The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2

“Ah! mon Dieu! who knows? There is enough mischief here to kill half a squadron; but some fellows get through anything. If we had him in a quiet chamber of the Faubourg, with a good nurse, and all still and tranquil about him, there ‘s no saying; but here, with some seven hundred others, – many as bad, some worse than himself, – the chances are greatly against him. Come, however, we’ll do our best for him.” So saying, he proceeded to pass ligatures on some bleeding arteries; and although speaking rapidly all the while, his motions were even still more quick and hurried. “How old is he?” asked the surgeon, suddenly, as he gazed attentively at the youth.

“I can’t tell you,” said Darcy. “He belonged to my own corps, and by the lace on his jacket, I see, must have been a Volunteer; but I shame to say I don’t remember even his name.” “He knows you, then,” replied the doctor, who, with the shrewd perception of his craft, watched the working of the sick man’s features. “Is’t not so?” said he, stooping down and speaking with marked distinctness. “You know your colonel?”

A gesture, too faint to be called a nod of the head, and a slight motion of the eyebrows, seemed to assent to this question; and Darcy, whose laboring faculties struggled to bring up some clew to the memory of a face he was convinced he had known before, was about to speak again, when a mounted orderly, with a led horse beside him, rode up to the spot, and looking round for a few seconds, as if in search of some one, said, —

“The English colonel, I believe?” The Knight nodded. “You are to mount this horse, sir,” continued the orderly, “and proceed to the head-quarters at once.”

The doctor whispered a few hasty sentences, and while promising to bestow his greatest care upon the sick man, assured Darcy that at the head-quarters he would soon obtain admission of the wounded Volunteer into the officers’ hospital. Partly comforted by this, and partly yielding to what he knew was the inevitable course of fortune, the Knight took a farewell look of his follower, and mounted the horse provided for him.

Darcy was too much engrossed by the interest of the wounded soldier’s case to think much on what might await himself; nor did he notice for some time that they had left the high-road by which the troops were marching for a narrower causeway, leading, as it seemed, not into, but at one side of Alexandria. It mattered so little to him, however, which way they followed, that he paid no further attention, nor was he aware of their progress, till they entered a little mud-built village, which swarmed with dogs, and miserable-looking half-clothed Arabs.

“How do they call this village?” said the Knight, speaking now for the first time to his guide.

“El Etscher,” replied the soldier; “and here we halt” At the same moment he dismounted at the door of a low, mean-looking house; and having ushered Darcy into a small room dimly lighted by a lamp, departed.

The Knight listened to the sharp tramp of the horses’ feet as they moved away; and when they had gone beyond hearing, the silence that followed fell heavily and drearily on his spirits. After sitting for some time in expectation of seeing some one sent after him, he arose and went to the door, but there now stood a sentry posted. He returned at once within the room, and partly overcome by fatigue, and partly from the confusion of his own harassed thoughts, he leaned his head on the table and slept soundly.

“Pardon, Monsieur le colonel,” said a voice at his ear, as, some hours later in the night, he was awakened from his slumbers. “You will be pleased to follow me.” Darcy looked up and beheld a young officer, who stood respectfully before him; and though for a second or so he could not remember where he was, the memory soon came back, and without a word he followed his conductor.

The officer led the way across a dirty, ill-paved courtyard, and entered a building beyond it of greater size, but apparently not less dilapidated than that they had quitted. From the hall, which was lighted with a large lamp, they could perceive through an open door a range of stables filled with horses; at the opposite side a door corresponding with this one, at which a dragoon stood with his carbine on his arm. At a word from the officer the soldier moved aside and permitted them to enter.

The room into which they proceeded was large, but almost destitute of furniture. A common deal table stood in the middle, littered with military cloaks, swords, and shakos. In one corner was a screen, from behind which the only light proceeded; and, with a gesture towards this, the officer motioned Darcy to advance, while with noiseless footsteps he himself withdrew.

