第 21 页

horse well in hand--ready to turn and ride for his life, on an

instant's notice.

Presently, as the road wound through a narrow gorge, lined with

trees, he heard a voice say, close in his ear, "Stop!"

He reined in his horse, and drew his pistol. The leaves parted; and

a man of some sixty years of age, armed with an old double-barreled

fowling piece, stepped out.

"The Germans are just beyond," he said. "I expect them every

moment."

"And what are you doing here?" Ralph asked.

"What am I doing?" repeated the peasant. "I am waiting to shoot

some of them."

"But they will hang you, to a certainty, if they catch you."

"Let them," the old man said, quietly; "they will do me no more

harm than they have done me. I had a nice farm, near Metz. I lived

there with my wife and daughter, and my three boys. Someone fired

at the Prussians from a wood near. No one was hit, but that made no

difference. The black-hearted scoundrels came to my farm; shot my

three boys, before their mother's eyes; ill treated her, so that

she died next day and, when I returned--for I was away, at the

time--I found a heap of ashes, where my house had stood; the dead

bodies of my three boys; my wife dying, and my daughter sitting by,

screaming with laughter--mad--quite mad!

"I took her away to a friend's house; and stayed with her till she

died, too, a fortnight after. Then I bought this gun, and some

powder and lead, with my last money; and went out to kill

Prussians. I have killed thirteen already and, please God," and the

peasant lifted his hat, devoutly, "I will kill two more, today."

"How is it that you have escaped so long?" Ralph asked, in

surprise.

"I never fire at infantry," the peasant said. "It was Uhlans that

did it, and it's only Uhlans I fire at. I put myself on a rock, or

a hillside, where they can't come--or in a thick wood--and I

content myself with my two shots, and then go. I don't want to be

killed, yet. I have set my mind on having fifty--just ten for each

of mine--and when I've shot the last of the fifty, the sooner they

finish me, the better.

"You'd better not go any farther, sir. The valley widens out, round

the corner; and there are Prussians in the nearest village."

"Thank you," Ralph said, "but my orders are to reconnoiter them,

myself, and I must do so. I am well mounted, and I don't think that

they will catch me, if I get a couple of hundred yards' start.

There are franc tireurs in the village, a mile back."

Ralph now rode carefully forward, while the peasant went back into

his hiding place by the wood. As he had said, the gorge widened

into a broad valley, a few hundred yards farther on. Upon emerging

from the gorge, Ralph at once saw a village--almost hidden among

trees--at a distance of less than a quarter of a mile. After what

he had heard, he dared not ride on farther. He therefore drew his

horse aside from the road, among some trees; dismounted, and made

his way carefully up the rocky side of the hill, to a point from

which he could command a view down the whole valley.

When he gained this spot, he looked cautiously round. Below, beyond

the village, he could see large numbers of men; could make out

lines of cavalry horses, and rows of artillery. A considerable

movement was going on, and Ralph had no doubt that they were about

to advance. In his interest in what he saw, he probably exposed his

figure somewhat; and caught the eye of some sharp-sighted sentry,

in the village.

The first intimation of his danger was given him by seeing some

twenty Uhlans dart suddenly out of the trees, in which the village

lay, at the top of their speed while, almost at the same moment,

eight or ten rifles flashed, and the balls whizzed round him in

most unpleasant propinquity. Ralph turned in an instant; and

bounded down the rock with a speed and recklessness of which, at

any other moment, he would have been incapable. Fierce as was the

pace at which the Uhlans were galloping, they were still a hundred

yards distant when Ralph leaped upon his horse, and galloped out in

front of them.

There was a rapid discharge of their carbines, but men at full

gallop make but poor shooting. Ralph felt he was untouched but, by

the convulsive spring which his horse gave, he knew the animal was

wounded. For a couple of hundred yards, there was but little

difference in his speed; and then Ralph--to his dismay--felt him

flag, and knew that the wound had been a severe one. Another

hundred yards, and the animal staggered; and would have fallen, had

not Ralph held him up well, with knee and bridle.

