In the Track of the Troops by Robert Michael Ballantyne (fantasy books to read TXT) 📖

overcoat into the shell-hole."

"Don't apologise for your quarters, Jeff," returned my friend, laying his sword and revolver on the table; "the house is a palace compared with some places I've inhabited of late. The last, for instance, was so filthy that I believe, on my conscience, an irish pig, with an average allowance of self-respect, would have declined to occupy it.--Here it is, you'll find it somewhere near the middle."

He handed me a small sketch-book, and, while I turned over the leaves, busied himself in filling a short meerschaum.

"Why, how busy you must have been!" said I, turning over the well-filled book with interest.

"Slightly so," he replied. "Some of these will look pretty well, I flatter myself, in the _Evergreen Isle_, if they are well engraved; but that is the difficulty. No matter how carefully we correspondents execute our sketches, some of these engravers--I won't say all of them-- make an awful mess of 'em.

"Yes, you may well laugh at that one. It was taken under fire, and I can tell you that a sketch made under fire is apt to turn out defective in drawing. That highly effective and happy accidental touch in the immediate foreground I claim no credit for. It was made by a bullet which first knocked the pencil out of my hand and then terminated the career of my best horse; while that sunny gleam in the middle distance was caused by a piece of yellow clay being driven across it by the splinter of a shell. On the whole, I think the sketch will hardly do for the _Evergreen_, though it is worth keeping as a reminiscence."

My friend and I now sat down in front of a comfortable fire, fed with logs from the roof of a neighbouring hut, but we had not chatted long before he asked me the object of my visit to headquarters.

"To inquire about my friend Nicholas Karanovitsch," I said.

From the sudden disappearance of the look of careless pleasantry from my friend's face, and the grave earnest tone in which he spoke, I saw that he had bad news to tell.

"Have you not heard--" he said, and paused.

"Not dead?" I exclaimed.

"No, not dead, but desperately wounded." He went on in a low rapid voice to relate all the circumstances of the case, with which the reader is already acquainted, first touching on the chief points, to relieve my feelings.

Nicholas was not dead, but so badly wounded that there was no chance of his ever again attaining to the semblance of his old self. The doctors, however, had pronounced him at last out of danger. His sound constitution and great strength had enabled him to survive injuries which would have carried off most men in a few days or hours. His whole frame had been shattered; his handsome face dreadfully disfigured, his left hand carried away, and his right foot so grievously crushed by a gun-carriage passing over it that they had been obliged to amputate the leg below the knee. For a long time he had lain balancing between life and death, and when he recovered sufficiently to be moved had been taken by rail to Switzerland. He had given strict orders that no one should be allowed to write to his friends in England, but had asked very anxiously after me.

Biquitous gave me a great many more particulars, but this was the gist of his sad news. He also told me of the fall of Dobri Petroff.

"Nicholas had fainted, as I told you," he said, "just before the picket by which he had been rescued lifted him from the ground, and he was greatly distressed, on recovering, to find that his faithful follower had been left behind. Although he believed him to be dead, he immediately expressed an earnest wish that men should be sent to look for and recover the body. They promised that this should be done, but he never learned whether or not they had been successful."

"And you don't know the name of the place in Switzerland to which Nicholas has been sent?" I asked.

"Not sure, but I think it was Montreux, on the Lake of Geneva."

After all this sad news I found it impossible to enjoy the society of my eccentric friend, and much though I liked him, resolved to leave the place at once and make arrangements to quit the country.

I therefore bade him farewell, and hastened back to the inn where I had left Ivanka and Lancey.

The grief of the dear child, on hearing that her father had fallen on the battle-field, was for a time uncontrollable. When it had abated, I said:--

"There is no one here to love you now, my little darling, but God still loves you, and, you see, has sent me and Lancey to take care of you.-- Come, we will return to Venilik."

I did not dare at this time to raise hopes, which might soon be dashed to pieces, in the heart of the poor forlorn child, and therefore did not say all that was in my mind; but my object in returning to Venilik was to make inquiry after her mother. My own hopes were not strong, but I did not feel satisfied that we had obtained sufficient proof that Marika had been killed.

