In Kings' Byways

by Stanley John Weyman

From that moment it seemed to her that hell was broken loose in the town; and she had loosed it! She could no longer, in the din that rose from the street, distinguish one sound from another; but the crash of distant cannon, the heavy tramp of feet near at hand, the screams and cries and shouting, the blare of trumpets, all rose in a confused babel of sounds that shook the very houses, and blanched the cheeks and drove the blood to the heart. The woman, cowering against the door, covered her ears, and groaned. Her horror at what she had done was so great, that she did not heed what was passing near her, nor give a thought to the child in the same room with her until the latter's voice struck her ear, and she turned and found her daughter standing in the middle of the floor, her hand to her breast, and her eyes wide. Then the mother awoke in her again; with pallid shaking lips she cried to her to lie down—to lie down, for there was no danger.

But the girl raised her hand for silence. "Hush!" she said. "I hear a step! It is his! It is his! And he is coming to me! Mother, he is coming to me!"

The mother imagined that terror had turned the girl's brain; it was inconceivable that in that roar of sound a single step could make itself heard, or be recognized. And she tried, in a voice that shook with horror and remorse, to repeat her meaningless words of comfort. But they died on her lips, died still-born, as the door flew open, and a man rushed in, gazed an instant, then caught her child in his arms.

It was the Burgomaster's son!

The woman from the House on the Wall leaned an instant against the door-post, gazing at them. Little by little as she looked the expression in her eyes changed, and they took the cold, fixed, distant look of a sleep-walker. A moment and she drew a shuddering breath, and turned and went out, and, groping in the outside darkness for the balustrade, went unfaltering into the street.

A part of the garrison happened to be retreating that way at the time. A few were still turning to fire at intervals; but the greater number were hurrying along with bent heads, keeping close to the houses, and intent only on escaping. Reaching the middle of the roadway she stood there like a rock, her face turned in the direction whence the fugitives were hastening.

Presently she saw that for which she waited. In the reek of smoke about the burning gate, towards which she looked—and the flames of which filled the street with a smoky glare—the glitter of steel shone out; and in a moment, rank on rank, a dense column of men appeared, marching shoulder to shoulder. She watched them come nearer and nearer, filling the street from wall to wall, until she could see the glare of their eyes; then with a cry which was lost in the tumult she rushed on the bayonets.

With eyes shut, with arms open to receive the thrust. But the man whom she had singled out—for one she had singled out—dropped his point with an oath, and dealt her a buffet with butt and elbow that flung her aside unhurt. A second did the same, and a third, until, bandied from one to another, she fell against the wall, breathless and dizzy, but unhurt.

The column swept on; and she rose. She had escaped—by a miracle, as it seemed to her. But despair still held her, and the roar of a mine exploding not far off, the stunning report of which was followed by heartrending wails, drove her again on her fate. She had not far to look, for hard on the foot followed a troop of dragoons. The horses, excited by the fire and the explosion, were plunging in every direction; and even as the crazed woman's eyes alighted on them one fell and threw its rider. It seemed to her that she saw her doom; and, darting from the wall, she flung herself before them.

What was one woman on such a night, in such an inferno? The torrent of iron, remorseless, unchecked, thundered over her and drove on along the street. It seemed impossible that she should have escaped. Yet when some came to look to the fallen soldier—whose neck was broken—the woman beside him rose unhurt and without a scratch, and staggered to the wall. There she leaned one moment to recover her breath and shake off her giddiness, and a second to think; then with a new expression on her face, an expression between hope and fear, she took her way weakly along the street. The first turning on the right, the second on the left brought her unmolested—for the enemy were quelling the last resistance in the Square—to the front of the House on the Wall. She looked up eagerly and saw that the windows were dark; looked at the door, and by the light of the distant fire saw that it was closed.