The Uhlans saw it; for they gave a shout, and a pistol bullet

whizzed close to his head. Ralph looked round. An officer, twenty

yards ahead of his men, was only about forty yards in his rear. In

his hand he held a revolver, which he had just discharged.

"Surrender!" he shouted, "or you are a dead man!"

Ralph saw that his pursuers were too close to enable him to carry

out his intention of dismounting, and taking to the wood--which,

here, began to approach thickly close to the road--and was on the

point of throwing up his arm, in token of surrender; when his horse

fell heavily, with him, at the moment when the Prussian again

fired. Almost simultaneously with the crack of the pistol came the

report of a gun; and the German officer fell off his horse, shot

through the heart.

Ralph leaped to his feet, and dashed up the bank in among the

trees; just as another shot was fired, with a like fatal result,

into the advancing Uhlans. The rest--believing that they had fallen

into an ambush--instantly turned their horses' heads, and galloped

back the road they had come.

Ralph's first impulse was to rush down into the road, and catch the

officer's horse; which had galloped on a short distance when its

master fell, and was now returning, to follow its companions. As he

did so, the old peasant appeared, from the wood.

"Thank you," Ralph said warmly. "You have saved my life or, at any

rate, have saved me from a German prison."

The peasant paid no attention to him; but stooped down to examine,

carefully, whether the Germans were both dead.

"Two more," he said, with a grim smile. "That makes fifteen. Three

apiece."

Then he picked up the officer's revolver, took the cartridge

belonging to it from the pouch and, with a wave of the hand to

Ralph, strode back into the wood.

Ralph removed the holsters from the saddle of his own horse--which

had fallen dead--placed them on the horse of the German officer and

then, mounting it, rode off at full speed, to inform General

Cambriels of the results of his investigation.

"Hallo, Barclay!" one of his fellow officers said, as he rode up to

the headquarters, "what have you been up to? Doing a little barter,

with a German hussar? You seem to have got the best of him, too;

for your own horse was a good one, but this is a good deal better,

unless I am mistaken.

"How has it come about?"

Quite a crowd of idlers had collected round, while the officer was

speaking; struck, like him, with the singularity of the sight of a

French staff officer upon a horse with German trappings. Ralph did

not wish to enter into explanations, there; so merely replied, in

the same jesting strain, that it had been a fair exchange--the

small difference in the value of the horses being paid for, with a

small piece of lead. Then, throwing his reins to his orderly--who

came running up--he went in to report, to the general, the evident

forward movements of the Germans.

"Are they as strong as we have heard?" the general asked.

"Fully, I should say, sir. I had no means of judging the infantry,

but they seemed in large force. They were certainly strong in

cavalry, and I saw some eight or ten batteries of artillery."

"Let the next for duty ride, with all speed, to Tempe; and tell him

to hold the upper end of this valley. Send Herve's battery forward

to assist him. Have the general assembly sounded."

Ralph left to obey these orders, while the general gave the colonel

of his staff the instructions for the disposition of his forces.

The army of the Vosges--pompous as was its name--consisted, at this

time, of only some ten thousand men; all Mobiles or franc tireurs,

with the exception of a battalion of line, and a battalion of

Zouaves. The Mobiles were almost undisciplined, having only been

out a month; and were, for the most part, armed only with the old

muzzle loader. Many were clothed only in the gray trousers, with a

red stripe, which forms part of the mobile's uniform; and in a blue

blouse. Great numbers of them were almost shoeless; having been

taken straight from the plow, or workshop, and having received no

shoes since they joined. Half disciplined, half armed, half

clothed, they were too evidently no match for the Germans.

The fact was patent to their general, and his officers. Still, his

instructions were to make a stand, at all hazards, in the Vosges;

and he now prepared to obey the orders--not hoping for victory, but

trusting in the natural courage of his men to enable him to draw

them off without serious disaster. His greatest weakness was his

artillery, of which he had only two batteries; against eight or ten

of the Germans--whose forces were, even numerically, superior to

his own.

