The Daltons Volume II Part 28

"I agree with you," said the tall man, stopping to brush the cinder from his cigar, "if you can drive them away in a stand-up fight; and I don't see why you could not! Numerically, you are about five hundred to one; physically, you look their equals. You have arms in abundance; you know the country; you have the wishes of the people--"

"The prayers of the Church," interposed the lady.

"Beati sunt illi qui moriuntur pro patria," muttered the padre.

"You and I, father," said the young man, "would like a little of that beat.i.tude in this world too."

Frank had now heard more than he had desired to hear; and, unhooking his sabre, he suffered it to clink at his heels as he boldly advanced towards the windows.

"Who have we there?" cried the tall man, advancing to the terrace, and challenging the stranger.

Frank replied, in French, that he was an Austrian officer, whose party had been waylaid near Varenna, and who had made his escape with a wounded comrade and a few others.

"So the shots we heard came from that quarter?" whispered the youth to the lady.

She signed to him to be cautious, and the tall man resumed,----

"This is a private villa, sir; and as yet, at least, neither an Austrian barrack nor an hospital."

"When I tell you, sir," said Frank, with difficulty restraining his pa.s.sion, "that my comrade is dying, it may, perhaps, excite other feelings than those of national animosity."

"You are a Hungarian?" asked the youth.

"What of that?" broke in the padre. "Tutti barbari! tutti barbari!"

Meanwhile the tall man leaned over where the lady sat, and conversed eagerly with her.

"You have to think how it will look, and how it will tell abroad," said he, in English. "How shall we persuade the people that we are in their cause if you make this villa an Austrian refuge?"

She whispered something low in reply, and he rejoined impatiently,----

"These are small considerations; and if we are to be always thinking of humanity, let us give up the game at once."

"You 'll not refuse my comrade the consolations of his Church, at least?" said Frank. "I see a reverend father here--"

"And you 'll never see him follow you one step out of this chamber,"

broke in the priest "Ego autem tanquam Burdus, non audiebam," muttered he, with a wave of his hand.

"But if he be a good Catholic," interposed the youth, half slyly.

"Let them be confounded who seek to do me evil!" said the priest, with a solemnity that said how deeply he felt for his own safety.

"This discussion is lasting too long," said Frank, impatiently. "I cannot coerce your humanity, but I can demand as a right that a soldier of your Emperor shall receive shelter and succor."

"I told you so," said the tall man, still addressing the lady in English; "first the entreaty,----then the menace."

"And what are we to do?" asked she, anxiously.

"Let them occupy the boat-house; there are beds in the lofts. Jekyl will see that they have whatever is necessary; and perhaps by to-morrow we shall get rid of them." Turning towards the youth, he spoke to him for a few minutes rapidly, and the other replied, "You are right I 'll look to it." He arose as he spoke, and bowing politely to Frank, p.r.o.nounced himself ready to accompany him.

With a few words of apology for his intrusion, as awkwardly uttered as they were ungraciously received, Frank retired from the chamber, to retrace his steps to the harbor.

Little as he was disposed to be communicative, Albert Jekyl--for it was our old acquaintance--contrived to learn, as they went along, every circ.u.mstance of the late encounter.

The pliant Jekyl fully concurred in the indignant epithets of cowards and a.s.sa.s.sins bestowed by Frank upon his late a.s.sailants, deplored with him the miserable and mistaken policy of revolt among the people, and regretted that, as foreigners themselves, they could not offer the hospitality of the villa to the wounded man without exposing their lives and fortunes to an Infuriated peasantry.

"What nation do you then belong to?" asked Frank, shrewdly concealing his knowledge of English.

"We are, so to say, of different countries," said Jekyl, smiling, and evading the question. "The padre is a Florentine--"

"And the lady?"

"She is a very charming person, and if it were not that she is a little over-devout, a shade too good, would be the most delightful creature in existence."

"The tall man is her husband, I conclude."

"No,----not her husband," smiled Jekyl again; "a person you 'll like much when you see more of him. Short and abrupt, perhaps, at first, but so kind-hearted and so generous."

"And has the villa got a name?" asked Frank, in a voice of some impatience at finding how little his companion repaid his frankness.

"It is called La Rocca," said Jekyl. "Had you not been a stranger in Italy, you would scarcely have asked. It is the most celebrated on the whole lake."

Frank thought he had heard the name before; but when, where, or how, he could not remember. Other cares were, besides, too pressing upon him to make him dwell on the subject, and he willingly addressed himself to the more urgent duties of the moment.

The boat-house stood in no need of all Jekyl's apologies. Frank had lodged in many inferior quarters since he had begun soldiering; there were several excellent bedrooms, and a delightful little _salon_ which looked directly out upon the lake. Ravitzky, too, had rallied considerably, and his wounds, although formidable from the loss of blood, showed nothing likely to prove fatal. Jekyl pledged himself to send a surgeon at once to him; and, adding all kinds of civil speeches and offers of personal services, at last left the friends together to exchange confidences.

"What are our hosts like, Dalton?" said the cadet

"_You_ would call them most patriotic, Ravitzky, for they would scarcely give us shelter. Their only regret seemed that our friends yonder had not done the work better, and finished off the rest of us."

"It is not pleasant to accept of an ungracious hospitality; but I suppose that I, at least, shall not trouble them long. There 's something hot goes on ebbing here that tells of internal bleeding; and if so, a few hours ought to suffice."

Frank did his best to rally his poor comrade; but the task is a difficult one with those whose fear of death is small.

"You'll have to write to Milan, Dalton," said he, suddenly.

"I should rather say, to hasten thither at once," said Frank. "I ought to report myself as soon as possible."

"But you mustn't leave me, Dalton; I cannot part with you. a few hours is not much to you; to me it is a life long. I want you also to write to Walstein for me; he 'll take care to tell my mother."

Frank knew well the breach of discipline this compliance would entail, and that he could scarcely be guilty of a graver offence against duty; but Ravitzky clung to his wish with such pertinacity, throwing into the entreaty all the eagerness of a last request, that Frank was obliged to promise he would remain, and let the result take what shape it might.

While he, therefore, gave orders to his only unwounded comrade to hold himself in readiness to set out for Milan by daybreak, he proceeded to write the brief despatch which was to record his disaster. There are few sadder pa.s.sages in the life of a young soldier than that in which he has to convey tidings of his own defeat. Want of success is so linked and bound up with want of merit, that every line, every word, seems a self-accusation.

However inevitable a mishap might appear to any witnessing it, a mere reader of the account might suggest fifty expedients to escape it. He knew, besides, the soldierlike contempt entertained in the service for all attacks of undisciplined forces, and how no party, however small, of "regulars" was esteemed insufficient to cope with a mob of peasants or villagers. Any contradiction to so acknowledged a theory would be received with loud reprobation, and, whatever came of it, the most inevitable result would be the professional ruin of him unlucky enough to incur such a failure.

"There's an end of the career of the Lieutenant von Dalton," said Frank, as he concluded the paper. "Neither his uncle, the Field-Marshal, nor his sister, the Princess, will have favor enough to cover delinquency like this." It did, indeed, seem a most humiliating avowal, and probably his own depressed state gave even a sadder coloring to the narrative. He accompanied this despatch by a few lines to the Count, his grand-uncle, which, if apologetic, were manly and straightforward; and, while bearing a high testimony to Ravitzky's conduct, took all the blame of failure to himself alone.

He would gladly have lain down to rest when this last was completed, but the cadet pressed eagerly for his services, and the letter to Walstein must be written at once.