Faithful Margaret: A Novel
At sunrise six or seven detachments, among which were those of Colonels
Brand and Calembours, received orders to march to the relief of an
advanced post, and on their arrival, they were at once hurried into
action.
St. Udo, on his maddened horse, was coursing before the serried ranks of
his detachment, shouting his commands and cheering on his men to the
attack, when a blaze of battery guns opened fire upon the rushing
Federals, and, sweeping their lines obliquely, turned the sally into
wild confusion.
Colonel Brand galloped along the broken line, calling them on, and
waving his sword to the object of attack, the horse and his rider
looming like spirits through the murk, and inviting the savage aim of a
score of riflemen.
Heedless of the storm of red-hot hail, he pranced onward, inspiriting
the quailing men by his fearless example, till his horse staggered under
him, sprang wildly upward, then fell, with a crash, upon his side.
The colonel lay face up, stunned by the fall, and pinned to the ground
by the limbs under his horse, and a host of the foe rushed down the
slope and charged the wavering Vermont boys.
When St. Udo was able to look up, he saw a giant Southerner making
toward him with clubbed musket. He was helpless, his men were everywhere
grappling with their adversaries, and the colonel gave himself up for
lost, when, lo! a tall figure darted from a neighboring thicket, the
blue uniform of the Federal crossed the path of the Confederate giant,
and with a furious lunge of the bayonet, he attempted to beat him back
from his charge upon St. Udo.
The foe met him at first with a scornful cry, but, finding it impossible
to escape him, turned and closed in desperate encounter. Hand to hand
they struggled, now grappling with the fury of gladiators, now retiring
and gazing in each other's faces with determination.
So well matched were they, that this terrible conflict lasted for full
three minutes, and many stopped to gaze in wonder upon the desperate
encounter; and St. Udo, dragged from under his dead horse and mounted
upon another, paused to see the end.
The Federal soldier waited until the rush of a passing sally hampered
his adversary's arm, and then, raising his clubbed gun on high, he
brought it down with a crashing blow upon his head.
The giant threw up his arms, with a fearful cry, quivered from head to
foot for a moment, and then fell backward, like a clod, dead.
The Federal hero turned to St. Udo with a grim smile.
Heavens! it was Thoms.
The next moment he had vanished in the whirl of battle, and was no more
to be seen.
"Ye gods! he has saved my life!" cried St. Udo Brand. "Thoms, the
despised--Thoms, the sleuth-hound--the old maniac! What can this mean?
Have we used him badly?"
St. Udo, lying in his tent, mused deeply on the strange kindness which
the man whom he had spurned had done him, when a shadow flitted
near--Thoms, with his intent face and wary eye.
"Gad! I was looking for you to come, Thoms," cried St. Udo, getting up
and extending his hand frankly. "I cannot express my thanks to you for
your gallantry on my behalf to-day, but I am grateful for it, and
there's my hand on that."
The long, brown fingers clutched his as if in a vise, and wrung them
hard.
"Don't mention it, colonel. You was in danger, and I couldn't abear to
have you killed yet," smiled the old man, grimly.
"By Jove! you make me ashamed of my suspicions of you," cried St. Udo,
with ingenuous candor. "Let me say now that I am sorry for them."
"I knowed you would change your mind about me some day," muttered Thoms;
"so I were contented to wait for the time, colonel."
"I was so sure you owed me some grudge, my good fellow," said St. Udo.
"No, Colonel Brand, I owe you no grudge as long as you trust me and
don't treat me like a secret felon," exclaimed Thoms, in a hoarse voice.
"And now that you treat me better, I'll never leave you as long as you
live--I won't by Heaven!"
His sallow face, more ghastly than ever after the day's bloody toil,
whitened in the lurid gloom of twilight, and a terrible smile played
about the twitching corners of his mouth.
St. Udo placed a heavy hand upon his shoulder.
"Forgive me, my friend, for all my harshness to you," said he,
earnestly. "I will not doubt your good faith again. Faith, man, you
almost make me believe in disinterested goodness."
He turned away in deep emotion; he could say no more.
Was it an answering thrill which, stirring the secret heart of the
strange old servant, sent his eyes, filled with such an unearthly glare,
over the gallant colonel? He had saved him from a certain death, with
mad bravery, that day; he had come to listen to his grateful thanks;
yet, if ever the fires of Pandemonium blazed in human eyes, they blazed
in his in that quiet, murderous look.
Steadily, surely, the man was creeping toward his secret purpose, and if
St. Udo's entire trust removed another obstacle from his path, that
obstacle was removed to-night, and nothing stood between him and the
end.
"_Eh bien!_" chirped the chevalier, who had been an edified spectator of
this scene. "Since we are all once more the happy family, let us be
merry, let us sing, talk, and scare the blue devils away. Tell me the
little history of your life in England, _mon ami_."
"England be hanged," returned St. Udo, returning to his gloom. "She gave
me no history but the black records of vice, treachery, and
disappointment. What do you want with such a history?"
"Amusement, instruction," yawned Calembours. "Something to make
gray-bearded time fly quick."
"Very well, I accede for want of other employment. What shall I tell you
of? My hours devoted to finding out the world, and presided over by
idiot Credulity? Or my hours devoted to revenging my injuries upon the
world, and presided over by the great Father of lies? What will you
have?"
"Your life," breathed the chevalier, impressively.
