The Sword of Gideon

CHAPTER XXXIII

October had come by now, Marlborough's camp was at Sutendal, and the army was but waiting to receive the latest information as to the disposal of the French round Liége to throw their pontoons across the river Jaar, and, after crossing, to march in two columns on that city. Venloo was taken, so, too, were Ruremond and Stevenswaert; the Earl, to use his own words, had now but one enemy between him and Liége-the weather.

Meanwhile, there had passed between Marlborough and Le Maréchal de Boufflers some of those courteous epistles which, at that time, it was customary for the principal commanders of hostile forces to indite to each other. Cartels, as they were then termed, in which the one would inform the other that he had so many prisoners in his hands whom he desired to exchange for some of his own men who might happen to be in the hands of his adversary, and that he would be obliged by the consent of the other being given. In one of the most recent of these, Marlborough had stated briefly the case of Bevill Bracton, while making comparisons between it and that of the Marquis de Cabrieres, and had informed the French commander that he was willing to exchange the latter gentleman against his own countryman, now a prisoner in Liége.

To this there had been returned an answer by De Boufflers in which he stated that, with regard to the ordinary prisoners in his and Marlborough's hands, the exchange should be willingly made, but that a regards the Englishman now a prisoner at Liége it was not in his power to do anything. The decision, he continued, rested with M. Tallard, who was at the moment near Bonn, although De Boufflers added that, if it were possible for him to communicate with Liége, he, as supreme commander of the French army of the Netherlands, would send orders that, presuming the English prisoner had not been already found guilty and executed, the execution should be delayed.

"This is, perhaps, no very satisfying news," the Earl of Marlborough said, when, after having received this letter from his adversary, he proceeded to a tent near his own pavilion in which the Comtesse de Valorme and Sylvia were installed. Nor were they the only women present in this camp, since, wherever an army definitely halted for any length of time, there always appeared on the scene the wives and daughters of the local peasantry intent on selling any provisions and drink they might chance to be possessed of. Also, they were always willing to hire out their services in washing and mending, attending to the sick and wounded, and, sometimes, if they were of the worst species, of robbing the latter. But in the case of Sylvia and the Comtesse, an honest, respectable creature had been found at Asch who acted as general maid to both, and, when the camp was removed to Sutendal some few miles off, was willing to accompany them in that capacity.

"Yet, my lord," Sylvia said, in answer to the Earl's remark, "at least it is something. Except for those last awful words, 'if the prisoner has not yet been found guilty and executed,' there is much hope in the letter. Le Maréchal de Boufflers says if he could communicate with Liége he would send orders for delay."

"That, however," the Earl replied, "it is impossible for him to do. We are between him and Liége, and another portion of our forces is between M. Tallard and Liége. In no way can that letter reach the Governor."

"Therefore," said the Comtesse, "neither can the warrant, which your Lordship says would undoubtedly have to be signed by one of these two generals, reach him either. If one of the enemy, bearing that which will save Bevill Bracton, cannot reach M. de Violaine, how is it possible for the warrant to reach M. Tallard, and how be returned?"

"That is indeed true," Marlborough said reflectively. "While, for our army, we cannot invest Liége yet. We must wait for our reinforcements. And even at the last moment, when the men of the garrison find themselves attacked by us, they might proceed to the extreme. Or-" but he paused. He would not repeat again that which must at least be as obvious to those women as to him, that which had been obvious to the Maréchal de Boufflers-the possibility of Bevill having been already found guilty and executed.

A moment later, however, the Earl added.

"'Tis pity-a thousand pities-we cannot yet advance on Liége or communicate with the Governor-reach his ear somehow. For this reply from De Boufflers to me would be sufficient. With that letter from the Generalissimo of the French army in his hand, not even the signed warrant of Tallard could have effect."

"You cannot reach him, you cannot communicate with him, my lord!" Sylvia exclaimed, her whole body quivering with excitement as she spoke, her eyes glistening like stars. "You cannot reach him!"

"It is impossible. If I send forward a regiment they will be fallen upon, annihilated by some out of the thirty thousand troops that are near here; even an English regiment cannot fight half the army of France and Spain. Though," he added, "it is our curse to be always too self-vaunting and to believe we can perform superhuman feats."

