nearest the crest of the hill immortalized by the great conflict, in advance of but in touch with the regular dead lines of the guard, a little group, friend and foe, lay intermingled. there was a young officer of the fifty-second infantry, one of colborne's. he was conscious but suffering frightfully from mortal wounds. one side of his face where he had been thrown into the mud was covered with a red compound of earth and blood; his bright head was dabbled with the same hideous mixture. blood frothed out of his mouth as he breathed. he murmured from time to time a woman's name. "water," was sometimes the sputtering syllable that came from him.
his left hand clutched uneasily at his breast, where his torn uniform showed a gaping wound. but his right hand was still. the arm was broken, paralyzed, but the fingers of his right hand were tightly closed around a broken blue staff and next to his cheek, the blood-stained one, and cold against it, was a french eagle. he had seized that staff in the heat of battle and in the article of death he held it.
at the feet of the english officer lay a french officer wearing the insignia of a colonel of the guard. he was covered with wounds, bayonet thrusts, a saber-slash, and was delirious. although helpless, he was really in much better case than the young englishman. he, too, in his delirium muttered a woman's name.
they spoke different tongues, these two. they were born in different lands. they were children of the same god, although one might have doubted it, but no one could mistake the woman's name. for there frank yeovil and jean marteau, incapable of doing each other any further harm, each thought of the same woman.
did laure d'aumenier back in england waiting anxiously for news of battle, fearing for one of those men, hear those piteous, broken murmurs of a woman's name—her own?
around these two were piled the dead. marteau had seized the eagle. yes, he and a few brave men had stayed on the field when the great ney, raging like a madman, and seeking in vain the happy fortune of a bullet or sword-thrust, had been swept away, and on him had fallen yeovil with another group of resolute english, and together they had fought their little battle for the eagle. and marteau had proved the englishman's master. he had beaten him down. he had shortened his sword to strike when he recognized him. well, the battle was over, the eagle was lost, the emperor was a fugitive, hope died with the retreating guard, the empire was ended. marteau might have killed him, but to what end?
"for your wife's sake," he cried, lowering his sword, and the next minute he paid for his mercy, for the other english threw themselves upon him.
but frank yeovil did not get off scot free. there was one lad who had followed marteau, who had marched with the guard, who had no compunctions of conscience whatever, and with his last pistol pierre gave the reeling englishman the fatal shot. yes, pierre paid too. they would certainly have spared him, since he was only a boy, but maddened by the death of their officer, half a dozen bayonets were plunged into his breast.
thither the next day came sir gervaise yeovil, who had been with the duke at the duchess of richmond's famous ball in brussels. young frank had left that ball at four o'clock in the morning, according to order, only to find that later orders had directed the army to march at two and that his baggage had gone. he had fought that day in pumps and silk stockings which he had worn at the ball; dabbled, gory, muddy, they were now.
sir gervaise yeovil was an old friend of the duke of wellington. the iron duke, as they called him, was nevertheless very tender-hearted that morning. he told the baronet that his son was somewhere on the field. colonel colborne of the fifty-second had marked him in the charge, but that was all. neither vivian nor vandeleur could throw any light on the situation. there were twenty thousand of the allied armies on that field and thirty thousand french.
"my god," said sir gervaise, staring along the line of the french retreat, "what is so terrible as a defeat?"
"nothing," said the duke gravely. then looking at the nearer hillside he added those tremendous words which epitomized war in a way in which no one save a great modern captain has ever epitomized it. "nothing," he said slowly, "unless it be a victory."
they found the guard. that was easy. there they lay in lines where they had fallen; the tall bearskins on their heads, the muskets still clasped in their hands. there, too, they found young yeovil at last. they revived him. someone sought to take the eagle from him, but with a sudden accession of strength he protested against it.
"father," he whispered to the old man bending over him, his red face pale and working, "mine."
"true," said the duke. "he captured it. let him keep it."
"o god!" broke out the baronet. "frank! can nothing be done?"
"nothing. stop." his lips moved, his father bent nearer. "laure——" he whispered.
"yes, yes, what of her?"
"that frenchman she loved——"
"marteau?"
the young englishman closed his eyes in assent.
"he could have killed me but spared—for her—he—is there," he faltered presently.
"there is life in this frenchman yet," said one of the surgeons, looking up at the moment.
"my lord!" said old sir gervaise yeovil, starting up, choking down a sob and endeavoring to keep his voice steady. "my boy yonder——"
"yes," said the duke, "a brave lad."
"he's—— it is all up with him. you will let me take him back to england, and—the frenchman and the eagle?"
"certainly. i wish to god it had never happened, yeovil," went on the soldier. "but it had to be. bonaparte had to be put down, the world freed. and somebody had to pay."
"i thank god," said the old man, "that my boy dies for his king and his country and for human liberty."