Darcy moved forward, and soon came within the space enclosed by the screen, and in front of an officer in a plain uniform, who was busily engaged in writing. Maps, returns, printed orders, and letters lay strewed about him, and in the small brazier of burning wood beside him might be seen the charred remains of a great heap of papers. Darcy had full a minute to contemplate the figure before him ere he was noticed. The Frenchman was short and muscular, with a thick, bushy head of hair, bald in the centre of the head. His features were full of intelligence and quickness, but more unmistakably denoted violence of temper, and the coarse nature of one not born to his present rank, which seemed, at least, that of a field officer. His hands were covered with rings, but their shape and color scarcely denoted that such ornaments were native to them.

“Ha, – the English colonel, – sit down, sir,” said he to Darcy, pointing to a chair without rising from his own. Darcy seated himself with the easy composure of one who felt that in any situation his birth and breeding made him unexceptionable company.

“I wished to see you, sir. I have received orders, that is,” said he, speaking with the greatest rapidity, and a certain thickness of utterance very difficult to follow, “to send for you here, and make certain inquiries, your answers to which will entirely decide the conduct of the Commander-in-Chief in your behalf. You are not aware, perhaps, how completely you have put this in our power?”

“I suppose,” said Darcy, smiling, “my condition as a prisoner of war makes me subject to the usual hardships of such a lot; but I am not aware of anything, peculiar to my case, that would warrant you in proposing even one question which a gentleman and a British officer could refuse to answer.”

“There is exactly such an exception,” replied the Frenchman, hastily. “The proofs are very easy, and nearer at hand than you think of.”

“You have certainly excited my curiosity, sir,” said the Knight, with composure; “you will excuse my saying that the feeling is unalloyed by any fear.”

“We shall see that presently,” said the French officer rising and moving towards the door of an apartment which Darcy had not noticed. “Auguste,” cried he, “is that report ready?” The answer was not audible to the Knight. But the officer resumed, “No matter; it is sufficient for our purpose.” And hastily taking a paper from the hands of a subaltern, he returned to his place within the screen. “A gentleman so conversant with our language, it would be absurd to suppose ignorant of our institutions. Now, sir, to make a very brief affair of this, you have, in contravention to a law passed in the second year of the Republic, ventured to apply opprobrious epithets to the forces of France, ridiculing the manner, bearing, and conduct of our troops, and instituting comparison between the free citizens of a free state and the miserable minions of a degraded monarchy. If a Frenchman, your accusation, trial, and sentence would have probably been nigh accomplished before this time. As a foreigner and a prisoner of war – ”

“I conclude such remarks as I pleased to make were perfectly open to me,” added Darcy, finishing the sentence.

“Then you admit the charge,” said the Frenchman eagerly, as if he had succeeded in entrapping a confession.

“So far, sir, as the expressions of my poor judgment on the effectiveness of your army, and its chances against such a force as we have yonder, I am not only prepared to avow, but if you think the remarks worth the trouble of hearing, to repeat them.”

“As a prisoner of war, sir, according to the eighty-fourth article of the Code Militaire, the offence must be tried by a court-martial, one-half of whose members shall have the same rank as the accused.”

“I ask nothing better, sir, nor will I ever believe that any man who has carried a sword could deem the careless comments of a prisoner on what he sees around him a question of crime and punishment.”

“I would advise you to reflect a little, sir, ere you suffer matters to proceed so far. The witnesses against you – ”

“The witnesses!” exclaimed the Knight, in amazement.

“Yes, sir, four dragoons of a German regiment, thoroughly conversant with your language and ours, have deposed to the words – ”

“I avow everything I have spoken, and am ready to abide by it.”

“Take care, sir, – take care.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said Darcy, with a look of quiet irony, “but it strikes me that the exigencies of your army must be far greater than I deemed them, or you had never had recourse to a system of attempted intimidation.”

“You are in error there,” said the Frenchman. “It was the desire to serve, not to injure you, suggested my present course. It remains with yourself to show that my interest was not misplaced.”

“Let me understand you more clearly. What is expected of me?”

