On the 4th of December the archduke called another council of war; and some hours before daybreak on the morning of the 5th, our whole right wing was despatched to the point at which we anticipated an attack.
At dawn, Gustav, who had been out all night on duty, came in wet and weary, and found me still asleep.
‘Rouse up, dreamer!’ he said. ‘Our comrades are gone, and now we can sing ‘De Profundis’ for ourselves.’
‘Why for ourselves?’ I asked, raising myself upon my elbow.
‘Because Riesch is gone; and, if I am not very much mistaken, we shall have to fight the French without him.’
‘What do you mean? Riesch is gone to repulse the threatened attack down the river!’
‘I mean that my mind misgives me about that attack. Moreau is not wont to show his cards so plainly. I have been thinking about it all night; and the more I think of it, the more I suspect that the French have laid a trap, and the archduke has walked into it.
And then, while we lit our fire and breakfasted together off our modest rations of black bread and soup, my friend showed me, in a few words, how unlikely it was that Moreau should conduct any important operation in so ostentatious a fashion. His object, argued Lichtenstein, was either to mislead us with false rumours, and then, in the absence of Riesch’s division, to pour across the river and attack us unexpectedly, or, more probably still, it was his design to force the passage of the Upper Inn and descend upon us from the hills in the rear.
I felt a sudden conviction that he was right.
‘It is so—it must be so!’ I exclaimed. ‘What is to be done?’
‘Nothing—unless to die hard when the time comes.’
‘Will you not lay your suspicions before the archduke?’
‘The archduke would not thank me, perhaps, for seeing further than himself. Besides, suspicions are nothing. If I had proof—proof positive—if my uncle would but grant me a party of reconnaissance—— By Heaven! I will ask him.’
‘Then ask him one thing more—get leave for me to go with you!’
At this moment three or four drums struck up the rappel—were answered by others—and again by others far and near, and in a few seconds the whole camp was alive and stirring. In the meanwhile, Lichtenstein snatched up his cap and rushed away, eager to catch the prince before he left his tent.
In about half-an-hour he came back, radiant with success. His uncle had granted him a troop of twenty men, with permission to cross the Inn and reconnoitre the enemy’s movements.
‘But he will not consent to let thee join, mein Bruder,’ said Gustav, regretfully.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it is a service of danger, and he will not risk the life of a second officer when one is enough.’
‘Pshaw! as if my life were worth anything! But there—it’s just my luck. I might have been certain he would refuse. When do you go?’
‘At mid-day. We are to keep on this side, following the road to Neubevern till we find some point narrow enough to swim our horses over. After that we shall go round by any unfrequented ways and bridle-paths we can find; get near the French camp as soon as it is dusk; and find out all we can.’
‘I’d have given my black mustang to be allowed to go with you.’
‘I don’t half forgive the prince for refusing,’ said Gustav. ‘But then, you see, not a man of us may come back; and, after all, it’s more satisfactory to get one’s bullet on the open battle-field than to be caught and shot for a spy.’
‘I should prefer to take my chance of that.’
‘I am not quite sure that I should prefer it for you,’ said my friend. ‘I have gained my point—I am glad to go: but I have an impression of coming disaster.’
‘Ah! you know I don’t believe in presentiments.’
‘I do know it, of old. But the sons of the house of Lichtenstein have reason to believe in them. I could tell you many a strange story if I had time—— But it is already ten, and I must write some letters and put my papers in order before I start.
With this he sat down to his desk, and I went out, in order to leave him alone while he wrote. When I came back, his charger was waiting outside in care of an orderly; the troop had already assembled in an open space behind the tent; and the men were busy tightening their horses’ girths, looking to the locks of their pistols, and gaily preparing to be gone.
I found Lichtenstein booted and spurred and ready. A letter and a sealed packet lay upon the table, and he had just opened the locker to take a slice of bread and a glass of kirschwasser before starting.
‘Thank heaven you are come!’ he said. ‘In three minutes more I should have been gone. You see this letter and packet?—I entrust them to you. The packet contains my watch, which was my father’s, given to him by the Empress Catherine of Russia; my hereditary star and badge as a count of the early Roman Empire; my will; my commission; and my signet ring. If I fall today, the packet is to be given to my uncle. The letter is for Constance, bidding her farewell. I have enclosed in it my mother’s portrait and a piece of my hair. You will forward it, lieber Freund——’
‘I will.’
He took a locket from his bosom, opened it, kissed it, and gave it to me with a sigh.
‘I would not have her portrait fall into rude and sacrilegious hands,’ he said; ‘if I never come back, destroy it. And now for a parting glass, and goodbye!’
We then chinked our glasses together, drank to each other in silence, clasped hands, and parted.
Away they rode through the heavy mire and beating rain, twenty picked men, two and two, with their captain at their head. I watched them as they trotted leisurely down the long line of tents, and when the last man had disappeared, I went in with a heavy heart, telling myself that I should perhaps never see Gustav von Lichtenstein again.
Throughout the rest of the day it continued to rain incessantly. It was my turn that night to be on duty for five hours; to go the round of the camp, and to visit all the outposts. I therefore made up the best fire I could, stopped indoors, and, following my friend’s example, wrote letters all the afternoon.
