My Lady Rotha Part 18

This trouble kept me turning and tossing for a good hour. At one moment, I made up my mind to rouse my lady before it was light and be gone with the dawn, if I could persuade her; at another, I judged it better to wait until the camp was struck and the horses were saddled, and then to bid Tzerclas, while our numbers were something like equal, go his way and let us go ours--to Frankfort or Ca.s.sel, or wherever strong walls and honest citizens, with wives and daughters of their own, held out a prospect of safety.

The mind once roused to activity works, whether a man will or no. When I had thought that matter threadbare, I fell, in my own despite and to my great torment, on another; the gold necklace. Through the day, and pending some opportunity of restoring the chain by stealth, I had shunned its owner. Her dejection, her silence, the way in which she drooped in the saddle, all had reproached me. To avoid that reproach, still more to avoid the meekness of her eyes, I had ridden at a distance from her, sometimes at the head of our company, sometimes at the tail, but never where she rode. And all day I had had a dozen things to consider.

Yet, in spite of this care and preoccupation, I had not succeeded in keeping her out of my mind. At fords and broken bits of the road, or at steep places where the track wound above the Werra, the thought, 'How will she cross this?' had occurred to me, so that I had found it hard to hold off from her at such places. And, then, there was the necklace. It burned in my pocket. It made me feel, whenever my hand lighted on it, like a thief, and as mean as the meanest. For a time, it is true, after our meeting with Tzerclas, I had managed to forget it; but now, in the watches of the night, I was consumed with longing to be rid of the thing, to see it back in her possession, to close the matter before some inconceivable trick of spiteful fortune put it out of my power to do so. For, what if an accident happened to me and the chain were found in my pocket? What would she think of me then? Or if the last accident of all befell me, and she never got her own?

These imaginations, working in a mind already fevered, spurred me so painfully that I felt I could hardly wait till morning. Two or three times in the night I rose on my elbow and looked round the sleeping camp, and wished that I could return the chain to her then and there.

I could not. And at last, not long before daybreak, I fell asleep. But even then the chain did not leave me at peace. It haunted my dreams.

It slid through my fingers and fell away into unfathomable depths. Or a man with his face hidden dangled it before my eyes, and went away, away, away, while I stood unable to move hand or foot. Or I was digging in a pit for it, digging with nails and bleeding fingers, believing it to be another inch, always another inch below, yet never able to reach it however hard I worked.

I awoke at last, bathed in perspiration and unrefreshed, to find the sun an hour up and the camp beginning to stir itself. Here and there a man was renewing the fires, while his fellows sat up yawning, or, crouching chin and knees together, looked on drowsily. The chill morning air, the curling smoke, the song of the lark as it soared into the blue heaven, the snort and neigh of the tethered horses, the sounds of waking life and reality seemed to bless me. I thanked Heaven it was a dream.

Young Jacob was tending our fire, and I sat awhile, watching him sleepily. 'It will be a fine day,' I said at last, preparing to get to my feet.

'For certain,' he answered. Then he looked at me shyly. 'You were in the wars, last night, Master Martin?' he said.

'In the wars?' I exclaimed. 'What do you mean?' And I stared at him; waiting, with one knee and one foot on the ground for his answer.

He pointed to my cloak. I looked down, and saw to my surprise a great slit in it--a clean cut in the stuff, a foot long. For a moment I looked at the slit, wondering stupidly and trying to remember how I could have done it. Then a sudden flash, of intelligence entered my mind, and with a dreadful pang of terror, I thrust my hand into my pouch. The chain was gone!

I sprang to my feet. I tore off the pouch and peered into it. I shook my clothes like one possessed. I stooped and searched the ground where I had lain. But all fruitlessly. The chain was gone!

As soon as I knew this for certain, I turned on Jacob, and seizing him by the throat, shook him to and fro. 'Wretch!' I said. 'You have slept! You have slept and let us be robbed! You have ruined me!'

He gurgled out a startled denial, and the others came round us and got him from me. But my outcry had roused all our part of the camp; even my lady put her head out of the tent and asked what was the matter.

Some one told her.

'That is bad,' she said kindly. 'What is it you have lost, Martin?'

Over her shoulder I saw a pale face peer out--Marie Wort's; and on the instant I felt my rage die down into a miserable chill, the chill of despair.