In half an hour, the dispositions were made. The valley was wide,

at this point; and there were some five or six villages nestled in

it. It was pretty thickly wooded and, two miles behind, narrowed

again considerably. Just as the troops had gained their appointed

places, a faint sound of heavy musketry fire was heard, in the

gorge ahead; mingled, in a few minutes, with the deep boom of

cannon.

The general, surrounded by his staff, moved forward towards the

spot. From the road at the entrance to the narrow part of the

valley, nothing could be seen; but the cracking of rifles among the

trees and rocks on either side, the bursting of shells and the

whistling of bullets were incessant. The general and his staff

accordingly dismounted, handed their horses to the men of the

escort, and mounted the side of the hill.

After a sharp climb, they reached a point from whence they could

see right down the long narrow valley. On beyond, the trees--except

near the road--were thin; the steep sides of the hills being

covered with great blocks of stone, and thick brushwood. Among

these--all down one side, and up the other--at a distance of some

five hundred yards from the post taken up by the general, a

succession of quick puffs of smoke told where Colonel Tempe's franc

tireurs were placed; while among the trees below there came up

great wreaths of smoke from the battery, which was supporting them

by firing at the Germans.

These formed a long line, up and down the sides of the valley, at

three or four hundred yards distance from the French lines. Two

German batteries were down in the road, a few hundred yards to the

rear of their skirmishers; and these were sending shells thickly up

among the rocks, where the franc tireurs were lying hid; while two

other batteries--which the Germans had managed to put a short way

up on the mountain sides, still farther in the rear--were raining

shell, with deadly precision, upon the French batteries in the

road.

A prettier piece of warfare it would have been difficult to

imagine--the lofty mountain sides; the long lines of little puffs

of smoke, among the brushwood and rocks; the white smoke arising

from the trees, in the bottom; the quick, dull bursts of the

shells--as a spectacle, it was most striking. The noise was

prodigious. The steep sides of the mountain echoed each report of

the guns into a prolonged roar, like the rumble of thunder. The

rattle of the musketry never ceased for an instant, and loud and

distinct above the din rose the menacing scream of the shells.

"This is grand, indeed, Ralph!" Percy said, after a moment's

silence.

"Splendid!" Ralph said, "but it is evident we cannot hold the

gorge. Their skirmishers are three to our one, and their shells

must be doing terrible damage."

"Barclay," General Cambriels said, "go down to the battery, and

bring me back word how they are getting on."

The scene quite lost its beauty to Percy, now, as he saw Ralph

scramble rapidly down the hillside in the direction of the trees;

among which the French battery was placed, and over and among which

the shells were bursting, every second. It seemed like entering a

fiery furnace.

It was a terribly long ten minutes before Ralph was seen, climbing

up the hillside again; and Percy's heart gave a jump of delight,

when he first caught sight of his figure. As Ralph came near, his

brother saw that he was very pale, and had a handkerchief bound

round one arm. This was already soaked with blood. He kept on

steadily, however, until he reached the general; who had, upon

seeing he was wounded, advanced to meet him.

"One gun is dismounted, sir, and half the men are killed or

wounded."

"Go down, Harcourt, and tell Herve to fall back at once; and to

take position in the clump of trees, a quarter of a mile down the

valley, so as to sweep the entrance.

"Laon, go to the right, and you, Dubois, to the left. Order the

franc tireurs to retreat along the hillside and, when they get to

the end of the gorge, to form in the plain, and fall back to the

first village.

"You are wounded, Barclay. Not seriously, I hope?" he said, kindly,

as the officers hurried away on their respective missions.

"A splinter of a shell, sir," Ralph said, faintly. "I don't think

it has touched the bone, but it has cut the flesh badly."

Ralph was just able to say this, when his head swam; and he would