The Casque's Lark Part 23

"We often saw you in your cups--we knew you to be a runner after girls.

We were told that on one occasion, being intoxicated, you violated a woman, a tavern-keeper's wife on one of the isles of the Rhine, who thereupon killed herself in despair. We believed the story. Were we perhaps mistaken in that?"

"Malediction!" cried Victorin indignantly and with grief depicted on his face. "And you believed such a thing of my mother's son!"

"Yes," answered the veteran, "yes--in that lay the wrong that we did. So that we each did wrong--you and we. We have come to notify you that we are ready to forget the past, and that our hearts remain loyal to you.

We wish you, in turn, to forgive us, so that we may love you and you us as in the past. Is it agreed, Victorin?"

"Yes," answered Victorin, deeply moved by the veteran's loyal and touching words; "it is agreed."

"Your hand!" replied Douarnek, "in the name of our comrades."

"Here it is," said the young general, stooping down over his horse's neck in order cordially to clasp the veteran's hand. "I thank you for your frankness, my children. I shall be to you as you are to me for the glory and peace of Gaul. Without you I can do nothing; although it is the general who carries the triumphal chaplet, it is the soldier's bravery that weaves it, and imparts to it the purple of his own blood!"

"It is, then, agreed, Victorin," Douarnek replied with moistening eyes.

"Our blood belongs to you, to the last drop--and to our beloved Gaul--to your glory!"

"And to my mother who made me what I am," interrupted Victorin with increasing emotion; "and to my mother our respect, our love, our devotion, my children!"

"Long live the Mother of the Camps!" cried Douarnek in a resonant voice.

"Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"

Douarnek's companions, the rest of the soldiers and officers, in short, all of us present at this scene joined in the cheers of Douarnek:

"Long live the Mother of the Camps! Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"

The whole army thereupon set itself in march back to the camp while, under the protection of a legion that was ordered to watch our prisoners, the medical druids and their aides remained on the field of battle to gather the dead, and tend the wounded, both Frank and Gallic.

It was a superb summer's night, that in which the army struck the road to Mayence. As it marched, the banks of the Rhine re-echoed to the chant of the bard:

"This morning we say:-- 'How many are there of these barbarous hordes, Who thievishly aspire to rob us of land, Of homes, of wires and of suns.h.i.+ne?

Yes, how many are there of these Franks?'

"This evening we'll say:-- 'Make answer, thou sod, red drenched In the blood of the stranger; Make answer, ye deep-rolling waves of the Rhine; Make answer, ye crows that flutter for carrion, Make answer--make answer!

How many were they, These robbers of land, of homes, of wives and of suns.h.i.+ne?

Aye, how many were there, Of these blood-thirsty, ravenous Franks?'"

CHAPTER XIV.

THE HOMEWARD RIDE.

In his haste to inform his mother of our splendid victory, Victorin pa.s.sed the command of the troops to one of the oldest chiefs. We changed our tired horses for two fresh ones which were always led by the reins ready for Victorin's use, and he and I rode rapidly towards Mayence.

The night was serene; the moon shone superbly among myriads of stars--those unknown worlds where we shall proceed to live when we leave this world. Strange! In the very midst of the ineffable bliss that I experienced at the triumph of our army, a triumph that insured the peace and prosperity of Gaul; in the very midst of the pleasurable thoughts of soon again seeing your mother and you, my son, after a hard day's fighting; in the very midst of all these pleasing emotions a sudden fit of profound melancholy came over me, a painful presentiment saddened my heart.

In the fulness of my grat.i.tude to the G.o.ds, I had raised my eyes to heaven in order to thank them for our success. The moon shed its brilliant light upon our path. I know not for what reason, but that moment my thoughts traveled back to our ancestors, and I recalled with sad piety all the glorious, the touching and the terrible deeds that they had done, and upon which also the sacred luminary of Gaul shed its never-ceasing light generations and generations ago. The sacrifice of Hena; the journey of Albinik the mariner and his wife Meroe to Caesar's camp, across a region that was heroically given up to the flames by our fathers during their war with the Romans; the nocturnal expeditions of Sylvest the slave to the secret meetings of the Sons of the Mistletoe and to the palace of Faustina, his escape and flight from the circus of Orange where he came near being devoured by ferocious beasts; and finally the bold insurrections, the formidable revolts, the signal for which was ever given by the courses of the moon, as prearranged by our venerable druids; all these events that lay in the distant past rose at that moment before my mind like pale phantoms of the past.

