the Bulgarians, who cocked their rifles, and his eyes were bound. Then, unable to stand erect from emotion or craven fear, his knees gave way under him and his head fell forward, the lashings which bound him to the post alone supporting him partially.
The death-volley rang sharply in the morning air; soon all was over, and the troops were defiling past where the shattered corpse hung at the post, their colours flying and drums beating merrily, and from thence into their lines.
By this time Fotheringhame had conveyed Cecil to the hospital, and with difficulty secured the attendance of a surgeon, for all the medical men had their hands full.
The sights and sounds in the wards were more appalling than anything he had seen on the field; and the surgeons, with their coats off, shirt-sleeves rolled up, and red to the elbows in blood, looked like veritable butchers.
'Horrible work this, doctor,' said he to a fat, fussy little German; 'cutting off legs and arms with knife and saw, quietly and in cold blood.'
'Ach Himmel! you think it is better done with a sabre, while yelling like a devil broke loose!'
'In a charge—yes; but please look to my friend.'
Cecil was now stretched on a pallet, his tunic unbuttoned, and with his breast a mass of blood, a piteous sight he looked. A second doctor now came, and while they conferred in German, Fotheringhame felt his heart stand still.
'Mein Herr,' whispered one, looking up, 'there will be a crisis soon.'
'When?'
'When we have the bullet out.'
'I trust you have hope?'
'There is always hope while there is life,' replied the doctor, turning aside while he carefully wiped a probe; 'but he has lost so much blood, and is so low, that if he rallies it will be little short of a miracle.'
The other doctor deemed the case a hopeless one, and a cry nearly escaped Fotheringhame when he saw Cecil's form convulsed by a spasm, as the bullet was extracted, and a swoon came over him.
'If he should die in my hands—poor Cecil!' thought the kind-hearted fellow, in great misery of mind; 'or if I am only taking him home to die! That prediction about a violent death, what did it mean? Who the devil made it? Looks too deuced likely to happen!'
And so, while the soft and tender hands of the Sisters of Charity did all those little offices about Cecil that no wife, mother, or sister in blood could have done more ably or kindly, Fotheringhame smoked a cigar close by, full of thought and anxiety, while a long and deep sleep fell upon the patient, a sleep that was worth a hundred nostrums.
'Poor fellow! he is down in his luck, certainly,' thought Fotheringhame; ''gad, I shall rejoice to hear when the doctors think him safe round the corner, and we may start for home.'
When sense came completely back to Cecil, he knew not where he was, nor for some hours thereafter did he exactly comprehend all that had lately happened to him and passed around him; he had lost so much blood, and been thereby so giddy, weak, drowsy, and insensible.
His first recollections were of the battle—of supporting the field-battery, and the charges he had led ere he fell; then the night in the woody hollow—his thirst and the kites hovering over him!
Now he was in a handsome, lofty, and airy room, and on a pretty French couch; a soft flower-scented breeze came through an open window, the hangings of which were partly drawn; and he had also a sense of a woman flitting noiselessly about him, and by her plain black dress and the white band with the red cross on the left arm, her crimped cap and spotless white apron, he recognised in her one of the German nurses or Sisters of Charity, who, the moment she caught his eye and saw him move, gave him a cooling and refreshing drink, glad to find symptoms of recovery in a poor sufferer whose mutterings alone had given her a clue to his wants, while she had felt her heart touched by the utterance of the ever-recurring name of 'Mary'; but her work was nearly done now, as she had nursed him back to health and something like strength.
'Where am I?' he asked, with a husky voice.
'In Belgrade, mein Herr.'
'Belgrade! with whom?'
'Friends; kind friends, who will take care of you now that the horrible war is all over.'
In a well-hung carriage procured by Fotheringhame from General Tchernaieff, Cecil, all unknown to himself, had been conveyed more than a hundred miles from the field of battle and from the crowded and pestilential hospitals thereby, and was now comfortably quartered in the Krone or La Couronne Hotel at Belgrade.
