It so disheartened me that for some time I scarcely noticed what was passing before me; and I might have continued longer in this dull state if the Waldgrave’s voice, civilly declining some proposition, had not caught my ear.
I gathered then what the offer was. Among the matches was one for officers, and in this the general was politely inviting his guest to compete. But the Waldgrave continued firm. ‘You are very good,’ he answered with perfect frankness and good temper. ‘But I think I will not expose myself. I shoot badly with a strange gun.’
It was so unlike him to miss a chance of distinction, or underrate his merits, that I stared. He was changed, indeed, to-day; or he thought the position very critical, the need of caution very great.
The general continued to urge him; and so strongly that I began to think that our host had his own interests to serve.
‘Oh, come,’ he said, in a light, gibing tone which just stopped short of the offensive. ‘You must not decline. There are five competitors — two Bohemians, a Scot, a Pole, and a Walloon; but no German. You cannot refuse to shoot for Germany, Waldgrave?’
The Waldgrave shook his head, however. ‘I should do Germany small honour, I am afraid,’ he said.
The general smiled unpleasantly. ‘You are too modest,’ he said.
‘It is not a national failing,’ the Waldgrave answered, smiling also.
‘I fancy it must be,’ the general retorted. ‘And that is the reason we see so little of Germans in the war!’
The words were almost an insult, though a dull man, deceived by the civility of the speaker’s tone, might have overlooked it. The Waldgrave understood, however. I saw him redden and his brow grow dark. But he restrained himself, and even found a good answer.
‘Germany will find her champions,’ he said, ‘when she seriously needs them.’
‘Abroad!’ the general replied, speaking in a flash, as it were. The instant the word was said, I saw that he repented it. He had gone farther than he intended, and changed his tone. ‘Well, if you will not, you will not,’ he continued smoothly. ‘Unless our fair cousin can succeed where I have failed, and persuade you.’
‘I?’ my lady said — she had not been attending very closely. ‘I will do what I can. Why will you not enter, Rupert? You are a good shot.’
‘You wish me to shoot?’ the Waldgrave said slowly.
‘Of course!’ she answered. ‘I think it is a shame General Tzerclas has so few German officers. If I could shoot, I would shoot for the honour of Germany myself.’
The Waldgrave bowed. ‘I will shoot,’ he said coldly.
‘Good!’ General Tzerclas answered, with a show of bonhomie. ‘That is excellent. Will you descend with me? Each competitor is to fire two shots at the figure at eighty paces. Those who lodge both shots in the target, to fire one shot at the head only.’
The young lord bowed and prepared to follow him.
‘Comrade,’ Ludwig said in my ear, as I watched them go, ‘your master had better have stood by his first word.’
‘Why?’
‘He will do no good.’
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘The Bohemian yonder — the fat man — will shoot round him. His little pig’s eyes see farther than others. Besides, the devil has blessed his gun. He cannot miss.’
‘What! That tun of flesh?’ I cried, for he was pointing to the gross, unwieldy man, at whose saddle-bow I had marked the iron mace. ‘Is he a Bohemian?’
Ludwig nodded. ‘Count Waska, they call him. There is no man in the camp can shoot with him or drink with him.’
‘We shall see,’ I said grimly.
I had little hope, however. The Waldgrave was a good shot; but a man was not likely to have a reputation for shooting in such a camp as this, where every one handled pistol or petronel, unless his aim was something out of the common. And listening to the talk round me, I found that Count Waska’s comrades took his victory for granted.
Their confidence explained General Tzerclas’ anxiety to trap the Waldgrave into shooting. The jealous feeling which had been all on the Waldgrave’s side yesterday, had spread to him to-day. He wished to see his rival beaten in my lady’s presence.
I longed to disappoint him; I felt sore besides for the honour of Germany. I could not leave my lady, or I would have gone down to see that the Waldgrave had fair play, and a clean pan, and silence when he fired. But I watched with as much excitement as any in the field, all that passed; I doubt if I ever took part in a match myself with greater keenness and interest than I felt as a spectator of this one.
