In the Track of the Troops Part 22

They were evidently in a hurry. So much so, that they had no time to put off in making payment! It was obviously to be regarded as an outstanding debt against them by the villagers. As the rear-guard pa.s.sed out of the place, the corporal in command observed a fat young pig in the middle of a by-road. He turned aside sharply, charged, picked the pig neatly up on the point of his lance, and galloped after his friends, accompanied by a tune that would have done credit to a Scotch bagpipe.

All this did Lancey see from his secret point of observation, and deeply did his philosophic mind moralise on what he saw.

The village in which he had sought shelter was in the very heart of the district swept by the wave of war. The panorama of incidents commenced to move again at an early hour.

When morning light had just begun to conquer night, Lancey was once more awakened from a refres.h.i.+ng sleep by a noise in the room below. He looked down and saw an old, old woman, with bent form, tottering step, and wrinkled brow. She was searching for something which, evidently, she could not find. Sc.r.a.ping various things, however, and tasting the ends of her thin fingers, suggested that she was in search of food.

Lancey was a sympathetic soul. The old woman's visage reminded him of his own mother--dead and gone for many a day, but fresh and beautiful as ever in the memory of her son.

He descended at once. The old woman had flung herself down in despair in a corner of the hovel. Lancey quickly emptied the remnants of food in his wallet into her lap.

It would have saddened you, reader, to have seen the way in which that poor old thing hungrily munched a mouthful of the broken victuals without asking questions, though she glanced her grat.i.tude out of a pair of large black eyes, while she tied up the remainder in a kerchief with trembling haste.

"No doubt," soliloquised Lancey, as he sat on a stool and watched her, "you were a pretty gal once, an' somebody loved you."

It did not occur to Lancey, for his philosophy was not deep, that she might have been loved more than "once," even although she had _not_ been a "pretty gal;" neither did it occur to him--for he did not know--that she was loved still by an old, old man in a neighbouring hut, whose supper had been carried off by the Cossacks, and whose welfare had induced her to go out in search of food.

While the two were thus engaged their attention was attracted by a noise outside. Hastening to the door Lancey peeped out and beheld a band of Bas.h.i.+-Bazouks galloping up the road. The Turks of the village began to hold up their heads again, for they regarded these as friends, but scant was the courtesy they received from them. To dismount and pillage, and to slay where the smallest opposition was offered, seemed the order of the day with these miscreants. For some time none of them came near to the hut where Lancey and the old woman were concealed, as it stood in an out-of-the-way corner and escaped notice.

While the robbers were busy, a wild cheer, accompanied by shots and cries, was heard some distance along the road. The Bas.h.i.+-Bazouks heard it and fled. A few minutes later Lancey saw Turkish soldiers running into the village in scattered groups, but stopping to fire as they ran, like men who fight while they retreat. Immediately after there was a rush of men, and a column of Turkish infantry occupied the village in force. They were evidently hard pressed, for the men ran and acted with that quick nervous energy which denotes imminent danger.

They swarmed into the houses, dashed open the windows, knocked out loop-holes in the walls, and kept up a furious fusillade, while whistling b.a.l.l.s came back in reply, and laid many of them low.

One party of Turks at last made a rush to the hut where Lancey sat with the old woman. There was no weapon of any sort in the hut, and as Lancey's arms had been taken from him when he was captured, he deemed it the wisest policy to sit still.

Leaping in with a rush, the Turks shut and barred the door. They saw Lancey, but had evidently no time to waste on him. The window-frame was dashed out with rifle-b.u.t.ts, and quick firing was commenced by some, while others made loop-holes in the mud walls with their bayonets.

Bullets came pinging through the window and brought down ma.s.ses of plaster from the walls. Suddenly a terrible yell rang in the little room, and the commander of the party, raising both hands above him, dropped his sword and fell with a terrible crash. He put a hand to his side and writhed on the floor in agony, while blood flowed copiously from his wound. The poor fellow's pain lasted but a moment or two. His head fell back suddenly, and the face became ashy pale, while his glaring eyeb.a.l.l.s were transfixed in death.

No notice was taken of this except by a man who sat down on the floor beside his dead commander, to bandage his own wounded arm. Before he had finished his task, a shout from his comrades told that danger approached. Immediately the whole party rushed out of the hut by a back door. At the same instant the front door was burst open, and a soldier leaped in.