Cecil was greatly bewildered by hearing that he was in the capital of Servia, and was disposed to ask more questions; but his nurse told him that he must be patient, adding, while the tender light of a sweet and womanly soul lit up her eyes:
'And you must not talk, it is bad for your chest, Herr Captain; drink more of this—you cannot! Then I must feed you with a spoon.'
'You?'
'Yes,' and tenderly the blooming little fräulein raised his head on her soft arm, and made him partake of the medicated food the doctor had ordered.
'Now go to sleep,' said she; 'sleep and feed—feed and sleep, you naughty boy, and we soon shall have you in your saddle once more.'
He dozed off again, but tossed restlessly on his pillow, as dreams came to him now more distinctly than before.
'He has youth and strength, and pure good blood—at least, what is left of it,' said the doctor, smilingly, to honest Fotheringhame, who was always hovering near; 'I believe in these—and such nurses as you, Sister Gretchen, with plenty of jellies and beef-tea—ja—ja!'
'Bravo, old fellow! you've turned the corner at last!' was the exclamation of Fotheringhame to Cecil, some days after this.
'You think so, dear Leslie,' replied Cecil, in a weak voice, as he held out a wasted hand to his friend; 'but I only fear that I am getting near the end now—the end of a sad and broken life!'
'Now don't talk this way, or I'll be off like a bird and leave you!' said Fotheringhame.
'How shall I ever be able to thank you for coming all the distance you have done, to look after a poor waif like me? And but for your so miraculously finding me, I must have perished—inevitably perished!'
'There was nothing very miraculous in it. I traced out the position, and by chance lighted upon an old sergeant, who showed me the way your horse had gone; I followed the track, and, thank God, heard your cry.'
'Another moment, that odious kite would have torn out my eyes. Oh, Heavens! I shall never forget, my dear Leslie, the horror of that helpless time! After leading my fellows to the last charge in support of the guns, I have no recollection of anything—I must have gone down like a shot!'
Fotheringhame thought that now the time was come when he could safely enlighten Cecil as to the change in his fortune, and elucidate the mysterious portions of Mary's half-obliterated letter—that he was Sir Piers's heir—her cousin, and that the obnoxious Hew had disappeared from the family group; and, as may easily be supposed, great was Cecil's bewilderment and wonder to hear of a discovery—a dénouement so singular.
Mary's cousin—the general's heir—heir to Eaglescraig and his baronetcy! Could such things be?
He had much to inquire about again and again, and much to think of deeply now; and sedulously as his mother, in her widowhood and in her pride of heart, had kept all knowledge of his family, and even of his name, from him, innumerable things that occurred in their wandering life took a tangible form now, and the cause of many an emotion and occurrence, that had puzzled him in the past time became apparent enough; and in his grateful heart a great pity mingled with the yearning memory of his mother.
'And now about yourself and Annabelle Erroll,' asked Cecil on one occasion.
'Only that we are to be married as soon as we get back, so make haste and get well, old fellow!' was the laughing reply of Fotheringhame.
The war in Servia was virtually over now; and even had it not been so, Cecil could have resigned now with honour, as Stanley did, who was also en route for England, with several other volunteers.
An armistice had been signed on the day after the last battle, and the sword was sheathed in the valley of the Morava, and Milano IV. remains still prince, but not king, of Servia and Bosnia.
With the struggle between Russia and Turkey, on the soil of Servia, Cecil had done. Of what the former for ages has looked forward to—the destruction of the latter—a prophecy of extreme antiquity foretells the accomplishment—a prophecy uttered when, or by whom, no man knows; but eight centuries ago it was read on the brazen horse of an equestrian statue, then ages old, when brought to Constantinople from Antioch.
Though weak from the effects of his terrible wound, Cecil was recovering fast; while love and fortune seemed to smile alike upon him; and to him and Fotheringhame pleasant indeed was their journey from Semlin, on the famous Danube, to Monaco, so famous in the Hungarian annals for its terrible battle, and from thence homeward by Vienna and the Netherlands.