My Lady Rotha: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

The harsh blare of the trumpet pierced the upper stillness in which we stood. It was repeated--repeated again; then it died away shrilly in the distance. In its place, hoarse clamour filled the valley below us. We pressed forward to see what was happening.

The surprise was complete; and yet it was a sorry sight we saw down in the bottom, where the sunshine was dying, and guns were flashing, and men were chasing one another in the grey evening light. Our musketmen, springing out of ambush, had shot down the horses of the last half-dozen waggons, and, when we looked, were falling pell-mell upon the unlucky troop of stragglers who followed. These, flying all ways, filled the air with horrid screams. Farther to the rear, our pikemen had seized the pass, and penning the cattle into it rendered escape by that road hopeless. Forward, however, despite the confusion and dismay, things were different. Our cavalry did not appear--the dust prevented us seeing what they were doing. And here the enemy had a moment's respite, a moment in which to think, to fly, to stand on their defence.

And soon, while we looked on breathless, it was evident that they were taking advantage of it. Possibly the general had not counted on the dust or the lateness of the hour. He began to gaze forward towards the head of the column, and to mutter savagely at the footmen below us, who seemed more eager to overtake the fugitives and strip the dead, than to press forward and break down opposition. He sent down Ludwig with orders; then another.

But the mischief was done already, and still the cavalry did not appear; being delayed, as we afterwards learned, by an unforeseen brook. Some one with a head on his shoulders had quickly drawn together all those among the enemy who could fight, or had a mind to fight. We saw two waggons driven out of the line, and in a moment overturned; in a twinkling the panic-stricken troopers and teamsters had a haven in which they could stand at bay.

Its value was soon proved. A company of our musketeers, pursuing some stragglers through the medley of flying horses and maddened cattle which covered the ground near the pass, came upon this rude fortress, and charged against it, recklessly, or in ignorance. In a moment a volley from the waggons laid half a dozen on the ground. The rest fell back, and scattered hither and thither. They were scarcely dispersed before a handful of the enemy's officers and mounted men came riding back from the front. Stabbing their horses in the intervals between the waggons, they took post inside. Every moment others, some with arms and some without, came straggling up. When our cavalry at last arrived on the scene, there were full three hundred men in the waggon work, and these the flower of the enemy. All except one had dismounted. This one, a man on a white charger, seemed to be the soul of the defence.

Our horse, flushed with triumph and yelling loudly, came down the line like a torrent, sabreing all who fell in their way. Half rode on one side of the convoy and half on the other. They had met with no resistance hitherto, and expected none, and, like the musketmen, were on the barricade before they knew of its existence. In the open, the stoutest hedgehog of pikes could scarcely have resisted a charge driven home with such blind recklessness; but behind the waggons it was different. Every interstice bristled with pike-heads, while the musketmen poured in a deadly fire from the waggon-tops. For a few seconds the place belched flame and smoke. Two or three score of the foremost assailants went down horse and man. The rest, saving themselves as best they could, swerved off to either side amid a roar of execrations and shouts of triumph.

My lady, trembling with horror, had long ago retired. She would no longer look. The Waldgrave, too, was gone; with her, I supposed. Half the general's attendants had been sent down the hill, some with one order, some with another. In this crisis--for I saw clearly that it was a crisis, and that if the defenders could hold out until darkness fell, the issue must be doubtful--I turned to look at our commander. He was still cool, but his brow was dark with passion. At one moment he stepped forward as if to go down into the mêlée; the next he repressed the impulse. The level rays of the sun which just caught the top of the hill shone in our eyes, while dust and smoke began to veil the field. We could still make out that the cavalry were sweeping round and round the barricade, pouring in now and then a volley of pistol shots; but they appeared to be suffering more loss than they caused.

Given a ring of waggons in the open, stoutly defended by resolute men, and I know nothing more difficult to reduce. Gazing in a kind of fascination into the depths where the smoke whirled and eddied, as the steam rolls this way and that on a caldron, I was wondering what I should do were I in command, when I saw on a sudden what some one was doing; and I heard General Tzerclas utter an oath of relief. Back from the front of the convoy came three waggons, surrounded and urged on by a mob of footmen; jolting and bumping over the uneven ground, and often nearly overturned, still they came on, and behind them a larger troop of men. Finally they came almost abreast of the enemy's position, and some thirty paces to one side of it. There perforce they stayed, for the leading horses fell shot; but it was near enough. In an instant our men swarmed up behind them and began to fire volleys into the enemy's fortress, while the horse moving to and fro at a little distance forbade any attempt at a sally.

'That man has a head on his shoulders!' General Tzerclas muttered between his teeth. 'That is Ludwig! Now we have them!'

But I saw that it was not Ludwig; and presently the general saw it too. I read it in his face. The man who had brought up the waggons, and who could still be seen exposing himself, mounted and bare-headed in the hottest of the fire, ordering, threatening, inciting, leading, so that we could almost hear his voice where we stood, was the Waldgrave! His blue velvet cloak and bright fair head were unmistakable, though darkness was fast closing over the fight, and it was only at intervals that we could see anything through the pall of smoke.