From our elevated position we could see everything, and the sight was a curious one. The rabble of spectators — soldiers and women, sutlers and horse-boys — stretched away in two dark lines, ten deep, being kept off the range by a dozen men armed with whips. The clamour of their hoarse shouting went up continuously, and sometimes almost deafened us. Immediately below us, at the foot of the mound, the champions and their friends were gathered, settling rests, keying up the wheels of their locks, and trying the flints. Owing to the Waldgrave’s presence, which somewhat imposed upon the other officers both by reason of his rank and strangeness, the contest seemed likely to be conducted more decently than those which had preceded it. He was invited to shoot first, and when he excused himself on the ground that he was not yet familiar with his gun, Count Waska good-humouredly consented to open the match.
His weapon, I remarked — and I treasured up the knowledge and have since made use of it — was smaller in the bore than the others. He came forward and fired very carelessly, scarcely stooping to the rest; but he hit the figure fairly in the breast with both bullets and retired, a stolid smile on his large countenance.
The Waldgrave was the next to advance, and if he felt one half of the anxiety I felt myself, it was a wonder he let off his gun at all. General Tzerclas had returned to the Countess’s side, and was speaking to her; but he paused at the critical moment, and both stood gazing, my lady with her lips parted and her eyes bright. The desire to see the stranger shoot was so general that something like silence prevailed while he aimed. I had time to conjure up half a dozen miseries — the gun might not be true, the powder weak; and then, bang! I saw the figure rock. He had hit it fairly in the breast, and I breathed again.
My lady cried, ‘Vivat! good shot!’ and he looked up at her before he primed his pan for a second trial. This time I felt less fear, the crowd less interest. The babel began afresh. His second bullet struck somewhat lower, but struck; and he stood back, his face flushed with pleasure. Honour, at any rate, was safe.
The Scot hit with both balls, the Pole with one only. Last of all the Walloon, a grim dark officer in a stained buff coat, who seemed to be unpopular with the soldiery, fired in the midst of such a storm of gibes and hisses that I wondered he could aim at all. He did, however, and hit with his second bullet. Even so he and the Pole stood out, leaving the Waldgrave, Count Waska, and the Scot to fire at the head.
Huge was the clamour which followed on this, half the company bellowing out offers to stake all that they had on the Count — money, chains, armour. Meanwhile I looked at the general to see how he took it. He had fallen silent, and my lady also. They stood gazing down on the competitors and their preparations, as if they were aware that more hung on the issue than a simple match at arms.
Count Waska advanced for the final shot, and this time he made ample use of the rest, aiming long and carefully over it. He fired, and I looked eagerly at the target. A roar of applause greeted the shot. The bullet had pierced the whitened face a little to the left, high up.
It was the Waldgrave’s turn now. He came forward, with an air of quiet confidence, and set his weapon on the crutch. This time two or three voice’s were raised, gibing him; the crowd was growing jealous of its champion’s reputation. I longed to be down among them, and I saw my lady’s eyes flash and her colour rise. She looked indignantly at Tzerclas. But the general’s face was set. He did not seem to hear.
Fl
ash! Plop! In a moment I was shouting with the rest, shouting lustily for the honour of the house! The Waldgrave had lodged his ball in the upper part of the face towards the right-hand side. If Waska had put in the one eye, he had put in the other.
We shouted. But the camp hung silent, gloomily wondering whether this were luck or skill. And the general stood silent too. It was not until my lady had cried, ‘Vivat! Vivat Weimar!’ in her frank, brave voice, that he spoke and echoed the compliment.
When he had spoken, sullen silence fell upon the crowd again. I saw men look at us — not pleasantly; until the Scot by taking his place at the crutch diverted their attention. It seemed to me that he was an hour arranging the rest and his weapon, scraping his priming this way and that, and putting in a fresh flint at the last moment. At length he fired. A roar of laughter followed. He had missed the target altogether.
How it was arranged I do not know, but we saw at once that Waska and the Waldgrave were about to take another shot. The Bohemian, as he levelled his weapon with care, looked up at us.