It was evident to Lancey that, in the midst of smoke and turmoil, a mistake had been made, for the man who appeared was not a Russian but a Turk. He was followed by several companions.

Casting a savage piercing look on Lancey, and apparently not feeling sure, from his appearance, whether he was friend or foe, the man presented his rifle and fired. The ball grazed Lancey's chest, and entering the forehead of the old woman scattered her brains on the wall.

For one moment Lancey stood horror-struck, then uttered a roar of rage, rose like a giant in his wrath, and seized a rifle which had been dropped by one of the fugitive soldiers. In an instant the bayonet was deep in the chest of his adversary. Wrenching it out, he swung the rile round and brought the b.u.t.t down on the skull of the man behind, which it crushed in like an egg-sh.e.l.l. Staggered by the fury of the onslaught, those in rear shrank back. Lancey charged them, and drove them out pell-mell. Finding the bayonet in his way, he wrenched it off, and, clubbing the rifle, laid about him with it as if it had been a walking-cane.

There can be no question that insanity bestows temporary and almost supernatural power. Lancey was for the time insane. Every sweep of the rifle stretched a man on the ground. There was a wavering band of Turks around him. The cheers of victorious Russians were ringing in their ears. Bullets were whizzing, and men were falling. Shelter was urgently needful. Little wonder, then, that one tall st.u.r.dy madman should drive a whole company before him. The Russians saw him as they came on, and cheered encouragingly. He replied with savage laughter and in another moment the Turks were flying before him in all directions.

Then Lancey stopped, let the b.u.t.t of his rifle drop, leaned against the corner of a burning house, and drew his left hand across his brow. Some pa.s.sing Russians clapped him on the back and cheered as they ran on to continue the b.l.o.o.d.y work of ameliorating the condition of the Bulgarian Christians.

Nearly the whole village was in flames by that time. From the windows of every house that could yet be held, a continuous fire was kept up.

The Russians replied to it from the streets, rus.h.i.+ng, in little bands, from point to point, where shelter could be found, so as to escape from the withering shower of lead. Daring men, with apparently charmed lives, ran straight up in the face of the enemy, sending death in advance of them as they ran. Others, piling brushwood on a cart, pushed the ma.s.s before them, for the double purpose of sheltering themselves and of conveying combustibles to the door of the chief house of the town, to which most of the inhabitants, with a company of Turks, had retired.

But the brushwood proved a poor defence, for many of those who stooped behind it, as they ran, suddenly collapsed and dropped, as men are wont to do when hit in the brain. Still, a few were left to push the cart forward. Smoke disconcerted the aim of the defenders to some extent, and terror helped to make the firing wild and non-effective.

Against the town-house of the village some of the Russians had already drawn themselves up so flat and close that the defenders at the windows could not cover them with their rifles. These ran out ever and anon to fire a shot, and returned to reload. Meanwhile the brushwood was applied to the door and set on fire, amid yells of fiendish joy.

Lancey had followed the crowd almost mechanically. He had no enemy--no object. The Turk, as it happened, was, for the time being, his friend.

The Muscovite was not, and never had been, his foe. After the first deadly burst of his fury on seeing the innocent old woman ma.s.sacred had pa.s.sed, his rage lost all point. But he could not calm his quivering nerves or check the fierce flow of his boiling blood. Onward he went with the shouting, cheering, yelling, and cursing crowd of soldiery, his clothes cut in many places with bullets, though flesh and bone were spared.

Close to the town-house stood the dwelling of the Turk who had released him, and shown him hospitality when he was seized by the inhabitants.

The door of the house was being burst open by clubbed rifles. The memory of a "helping hand," however slight, was sufficient to give direction to the rage of the madman, for such he still undoubtedly was at the moment--like many another man who had become sane enough the following day when the muster-roll was called.

Up to that moment he had been drifting before the gale. He now seized the helm of his rage, and, upsetting two or three of the men who stood in his way, soon drew near to the front. As he came forward the door gave way. A tremendous discharge of fire-arms laid low every man in advance; but of what avail is it to slay hundreds when thousands press on in rear?

Lancey sprang over the dead and was met by the points of half a dozen bayonets,--the foremost man being his deliverer with the black beard.

Grounding his rifle with a crash, and holding up his left hand, he shouted--"A friend!"

