Chapter LXIII: The Ambush

Pappenheim had brought up another body of at least a thousand horse, and placed them in a wood, on the extreme left of his bivouac, in front of which we found the original foe we had come to attack, the Walloons mounted and under arms, as we approached; their dark figures being distinctly defined against the sky, which was becoming lighter every moment, day having now begun to dawn. As we advanced in squadrons and formed line, they threw forward a body of skirmishers; we did the same, and there ensued a desultory firing of pistols and musketoons, by which several lives were lost, and, as usual in such cavalry encounters, a great quantity of ammunition was wasted; for when troopers contend against troopers with fire-arms, not one shot in fifty takes effect. During this skirmish, which absorbed all our interest, we did not perceive that another body of horse had defiled from the wood on our left, and taken up a position between it and the river Sarre, covering the highway, and completely cutting off our retreat to Zaberne. This was a fine body of imperial cuirassiers formed in line three deep, and led by Pappenheim. My amiable friend De Bitche commanded that corps of Walloons which held us in play while this artful and successful manoeuvre had been executed. The moment they had taken up their ground, the Walloons recalled their skirmishers by sound of trumpet, preparatory to charging our line in double columns of squadrons, and then we discovered the trap into which we had fallen.

'By heavens!' said Dundrennan; 'this game will cost some of us our lives.'

'Mordieu!' added the Marquis de Toneins, galloping furiously up to our leader, 'M. le Marquis de Gordon, Lavalette has been misled; instead of one, we have at least two thousand here to meet our nine hundred men!'

'This comes of having troops commanded by cardinals and holiday generals,' replied Gordon, bitterly.

'Then what remains to be done?'

'There is nothing for us, but to retire.'

'In what order?' asked De Toneins, impetuously.

'Form your dragoons in squadrons again, Marquis; we will cut a passage through those fellows in our rear, and fall back on Zaberne.'

'A passage?'--

'Of course,' said Gordon, loftily; 'I will open the ball with the gentlemen of the Scottish Guard.'

'So be it then--Vive le Roi!' cried the young Marquis, as he gave the order, which was executed at full speed, and before his dragoons attained their new formation, we were already riding full at this new enemy.

We, the cuirassiers, presented a front of about forty files only, while the body we were to break through, had its flanks so far extended, that they could have overlapped twenty times our number. In the rear rank, I was Lord Dundrennan's covering file. The foe, a black and solid line of dragoons, after firing from their carbines a volley, by which we lost several brave gentlemen (for their fire was given by a triple rank), got gradually into a trot, slinging their fire-arms and drawing their swords, as they advanced with all their trumpets sounding.

As the speed of our horses increased, so did our spirit fire up at the emergency and the danger; and with the confidence we felt, of being equal to anything that men might essay, we became closer and closer, more firm and compact in our formation, and more furious in our speed. A wild enthusiasm seemed to spread from heart to heart along our little line; and had even a coward been there, he must have caught a glow of courage from the glorious spirit around him.

'Close up--touch in--close up!' cried old Patrick Gordon, when the hot fire thinned our ranks and, as the old Border ballad says,--

'Closing up on every side,
No slackness there was found;
Though many a gallant gentleman
Lay gasping on the ground'

Those who had the misfortune to fall, or be unhorsed, were doomed to immediate death; for the rear squadrons of the Marquis de Toneins trampled everything flat upon the turf. Goring our horses, riding knee to knee at racing speed, with our teeth set and our swords uplifted we rushed upon the Austrians. The Chevalier Livingstone was shot through the left thigh, but kept his place till his boot was full of blood; Patrick Gordon was wounded, and a ball took the plume from my helmet; but the foe had not time to fire another shot; for, with a reckless shout we were upon them,--and the shock of our meeting was tremendous, forcing many of the chargers to reel back upon their haunches.