‘We have put in his eyes,’ he said in his guttural tones. ‘I propose to put in his nose. If his excellency can better that, I give him the bone.’
He aimed very diligently, amid such a silence you could have heard a feather drop, and fired. He did as he had promised. His ball pierced the very middle of the face, a little below and between the two shots.
A wild roar of applause greeted the achievement. Even we who felt our honour at stake shouted with the rest and threw up our caps; while my lady took off in her admiration a slender gold chain which she wore round her neck and flung it to the champion, crying ‘Vivat Bohemia! Vivat Waska!’
He bowed with grotesque gallantry, and one of the bystanders picked up the chain and gave it to him. We smiled; for, too fat to kneel or stoop, he could no more have recovered the gift himself than he could have taken wings and flown. Fraulein Anna muttered something about Tantalus and water, but I did not understand her, and in a moment the Waldgrave gave me something else to think about.
He stepped forward when the noise and cheering had somewhat subsided, and like his antagonist he looked up also.
‘I do not see what there is left for me to do,’ he said, with a gallant air. ‘I could give him a mouth, but I fear I may set it on awry.’
Thrice he took aim, and, dissatisfied, forbore to fire. The crowd, silent at first, and confident of their champion’s victory, began to jeer. At length he pulled. Plop! The smoke cleared away. An inch below Waska’s last shot appeared another orifice. The Waldgrave had put in the mouth.
We waved our caps and shouted until we were hoarse; and the crowd shouted. But it soon became evident, amid the universal clamour and uproar, that there were two parties: one acclaiming the Waldgrave’s success, and another and larger one crying fiercely that he was beaten — that he was beaten! that his shot was not so near the centre of the target as Count Waska’s. The Waldgrave’s promise to make the mouth had been heard by a few only, mainly his friends; and while these, headed by the Bohemian, who showed that his clumsy carcase still contained some sparks of chivalry, tried to explain the matter to others, the camp with one voice bellowed against him, the more excited brandishing fists and weapons in the air, while the less moved kept up a stubborn and monotonous chant of ‘Waska! Waska! Waska!’
The only person unaffected by the tumult appeared to be the Waldgrave himself; who stood looking up at us in silence, a smile on his face. Presently, the noise still continuing, I saw him clap Count Waska on the shoulder, and the two shook hands. The Count seemed by his gestures — for the uproar and tumult were so great that all was done in dumb show — to be deprecating his retreat. But the younger man persisted, and by-and-by, after saluting the other competitors, he turned away, and began to force his way up the mound. It was time he did; the crowd had burst its bounds and flooded the range. The scene below was now a sea of wild confusion.
Such an ending seemed stupid in the extreme; in any place where ordinary discipline prevailed, it would have been easy to procure silence and restore order. And my lady, her face flushed with indignation, turned impatiently to the general, to see if he would not interfere. But he was, or he affected to be, powerless. He shrugged his shoulders with an indulgent smile, and a moment later, seeing the Waldgrave on his way to join us and the crowd still persistent, he gave the word to retire. The officers, who in the last hour had pressed on us inconveniently, fell back, and waiting only for the Waldgrave to reach his horse, we rode down the mound, and turned our faces towards the camp.
For a space, and while the uproar still rang in my ears, I could scarcely speak for indignation. Then came a reaction. I saw my lady’s face as she rode alongside the Waldgrave and talked to him. And my spirits rose. General Tzerclas had the place on her other hand, but she had not a word for him. It was not so much that the young lord had distinguished himself and done well, but that in an awkward position he had borne himself with dignity and self-control. That pleased her.
I saw her eyes shine as she looked at him, and her mouth grow tender; and I told myself with exultation that the Waldgrave had done something more than rival Waska — he had scored the first hit in the fight, and that no light one. The general would be wise, if he looked to his guard; fortunate, if he did not look too late.
CHAPTER XV.
THE DUEL CONTINUED.