Our search and inquiries, however, were vain. Venilik was almost deserted. No one could tell anything about the Petroff family that we did not already know. It was certainly known that many persons--men and women--had fled to the neighbouring woods, and that some had escaped, but it was generally believed that Marika had been burnt in her own cottage. No doubt, however, was entertained as to the fate of her little boy; for there were several people who had seen him thrust through and held aloft on the point of a Circassian spear. When I told of Dobri Petroff having fallen by the side of Nicholas, several of the villagers said they had heard of that from other sources.

As nothing further could be done, I resolved to adopt Ivanka, and take her away with me.

My preparations were soon made, a conveyance was obtained, and before many days were over I found myself flying by road and rail far from the land where war still raged, where the fair face of nature had been so terribly disfigured by human wrath--so fearfully oppressed with human woe.


CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.


DESCRIBES A WRECK, AND THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE.

A Swiss chalet on a woody knoll, high up on the grand slopes that bathe their feet in the beautiful Lake of Geneva.

It is evening--a bright winter evening--with a golden glory in the sky which reminds one powerfully of summer, and suggests the advent of spring.

In the neighbouring town of Montreux there are busy people engaged in the labours of the day. There are also idlers endeavouring to "kill" the little span of time that has been given them, in which to do their quota of duty on the earth. So, also, there are riotous young people who are actively fulfilling their duty by going off to skate, or slide down the snow-clad hills, after the severer duties connected with book and slate have been accomplished. These young rioters are aided and abetted by sundry persons of maturer years, who, having already finished the more important labours of the day of life, renew their own youth, and encourage the youngsters by joining them.

Besides these there are a few cripples who have been sent into the world with deficient or defective limbs--doubtless for wise and merciful ends. Merciful I say advisedly, for, "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" These look on and rejoice, perchance, in the joy of the juveniles.

Among them, however, are some cripples of a very different stamp. The Creator sent these into the world with broad shoulders, deep chests, good looks, gladsome spirits, manly frames, and vigorous wills. War has sent them here--still in young manhood--with the deep chests pierced by bullets or gashed by sabres, with the manly frames reduced to skeletons, the gladsome spirits gone, the ruddy cheeks hollow and wan, and the vigorous wills--subdued _at last_.

A few of these young cripples move slowly about with the aid of stick or crutch, trying to regain, in the genial mountain air, some of the old fire which has sunk so low--so very low. Others, seated in wheel-chairs, doubled up like old, old men, are pushed about from point to point by stalwart mountaineers, while beside them walk sisters, mothers, or, perchance, young wives, whose cheery smiles and lightsome voices, as they point out and refer to the surrounding objects of nature, cannot quite conceal the feelings of profound and bitter sorrow with which they think of the glorious manhood that has been lost, or the tender, pitiful, heart-breaking solicitude with which they cherish the poor shadow that remains.

In a large airy apartment of the chalet on the woody knoll, there is one who occupies a still lower level than those to whom we have just referred--who cannot yet use the crutch or sit in the wheelchair, and on whose ear the sounds of glee that enter by the open window fall with little effect.

He reclines at full length on a bed. He has lain thus, with little effort to move, and much pain when such effort was made, for many weary weeks. Only one side of his face is visible, and that is scarred and torn with wounds, some of which are not yet healed. The other side is covered with bandages.

I am seated by his side, Ivanka is sitting opposite, near to the invalid's feet, listening intently, if I may be allowed to say so, with her large black eyes, to a conversation which she cannot understand.

"You must not take so gloomy a view of your case, Nicholas. The doctors say you will recover, and, my good fellow, you have no idea what can be done by surgery in the way of putting a man together again after a break-down. Bella would be grieved beyond measure if I were to write as you wish."

I spoke cheerily, more because I felt it to be a duty to do so, than because I had much hope.

The invalid paused for a few minutes as if to recover strength. Then he said--

"Jeff, I insist on your doing what I wish. It is unkind of you to drag me into a dispute when I am so weak. Tell the dear girl that I give her up--I release her from our engagement. It is likely that I shall die at any rate, which will settle the question, but if I do recover--why, just think, my dear fellow, I put it to you, what sort of husband should I make, with my ribs all smashed, my right leg cut off, my left hand destroyed, an eye gone, and my whole visage cut to pieces. No, Jeff--"

He paused; the light vein of humour which he had tried to assume passed off, and there was a twitching about the muscles of his mouth as he resumed--

"No, Bella must never see me again."

Ivanka looked from the invalid's face to mine with eyes so earnest, piercing, and inquiring, that I felt grieved she did not understand