Stolen Souls Part 23

As I stand looking away over the market garden, towards the shady wood, a film gathers in my eyes, and I am carried back into the terrible past, to those black, fateful days when France lay helpless under the iron heel of the invader, who had encamped around St. Cloud and Suresnes.

Paris--fettered, existing upon black bread and horse-flesh--s.h.i.+vered under an icy mantle. The black branches of the leafless trees over in the Bois stood out distinctly against the grey, stormy sky, and upon the ground snow was lying thickly. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, we had held those walls, regardless of the hail of sh.e.l.l poured upon us from beyond the trees, and replying with monotonous, unceasing regularity. Hundreds of our gallant comrades were, alas!

lying dead; hundreds were in the temporary hospitals established in the neighbouring churches; but we, the survivors--half-starved, with the biting wind chilling our bones, and so weak that our greatcoats felt as heavy as millstones,--resolved, every one of us, to face death and do our duty. We knew well that to hold out much longer would be impossible. In those dark December days the city was starving. Our country had been overrun by the Prussian legions, and sooner or later we must succ.u.mb to the inevitable.

The night was dark and moonless, as to and fro I paced on sentry duty.

My post was a lonely one, under the strongest portion of the wall, at the point I have already indicated. Away in the direction of Courbevoie there was a lurid glare in the sky, showing that the enemy had committed another act of incendiarism; and now and then the booming of artillery echoed like distant thunder. In our quarter the guns of the enemy had ceased their fire--a silence that we felt was ominous. Under my feet the snow crunched as I marched slowly up and down; and with rifle loaded, and ready for any emergency, I waited patiently for relief, which would come at dawn. As I tramped on, I thought of my home away in the centre of the inert, trembling city; of my young wife, blue-eyed, fair-haired, from whom I had been torn away ere our honeymoon was scarcely over. How, I wondered, was she faring? As an advocate I had been distinctly successful, having been entrusted with quite a number of _causes celebres_; but on the outbreak of war my chances of fortune had been suddenly wrecked, and I had been called upon to serve with the 106th Regiment of Infantry, first under General Chanzy on the Loire, and afterwards taking part in the defence of Paris.

Though now so near the woman I loved, I saw very little of her; indeed, I had not been able to s.n.a.t.c.h an hour to run home for the past fortnight. Yet, while I trudged on, I knew that one of the truest and best women on earth was awaiting me _au troisieme_ in the great old house in the Rue St. Sauveur.

I think that for some time I must have been oblivious to my surroundings, for on turning sharply, my eyes suddenly detected some indistinct object, moving cautiously in the shadow. Something prompted me to refrain from challenging, and, with rifle ready, I quickly hurried to the spot. With a cry of surprise, a man in a workman's blouse sprang forward right up to the muzzle of my gun.

I challenged, and presented my rifle.

"Hold!" he gasped in French, in a low, hoa.r.s.e tone. "Louis Henault, don't you know me? Have you so soon forgotten your fellow-student, Paul Olbrich?"

The voice and the name caused me to start.

"_You_!" I cried, peering into his face, and in the semi-darkness discovering the scar upon his cheek that he had received in the fencing school at Konigswinter. "You, Paul, my best friend! Alas that you are a Prussian, and we meet here as enemies!"

"As enemies?" he repeated, in a strange, harsh tone. "Yes, Louis, you are right," he added bitterly,--"as enemies."

"Why are you here?" I inquired breathlessly. "Why are you disguised as a French workman? It is my duty to arrest you--to--"

"But you will not. Remember, we were friends beside the Rhine, and we can only be enemies to the outside world. Surely you, of all men, will not betray me!"

"When last I heard of you, two years ago," I said, "you were a lieutenant of dragoons. To-night you are here, inside Paris, disguised."

"To tell the truth," he replied quickly, "it is a love escapade. Let me get away quickly beyond the walls, and no one will know that you have detected me. See, over there," and he pointed to a portion of the wall deep in the shadow. "There is my _fiancee_. I have dared to pa.s.s through your lines to rescue her before the final onslaught."

I peered in the direction indicated, and could just distinguish a figure, hidden by a cloak, and closely veiled.

"Quick," he continued; "there is no time for reflection. If you raise an alarm, my fate is sealed; if you allow us to proceed, two lives will be made happy. Do you consent?" Grasping my hand, he pressed it hard, adding, "Do, Louis, for _her_ sake!"

m.u.f.fled footsteps and the clank of arms broke the quiet. Three officers were approaching.

"Go. May G.o.d protect you!" I replied; and, turning sharply, tramped onward in the opposite direction, while my old friend, and the woman he had rescued from starvation, were a second later lost in the darkness in the direction of the Prussian camp.

Scarcely had I taken a dozen paces when there were shouts, followed by shots rapidly exchanged.

"Spies!" I heard one of our men exclaim; "and, _sacre_! they've escaped!"

At that moment the officers who had approached ordered me to halt, and proceeded to question me as to whom I had been speaking with. I admitted that the man was a stranger, and that I had allowed him to pa.s.s out of the city. Thus all was discovered, and I was at once arrested as a traitor--as one who had rendered a.s.sistance to a Prussian spy!

The penalty was death. The stern, grey-haired general before whom I was taken half an hour later p.r.o.nounced sentence; and, without ceremony, I was hurried off to execution. Bah! Fate has always been unkind to me.