'Seven ducats,' I said sullenly, looking down at the ground, for the truth, at sight of her, crushed me. I was a thief! This had made me one. Who was I to cry out that I was robbed?

'It must be one of the strangers,' my lady said in a low voice and with an air of disturbance. 'Do you----'

I sprang away without waiting to hear more--they must have thought me mad. I tore to the spot where I had diced the night before. Three or four men sat round the fire, swearing and grumbling, as is the manner of their kind in the morning; but the man I wanted was not among them.

'Where is Ludwig?' I panted. 'Where is he?'

A form, wrapped head and all in a cloak, struggled for a moment with its coverings, and freeing itself at last, rose to a sitting posture.

It was Captain Ludwig.

'Who wants me?' he muttered sleepily.

'I!' I cried, stooping and seizing him by the shoulder. I was trembling with excitement. 'I have been robbed! Do you hear, man? I have been robbed! In the night!'

He shook me off impatiently. 'Well, what is that to me?' he grunted.

And he turned to warm himself.

'Where is the Saxon who sat by me last night?' I demanded, almost beside myself with fury.

'How do I know?' he answered, shrugging his shoulders peevishly.

'Robbed? Well, you are not the first person that has been robbed. You need not make such an outcry about it. There is more than one thief about, eh, Taddeo?' And he winked cunningly at his comrade.

The man's indifference maddened me. I could scarcely keep my hands off him. Fortunately, Taddeo's answer put an end to my doubts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ... Ludwig, all his indifference cast to the winds, continued to stamp and scream ...]

'There is one less, at any rate, captain,' he said carelessly, stooping forward to stir the embers. 'The Saxon is gone.'

'Himmel! He has, has he? Without leave?' Ludwig answered. 'The worse for him if we catch him, that is all!'

'He went off with the German and his servants an hour before sunrise,'

Taddeo said with a yawn.

'He had better not let our n.o.ble general overtake him!' Ludwig answered grimly, while I stood still, stricken dumb by the news. 'But enough of that. Where is my cap?'

Taddeo pushed it towards him with his foot, and he took it up and put it on. He had no sooner done so, however, than a thought seemed to strike him. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the cap off again, and, plunging his hand into it, groped in the lining. The next instant he sprang to his feet with a howl of rage.

Taddeo looked at him in astonishment. 'What is it?' he asked.

For answer, Ludwig ran at him and dealt him a tremendous kick. 'There, pig, that is for you!' he cried vengefully, his eyes almost starting from his head. 'You will not ask what it is next time! That Saxon hound has robbed me--that is what it is. But he shall pay for it. He shall hang before night! Every ducat I had he has taken, pig, dog, vermin that he is! But I'll be even with him. I'll lash----'

And Master Ludwig, all his indifference cast to the winds, continued to stamp and scream so loudly that in the end Tzerclas overheard him, and appeared.

'What is this?' the general said harshly. 'Is that man mad?'

Ludwig grew a little calmer at sight of him. 'The Saxon, h.e.l.ler,' he answered, scowling. 'He has deserted with fifty ducats of mine, general; good honest money!'

'The worse for you,' Tzerclas answered cynically. 'And the worse for him, if I catch him. He will hang.'

'He has taken a gold chain of mine also,' I said, thrusting myself forward.

The general looked hard at me. 'Umph!' he said. 'Which way has he gone?'

'He left with the German gentleman and his two servants at daybreak,'

Taddeo answered, rubbing himself. 'I thought that he had orders to go with them.'

'He has gone north, then?'

'North they started,' Taddeo whimpered.

The general turned to Ludwig. 'Take two men,' he said curtly, 'and follow him. But, whether you catch him or not, see that you are back two hours before noon. And let me have no more noise.'

Ludwig saluted hastily, and, it will be believed, lost no time in obeying his orders. In two minutes he was in the saddle, and dashed out of camp, followed by two of his men and one of my lady's, whom I took leave to add to the party for the better care of my property, should it be recovered. I looked after them with longing eyes, and listened to the last beat of the hoofs as they pa.s.sed through the forest. And then for three hours I had to wait in a dreadful state of suspense and inaction. At the end of that time the party rode in again, the horses b.l.o.o.d.y with spurring, the riders gloomy and chapfallen. They had galloped four leagues without coming on the slightest trace of the fugitive or his companions.

'The German never went north,' Ludwig said, looking darkly at his chief.