About six in the evening the rain ceased, and it began to snow. It was just the Hohenlinden weather over again.
At eight, having cooked and eaten my solitary supper, I wrapped myself in my rug, lay down before the fire, and slept till midnight, when the orderly came, as usual, to wake me and accompany me on my rounds.
‘Dreadful weather, I suppose, Fritz?’ I said, getting up unwillingly, and preparing to face the storm.
‘No, mein Herr; it is a beautiful night.’
I could scarcely believe him.
But so it was. The camp lay around us, one sheet of smooth dazzling snow; the clouds had parted, and were clearing off rapidly in every direction; and just over the archduke’s tent where the Imperial banner hung drooping and heavy, the full moon was rising in splendour.
A magnificent night—cold, but not piercing—pleasant to ride in, pleasant to smoke in as one rode. A superb night for trotting leisurely round about a peaceful camp; but a bad night for a reconnoitring party on hostile ground—a fatal night for Austrian white-coats in danger of being seen by vigilant French sentries.
Where now were Gustav and his troop? What had they done? What had happened since they left? How soon would they come back? I asked myself these questions incessantly.
I could think of nothing else. I looked at my watch every few minutes. As the time wore on, the hours appeared to grow longer. At two o’clock, before I had gone half my round, it seemed to me that I had been all night in the saddle. From two to three, from three to four, the hours dragged by as if every minute were weighted with lead.
‘The Graf von Lichtenstein will be coming back this way, mein Herr,’ said the orderly, spurring his horse up beside mine, and saluting with his hand to the side of his helmet as he spoke.
‘Which way? Over the hill, or down in the hollow?’
‘Through the hollow, mein Herr. That is the ro
ad by which the Herr Graf rode out; and the river is too wide for them to cross anywhere but up-stream.’
‘Then they must come this way?’
‘Yes, mein Herr.’
We were riding along the ridge of a long hill, one side of which sloped down towards the river, while on the other side it terminated in an abrupt precipice overhanging a narrow road or ravine, some forty feet below. The opposite bank was also steep, though less steep than that on our side; and beyond it the eye travelled over a wide expanse of dusky pine-woods, now white and heavy with snow.
I reined in my horse the better to observe the scene. Yonder flowed the Inn, dark and silent, a river of ink winding through meadow flats of dazzling silver. Far away upon the horizon rose the mystic outlines of the Franconian Alps. A single sentry, pacing to and fro some four hundred yards ahead, was distinctly visible in the moonlight; and such was the perfect stillness of the night that, although the camp lay at least two miles and a half away, I could hear the neighing of the horses and the barking of the dogs.
Again I looked at my watch, again calculated how long my friend had been absent. It was now a quarter past four A.M., and he had left the camp at mid-day.
If he had not yet returned—and of course he might have done so at any moment since I had been out on duty—he had now been gone sixteen hours and a quarter.
Sixteen hours and a quarter! Time enough to have ridden to Munich and back!
The orderly again brought his horse up abreast with mine.
‘Pardon, mein Herr,’ he said, pointing up the ravine with his sabre; ‘but do you see nothing yonder—beyond the turn of the road—just where there is a gap in the trees?’
I looked; but I saw nothing.
‘What do you think you see?’ I asked him.
‘I scarcely know, mein Herr—something moving close against the trees, beyond the hollow way.’
‘Where the road emerges upon the plain and skirts the pine-woods?’
‘Yes, mein Herr; several dark objects—Ah! they are horsemen!’
‘It is the Graf von Lichtenstein and his troop!’ I exclaimed.
‘Nay, mein Herr; see how slowly they ride, and how they keep close under the shade of the woods! The Graf von Lichtenstein would not steal back so quietly.’
I stood up in my stirrups, shaded my eyes with my hand, and stared eagerly at the approaching cavalcade.
They were perhaps half-a-mile away as the crow flies, and would not have been visible from this point but for a long gap in the trees on this side of the hill. I could see that they were soldiers. They might be French; but, somehow, I did not think they were. I fancied, I hoped, they were our own Lichtensteiners come back again.
‘They are making for the hollow way, mein Herr,’ said the orderly.
They were evidently making for the hollow way. I watched them past the gap till the last man had gone by, and it seemed to me they were about twenty in number.
I dismounted, flung my reins to the orderly, and went to where the edge of the precipice overhung the road below. Hence, by means of such bushes and tree-stumps as were rooted in the bank, I clambered down a few feet lower, and there lay concealed till they should pass through.
It now seemed to me that they would never come. I do not know how long I waited. It might have been ten minutes—it might have been half-an-hour; but the time that elapsed between the moment when I dismounted and the moment when the first helmet came in sight seemed interminable.
The road, as I have already said, lay between a steep declivity on the one side and a less abrupt height, covered with pine-trees, on the other—a picturesque winding gorge or ravine, half dark as night, half bright as day; here deep in shadow, there flooded with moonlight; and carpeted a foot deep with fresh-fallen snow. After I had waited and watched till my eyes ached with staring in the gloom, I at last saw a single horseman coming round the turn of the road, about a hundred yards from the spot where I was lying. Slowly, and as it seemed to me, dejectedly, he rode in advance of his comrades. The rest followed two and two.