"They will not annihilate me," Sylvia said. "What an English regiment cannot do an English woman hastening to save her lover can."

"You, Mistress Thorne! You!" Marlborough exclaimed, taken almost aback, if one so calm as he could by any means be startled. "You!"

"Yes, I. I reached here in safety. I can return."

"But you will be stopped; your reasons will be demanded. And-you may not fall into the hands of French officers-of gentlemen. Their patrols, pickets, outposts, are commanded by sergeants and corporals. They are not always even French but, instead, Spanish, and mercenaries at that. Also they may not be able to read the Maréchal's letter, to understand-"

"They will understand what I tell them," Sylvia exclaimed, carried away by the excitement of her thoughts and desires. "That I, an Englishwoman, one who, after escaping out of Liége when her lover was to be tried for his life as a spy, was forced-by her love-to return to his side. And," she continued, "they, those French and Spanish who hate us English so dearly, will not thwart but rather assist me to re-enter the jaws of the trap. Only they will not know that in my possession will be that letter of their supreme commander; one that will o'erweigh even the orders of M. Tallard, should he have sent them. If," she added, almost hysterically, as her memory reverted to those written words of the French marshal, "it is not too late. If it is not-ah! Heaven grant it may not be."

And Sylvia threw herself weeping into the arms of the Comtesse.

For a moment-only a moment-Marlborough's eyes rested on her even as, it may be, he thought that here was a woman whose love and heroism, whose loyalty to the man who had gained her heart, might match with the love and loyalty of the woman who was his own wife-the woman who, hated by many for her imperious nature and haughty spirit, was the most fond, proud wife whom any husband's arms had ever enfolded. The woman who, even while she teased and vexed him with her overbearing temper and violent disposition, loved him as deeply and fondly as the day when first they became lovers.

A moment later and when now Sylvia stood once more upright before him, he, taking her hand and raising it to his lips, said:

"It may not be that he shall perish. Mr. Bracton must live even to claim you for his bride. Therefore, your desire to return to Liége with the letter-it is a shrewd one, worthy of a woman's wit! – shall not be gainsaid. While, for the rest, you shall be accompanied some part of the way, 'Tis but a day's ride. Also," and now his voice sank a little lower so that the shrillness that was so often apparent in it was no longer perceptible, "if they permit that you should see him, your affianced husband-"

"Ah!" Sylvia said. "If-if I should see him! If-no! no!" she almost moaned. "I cannot say the words." But recovering herself a moment later, forcing herself to be valiant, she continued, "If he-is-still-alive it may be we shall become fellow prisoners. Once M. de Violaine has me in his keeping again he will give me no further chance of escape."

"Nor me," the Comtesse said. "In his stern sense of honour he will deem me a traitor. Though I am none to France but only to the King and 'her'-to the woman he has made his wife." For it was as "her" and "she" that all France spoke of the "dark and fatal woman," De Maintenon-all France, no matter of what faith, while at the same time refusing to accord her the title of Queen or the right to bear that title. De Maintenon who, born a Protestant, had now been for years the most cruel and vindictive oppressor of all Protestants.

"If it may be so," Marlborough continued; "say to him, I beg, that from the moment we meet again he shall become once more a soldier of the Queen. Even though he has not accomplished that which he set out to do, the attempt was gallant, was well worthy of reward."

"Heaven above bless you," Sylvia said, and now she held out her hand to Marlborough, while, as he took it and as, for a moment, his eyes scanned all the troubled beauty of her face, she added: "Henceforth, no matter what befall, in the prayers of a humble subject of that Queen her greatest subject shall be remembered. Farewell, my lord. I thank you from my heart."

"Not farewell. We shall meet again at Liége. We and one other-your future husband. I pray it may be so. Such noble bravery as yours cannot surely go unrewarded."

And now, ere departing, he turned from Sylvia to the Comtesse de Valorme, his manner to her equally full of the chivalrous courtesy which never failed him.

