CHAPTER XLV.
NANCI.
My captor, Wolfgang Count Pappenheim, the intended son-in-law of Duke Charles, was the son and heir of the great Pappenheim of the German wars, he who had received no less than fourteen wounds at the battles of Leipzig and Prague, and was surnamed le Balafré, as he bore on his person exactly one hundred scars received in the field of honour.
Young Pappenheim had won himself a high reputation for bravery in those wars, especially by his defence of the castle of Wilsburg, a stronghold of the Margravine of Anspach, when it was assailed by the King of Sweden, who was anxious to secure it for the Protestants of the Franconian circle; but when summoned, Wolfgang replied—
'I will never surrender to a king of Sweden, but shall perish here, and the ruins of Wilsburg will be my monument.'
Gustavus believed him on his father's reputation, and consequently abandoned the siege. Thus I had 'the mortifying honour,' as Sergeant Alsfeldt told me, 'of having surrendered my sword to one of the finest soldiers in the army of the German emperor.'
In a state of anxiety that amounted almost to agony, I marched towards Nanci, along a road the darkness of which, as it was buried among coppice, was in unison with the gloom and loneliness that oppressed my heart. The cold white moon waned and went down beyond the level horizon. The country thereabout, though richly wooded, is flat and uninteresting, until the plain is bounded by the Vosges. The scenery grew dark, and the orangeries, vineyards, and coppice that bordered the way seemed black and sombre, as the stars, like diamonds in a dark-blue dome, twinkled in the early morning sky.
The yellow dawn began to gild its eastern quarter above the distant chain of the Vosges; green hill tops brightened in the rising tide of light, and the vanes of village spires and of old châteaux embosomed among oaks that were perhaps coeval with Lothario, king of Lorraine, glittered in the rosy beams. Squirrels and rabbits fled before us across the road from hedge to hedge; the larks began to sing joyously, as the brilliant morning came to gladden the hearts of all, apparently, but me; for I had but one thought—Nicola!
'Where was she, then? Where, how, and with whom had she passed the weary hours since our fatal separation?'
I dared not trust myself to think, as footsore, weary, damp with midnight dew, and covered with the dust of the summer roadway, I came in sight of the city of Nanci, which I now regarded with horror as the probable scene of a long and exasperating imprisonment, or (it might be) a cruel and ignominious death; for I was in the hands of soldiers who were without scruple, pity, or remorse—the fierce men of the long and barbarous thirty years' war.
Alsfeldt, the sergeant who had charge of me, proved, however, to be a kind and considerate fellow. Perceiving that I was without a covering for my head, he attempted to appropriate for my use the hat of the first man we met; a proceeding which I would by no means sanction. He was fond of extolling the bravery of his colonel, the Prince of Vaudemont, under whom he had served at the defence of Wilsburg, and in some of the more recent battles of the Empire. At a wayside beer-house I entertained him and the musketeers of my escort with cans of beer each; an act of attention which won me their entire good-will. The sergeant drank to my health and better fortune as he raised the huge wooden tankard to his lips and held it there, with the cheek-plates of his morion and his long, bushy moustaches dipping in the froth, till the contents were drained to the bottom. The soldiers all promised faithfully to prosecute every inquiry in the city and garrison concerning the lady I had lost at the auberge of the Three Willows; but they frankly told me that I had but a slender chance of seeing her again if she was actually lured away by the abductor of Laura of Lutzelstein.