"No more," I exclaimed, reproachfully, "no more?"
"No more, Vere," she answered, quite gently, but in a tone that admitted of no further appeal. "Brother and sister, Vere, for the rest of our lives; promise me this," and she put her soft hand in mine, and smiled upon me; pure and sorrowful, like an angel.
I was stung to madness by her seeming coldness, so different from my own wild, passionate misery.
"Be it so," I said; "and as brother and sister must part, so must you and I. Anything now for freedom and repose; anything to drive your image from my mind. I tell you that from henceforth I am a desperate man. Nobody cares for me on earth,--no father, no mother, none for whom to live; and the one I prized most discards me now. Constance, you never can have loved me as I have loved. Cold, heartless, false! I will never see you again."
She was quite bewildered by my vehemence. She looked round wildly at me, and her pale lip quivered, and her eyes filled with tears: even then I remained bitter and unmoved.
"Farewell," I said, "farewell, Constance, and for ever."
Her hand hung passively in mine, her "good-bye" seemed frozen on her lips; but she turned away with more than her usual majesty, and walked towards the house. I remarked that she dropped a white rose--fit emblem of her own dear self--on the gravel path, as she paced slowly along, without once turning her head. I was too proud to follow her and pick it up, but sprang away in an opposite direction, and was soon out of her sight.
That night, when the wild clouds were flying across the moon, and the wind howled through the gloomy yews and the ghostly fir-trees, and all was sad and dreary and desolate, I picked up the white rose from that gravel path, and placed it next my heart. Faded, shrunk, and withered, I have got it still. My home was now no place for me. I arranged my few affairs with small difficulty, pensioned the two old servants my poor father had committed to my charge; set my house in order, packed up my things, and in less than a week I was many hundred miles from Alton Grange and Constance Beverley.
CHAPTER XVIII
OMAR PASHA
It is high noon, and not a sound, save the occasional snort of an impatient steed, is to be heard throughout the lines. Picketed in rows, the gallant little chargers of the Turkish cavalry are dozing away the hours between morning and evening feed. The troopers themselves are smoking and sleeping in their tents; here and there may be seen a devout Mussulman prostrate on his prayer-carpet, his face turned towards Mecca, and his thoughts wholly abstracted from all worldly considerations.
Ill-fed and worse paid, they are nevertheless a brawny, powerful race, their broad rounded shoulders, bull necks, and bowed legs denoting strength rather than activity; whilst their high features and marked swarthy countenances betray at once their origin, sprung from generations of warriors who once threatened to overwhelm the whole Western world in a tide that has now been long since at the ebb. Patient are they of hardship, and devoted to the Sultan and their duty, made for soldiers and nothing else, with their fierce, dogged resolution, and their childish obedience and simplicity. Hand-in-hand, two of them are strolling leisurely through the lines to release a restive little horse who has got inexplicably entangled in his own and his neighbour's picket-ropes, and is fighting his way out of his difficulty with teeth and hoofs. They do not hurry themselves, but converse peacefully as they pass along.
"Is is true, Mustapha, that _Giaours_ are still coming to join our Bey?
The Padisha[#] is indeed gracious to these sons of perdition."
[#] The Sultan.
"It is true, Janum;[#] may Allah confound them!" replies Mustapha, spitting in parenthesis between his teeth: "but they have brave hearts, these Giaours, and cunning heads, moreover, for their own devices. What good Moslem would have thought of sending his commands by wire, faster than they could be borne by the horses of the Prophet?"
[#] "Oh my soul!" a colloquial term equivalent to the French "Mon cher."
"Magic!" argues the other trooper; "black, unholy magic! There is but one Allah!"
"What filth are you eating?" answers Mustapha, who is of a practical turn of mind. "Have not I myself seen the wire and the post, and do I not know that the Padisha sends his commands to the Ferik-Pasha by the letters he writes with his own hand?"
"But you have never seen the letter," urges his comrade, "though you have ridden a hundred times under the lines."
"Oh, mulehead, and son of a jackass!" retorts Mustapha, "do you not know that the letter flies so fast along the wire, that the eye of man cannot perceive it? They are dogs and accursed, these Giaours; but, by my head, they are very foxes in wit."
"I will defile their graves," observes his comrade; and forthwith they proceeded to release the entangled charger, who has by this time nearly eaten his ill-starred neighbour; and I overhear this philosophical disquisition, as I proceed for orders to the Green Tent of Iskender Bey, commandant of the small force of cavalry attached to Omar Pasha's army in Bulgaria.
As I enter the tent, I perceive two men seated in grave discussion, whilst a third stands upright in a respectful attitude. A _chaoosh_, or Serjeant, is walking a magnificently caparisoned bay Arab up and down, just beyond the tent-pegs; while an escort of lancers, with two or three more led horses, and a brace of English pointers, are standing a few paces off. The upright figure, though dressed in a Turkish uniform, with a red fez or skull-cap, I have no difficulty in recognising as Victor de Rohan. He grasps my hand as I pass, and whispers a few words in French, while I salute Iskender Bey, and await his orders.
My chief is more than three parts drunk. He has already finished the best portion of a bottle of brandy, and is all for fighting, right or wrong, as, to do him justice, is his invariable inclination. To and fro he waves his half-grizzled head, and sawing the air with his right hand, mutilated of half its fingers by a blow from a Russian sabre, he repeats in German--
"But the attack! Excellency; the attack! when will you let me loose with my cavalry? The attack! Excellency! the attack!"
