CHAPTER XXXI
“THERE IS NIGHT IN THE HILLS”
It seemed that Strasburg could suffer no more; and yet she continued unyieldingly to suffer. Hours became days, and days weeks, and still no white flag floated over her citadel; nor were the voices of her brave men silent. Down below in the cellars the timid wailed and cried for light and bread. Mighty lanterns, the shells of her great buildings, gave to the night the crimson beacons which seemed dyed with the very blood of the dead. Faint hearts told each other that the Hotel de Ville, the theatre, the New Church, the Governor’s house, the Library, were but ashes upon barren wastes. Two thousand dead the city mourned; and yet, mourning them, prepared to die. The ultimate woe of despair was upon a helpless people. Their homes crumbled to the very dust. The open grave became their offering to France and the children of France.
It had been upon the nineteenth day of September that Edmond Lefort fell wounded by the fragment of a shell at the very door of the surgeon Laroche’s house in the Broglie. He lay in the same house upon the morning of the twenty-seventh; and those about him knew that he was dying. Since the grey light of dawn winged into that room of death and shone upon the haggard face, swathed still in its bloody bandages, his little wife had not moved from his bedside nor released his hot fingers from her own. She sat there as some angel of sleep comforting him. The tragedy of the weeks bygone, the hope, the fear of them had vanished as the mists of an autumn night. No other name, no other voice, no other scene stood between her and her lover now. Clinging as to some supreme faith in the God who had given her love, she could not believe that the supreme calamity was at hand. Edmond was dying, they said. She would not hear them.
He lay upon a soldier’s bed, a curtain shielding his eyes, one white hand clasping the hot fingers which had never left his own; the other stroking the coverlet as men, sick unto death, will in the last hours that life may give them. Once only since fate struck him down had he opened his eyes to the sunlight, or recognised who it was that stood with him at the end; but that instant of recognition was never to be forgotten. Beatrix remembered, through the years, the voice that uttered her name then in a transport of pity and love. What a light of joy was on his face! Again and again he whispered the beloved name as she covered his hands and face with kisses which were the gift of her very heart. No other came between them then. The angel of death had linked their souls, to be forever thus through the infinite ages of their being.
She knew that he was dying, though she sought to hide the truth from herself. The stertorous breathing, the pallor of the face, the burning hands, the cold sweat of night upon his forehead, the agony even of the conscious moments, were there perpetually to warn her of that instant when the heart would beat no more, and the day of suffering draw to its end. But the flame of her hope was not to be quenched. She reeled before the power of death, and yet would not admit that power. The God who had sent her to Wörth to know the whole blessedness and sweetness of a young girl’s love would not, could not take this love from her. She clung to her husband with an intensity born of frenzy and despair. She longed to lift him from the bed, and to say, “Arise and live.” She prayed, as she had never prayed before, that he might be given back to her. Through that long September day, that day when Strasburg at last was to cry for the mercy it had not wished, she never stirred from his bed, nor ceased to listen for the words that should be to her precious beyond all the words their love had spoken.
There had been a cessation of the cannon early in the afternoon, but she knew nothing of the reasons which brought the unaccustomed silence and filled the streets again with those who had almost forgotten the sun and the life of day. In the darkened room she heard her lover talking, now of Wörth, now of their happy days in the Niederwald; again of the battle and of the death ride there. Once, indeed, he raised himself upon his elbow and seemed to call for his comrades; but the next moment he had fallen back with a froth of blood upon his lips. An anger against the destiny which thus could make him suffer closed her lips and dried her eyes. She would save him—she would close the open grave; they should not take him from her. In her distress she even withdrew her hand from his, and he opened his eyes once more and began to speak to her.
“Beatrix—it is you, little Beatrix.”
“It is I, dearest husband.”
“You have forgiven me, my wife—ah, God, how precious!-you have forgiven me that I made you suffer?”
She knelt at his bedside, and burying her face upon the outstretched arm she made anew the child-wife’s vow that he had heard in the golden days of old time.
“I love you—Edmond—I love you—I love you.”
The white hand rested upon her hair; the eyes of the man were looking over the city he had loved.
“There is nothing in the world but love, Beatrix,” he said, speaking in a voice so low that her ears must almost touch his lips; “all else that we live for, fame, glory, ourselves, money—they are nothing. If I had remembered my love for you, little wife—if I had remembered—”
He began to breathe with dreadful rapidity. She could feel his heart throbbing beneath her cheeks.
“Dearest,” she said, “let us remember nothing but the days to come. Oh, I will love you always, always—I have none but you, Edmond.”
He sought to kiss her lips, but could not raise his head from the pillow.
“I do not fear death,” he said very slowly, “if one might sleep upon the field with a cloak about the face and a sword in the hand. The grave is all dark. You will not let them lay me in the grave, Beatrix.”
“Oh, Edmond—oh, for God’s sake—how can I bear it?”
“You will come to me, little wife. I shall hear your voice in the loneliness of death. For that we love and are loved. Not to be alone through the eternal night! Ah, if you will remember then, beloved, when there is none to hear and my eyes are blinded! Ah, if you will come to me in that sleep! I have no right to ask. All that I would live for is here in my arms. They shall not take you from me, Beatrix—if you forgive!”
A great silence, broken only by the voice of tears, reigned in that abode of death. Without, in the awakened streets, great throngs flocked to the cathedral and the citadel. The white flag floated above the city. The agony of Strasburg was no more. To the dying man, the silent cannon sent the last message of life.
“Beatrix,” he said, “you will go to England with Richard Watts. I wish it. Remember that I have loved you, little one. Think well of my country. Think well of France. If our child should live, tell him of Wörth. If my son—ah, God! why do I speak of him?”
He fell back exhausted and closed his eyes. For many minutes no word was spoken. When he uttered her name again, she knew that it was for the last time.
“There is night in the hills,” he said; “give me light, oh God, that I may see her face again.”
THE END