“Come nearer!” he hissed. “Nearer still! Now dismount and pretend to be mending the stirrup leather. Spies may be watching us, and it means death to me if I am seen helping you.”
“Death!” I whispered. “From whom?”
“From the Tugendbund. From Lutzow’s nightriders. You Frenchmen are living on a powder magazine, and the match has been struck which will fire it.”
“But this is all strange to me,” said I, still fumbling at the leathers of my horse. “What is this Tugendbund?”
“It is the secret society which has planned the great rising which is to drive you out of Germany, just as you have been driven out of Russia.”
“And these T’s stand for it?”
“They are the signal. I should have told you all this in the village, but I dared not be seen speaking with you. I galloped through the woods to cut you off, and concealed both my horse and myself.”
“I am very much indebted to you,” said I, “and the more so as you are the only German that I have met today from whom I have had common civility.”
“All that I possess I have gained through contracting for the French armies,” said he. “Your Emperor has been a good friend to me. But I beg that you will ride on now, for we have talked long enough. Beware only of Lutzow’s nightriders!”
“Banditti?” I asked.
“All that is best in Germany,” said he. “But for God’s sake ride forwards, for I have risked my life and exposed my good name in order to carry you this warning.”
Well, if I had been heavy with thought before, you can think how I felt after my strange talk with the man among the fagots. What came home to me even more than his words was his shivering, broken voice, his twitching face, and his eyes glancing swiftly to right and left, and opening in horror whenever a branch cracked upon a tree. It was clear that he was in the last extremity of terror, and it is possible that he had cause, for shortly after I had left him I heard a distant gunshot and a shouting from somewhere behind me. It may have been some sportsman halloaing to his dogs, but I never again heard of or saw the man who had given me my warning.
I kept a good lookout after this, riding swiftly where the country was open, and slowly where there might be an ambuscade. It was serious for me, since 500 good miles of German soil lay in front of me; but somehow I did not take it very much to heart, for the Germans had always seemed to me to be a kindly, gentle people, whose hands closed more readily round a pipe-stem than a sword-hilt—not out of want of valour, you understand, but because they are genial, open souls, who would rather be on good terms with all men. I did not know then that beneath that homely surface there lurks a devilry as fierce as, and far more persistent than, that of the Castilian or the Italian.
And it was not long before I had shown to me that there was something more serious abroad than rough words and hard looks. I had come to a spot where the road runs upwards through a wild tract of heathland and vanishes into an oak wood. I may have been halfway up the hill when, looking forward, I saw something gleaming under the shadow of the tree-trunks, and a man came out with a coat which was so slashed and spangled with gold that he blazed like a fire in the sunlight. He appeared to be very drunk, for he reeled and staggered as he came towards me. One of his hands was held up to his ear and clutched a great red handkerchief, which was fixed to his neck.
I had reined up the mare and was looking at him with some disgust, for it seemed strange to me that one who wore so gorgeous a uniform should show himself in such a state in broad daylight. For his part, he looked hard in my direction and came slowly onwards, stopping from time to time and swaying about as he gazed at me. Suddenly, as I again advanced, he screamed out his thanks to Christ, and, lurching forwards, he fell with a crash upon the dusty road. His hands flew forward with the fall, and I saw that what I had taken for a red cloth was a monstrous wound, which had left a great gap in his neck, from which a dark blood-clot hung, like an epaulette upon his shoulder.
“My God!” I cried, as I sprang to his aid. “And I thought that you were drunk!”
“Not drunk, but dying,” said he. “But thank Heaven that I have seen a French officer while I have still strength to speak.”
I laid him among the heather and poured some brandy down his throat. All round us was the vast countryside, green and peaceful, with nothing living in sight save only the mutilated man beside me.
“Who has done this?” I asked, “and what are you? You are French, and yet the uniform is strange to me.”
“It is that of the Emperor’s new guard of honour. I am the Marquis of Château St. Arnaud, and I am the ninth of my blood who has died in the service of