"nor shall he die in vain," said the soldier.
frank yeovil died on the vessel sir gervaise chartered to carry him and marteau and some other wounded officers of his acquaintance back to england. they did not bury him at sea. at his earnest request they took him back to his own land to be laid with his ancestors, none of whom had spent themselves more gloriously or for a greater cause than he.
marteau, frightfully weak, heart-broken and helpless, by sir gervaise yeovil's command was taken to the baronet's own house.
"i did my best," he said brokenly from the bed on which he lay as laure d'aumenier bent over him, sir gervaise standing grim and silent with folded arms in the background.
"for france and the emperor," whispered the woman.
"yes, that, but for your husband as well. he fell upon me. i was trying to rally the guard—the eagle—he was beaten down—but i recognized him. i would not have harmed him."
"he told me," said the baronet, "what you said. 'for your wife's sake,'" he quoted in his deep voice, looking curiously at the girl.
"sir gervaise," said the countess, looking up at him entreatingly, "i am alone in this world but for you. i was to have been your daughter. may i speak?"
"i wish it."
"marteau—jean," she said softly, "i was not his wife. perhaps now that he is dead it would have been better if i had been, but——"
"and you are free?"
again the countess looked at the englishman. simple and homely though he was, he showed the qualities of his birth and rank.
"mademoiselle," he began gravely, almost tenderly. he looked a long time at her. "little laure," he continued at last, taking her slender hand in his own great one, "i had hoped that you might some day call me father but that hope is gone—since waterloo. if i were your real father now i should say——"
"monsieur!" whispered the woman, her eyes brightening, her hand tightening in the clasp of the other.
"and i think the old marquis would say that it is the will of god, now——" he bit his lip. it was all so different from what he imagined.
"go on, if you please," whispered marteau. "i am ill. i cannot bear——"
"if she be guided by me she will be your wife, young sir," said sir gervaise decisively.
he dropped the woman's hand. he turned and walked heavily out of the room without a backward glance. he could do no more.
"and will you stoop to me?" pleaded marteau.
for answer the woman knelt by his bed and slipped her arm tenderly under his head. she bent and kissed him.
"when you are stronger," she replied, "you shall raise me up to your own high level of courage and devotion and self-sacrifice, but meanwhile it is upon my bosom that your head must lie."
"alas," said marteau, after a little, "the emperor is taken, the empire is lost, my poor france!"
"i will go back with you and we will help to build it up again," said the woman.
that was the best medicine that could be given to the young man. his recovery was slow but it was sure and it was the more rapid because of the gracious care of the woman he loved, who lavished upon him all the pent-up passion of her fond adoring heart.
sir gervaise yeovil, whose interest at court was great, exerted himself to secure a reconfirmation of marteau's patent of nobility and to see that no difficulties were placed in the way of the young couple in obtaining repossession of their estates. so that once more there should be a d'aumenier and perhaps a renewal of the ancient house in the old château in champagne. this was easier since marteau had never taken oath to king louis and therefore had broken no faith.
at the quiet wedding that took place as soon as marteau recovered his strength a little, sir gervaise continued to act the father's part to the poor woman. after the ceremony he delighted the heart of the soldier by giving to him what he loved after the woman, the eagle which had been frank yeovil's prize.
"you will think of the lad, sometimes," said the old baronet to the girl. "he was not lucky enough to win you, but he loved you and he died with your name on his lips."
"i shall remember him always," said the new-made wife.
"his name shall be held in highest honor in my house as a brave soldier, a true lover and a most gallant gentleman," added the new-made husband.
marteau would never forget the picture of the emperor sitting on his horse at la belle alliance that june evening, stern, terrific, almost sublime, watching the guard go by to death. he was glad he had not seen him in the retreat of which he afterward heard from old bal-arrêt. but that was not the last picture of the emperor that he had. although he was scarcely strong enough to be moved, he insisted on being taken to portsmouth with his young wife. sir gervaise went with him. he had no other object in life it seemed but to provide happiness for these young people. he could scarcely bear them out of his sight.
one day, a bright and sunny morning late in july, they put the convalescing soldier into a boat with his wife and the old baronet and the three were rowed out into the harbor as near as the cordon of guard-boats allowed them to approach to a great english ship-of-the-line, across the stern of which in gold letters they read the name, "bellerophon."
"bonaparte gener'ly comes out 'n the quarter-gal'ry of the ship, 'bout this hour in the mornin'," said one of the boatmen. "an' if he does we can see him quite plain from yere."
there were other boats there whose occupants were moved by curiosity and various emotions, but when the figure of the little man with the three-cornered cocked hat on his head, still wearing the green uniform of the chasseurs of the guard stepped out on the quarter-gallery, his eyes, as it were instinctively, sought that particular boat.
"help me up," said marteau brokenly.
the boat was a large one and moving carefully they got the young officer to his feet. he was wearing his own battle-stained uniform. he lifted his trembling hand to his head in salute. the little emperor bent over the rail and stared hard at the trio. did he recognize marteau? ah, yes! he straightened up presently, his own hand returned the salute and then he took off that same cocked hat and bared his brow and bent his head low and, with a gesture of farewell, he turned and reëntered his cabin—prometheus on the way to his chains at st. helena!
