Which only added further to Andrew Vause's mystification and caused him to ride on still more deeply wrapped in meditation.
And now as they drew near Neustadt at nightfall and began to speculate on what accommodation might be obtained at the inns, if any--since they knew that two regiments of Dragoons, "the King's" and "The Queen's" were marching ahead of them to reinforce Turenne, who had suffered heavily at Sintzheim--they observed that the whole heavens appeared on fire and were suffused with a bright red colour. Also, into the vast vault thus tinged, there shot up great flecks of flame of a deeper, more crimson hue, with sometimes amid them saffron-coloured ones, while, plain against the still lingering remnants of daylight, great masses of dun-coloured smoke arose.
"Grand Dieu!" exclaimed Debrasques, while all, including dragoons and those who attended to the led horses, looked on amazed. "It must be the city of Spires in flames. Who has done it--Turenne or De Bournonville, who commands against him?"
"Nay," said Andrew, "no city that, in flames, my lad. Rather a dozen--if there were so many around! No city, I say. See where the flames themselves fly up to the reddened sky; observe. They rise from all points ahead of us, and, in some cases, are miles apart. Debrasques," he added solemnly, "I have seen such as this before. It has been done here before, too, I know; Tilly did it fifty years ago, and----"
"What--what--what is it?" the boy asked, the two campaigns he had followed never having shown him aught of this nature.
"This. One of the two armies has withdrawn--it must be the Imperialists, since Turenne beat them at Sintzheim--the other is destroying the land, so that no more shall his enemy find shelter nor food enough for a grasshopper. That is what it means. Yet," he exclaimed, as now the flames and the dun-coloured smoke mounted more fiercely still into the crimsoned vault above, "it is horrible, awful! My God it is awful!"
As he spoke, there soon followed confirmation of his words. Down the poplar-fringed road along which they were proceeding, there came towards them in the night the sound of many horses' hoofs rushing madly, swiftly; and in an instant Andrew had warned Debrasques to draw aside his dragoons and followers. "We know not yet who or what they are," he said; "best stand aside and see."
On came the others even as the suggestion was followed, and--although in the gloom of the night that had closed in under the trees--they knew at once by the voice of the leader that they were of their own side. Then an officer, followed by two dozen soldiers, would almost have passed them when, beneath the poplars, he saw the headpieces of the dragoons and the glisten of their trappings, and, as he did so, he roared an order to his own men to halt, after which, amidst the rattle and clang of bridles and of scabbards against spurs and horses' flanks, he called out in French:
"Speak--what troops are those?" while, as he did so, Andrew felt Debrasques' hand clutch his arm convulsively--felt, too, that hand tremble on his sleeve.
"Answer him, answer him," he said, "or he may charge us. They are treble our number."