At the same moment he was thrown down and leaped over by the soldiers behind, who were stabbed by the Turks and fell on him. But Lancey staggered again to his feet, and using his superior strength to push aside and crush through those in front, he gained an empty pa.s.sage before the others did, and rushed along towards a door at the end of it.

Opening the door and entering he was arrested by the sight of a beautiful Turkish girl, who stood gazing at him in horror. Before he had time to speak or act, a door at the other end of the room opened, and the Turk with the black beard entered sword in hand. The girl rushed into his arms, with a cry of joy. But this was changed into alarm as the Turk flung her off and ran at Lancey.

There was no time for explanation. The Russians were already heard coming along the pa.s.sage by which he had reached the apartment. Lancey felt intuitively that a brave man would not stab him in the back.

Instead of defending himself he dropped his rifle, turned, and hastily shut and bolted the door, then, turning towards the Turk, held aloft his unarmed hands. The Turk was quick to understand. He nodded, and a.s.sisted his ally to barricade the door with furniture, so that no one could force a pa.s.sage for a considerable time. Then they ran to the other door, which had not yet been menaced. They were almost too late, for shouts and tramping feet were heard approaching.

Lancey caught up his rifle, stepped out of the room, shut the door, and, locking it on the Turk and his daughter, commenced to pace calmly up and down in front of it like a sentinel. Another moment and the Russians rushed up, but halted and looked surprised on beholding a sentinel there, who did not even condescend to stop in his slow measured march, or to bring his arms to the charge to stop them.

One of them advanced to the door, but Lancey grasped his waist with one hand, gently, almost remonstratively, and shook his head. As the man persisted, Lancey gave him a throw which was peculiarly Cornish in its character--he slewed his hip round under the Russian's groin and hurled him back heels over head amongst his comrades, after which feat he resumed the sedate march of a sentinel.

By this time he had been recognised as the man who had routed a whole Turkish company, and was greeted with a laugh and a loud cheer, as the men turned away and ran to effect some other work of destruction.

"Now, my fine fellow," said Lancey, opening the door and entering.

"You'll 'ave to defend yourself, for I'm neither a friend o' the Turk nor the Roos.h.i.+an. They're fools, if not worse, both of 'em, in my opinion; but one good turn desarves another, so now you an' I are quits.

Adoo!"

Hurrying out of the house, Lancey picked up a Russian cap and greatcoat as he ran, and put them on, having a vague perception that they might help to prevent his being made prisoner.

He was right. At all events, in the confusion of the moment, he pa.s.sed through the village, and escaped unnoticed into a neighbouring thicket, whence he succeeded in retiring altogether beyond the range of the a.s.sailed position.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN WHICH SOME DESPERATE ENTERPRISES ARE UNDERTAKEN.

At this time the Russians had taken up a strong position in the Balkan mountain range, and entrenched themselves within a short distance of the enemy.

After a night and a day of aimless wandering, Jacob Lancey found himself at last in a rocky defile between the hostile lines. How he got there he could not tell, but there he was, in a position of imminent danger, with the sentinels of the belligerent armies on either side of him.

Evening was setting in when he made this discovery, and recoiled, happily without having been seen, into a narrow rocky place where the fast-failing light had already deepened into gloom. A cold white fog was slowly creeping up from the valleys and covering the hill-sides.

It is in such places and circ.u.mstances that men conceive and execute designs, which, according to their nature, are deeds of recklessness or of heroism. Two such ventures were afoot that night.

In the Russian camp preparations were being made for a night attack on a village in possession of the Turks, and out of which, with a view to future movements, it was deemed necessary to drive them. In this village there dwelt a youth, an intimate friend of Dobri Petroff. The two had played with each other in childhood, had roamed about the country together in boyhood, and, when they reached man's estate, had become faster friends than ever, being bound by the ties of intellectual as well as physical sympathy. When this friend, Petko Borronow, left Yenilik at the death of his mother, it was to take charge of the little farm in the Balkan mountains,--the desolate home where his sister Giuana, an invalid, and a beautiful girl, was now left in solitude.

In his capacity of scout, Petroff was always in the neighbourhood of headquarters, and was frequently summoned to the tent of the general commanding, to be interrogated. Thus he chanced to overhear occasional remarks and hints which, when pieced together by his intelligent mind, showed him pretty clearly what was pending.

He sat by the camp-fire that night, buried in meditation, with a series of troubled wrinkles on a brow that was usually open and unclouded.