CHAPTER LXII.
A MIDNIGHT MARCH.
The evil fortune which had attended my comrade in his love affair affected my own spirit, and for several days after rejoining the Garde du Corps, I felt sad, lonely, and thoughtful. I was separated from Marie Louise, and though I could scarcely despair, what had I to give me hope? Yet a faint, a wild, and fantastic hope that did come at times, faded and grew fainter as day succeeded day.
She seemed ever before me, vividly and distinctly as I had seen her last; for in this girl's manner, in the clear full expression of her eye and the melody of her voice, there were an indescribable fascination; while her conversational powers were so full of unstudied grace, that, I verily believe, no man could speak with her, without feeling himself insensibly charmed and lured, he knew not why, to love her. But of this enough; lest the reader may suspect me of being less a soldier than a puling sentimentalist.
The recollection of Pappenheim was always sufficient to kindle my fury. At times, I had a gloomy desire to fall in battle; but not before I sent the thick-lipped Austrian lord to his last account, duly attended, if possible, by his friend De Bitche, as aide-de-camp; and these amiable desires seemed unexpectedly to be in a fair way of being gratified; for one evening the Marquis de Gordon, who had been overnight with the Duc de Lavalette, rode hurriedly to our quarters, and as he passed me at the door of my billet, where I was lounging and enjoying a pipe of tobacco.
'Now, Blane,' said he, 'your time for vengeance is at hand!'
'How, Marquis?'
'Count Pappenheim, with a thousand Walloon horsemen, all peasants, raised in the province of Luxembourg, is in the village of Lutzelstein; and I am ordered to take a sufficient body of cavalry, and, if possible, cut him off. Attended by a troop of German and Spanish courtezans, clad in the spoil of plundered provinces, they have been making merry there for a week past.'
'And the Count de Bitche?'
'Is with him. This fellow who, as Shakespeare says of Talbot,