It would have been better had I fallen with four of my comrades' bullets in my breast, than that I should have continued to drag out an existence till to-day. But the bombardment had recommenced vigorously; and as I was being led along, a sh.e.l.l fell close to my escort, and, bursting, killed two of the poor fellows, and demoralised the rest.

I saw my chance, and darted away. A moment later, I was lost among the trees.

Three hours later.

Breathlessly I mounted the long flights of stairs that led to my home, and opened the door with my key. Entering our little salon, I looked around. In the cold, grey light of dawn, the place looked unutterably cheerless, and the thunder of the guns was causing the windows to rattle. Pa.s.sing quickly into the bedroom, I found the ceiling open to the sky, and a huge gap in the wall. A sh.e.l.l had fallen, and completely wrecked it.

"Rose!" I cried. "Rose, I have returned."

There was no response. Another roar like the roll of thunder, and the whole place vibrated, as though an earthquake had occurred.

Where was Rose? I dashed back into the salon, and there, upon a table, I found a letter addressed to me in her familiar hand. Tearing it open, I read eagerly the three brief lines it contained, then staggered back, as if I had received a blow. A second later, I felt conscious of the presence of some one at my elbow; and, turning, found Mariette, our maid-of-all-work.

"My wife--where is my wife?" I gasped.

"Madame has gone, m'sieur," the girl replied in her Gascon accent.

"Last night a man called for her, and she went out, leaving a note for you."

"A man?" I cried. "Describe him. What was he like?"

"I only caught one glimpse of him, m'sieur. He was fair, and had a long red scar across his cheek."

"_A scar_?" I shrieked in dismay, as the terrible truth dawned suddenly upon me. Rose, whom I had first met in Cologne, when a student on the Rhine-bank, had told me that I was not her first love; and now I remembered that she had long ago been acquainted with my fellow-student, Paul Olbrich.

It was my own wife whom I had a.s.sisted to elope with my enemy!

Ah! time has not effaced her memory. My sorrow is still as bitter to-day as it was in that cold December dawn, with the horrors of war around me. My life has become soured, and my hair grey. Since that eventful night, I have wandered in strange lands, endeavouring to stifle my grief; for, still under sentence of death as a spy, I have been an exile and an outlaw until to-day.

What, you ask, has become of _her_?

Far away, in a secluded valley in the Harz, under the shadow of the mystic Brocken, there is a plain white cross in the village burying-ground, bearing the words, "Rose Henault, 1872."

My enemy, Paul Olbrich, a year after the war had ended, succeeded to the family t.i.tle and estates; and to-day he is one of the most prominent men in Europe, and acts as the diplomatic representative of Germany at a certain Court that must be nameless.

Truly, Fate has been unkind to me. To-day, for the first time, I have taken my skeleton from its cupboard. Would that I could bury it forever!

CHAPTER TEN.

FORTUNE'S FOOL.

I am no longer myself. I vanished involuntarily. Truth to tell, I was befooled by Fortune.

As confidential messenger in the service of the Bank of France, it was my duty to convey notes and bullion to various European capitals, and so constantly did I travel between London and Paris, and to Rome, Berlin, and Vienna, that my long journeys became terribly irksome, and I longed for rest and quiet. There is much excitement and anxiety in such a life, when one is entrusted with large sums of money which are impossible to hide in one's pocket.

In the year 1883, England, as is frequently the case, was remitting a quant.i.ty of gold coin to France, and consequently, during the month of June, I was making two, and sometimes three, journeys between Paris and London weekly. Incessant travelling, such as this, soon wearies even those inured to long railway journeys, especially if one very often has to arrive in London in the morning only to leave again the same night.

A long trip, say to the Austrian or Turkish capitals, was much more to my taste than the wearying monotony of the Dover-Calais route, and the inevitable turmoil between Paris and the English metropolis.

One warm night--although excessively tired, having arrived in London at an early hour that morning--I was compelled to return, and left Charing Cross by the mail train at half-past eight. I had with me a box from the Bank of England containing a large quant.i.ty of bullion. As far as Dover I was alone, smoking and dozing over a newspaper, but when I alighted on the pier, the weather had changed. It rained in torrents, and a violent wind was blowing in a manner that was indicative of a "dirty" night.

My expectations in this respect proved correct, and I was glad to arrive at Calais, where I selected an empty first-cla.s.s compartment, bade the porter deposit my weighty box on the seat, and, wrapping myself comfortably in my travelling rug, settled myself for the remainder of the journey. While such a quant.i.ty of gold was in my possession, I dared not sleep, yet, fatigued as I was, I experienced great difficulty in keeping awake. It was always possible that while coin was in my custody I might be watched and followed by thieves, therefore a loaded revolver constantly reposed in my pocket ready for an emergency.

Few persons were travelling that night, and I was fortunate in having the compartment to myself as far as Abbeville. Then there entered two well-dressed Frenchmen, who, after scrutinising me rather closely, sank into opposite corners of the carriage. Seldom I felt uneasy regarding fellow-travellers; nevertheless, I confess that as I looked at them, I felt a strange, vague shadow of distrust. Instinctively I felt for my revolver, a.s.suring myself that it was ready if required. Somehow I had a suspicion that the men had been on board the Channel boat, and were following me for some evil purpose. But they sat opposite one another smoking, occasionally indulging in conversation, though always keeping their faces concealed as much as possible from the pale, flickering rays of the lamp overhead.