“The answers to questions which doubtless every countryman of yours and mine could reply to from the public papers, but which, to us here, remote from intercourse and knowledge, are matters of slow acquirement.” While the French officer spoke, he continued to search among the papers before him for some document, and at length, taking up a small slip of paper, resumed: “For instance, the ‘Moniteur’ asserts that you meditate sending a force from India to cross the Red Sea and the Desert, and menace us by an attack in the rear as well as in the front. This reads so like a fragment of an Oriental tale, that I can forgive the smile with which you hear it.”

“Nay, sir; you have misinterpreted my meaning,” said the Knight, calmly. “I am free to confess I thought this intelligence was no secret. The form of our Government, the public discussions of our Houses, the freedom of our press, are little favorable to mystery. If you have nothing to ask of me more difficult to answer than this – ”

“And the expedition of Acre, – is this also correct?”

“Perfectly so. A combined movement, which shall compel you to evacuate the country, is in preparation.”

“Parbleu, sir,” said the Frenchman, stamping his foot with impatience, “these are somewhat bold words for a man in your situation to one in mine.”

“I fancy, sir, that circumstance affects the issue I allude to very slightly indeed; even though the officer to whom I address myself should be General Menou, the Commander-in-Chief.”

“And if I be, sir, and if you know it,” said Menou, – for it was he, – his face suffused with anger, “is it consistent with the respect due to my position and to your own safety, to speak thus?”

“For the first, sir, although a mere surmise on my part, I humbly hope I have made no transgression; for the last, I have very little reason to feel any solicitude, knowing that if you hurt a hair of my head, a heavy reprisal will await such of your own officers as may be taken, and the events of yesterday may have told you that a contingency of this sort is neither improbable nor remote.”

Menou made no answer to this threatening speech, but with folded arms paced the apartment for several minutes. At length he turned hastily round, and fixing his eyes on the Knight, said, with a rude oath, “You are a fortunate man, sir, that you did not hold this language to my predecessor in the command. General Kleber would have had you in front of a peloton of grenadiers within five minutes after you uttered it.”

“I have heard as much,” said the Knight, with a slight smile.

Menou rang a bell which stood beside him, and an aide-de-camp entered.

“Captain le Messurier,” said he, in the ordinary tone of discipline, “this officer is under arrest. You will take the necessary steps for his safe keeping, and his due appearance when summoned before a military tribunal.”

He bowed to Darcy as he spoke, and, reseating himself at the table, took up his pen to write.

“At the hazard of being thought very hardy, sir,” said the Knight, as he moved towards the door, “I would humbly solicit a favor.”

“A favor!” exclaimed Menou, staring in surprise.

“Yes, sir; it is that the services of a surgeon should be promptly rendered – ”

“I have given orders on that score already. My own medical man shall attend to you.”

“I speak not of myself, sir. It is of a Volunteer of my corps, a young man who now lies badly wounded; his case is not without hope, if speedily looked to.”

“He must take his chance with others,” said the general, gruffly, while he made a gesture of leave-taking; and Darcy, unable to prolong the interview, retired.

“I am sorry, sir,” said the aide-de-camp, as he went along, “that my orders are peremptory, and you must, if the state of your health permit, at once leave this.”

“Is it thus your prisoners of war are treated, sir?” said Darcy, scornfully, “or am I to hope – for hope I do – that the exception is created especially for me?”

The officer was silent; and although the flush of shame was on his cheek, the severe demands of duty overcame all personal feelings, and he did not dare to answer.

The Knight was not one of those on whom misfortune can press, without eliciting in return the force of resistance, and, if not forgetting, at least combating, the indignities to which he had been subjected; he resigned himself patiently to his destiny, and after a brief delay set forth for his journey to Akrish, which he now learned was to be the place of his confinement.

CHAPTER XXVIII. TIDINGS OF THE WOUNDED

The interests of our story do not require us to dwell minutely on the miserable system of intrigue by which the French authorities sought to compromise the life and honor of a British officer. The Knight of Gwynne was committed to the charge of a veteran officer of the Republic, who, though dignified with the title of the Governor of Akrish, was, in reality, invested with no higher functions than that of jailer over the few unhappy prisoners whom evil destiny had thrown into French hands.

