The Sword of Gideon

by John Bloundelle-Burton

For La Rose, on hearing Bevill's voice, created such a stampede among the other horses and rushed at him with such endearments--testified by nearly knocking him down with her head and then by rubbing her soft, velvet muzzle all over him as she whinnied loudly--that there and then before the English victors and French captives he vowed that never would he part from her.

Now, therefore, she waited for him to come forth and mount her, so that he might ride by the coach that conveyed his wife to England.

For, a fortnight since, in one of those churches of the Reformed Faith that had sprung up in every part of the Netherlands since the days of William the Liberator, Sylvia and Bevill had been made man and wife, my lord Marlborough's chaplain having performed the ceremony. And, though there were not many present to witness the bridal, they were mostly those amongst whom Bevill's lot had been cast since first he made the attempt to assist Sylvia to escape from Liége--an attempt that again and again he told himself had resulted only in failure, yet a failure that brought so fair and welcome a success in its train as that which now he experienced.

From Van Ryck's hands he received his bride; close by them stood the Comtesse de Valorme, her face calm and tranquil, but revealing nothing of whatever might be within. Also there were present Captain Barringer and Sir George Saxby, as well as one or two officers of the Cuirassiers who had been junior to Bevill in the regiment but were now captains. Yet there was one other person present, clad as before in the blue coat and still wearing across his breast the blue ribbon of the Garter; still tranquil, too, as became a man able to read and forecast his destiny and the splendour of a near future. He who was now, in the space of a month or so, to attain the highest rank an English subject can hold; he who, two years hence, was to crush beyond all power of recovery the armies of the most superb despot Europe had ever known.

Bevill's kiss--the first kiss as her husband--on Sylvia's brow, her hand upon his arm, they left the altar, and, when the after formalities had been concluded, made their way from out the church. But ere they left it the Earl of Marlborough, taking from his breast a paper, said:

"For wedding-gifts there is no opportunity, yet one I would proffer to you. Mr. Bracton, I know the hopes with which you set out from England. It is in my power to gratify them, since I, as Captain-General, stand here for the Queen. Our late ruler removed you from the service you loved; I, in the name of our present one, restore you to it. Some years of opportunity, of promotion, you must lose of necessity; your brother officers of the Cuirassers who were your juniors will now be your seniors. Yet, take heart. You possess two things that should go far to spur you on to gallant efforts: a fair, a noble bride--and youth."

Then, without giving Bevill time to utter the thanks that, though his breast was full of them, his lips might have found difficulty in uttering, the Earl left the church, after kissing the hands of Sylvia and the Comtesse, and giving his own to Bevill.

The absence of that one whom Bevill would fain have seen present in the church, his late custodian, the gallant De Violaine, was felt regretfully by him. Yet it was not to be. As the breach was made soon after the siege began, De Violaine, rushing from the roof to where the English grenadiers were pouring through it, received a thrust from one of the officers' swords. Later, as Bevill and Sylvia passed from the salle d'armes, they saw him lying in the covered way and being ministered to by one of the regimental surgeons. This sad sight produced in the tender heart of Radegonde de Valorme a feeling, a recollection of past years and of the fortitude with which this man had borne the blighting of the one great hope that had filled his heart during those years. As she saw him stretched now upon the coarse sacking on which he had been laid; as she recognised that, from first to last, he had had no companion but his duty to cheer his lonely life, her memory flew swiftly back to earlier days--the days when he, young, elated with the promise of his career, favoured by fortune, had craved only one other thing, a woman's--her own love--and had failed to obtain his heart's desire.

Swiftly she advanced now towards him; a moment later she was kneeling by his side; still a moment later she was murmuring. "André! André! Ah! say this is not the end. Ah, no! it cannot, cannot be. You are still young--oh!" And she wept.

"He may live," the surgeon who had been told off to watch by De Violaine's side said. "If the fever from his wound abates to-night he may do so."