Then again there were the Jesuits. Which of his trusty friends might not be Jesuits, if not, like his remaining aide-de-camp, a regular priest in an officer's uniform, then an officer, drawing Jesuit pay as well as the Emperor's?
He thought of the Emperor with his proud, cold, supercilious face. There was as little reason for hope of forgiveness as there was hope of consent from him. From the Emperor he passed to Maximilian, the prince who should have been a Jesuit, as he was the foster-child of Jesuitism. Of a lineage as proud as that of the Habsburgs, of a renown for policy as for valour, ruler of some of the fairest provinces and greatest cities of the Empire, he would of a surety in his love be as relentless an adversary as fate. Men of his dark complexion take the malady of love not lightly. Least of all men, being who he was, would he be pitiful. Brook a rival, once disclosed to him, in a Scots mercenary, were he Wallace Wight himself? As well might the Danube cease to flow eastward, ever eastward. And behind, but peering between these two haughty and melancholy faces in Nigel's thought, was Father Lamormain's gentle, suave, and smiling countenance, from whose mouth had flowed persuasive speech that clothed the stern resolved marching orders of that sinister brotherhood in whom there was no shadow of turning. Into no conceivable scheme of Father Lamormain's could fit any idea of the marriage of Nigel with the Archduchess. He had shown himself favourable to the Elector's suit. Nigel's service to the Emperor would not count for aught if he should stand in the way of the Jesuit advance.
Nigel looked out upon the clouds of peril. He might win through with the Archduchess, make her his wife, reach Wallenstein. So much was possible, keeping their own counsel, acting swiftly with one mind, one courage. As for Wallenstein, it was impossible to predict how he might receive them, as friends, as hostages, or with cold negatives that should say "it lies not with my interest."
Nigel Charteris gazed upon the clouds of peril, and gazed undaunted. He was in that uplifted mood into which a mighty love exalts the soul, so that from its peak of splendour it can look down upon the clouds below hurtling their lightnings and sending up dim reverberations of their embattled thunders. For one hour of ecstasy shared by Stephanie he would cheerfully meet the after-doom.
He heard a footstep on the stair, a heavy tread, and the clank of spurs. His reverie was dissipated like a bubble. What new thing was to happen?
"Blick!"
"Me! Colonel!"
It was Blick, big-shouldered, red-faced, bull-necked, smacking somewhat of beer and other liquors, soldierly Sergeant Blick.
"How in the name of——?" Nigel began.
"Sent out foraging from Ingolstadt, general! Got through the Swedish lines at night, waggons and all, but couldn't get back again. Met an infernal ambush of Swedes in a forest road. My men stood stoutly by me, and we gave a round dozen of them their 'fall out,' but what with their muskets and the trees it was no go. So we set spurs to our horses and made straight for Ratisbon. The devil was in it, for they got our waggons, a load of hams and a few barrels of good Bavarian beer, a score of lean fowls——"