By an alternate system of cruelty and concession, efforts were daily made to entrap Darcy either into some expression of violence or impatience at this outrage on all the custom of war, or induce him to join a plot for escape, submitted to him by those who, apparently prisoners like himself, were in reality the spies of the Republic. Sustained by a high sense of his own dignity, and not ignorant of the character under which revolutionized France accomplished her triumphs, the Knight resisted every temptation, and in all the gloom of this remote fortress, ominously secluded from the world, denied access to any knowledge of passing events, cut off from all communication with his country and his comrades, he never even for a moment forgot himself, nor became entangled in the perfidious schemes spread for his ruin. It was no common aggravation of the miseries of imprisonment to know that each day and hour had its own separate machinery of perfidy at work. At one moment he would be offered liberty on the condition of revealing the plans of the expedition; at another he would be suddenly summoned to appear before a tribunal of military law, when it was hinted he would be arraigned for having commanded a force of liberated felons, – for in this way were the Volunteers once designated, – in the hope that the insult would evoke some burst of passionate indignation. If the torment of these unceasing annoyances preyed upon his health and spirits, already harassed by sad thoughts of home, the length of time, to which the intrigues were protracted showed Darcy that the wiles of his enemies had not met success in their own eyes; and this gleam of hope, faint and slender as it was, sustained him through many a gloomy hour of captivity.

While the Knight continued thus to live in the long sleep of a prisoner’s existence, events were hastening to their accomplishment by which his future liberty was to be secured. The victorious army of Abercrombie had already advanced and driven the French back beneath the lines of Alexandria. The action which ensued was terribly contested, but ended in the complete triumph of the British, whose glory was, however, dearly bought by the death of their gallant leader.

The Turkish forces now joined the English under General Hutchinson, and a series of combined movements commenced, by which the French saw themselves so closely hemmed in, that no course was open save a retreat upon Cairo.

Whether from the changed fortune of their arms, – for the French had now sustained one unbroken series of reverses, – or that the efforts to entrap the Knight had shown so little prospect of success, the manner of the governor had, for some time back, been altered much in his favor, and several petty concessions were permitted, which in the earlier days of his captivity were strictly denied. Occasionally, too, little hints of the campaign would be dropped, and acknowledgments made “that fortune had not been as uniformly favorable to the ‘Great Nation’ as was her wont.” These significant confessions received a striking confirmation, when, at daybreak one morning, an order arrived for the garrison to abandon the fort of Akrish, and for the prisoners, under a strong escort, to fall back upon Damanhour.

The movements indicated haste and precipitancy; so much so, indeed, that ere the small garrison had got clear of the town, the head of a retreating column was seen entering it by the road from Alexandria; and now no longer doubt remained that the British had compelled them to fall back.

As the French retired, their forces continued to come up each day, and in the long convoy of wounded, as well as in the shattered condition of gun-carriages and wagons, it was easy to read the signs of a recent defeat. Nor was the matter long doubtful to Darcy; for, by some strange anomaly of human nature, the very men who would exaggerate the smallest accident of advantage into a victory and triumph, were now just as loud iu proclaiming that they had been dreadfully beaten. Perhaps the avowal was compensated for by the license it suggested to inveigh against the generals, and, in the true spirit of a republican army, to threaten them openly with the speedy judgments of the Home Government.

Among those who occasionally halted to exchange a few-words of greeting with the officer in conduct of the prisoners, the Knight recognized with satisfaction the same officer who, in the retreat from Aboukir, had so kindly suggested caution to him. At first he seemed half fearful of addressing him, to speak his gratitude, lest even so much might compromise the young captain in the eyes of his countrymen. The hesitation was speedily overcome, however, as the young Frenchman gayly saluted him, and said, —

“Ah, mon General, you had scarcely been here to-day if you had but listened to my counsels. I told you that the Republic, one and indivisible, did not admit criticism of its troops.”

“I scarcely believed you could shrink from such an order,” said the Knight, smiling.

“Not in the ‘Moniteur,’ perhaps,” rejoined the Frenchman, laughing. “Yours, however, had an excess of candor, which, if only listened to at your own head-quarters, might have induced grave errors.

