CHAPTER IX.

A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE.

Through the dark fens, and the yielding morass, and the spicy sycamore

grove, and the mossy walnut woods of Virginia, stole a gray-faced man;

panting, hunger-smitten, weary; starting at every crash of the rotten

underbrush, stopping ever with dilating eye to peer from the top of

every hill into the valley beneath.

And a thin, tawny shadow glided before him with his nose upon the

ground, and his eyes flaming ferociously--a blood-hound upon the trail.

Thoms had deserted from the army, and was out in search of Colonel

Brand, and this dog which he held in chains was guiding him foot by foot

along the secret path which St. Udo had traversed to perform his

embassy.

How the old man brightened when a blue curl of distant smoke promised

him a speedy sight of St. Udo's watch-fire! How his limbs trembled and

his haggard face blackened when the blood-hound wavered in his steady

run, and sniffed about uneasily for a lost scent! How the wicked,

tigerish eyes gleamed when the creature ran on again with eager haste

and dripping fangs!

And the long brown fingers were ever straying toward the dagger in the

bosom; and the cruel lips ever were sneering out their fell design; and

the march seemed only a summer holiday to Thoms hastening to his

colonel.

St. Udo Brand had been sent to Washington with dispatches, and was on

his way South again to join his command.

Thus much had Thoms discovered, and he was sure of coming up with him in

these pathless forests, if he trusted to the unerring instinct of his

hideous guide.

It was a lovely day that first of September--so warm, and lambent, and

sunny-hued that St. Udo, weary with nights and days of ceaseless

exertion, ordered a halt in a cedar grove, and threw himself from his

jaded horse to rest a while.

His twenty followers, who were struggling after him on foot, were

overjoyed to throw themselves beside him, and soon most of the poor

fellows were fast asleep on their arms.

The following day there was a slight skirmish, in which but one, a mere

youth, was injured.

St. Udo was talking kindly to this youth, who lay quite still in a

corner listening to the whispered words of cheer with a faint and

hopeless smile, when a shadow fell across the sweet, dying face, and a

woman's gasp of terror fell upon St. Udo's ear. He turned to look upon

her, and started involuntarily.

There she drooped, with wild, grief-darkened eyes fastened on the boy,

her fair cheeks white with horror, her shapely hands clasped in anguish;

her snaky tresses lying low upon her sloping shoulders--a vision of

surpassing grace and dumb sorrow--Madam Estvan.

How came she there? Where came she from, who had lain entombed in a

holocaust of flame?

A spirit, was she? Ay, truly, a spirit of pity and grief, weeping over a

brave boy-soldier's end.

"God bless you, madam!" burst from St. Udo's lips.

She turned her tranced eye from its shocked scrutiny of the boy, and

lifted it in mute anguish to the colonel's. She did not recognize him in

that supreme moment of her woe.

"Is he dying, do you think?" whispered she, pressing close.

The sweet face turned with a smile of anguish at her voice, the dark

eyes opened on her lovely countenance with a far away look already in

their depths.

"Yes, yes, madam, I am dying," murmured the boy.

"Oh, Edgar! Edgar!" moaned the woman, in harrowing tones, "must you go?

I loved you so dearly, too--my last, my only hope on earth or in

Heaven--my _son_!"

"Ah, madam, you did not treat me as your son."

"Hush!" whispered she, in anguish. "I was not to blame for that. Your

father was to blame when he deserted us both, my poor boy. How could I

fight against fate? In self-defence I parted from you, but I have loved

you truly, Edgar."

"May God, to whom I go, forgive your cold rejection of me many times

when I have besought you on my knees to let me call you mother. From

place to place you have led me, keeping me at a distance all the while,

and now my sad, lonely life must end here. Oh, madam, you have been

cruel!"

She wept wildly, she raised him in her arms and kissed him many times,

but her lips framed no excuse.

"To think that I should find you here, my boy," moaned she, "when I sent

you North expressly for safety's sake. Why--why did you enter the army,

Edgar?"

"To find death," said the calm, dying voice.

She laid him down upon the straw, and raised her streaming eyes to St.

Udo Brand. They recognized him now, and grew hard and fierce. She rose,

and clutched him by the arm.

"Where is that fiend in human shape who calls himself Colonel

Calembours?" cried she, vehemently.

"I cannot tell," replied St. Udo. "He has played the traitor to the

North; he must be with Lee's army."

"He has played the traitor to _me_, and to that boy, _his son_!" she

exclaimed, vengefully. "He has deserted us for eighteen years, and now

my boy is dying. He threw me back among the flames three months ago in

Colonel Estvan's house as soon as he recognized in me _his wife_. Oh!

can such a monster escape justice?"

"Did you come here to-day expecting to find Colonel Calembours?"

inquired St. Udo, compassionately.

"I did. I have just come from a sickroom, which my terror drove me to

after my servants had rescued me from being consumed in the flames which

destroyed my only home. I hear that Monsieur Estvan was killed, and I

searched in every hospital in Richmond, and every jail, for some tidings

of the monster in case he might have been captured. Now, alas! I find my

son in the agonies of death."

She knelt again by the boy and kissed his cold lips, smiling so stilly.

St. Udo left the hapless pair together, and strode to the doorway of the

shed for a breath of Heaven's pure air; the despair, the misery behind

him were wringing his heart, adamantine as he was wont to call it.

St. Udo suddenly heard the beat of hoofs, and in a moment a Confederate

officer dashed in front of the tent and reined up.