'Vive le Roi! St. Andrew! St. Andrew!' cried the Marquis of Gordon; and while we all echoed the battle-cry of the Garde du Corps Ecossais, we bore the enemy back--cutting, hewing, slashing, and throwing horses and men to the earth. I felt many intended cuts and blows glide off my helmet, given I knew not by whom; and in the crush, confusion, and fury of the conflict, I actually forgot all about Pappenheim for a time, and scarcely knew at whom to strike, but hewed away at random. Swords were gleaming and clashing on all sides of me; and as they were whirled about, drops of blood were seen to fly through the air.

The Marquis of Gordon slew three men in succession; Dundrennan was unhorsed in the melée, but shot a German trooper by his girdle-pistol, and mounted his horse, almost in the time I take to write it. Our old Marechal de Logis was hewing away on all sides with his enormous bilbo, keeping three or four horsemen in play at once, for we had now become broken, involved among the foe, and, while still spurring and pressing towards the Zaberne road, were engaged in a series of desperate personal combats, in which every gentleman of the Guard had at least two swords opposed to his single weapon. Poor Sir Quentin Home, though faint with loss of blood, had rid himself of two antagonists, when a third passed a sword fairly through his body. He uttered a wild cry, and, grasping the right hand of the Austrian to prevent him withdrawing the blade, he actually thrust the shell close up to the wound, and, rising in his stirrups with the last energies of despair and death, clove his destroyer through helmet and skull down to the moustache, and then threw his sword into the air, crying,--

'A Home! a Home! _True to the end!_' and fell dead from his horse, with his foeman above him. It was the motto of his house he had cried aloud, and with it closed his life and his name, for--rest him, God!--Sir Quentin was the last of his race.

Just as he sank from sight among the frightful débris of this brief and rapid conflict, I perceived before me a familiar face, flushed with excitement, and having a pair of eyes that glared at me through the ribs of a triple-barred helmet. This was Wolfgang Count Pappenheim, and we were somewhat apart from the general melée. Not a word did we exchange; but there was a furious blow given, a fortunate parry made, and then a deadly thrust or two; after which we paused, surveying each other with the gloomy determination of two men who were never to part alive. By one lucky stroke I cut his reins, which placed him completely at my mercy, for both his pistols were empty; so, with an oath of rage, he hurled them at my head. I then levelled a pistol full in his face, saying,--

'Yield, Count--yield, or I kill you!'

He smiled disdainfully, and, with a glance full of spite and fury, proffered his sword by the hilt. I stretched forth my hand to receive it, when suddenly the traitor turned the point upon me, and would have run me through the body had not the blade been struck up by Raynold Cheyne, who was at my side. He then passed his own sword twice through the body of Pappenheim, who fell forward on his horse's neck, and, with blood gushing from his mouth, dropped dead beneath our horse's feet.

'Here ends our rivalry!' thought I, as the Garde du Corps pressed on, and dashed furiously along the Zaberne road, leaving the Marquis de Toneins and his dragoons to pass through the deadly gap we had made in the ranks of the German reitres; but in achieving that service nearly twenty of my noble comrades left their bodies on the field.

Of the hundred Scottish cuirassiers who marched from Paris, there were now only sixty under the king's standard. We had escaped the snare prepared for us, and slain Count Pappenheim; but while De Bitche was left alive, I deemed the work of that day but half done.

'Raynold's sword has done you a good service,' said Dundrennan, in a low voice, and with a grim smile, as he reloaded his pistols while we rode together at an easy trot along the path of rock that led to Zaberne. 'Pappenheim is removed for ever from your path.'

'That matters little, Viscount,' said I, bitterly. 'She is beautiful and nobly born, and will always find those who will love her and beg her love. I would that she were still but the little soubrette I first knew her! Pappenheim was brave, but foully treacherous, as the last act of his life proved amply. Yet 'tis said this fellow really loved Marie Louise.'

'He--then, if so, and common rumour be believed, he never loved anything else.'

'Save his wine-pot.'

'True; but the Count is a German.'

I looked back to the mountains, where a silver haze was rising in the sunshine from the valley, where poor Quentin Home of Redden with so many of our comrades lay.

'Twenty of our brother soldiers have gone this morning to their last account,' said the Marquis of Gordon, with emotion. 'Alas! how this cursed soil of Alsace soaks up our Scottish blood!'