"Madame," he said, "ere you, too, depart with your friend, believe that, as I have already said, England is preparing to make the cause of those in the South of France hers. Already there are thousands of French Protestants who have found succour and shelter in our land; the Queen's intentions towards all of the Protestant religion cannot be doubted. The matter is already broached. The Council is deliberating on sending a fleet to the Mediterranean to succour those of your faith and ours. Rest assured, madame, nothing will be forgotten that can aid them."

As the Earl of Marlborough spoke, doubtless through the information he was regularly supplied with from England, so things occurred. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the English admiral, did send the Pembroke and the Tartar to the Gulf of Narbonne with a view not only to supply the Camisards with money and arms and ammunition, but also to land men to assist them. But, when they arrived off the coast and made signals all night, there were none on shore who could comprehend them, for the simple reason that the French Protestant who had been sent by the Earl of Nottingham from London with the key to these signals, had been arrested before he could reach Cette, and his body was at the very time lying broken to pieces and mutilated on the wheel at Aigues-Mortes. Later, but unhappily much later, the peace that was patched up between Louis and his Protestant subjects came about not by the force of arms but by the humanity of a French general, De Villars.

But neither the Comtesse de Valorme nor the Earl of Marlborough could look into the glass of Time or tell what seeds should grow and what should not, and, consequently, if the former did not set out with Sylvia with her heart thoroughly at ease, at least that heart was full of hope. Hope that those of her faith might at last be free from the miseries they had endured so long; from the burnings, the wheels and dungeons, the gallows formed by their own fruit trees, the deaths from starvation of their old parents and helpless children, the galleys and the forced exile to stranger lands.

And also, she set out with one other great, one supreme hope in her heart for the immediate future. The hope, coupled with a prayer that she and Sylvia might be in time to save Bevill from the fate that still must threaten him, if already the worst had not befallen-the prayer that, at last, he and Sylvia might be happy.

"For," she told herself again as she had done many times before, "they love each other. Let my happiness in this world be to see their happiness; my greatest hope never to lose hope that they may yet be united, since, for me, there can never be any other," and, as these thoughts passed through her mind, the tears fell from her eyes.

CHAPTER XXXIV

As the night fell over Liége, a night sombre and dark, and with no stars beginning to twinkle above, Bevill Bracton turned away from his accustomed place at the embrasure of the room that was his prison, while wondering how many more days and nights would pass over his head ere he left this place for freedom-of one kind or another. For the days had followed each other in weary rotation-he had, indeed, lost count of them now, and, except for the continuous clanging of all the bells on Sundays, and a question sometimes asked of the warder who brought his meals, he scarce recollected what period of each week he had arrived at. Nay, more, except that he had rigorously forced himself to scratch a mark each day with his nail on the rough, whitewashed wall, he could not have told whether he had been there a month or two months. There was nothing but the absence of the swallows that had built under the eaves, the deepening of the russet on the leaves of the trees outside, and then the fall of the leaves, the increasing chill of the room in which he had been so long incarcerated and the shortening of the days, to tell him of the progress of time.

De Violaine had come to him no more. He had been left entirely to himself, except for the visits of that one man, the soldier, who acted as his gaoler.

Nor did he see or hear aught outside that could relieve the weariness of his existence. Alone, morning after morning, he observed the soldiers driving up the mules laden with bread and vegetables for the supply of all in the Citadel, while, also, morning after morning, he perceived that the loads on the backs of the animals became more scanty and that the peasants, who came with their baskets when he was first brought here, came no more now. Whereby he knew that, gradually, the provisions of the locality were giving out, or that-and each morning and night he prayed it might be so-the Allies must be drawing closer and closer round the French lines, and that either they or his own countrymen were approaching. For a week now he had also noticed that the rations brought to him had become more and more scanty, and that, when his gaoler had placed them before him he had done so with a surly look which might have been intended for an apology for their meagreness, or, on the other hand, as one intended to suggest that, at this time, the fewer unnecessary mouths there were to feed the better for the others. Not knowing, however, what the man's looks might truly mean, he made no observation on the sparseness of the meals now supplied him, to which, in absolute fact, he was utterly indifferent.