'You are a man!' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'It was a pity you would knot your own rope. As for these chicken-hearted tremblers,' he continued, squinting askance at our companions, 'a fico for them! To call themselves soldiers and pule like women! Faugh! I am sick of them!'
For my part, the sights I saw from the waggon seemed more depressing. In every direction parties were moving, burying our dead, putting wounded horses out of their misery, collecting plunder. One division was at work driving the poor lowing cattle, already over-driven, back the way they had come, through the pass and up the river bank. Another was righting such of the waggons as had been overturned, or dragging them out of the nether part of the valley. Everywhere men were working, shouting, swearing, spurning the dead. All showed that the general did not mean to linger, but would secure his booty by a timely retreat to his camp.
They came by-and-by and horsed our waggon and turned us round, and presently we took our place in the slow, creaking procession, and began to move up the pass. I looked everywhere for my lady, but could see nothing of her. The noise was prodigious, the dust terrible, the glare intolerable. I was thankful when some kind heart brought a waggon cloth and stretched it over us. After that things were better; and between the heat and the monotony of the motion I fell asleep, and slept until the afternoon was well advanced.
Then a singular thing occurred. The waggon which followed ours was drawn by four horses abreast, whose heads as they plodded wearily along at the tail of our waggon were so close to us that we could see easily into the vehicle, which was full of wounded men, and covered with an awning. We could see easily, I say; but the steady cloud of dust through which we moved and the white glare of the sunlight gave to everything so phantom-like an appearance that it was hard to say whether we were looking on real things.
Be that as it may, the first thing I saw when I awoke and rubbed my eyes, was the Waldgrave's face! He lay in the front part of the waggon, his head on the side-board. Thinking I dreamed, or that the dust deceived me, I rubbed my eyes again and looked. Still it was he. His eyes were closed. He was pale, where the dust did not hide all colour; his head moved with the motion of the wheels. But he seemed to be alive, for even while I looked, a man who sat by him leaned forward and moistened his forehead with water.
Trembling with excitement, I touched Ludwig on the shoulder. 'Look!' I said. 'The Waldgrave!'
He looked and nodded. 'Yes,' he said, chuckling. 'Now you see what you have done for yourself. And all for nothing!'
'But who took him up?' I persisted.
'The general,' he answered sententiously. 'Who else?'
'Why?' I cried in a fever. 'Why did he do it?'