I fell to wondering, as we rode home, whether we should find all safe; for we had left Marie Wort and my lady’s woman to keep house with two only of the men. From that, again, I strayed into thoughts of the chain, and of Marie herself, so that the very head of what happened when we reached the house escaped me. The first I knew of it, Fraulein Anna’s horse backed suddenly into mine, and brought us all up short with a deal of jostling and plunging. When I looked forward to learn what was amiss, I saw a man lying on his face under my lady’s horse, and so near it that the beast’s feet were touching his head. The man was crying out something in a pitiful tone, and two or three of the general’s officers who were riding abreast of me were swearing roundly, and there was great confusion.
General Tzerclas said something, but my lady overbore him. ‘What is it?’ I heard her cry. ‘Get up, man, and speak. Don’t lie there. What is it?’
The man rose to his knees, and cried out, ‘Justice, justice, lady!’ in a wild sort of way, adding something — which I could not understand, for he spoke in a vile patois — about a house. He was in a miserable plight, and looked scarcely human. His face was sallow, his eyes shone with famine, his shrunken limbs peered through mud-stained rags that only half covered him.
‘Which is your house?’ my lady asked gently. And when one of the officers who had ridden up abreast of her would have intervened, she raised her hand with a gesture there was no mistaking. ‘Which is your house?’ she repeated.
The man pointed to the one in which we had our quarters.
‘What! That one?’ my lady cried incredulously. ‘Then what has brought you to this?’ For the creature looked the veriest scarecrow that ever hung about a church-porch. His head and feet had no covering, his hair was foully matted. He was filthy, hideous, famine-stricken.
And desperate. For, half-cringing, half-defiant, he pointed his accusing finger at the general. ‘He has! He and his army!; he cried. ‘That house was mine. Those fields were mine. I had cattle, they have eaten them. I had wood, they have burned it. I had meat, they have taken it. I was rich, and I am this! I had, and I have not — only a wife and babes, and they are dying in a ditch. May the curse of God — —’
‘Hush!’ my lady cried, in an unsteady voice. And, without adding a word, she turned to General Tzerclas and looked at him; as if this were Heritzburg, and she the judge, he the criminal.
Doubtless the position was an awkward one. But he showed himself equal to it. ‘There has been foul play here,’ he said firmly. ‘I think I remember the man’s face.’ Then he turned and raised his hand. ‘Let all stand back,’ he said in a stern, curt tone.
We fell back out of hearing, leaving him and my lady with the man. For some time the general seemed to be putting questions to the fellow, speaking to my mistress between whiles. Presently he called sharply for Ludwig. The captain went forward to them, and then it was very plain what was going on, for the general raised his voice, and made the rating he administered to his subaltern audible even by us. Back Ludwig came by-and-by, with a dark sneer on his face, and we saw the general hand money to the man.
‘Teufel!’ one of the fellows who rode beside me muttered, surprise in his voice. ‘When the general gives, look to your necks. It will cost some one dear, this! I would not be in that clod’s shoes for his booty ten times told!’
Possibly. But I was not so much interested on the clown’s account as on my lady’s; and one needed only half an eye to see what the general’s liberality had effected with her. She was all smiles again, speaking to him with the utmost animation, leaning towards him as she rode. She forgot the Waldgrave, who had fallen back with the rest of us; she forgot all but the general. He went with her to the door of the house, gave his hand to help her to dismount, lingered talking to her on the threshold. And my heart sank. I could have gnashed my teeth with anger as I stood aside uncovered, waiting for him to go.
For how could we combat the man? Such an episode as this, which should have opened my lady’s eyes to his true character, served only to restore him to favour and blind her more effectually. It had undone all the good of the afternoon; it had effaced alike the Waldgrave’s success and the general’s remissness; it had given Tzerclas, who all day had been losing slowly, the upper hand once more. I felt the disappointment keenly.
I suppose it was that which made me think of consulting Fraulein Anna, and begging her to use her influence with my lady to get out of the camp. At any rate, the idea occurred to me. I could not catch her then; but later in the evening, when some acrobats, whom the general had sent for the Countess’s diversion, were performing outside, and my lady had gone out to the fallen tree to see them the better, I found the Fraulein alone in the outer room. She looked up at my entrance.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 141