At the first glance, while they were yet in deep shadow, and, as I have said, a hundred yards distant, I recognised the white cloaks and plumes and the black chargers of my own corps. I knew at once that it was Lichtenstein and his troop.
Then a sudden terror fell upon me. Why were they coming back so slowly? What evil tidings did they bring? How many were returning? How many were missing? I knew well, if there had been a skirmish, who was sure to have been foremost in the fight. I knew well, if but three or four had fallen, who was sure to be one of the fallen.
These thoughts flashed upon me in the first instant when I recognised the Lichtenstein uniform. I could not have uttered a word, or have done anything to attract the men’s attention, if it had been to save my life. Dread paralysed me.
Slowly, dejectedly, noiselessly, the first cuirassier emerged into the moonlight, passed on again into the gloom, and vanished in the next turn of the road. It was but for a moment that the moonlight streamed full upon him; yet in that moment I saw there had been a fray, and that the man had been badly wounded.
As slowly, as dejectedly, as noiselessly, with broken plumes and battered helmets, and cloaks torn and blood-stained, the rest came after, two and two; each pair, as they passed, shining out momentarily, distinctly, like the images projected for an instant upon the disk of a magic-lantern.
I held my breath and counted them as they went by—first one alone; then two and two, till I had counted eighteen riding in pairs. Then one alone, bringing up the rear. Then——
I waited—I watched—I refused to believe that this could be all. I refused to believe that Gustav must not presently come galloping up to overtake them. At last, long after I knew it was in vain to wait and watch longer, I clambered up again—cramped, and cold, and sick at heart—and found the orderly walking the horses up and down on the brow of the hill. The man looked me in the face, as if he would fain have asked me what I had seen.
‘It was the Graf von Lichtenstein’s troop,’ I said, by an effort; ‘but—but the Graf von Lichtenstein is not with them.’
And with this I sprang into the saddle, clapped spurs to my horse, and said no more.
I had still two outposts to visit before finishing my round; but from that moment to this I have never been able to remember any one incident of my homeward ride. I visited these outposts, without doubt; but I was as unconscious of the performance of my duty as a sleeper is unconscious of the act of breathing.
Gustav was the only man missing. Gustav was dead. I repeated it to myself over and over again. I felt that it was true. I had no hope that he was taken prisoner. No—he was dead. He had fallen, fighting to the last. He had died like a hero. But—he was dead.
At a few minutes after five, I returned to the camp. The first person I met was Von Blumenthal, the Prince of Lichtenstein’s secretary. He was walking up and down outside my tent, waiting for me. He ran to me as I dismounted.
‘Thank heaven you are come!’ he said. ‘Go at once to the prince—the Graf von Lichtenstein is dying. He has fought a troop of French lancers three times as many as his own, and carried off a bundle of despatches. But he has paid for them with his life, and with the lives of all his men. He rode in, covered with wounds, a couple of hours ago, and had just breath enough left to tell the tale.’
‘His own life, and the lives of all his men!’ I repeated hoarsely.
‘Yes, he left every man on the field—himself the only survivor. He cut his way out with the captured despatches in one hand and his sword in the other—and there he lies in the prince’s tent—dying.’
He was unconscious—had been unconscious ever since he was laid upon his uncle’s bed—and he died without again opening his eyes or uttering a word. I saw him breathe his last, and that was all. Even now, old man as I am, I cannot dwell upon that scene. He was my first friend, and I may say my best friend. I have known other friendships since then; but none so intimate—none so precious.
What, then, was that silent cavalcade that I saw riding through the hollow way—twenty men without their leader? Were those the dead whom I met, and was it the one living man who was absent?
The New Pass
THE CIRCUMSTANCES I AM about to relate happened just four autumns ago, when I was travelling in Switzerland with my old school and college friend, Egerton Wolfe.
Before going further, however, I wish to observe that this is no dressed-up narrative. I am a plain, prosaic man, by name Francis Legrice; by profession a barrister; and I think it would be difficult to find many persons less given to look upon life from a romantic or imaginative point of view. By my enemies, and sometimes, perhaps, by my friends, I am supposed to push my habit of incredulity to the verge of universal scepticism; and indeed I admit that I believe in very little that I do not hear and see for myself. But for these things that I am going to relate, I can vouch; and in so far as mine is a personal narrative, I am responsible for its truth. What I saw, I saw with my own eyes in the broad daylight. I offer nothing, therefore, in the shape of a story; but simply a plain statement of facts, as they happened to myself.
I was travelling, then, in Switzerland with Egerton Wolfe. It was not our first joint long-vacation tour by a good many, but it promised to be our last; for Wolfe was engaged to be married the following spring to a very beautiful and charming girl, the daughter of a north-country baronet.
He was a handsome fellow, tall, graceful, dark-haired, dark-eyed; a poet, a dreamer, an artist—as thoroughly unlike myself, in short, as one man having arms, legs, and a head, can be unlike another. And yet we suited each other capitally, and were the fastest friends and best travelling companions in the world.
THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Page 24
