"Philippa de Châtillon, Princess of the Bulgars!" he mumbled.... "The girl Philippa, gentlemen, caissière de cabaret! ... Her father died by the Palace window, and her mother on the black marble floor!—Very young they were, gentlemen—very young.... And I think very much in love——"
They took him out, still mumbling, the spasm playing and jerking at his sagging jaw.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The sun was a crimson disk through the dust; a haze possessed the world; forest and hill, meadow and river, faded to phantoms in the unreal light.
The Château des Oiseaux was very quiet. General and staff had departed; sentries, telegraphers, wires, switchboard—the sky-guns on the northern terrace, the great racing automobiles, cyclists, motor cyclists, fantassins, cavalry—all were gone into the magic glory of the east.
The park was empty and still; only traces remained where green leaves curled up and grew brittle, and drooping boughs withered on rustic scaffoldings; where lawn and drive showed the fresh scars of wheels and hoofs; and where trusses of hay and straw and glistening heaps of spilled oats marked the abandoned lines.
So far to the north and east had the sound of cannon receded that only at intervals, when the wind was right, was it distinguishable at all as a soft, almost inaudible thudding along the horizon.
No gun shots troubled the August quiet; the shrill chirring of insects from every stubble field accentuated it.
Very few soldiers were to be seen; fantassins mounted guard by the pontoons; vedettes were visible along the river meadows and on the low hills beyond the Récollette. Patrols rode slowly on the Saïs highway; wagons still rolled eastward through the sunset light, or went into park in sheltered places; few cyclists went south, fewer still whizzed by into the north and east.
Just at sunset a squadron of hussars passed the lodge gate, walking their horses. An officer turned his mount, spurred through the open gate, and galloped up the drive to the Château.