Of the dead he saw but little, and what little he did see was enough even for him--a soldier. For if--half uncovered by the earth that had been lightly thrown over it, and, later on, washed away again by the drenching rains which had continued for days after the fight was over--any body met his eye, he saw that it was stripped naked by those who had come across it. Neither on man nor fallen beast was there left so much as, in the case of the former, a rag, or, in that of the latter, a bridle rein or smallest piece of leather; nay, in the case of the latter their manes and tails were gone--they were useful for something! Yet, still, amongst the heaps and mounds, where the bodies of all lay covered, so that pestilence might not be bred in the villages, there moved the human ghouls who sought for a broken piece of chain, a ring, or coin, anything that would remunerate them for their losses, even though in their search that pestilence should seize on them.
Beyond the Little Wood, now tranquil enough except for the cries to one another of the searchers in it, and showing no other signs of what had happened there but those furnished by trees shattered with cannonballs, by broken gun carriages and fallen cannon not yet removed--the road turned to the right; half a mile further the opening to the track was reached which led across the mountains to Lorraine.
"God speed," the peasant said, as he pouched the crown tossed him by Andrew, "God speed. Beware of the storm; beware the marauders of the woods. Have your sword easy in its scabbard, your holster-flap open. Farewell."
"Adieu," Andrew replied. "I will beware."
And, slackening his horse's rein as the ascent began, he took the first steps that led towards the seigneurie of Remiremont. While, as he did so, he whispered to himself:
"This time. This time."
[CHAPTER XIV.]
ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS
"'Tis better, perhaps," thought Andrew, as, walking now by the side of his beast to ease it, he gazed down from the elevation he had reached to the plain lying below, "better that I did not slay him on that night, or leave him there to die. For then I should have accomplished only the task I was pledged to; might never have discovered that, besides revenging Philip, there was the woman to save if may be." And still pondering on all this, he continued:
"Debrasques might have been actually slain instead of condemned to this living death--as well be dead, poor boy, as he now is!--and then I should have known nothing; my search would have been ended with his cousin's death. Nothing. Nothing. And all my life I should have been coupling the name of Marion Wyatt with that of a treacherous, false wanton, as doubtless her father does if still alive. As Philip did unto the last, though sometimes he doubted. Well! his doubts had reason, it should seem!"