The merry voice of Victorin drew me from my meditations:

"What are you dreaming about? How can you, one of the vanquishers in this fair day's battle, be as mute as one of the vanquished?"

"Victorin, I was thinking of days that are no more--of events that took place during the centuries that have rolled by--"

"A curious thought!" replied the young general; and giving a loose to his exuberant feelings he proceeded to say: "Let us leave the past to the empty cups and the departed sweethearts! As for me, I am thinking first of all of my mother's joy when she will learn of our victory; next, my thoughts run, and they run strongly, upon the burning black eyes of Kidda the Bohemian girl, who is waiting for me. When I left her this morning, at the close of the protracted banquet to which she drew me by a ruse, she made an appointment with me for this evening. This will be a well rounded day, Schanvoch! A battle in the morning, and, in the evening, a festive supper with a charming sweetheart on my knees!

Ah! It is pleasurable to be a soldier and twenty years of age!"

"Listen, Victorin. So long as the cares of battle lay upon your mind, I saw you wise, thoughtful and grave, as becomes a Chief of Gaul, and at all points worthy of your mother and yourself--"

"And by the beautiful eyes of Kidda, am I not still worthy of myself when my thoughts turn to her after battle?"

"Do you know, Victorin, that Douarnek's mission to you in the name of the whole army is an evidence of the proud independence that animates our soldiers, whose free will alone made you a general? Do you realize that such words, p.r.o.nounced by such men, are not, and will not be vain--and that it will be fatal to forget them?"

"Why, Schanvoch! It was a whim of veterans who grieve over their lost youth--old men's words, censuring pleasures that their age can no longer taste."

"Victorin, you affect an indifference that your heart does not share. I saw you touched, deeply affected by the language of that old soldier--and also by the att.i.tude of his comrades."

"One feels so happy on the evening of a battle won, that everything pleases. Besides, although his words were peevish enough, did they not betoken the army's affection for me?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Victorin! The army's affection for you ebbed--it returned at floodtide with to-day's great victory. But, be careful! Fresh acts of imprudence will furnish the basis for fresh calumnies, started by those who would wish to undo you--"

"And who wishes to undo me?"

"A chief always has rivals who envy him secretly; and you will not have every day a triumph on the battle field to confound those envious souls with. Thanks to the G.o.ds, the utter annihilation of these barbarous hordes insures the peace of our beloved Gaul for many a year to come!"

"All the better, Schanvoch! All the better! Becoming again one of Gaul's most obscure citizens, and hanging my sword, that will have become useless, beside that of my father, I shall then be free to empty innumerable cups without restraint, and to make love to all the Bohemian girls of the universe!"

"Victorin! Be careful, I repeat! Remember the words of the old soldier!"

"The devil take the old soldier and his foolish harangue! At this hour I think only of Kidda! Ah! Schanvoch, if you only saw her dance with her short skirt and her silvery corsage!"

"Be careful! Both the camp and the town have their eyes upon those Bohemian dancers! Your friendly relations with them will make a scandal!

Take my advice! Be reserved in your conduct; at any rate, veil your amours in secrecy and obscurity!"

"Obscurity? Secrecy? No hypocrisy! I love to display to the eyes of all, the sweethearts that I am proud of! And I am even prouder of Kidda than of to-day's victory!"

"Victorin! Victorin! Be careful, or that woman will be fatal to you!"

"Oh! Schanvoch! If you heard Kidda sing and dance, accompanying herself with a tambourine--Oh! If you heard and saw her you would become as crazily in love with her as I am! But," added the young general breaking off the thread of his delighted description, and pointing ahead of him, "look at yonder torches! Heaven be praised! It is my mother! In her anxiety to know the issue of the day she must have ridden out towards the battle field! Oh, Schanvoch! I am young, impetuous, ardent after pleasures, that never leave me. I enjoy them with the delight of intoxication--and yet, I swear to you by my father's sword, I would exchange all my future pleasures for the happiness that I am about to experience when my mother will press me to her heart!"

Saying this, the young general gave the reins to his horse and without waiting for me rode forward to meet Victoria, who was, indeed, approaching. When I reached the group, they had both alighted. Victoria held Victorin in a close embrace, and was saying to him in accents impossible to describe:

"My son, I am a happy mother!"

It was only then that I perceived by the light of the torches of Victoria's escort that her right hand was bandaged. Victorin inquired with anxiety:

"Are you wounded, mother?"