St. Udo placed himself in a comfortable position and began with a smile
of mockery. Calembours fixed his eager eyes upon him and listened
intently; and Thoms crept into the shadow behind the tent, crouched
there on his knees, and held his breath patiently.
So the story was told.
Every incident worthy of note in St. Udo's life was correctly narrated,
every name connected with the characters involved stated, their
portraits distinctly painted, their characteristics faithfully recalled,
with many a reference to the pocket-album, between; clear as if he lived
it all over again, St. Udo placed his past before the eyes of the
Chevalier de Calembours.
And neither the chevalier nor St. Udo Brand saw the slow-match
flickering over a tiny note-book behind the tent, or heard the stealthy
scrape of a pencil as long, brown fingers took down, in phonetic
characters, the words dropping lazily from the unconscious man's lips.
When St. Udo had finished, the chevalier rose and stretched his cramped
limbs.
"_Morbleu!_ Time has fled nimbly this night. I forgot everything in your
recital, _mon ami_. Thanks for your amiable complaisance; and now I
retire to follow you in dreams. _Bon soir._"
With a silent chuckle, he stepped from St. Udo's tent and disappeared to
seek his own quarters.
Thoms, too, clasped up his tiny note-book, and creeping round the side
of the tent, and observing that St. Udo sat absorbed in dark reverie, he
wrapped himself in his blanket, and threw himself at St. Udo's feet, and
soon fell asleep.
Then the night grew black and late, and silence brooded solemnly above
the camp, broken only by the faint moan of the sleepless wanderer, or
the picket's hollow tramp.
Twice the devoted preserver of St. Udo's life softly raised his head to
look at Colonel Brand, and sank down again, and still the lonely man sat
gazing into the lurid embers of the waning watch-fire, thinking his
thoughts of gall.
Just before dawn he thought he heard a movement in the camp, a faint,
uncertain tripping of a wary foot, a sly whistle, twice repeated.
Through the murky gloom St. Udo peered with languid interest at a spot
of fire gently undulating toward his tent.
What could it be? A cannoneer's slow match! But what could bring a
battery there--and at that hour?
Unwilling to alarm needlessly his slumbering command, he slid back from
the glare of the camp-fire into the shadow of his tent, and rising, bent
his steps to the neighborhood of the suspicious object.
A passing breeze, laden with the perfume of the familiar cigar, a
brighter glow, revealing the drooping nose and pursed-up lips, declared
the identity of the prowler.
"Pshaw, you Calembours again--what sets you prowling about again like a
cat on the leads, or, rather a hungry jackal in a graveyard?"
"_Mai foi!_ you wear your tongue passably loose, _mon ami_. A night cat?
No, worse luck. No pretty little kittens to chase round here. A jackal
among _les cadores_? You have too many of that sort down there already,
stripping the dead and the living, too. Still, let us not scandalize the
profession, the calling of the jackal is a noble one when there is
genius and _finesse_ to raise it from the _metier_ to the art. But where
the jackal points the lion pounces. You call me the jackal. _Eh, bien
j'accepte_--it is mine to point, but it is for you, Monsieur le Lion, to
take the leap."
"A truce to your riddles, and say what you've got to say--though why you
can't come out with it openly, I can't conceive."
"Find, then, my little meaning," whispered the chevalier, impressively.
"In two words, you shall be _au courant_ with the affair. We have come
here to push our fortune, but the jade flouts us, and ranks herself
under the standard of the foe. Let us follow her thither. For you and
for me there is neither North nor South, Federal nor Confederate.
Soldiers of Fortune, we follow wherever glory leads the way, and victory
fills the pocket. What of this last bagatelle of a victory to-day? We
have escaped with our skins to-day; to-morrow we will loose them. No,
_mon ami_, the South will win the day; so join we the Southern chivalry
as becomes _chevaliers d'honneur_."
"Why, you precious scoundrel! I always thought you somewhat of a puppy,
but to propose this to me, an Englishman and a gentleman! Draw, you
treacherous hound--draw, and defend yourself!"
And the steel blade glistened like the sword of the avenging angel
before the eyes of the astonished Hun.
"_Sacre, mon Dieu!_ Has he gone mad?" was his sole reply, as with the
practical skill of an accomplished _maitre d'armes_ his ready rapier was
set, and parrying the lunges of his vexed opponent.
Still, with muttered explanations, blaspheming ejaculations and
apologies, intermingled with furious rallies, he sought to moderate the
just wrath of St. Udo, till at last, hearing loud shouts and footsteps
approaching, by a quick turn he evaded St. Udo's pass, and dashed his
sword out of his hand high in the air. Ere St. Udo could stoop to
recover it, the traitor dealt him a mighty blow over the head, which
felled him to the ground, and the last remembrance he had was the
taunting "_au revoir_" of the renegade as he plunged into the thicket
and vanished from pursuit.
When St. Udo recovered, he found himself surrounded by eager faces, and
Thoms kneeling in the attitude of anxiety beside him, staring at him
with intentness.
"What's all this, colonel?" demanded an old officer.
"Ha, by Jove! the rascal has escaped, has he?" cried St. Udo, getting up
stiffly by the help of Thoms' shoulder.
"Who--who? A Confederate?" was cried on all sides.
"No, indeed, not a brave foe, but our precious Colonel Calembours
himself. He has deserted to Lee's army, and had the audacity to tell his
scheme to me. Quick, Thoms, your arm, man! I must communicate with the