“I comprehend,” interrupted Darcy, gayly catching up the ironical humor of the other, – “I comprehend, and you would spare an enemy such an injurious illusion.”

“Just so; I wish your army had been equally generous, with all my heart,” added he, as coolly as before; “here we are in full retreat on Cairo.”

“On Damanhour, you mean,” said Darcy.

“Not a bit of it; on Cairo, General. There’s no need of mincing the matter; we need fear no eavesdropper here. Ah, by the by, your German friends were retaken, and by a detachment of their own regiment too. We saw the fellows shot the morning after the action.”

“Now that you are kind enough to tell me what is going forward, perhaps you could let me know something of my poor comrades whom you took prisoners on the night of the 9th.”

“Yes. They are with few exceptions dead of their wounds, two men exchanged about a week since; and then, what strange fellows your countrymen are! They sent us back a major of brigade in exchange for a wounded soldier who, when he left our camp, did not seem to have life enough to bring him across the lines!”

“Did you see him?” asked Darcy, eagerly.

“Yes; I commanded the escort. He was a young fellow of scarcely more than four-and-twenty, and must have been good-looking too.”

“Of course you could not tell his name,” said the Knight, despondingly.

“No; I heard it, however, but it has escaped me. There was a curious story brought back about him by our brigade-major, and one which, I assure you, furnished many a hearty laugh at your land of noble privileges and aristocratic forms’.”

“Pray let me hear it.”

“Oh, I cannot tell you one-half of it; the finale interested the major most, because it concerned himself, and this he repeated to us at least a dozen times. It would seem, then, that this youth – a rare thing, I believe, in your service – was a man of birth, but, according to your happy institutions, was a man of nothing more, for he was a younger son. Is not that your law?”

Darcy nodded, and the other resumed.

“Well, in some fit of spleen at not being born a year or two earlier, or for some love affair with one of your blond insensibles, or from weariness of your gloomy climate, or from any other true British cause of despair, our youth became a soldier. Parbleu! your English chivalry has its own queer notions, when it regards the service as a last resource of the desperate! No matter, he enlisted, came out here, fought bravely, and was taken prisoner in the very same attack with yourself; but while Fortune dealt heavily with one hand, she was caressing with the other, for, the same week she condemned him to a French prison, she made him a peer of England, having taken off the elder brother, an ambassador at some court, I believe, by a fever. So goes the world; good and ill luck battling against each, and one never getting uppermost without the other recruiting strength for a victory in turn.”

“These are strange tidings, indeed,” said the Knight, musing, “and would interest me deeply, if I knew the individual.”

“That I am unfortunate enough to have forgotten,” said the Frenchman, carelessly; “but I conclude he must be a person of some importance, for we heard that the vessel which was to sail with despatches was delayed several hours in the bay, to take him back to England.”

Although the whole recital contained many circumstances which the Knight attributed to French misrepresentation of English habitudes, he was profoundly struck by it, and dwelt fondly on the hope that if the young peer should have served under his command, he would not neglect, on arriving in England, to inform his friends of his safety.

These thoughts, mingling with others of his home and of his son Lionel, far away in a distant quarter of the globe, filled his mind as he went, and made him ponder deeply over the strange accidents of a life that, opening with every promise, seemed about to close in sorrow and uncertainty. Full of movement and interest as was the scene around, he seldom bestowed on it even a passing glance; it was an hour of gloomy reverie, and he neither marked the long train of wagons with their wounded, the broken and shattered gun-carriages, or the miserable aspect of the cavalry, whose starved and galled animals could scarcely crawl.

The Knight’s momentary indifference was interpreted in a very different sense by the officer who commanded the escort, and who seemed to suspect that this apathy concealed a shrewd insight into the real condition of the troops and the signs of distress and discomfiture so palpable on every side. As, impressed with this conviction, he watched the old man with prying curiosity, a smile, faint and fleeting enough, once crossed Darcy’s features. The Frenchman’s face flushed as he beheld it, and he quickly said, —