The person he addresses looks at him with a half-amused, half-provoked air, and then glancing at Victor, breaks into a covert smile, which he conceals by bending over a map that is stretched before him. I have ample time to study his appearance, and to wonder why I should have a sort of vague impression that I have seen that countenance before.
He is a spare, sinewy man, above the middle height, with his figure developed and toughened by constant exercise. An excellent horseman, a practised shot, an adept at all field-sports, he looks as if no labour would tire him, no hardships affect his vigour or his health. His small head is set on his shoulders in the peculiar manner that always denotes physical strength; and his well-cut features would be handsome, were it not for a severe and somewhat caustic expression which mars the beauty of his countenance. His deep-set eye is very bright and keen; its glance seems accustomed to command, and also to detect falsehood under a threefold mask. He has not dealt half a lifetime with Asiatics to fail in acquiring that useful knack. He wears his beard and moustache short and close; they are
Grizzled here and there, But more with toil than age,
and add to his soldierlike exterior. His dress is simple enough; it consists of a close-fitting, dark-green frock, adorned only with the order of the Medjidjie, high riding-boots, and a crimson fez. A curved Turkish sabre hangs from his belt, and a double-barrelled gun of English workmanship is thrown across his knees. As he looks up from his map, his eye rests on me, and he asks Victor in German, "Who is that?"
"An Englishman, who has joined your Excellency's force as an Interpreter," answered my friend, "and who is now attached to Iskender Bey. I believe the Bey can give a good account of his gallantry on more than one occasion."
"The Bey," thus appealed to, musters up a drunken smile, and observes, "A good swordsman, your Excellency, and a man of many languages. Sober too," he adds, shaking his head, "sober as a Mussulman, the first quality in a soldier."
His Excellency smiles again at Victor, who presents me in due form, not forgetting to mention my name.
The great man almost starts. He fixes on me that glittering eye which seems to look through me. "Where did you acquire your knowledge of languages?" he asks. "My aide-de-camp informs me you speak Hungarian even better than you do Turkish."
"I travelled much in Hungary as a boy, Excellency," was my reply.
"Victor de Rohan is my earliest friend: I was a child scarcely out of the nursery when I first made his acquaintance at Edeldorf."
A gleam of satisfaction passed over his Excellency's face. "Strange, strange," he muttered, "how the wheel turns;" and then pulling out a small steel purse, but slenderly garnished, he selected from a few other coins an old silver piece, worn quite smooth and bent double. "Do you remember that?" said he, placing it in my hand.
The gipsy troop and the deserter flashed across me at once. I was so confused at my own stupidity in not having recognised him sooner, that I could only stammer out, "Pardon, your Excellency--so long ago--a mere child."
He grasped my hand warmly. "Egerton," said he, "boy as you were, there was heart and honour in your deed. Subordinate as I then was, I swore never to forget it. I have never forgotten it. You have made a friend for life in Omar Pasha."
I could only bow my thanks, and the General added, "Come to me at head-quarters this afternoon. I will see what can be done for you."
"But, Excellency, I cannot spare him," interposed Iskender Bey. "I have here an English officer, the bravest of the brave, but so stupid I cannot understand a word he says. I had rather be without sword or lance than lose my Interpreter. And then, Excellency, the attack to-morrow--the attack."
Omar Pasha rose to depart. "I will send him back this evening with despatches," said he, saluting his host in the Turkish fashion, touching first the heart, then the mouth, then the forehead--a courtesy which the old fire-eater returned with a ludicrous attempt at solemnity.
"De Rohan," he added, "stay here to carry out the orders I have given you. As soon as your friend can be spared from the Bey, bring him over with you, to remain at head-quarters. Salaam!" And the General was on his horse and away long before the Turkish guard could get under arms to pay him the proper compliments, leaving Iskender Bey to return to his brandy-bottle, and my old friend Victor to make himself comfortable in my tent, and smoke a quiet chibouque with me whilst we related all that had passed since we met.
Victor was frank and merry as usual, spoke unreservedly of his _liaison_ with Princess Vocqsal, and the reasons which had decided him on seeing a campaign with the Turkish army against his natural enemies, the Russians.
"I like it, _mon cher_," said he, puffing at his chibouque, and talking in the mixture of French and English which seemed his natural language, and in which he always affirmed _he thought_. "There is liberty, there is excitement, there is the chance of distinction; and above all, there are _no women_. It suits my temperament, _mon cher: voyez-vous, je suis philosophe_. I like to change my bivouac day by day, to attach myself to my horses, to have no tie but that which binds me to my sabre, no anxieties but for what I shall get to eat. The General does all the thinking--_parbleu!_ he does it _a merveille_; and I--why, I laugh and I ride away. Fill my chibouque again, and hand me that flask; I think there is a drop left in it. Your health, Vere, _mon enfant_, and _vive la guerre_!"
"_Vive la guerre!_" I repeated; but the words stuck in my throat, for I had already seen something of the miseries brought by war into a peaceful country, and I could not look upon the struggle in which we were engaged with quite as much indifference as my volatile friend.
"And you, Vere," he resumed, after draining the flask, "I heard you were with us weeks ago; but I have been absent from my chief on a reconnaissance, so I never could get an opportunity of beating up your quarters. What on earth brought you out here, my quiet, studious friend?"
I could not have told him the truth to save my life. Any one but _him_, for I always fancied she looked on him with favouring eyes, so I gave two or three false reasons instead of the real one.