"_Eh bien! Monsieur, mon ami_," chirped a familiar voice. "Well met, my

colonel. _Par ma foi._ I like this extravagantly--yes."

And the Chevalier de Calembours, dismounting from a magnificent

war-horse, performed a profound obeisance.

"You unhanged villain!" shouted St. Udo, scornfully.

A white face peered out from behind Colonel Brand. Madam Estvan glided

out, and put a nervous hand upon the chevalier's arm.

"Come here," whispered the wan lips, sadly.

He went with her into the tent, and looked at the sweet young face,

sealed with the smile of death, of a noble soldier lad.

"Colonel Calembours, look at your son," whispered madam.

The chevalier grew ghastly white. Truly this fair, smiling dead bore his

own sin-coarsened lineaments; but the woman! Who was she?

Just then there were heard shouts mingled with firing, and, ere the

chevalier's eyes had time to light upon that beautiful face, a random

ball struck him down at her feet. Like a bolt of retribution from

Heaven, it laid him across the senseless clay of his deserted son.

And, with a shriek that tingled in the shocked St. Udo's ears, the

lovely woman sank beside her dead, and the dark blood of her perfidious

husband oozed onto her dainty robes, and washed her trembling hands;

and, turning to the battle, he saw no more.

In half an hour St. Udo led back his soldiers, and found her still

there, with the senseless man's head in her lap, and her soft hands

deftly dressing his gaping wound.

"He will live," said she, quite calmly. "I have snatched him back from

death; he will live for me."

"Can you forgive such perfidy as his?" asked the wondering St. Udo.

"Yes, if he will take me to his heart again," she said, with a flash of

ineffable yearning. "I will forget his indifference to me, his injustice

to this dead boy. I will be happy to be his bond slave, if he will own

me as his wife evermore, for--I love him."

How passionately she breathed the sublime words, "I love him!" How

God-like was the forgiveness of such sins as his for such a plea!

St. Udo forced some drops of brandy into his unfortunate comrade's lips,

and in time had the satisfaction to hear a deep sigh escape him.

"Calembours," exclaimed St. Udo, "look up and speak to this noble

woman."

The chevalier opened his eyes, and strove to see her through the dim

gloom, but vainly.

"My husband!" breathed the lady, with bitter tears, "will you cast me

off for the third time? Ah, don't break my heart! My poor Edgar is dead,

and I have not a soul but you, and after all these years of separation.

Oh, Ladislaus!"

Her face sank on his breast, she clung to him with both eager hands.

He glared about him like some savage animal. He forgot his pain and his

capture, in rage at such a proposition, and answered with an insulting

laugh.

"Oh--ha, ha!" screamed he, with the enjoyment of a hyena. "This maniac

mistakes the Chevalier de Calembours for her husband Ladislaus.

Excellent! _nom de Dieu!_ most excellent. Sweet madam, your troubles

have crazed your brain. A chance resemblance has deceived you--_mon

coeur_! You have mistaken your man."

She heard him with a gasp of horror.

She extricated herself and stood off, a dark shadow in the gray night.

"You repudiate me once more?" she cried, in a thrilling voice. "Traitor,

renegade--spy! You are not worthy of a woman's love; but you shall feel

a woman's vengeance!"

She snatched a stiletto from her bosom, and threw herself upon the

prostrate rascal, but was caught by St. Udo and disarmed.

"Enough, madam," said he, icily; "the miscreant shall expiate his

villainies by death, but not at your hands."

She submitted in silence, and without one backward look upon the man who

had been her life's curse, she galloped back with her attendants, to

watch over her dead boy, and to keep him from the dews of Heaven and the

birds of prey for many a dread day.

There is yet another scene to paint in this series of life-pictures,

gentle reader.

It is the last.

On through dim night sped the little force, under a rising moon eclipsed

by drifting clouds, and met face to face a regiment in full march.

The leaders anxiously gazed at each other, hoping to encounter friends,

but in the gloom their uniforms were undistinguishable.

"What regiment is yours?" demanded St. Udo, at last.

There was a pause, brief and ominous.

"What is yours?" cautiously returned the officer in command.

"The--Vermont," said Udo Brand.

"Then, in heaven's name, take it! Fire!" commanded the other.

A simultaneous flash along; each line distinctly revealed every face,

and then the front ranks fell in the windrows under the murderous

volley.

"Again!" shouted the Confederate leader.

Again his men stepped forward, aimed at St. Udo's handful, and again the

brave Vermonters melted away like smoke before the wind.

Then Colonel Brand gave the orders for retreat, and sullenly took the

rear of his diminished band. But the foe pressed close, and a chance

shot killed his horse, and a flying pursuer dealt the rider a stunning

blow, and left him for dead; and the battle-storm rolled away, and was

lost in the distant woods.

And when the shrouded moon was shining (three black stripes across its

disk) upon the man lying on his broken sword, with his head upon the

neck of his pulseless horse, he heard a rustle in the dewy leaves, and

footsteps soft and sure approaching, and he raised his dark, dim eyes

supplicatingly, for he thought of faithful friends who might be seeking

him.

But a long, lean hound was baying hoarsely, and its red eyes gleamed

like chysolites, and it led, step by step, the shuffling feet of a

haggard man who long had sought St. Udo.

And the skulker came to his side, and looked in his face with demoniac

eagerness, and plunged the dastardly dagger hilt-deep into his breast,

and stood erect with a long, wild, triumphant laugh.

So the moon rode on in clearer majesty, and the night-dews dripped upon

the slain--for "the dearest tears which heaven sheds are her dews upon

the dead hero's face."