CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A SURPRISE AT RATISBON.

Nigel awoke to the jolting of an ox-waggon, over which was a rough covering. He was lying in his cloak on a truss of straw. Beside him sat one of his aides-de-camp, Captain von Grätz. But just now he looked strangely unlike a military man, and was reciting prayers, fingering a rosary which hung about his neck while he did so, with an earnestness that suggested that some one was on the point of death.

For a moment or two or three Nigel could not bring his mind to any clear understanding. The officer had a lantern. Outside, through the opening in the rough hood, was a blue sky and frosty-looking stars. Tramp! Tramp! The army was on the march. Whither and why? Heaven, what a pain! In his side, or was it in his shoulder? Nigel felt stiff for the most part, but the pain was sharp and not always in one place.

The aide-de-camp raised the lantern and looked at him, gave him a draught of some kind, which sent the blood circulating more warmly, and made his stiff limbs feel as if they were being teased by a thousand pricks. Then he said "Hush!" and went on praying till Nigel fell asleep.

In the morning they had reached Neuburg, and Nigel was sufficiently himself to understand what had happened. Count Tilly had had his right leg shattered by a cannon-ball, and a man of seventy-three, tough even as Tilly, does not suffer such wounds with impunity. Altringer, his next in command, was dead. The Elector Maximilian, swayed by Tilly, had ordered a retreat from that wellnigh impregnable position. With nightfall the retreat had begun, to Neuburg first. Then it was to be Ingolstadt, where another stand would be made. Count Tilly was still alive. The next question Nigel put was for the other aide-de-camp. He had been drowned in the Lech. He had "died for the faith," as his comrade-in-arms said.

"You are a regular priest?"

The aide-de-camp inclined his head in token of assent.

"We obey orders!" he said softly.

"What is the matter with me?"

"You had a pike-thrust through your left shoulder, a musket-shot grazed your ribs, you were knocked unconscious from a blow from the raft as you fell into the water. The poleman just snatched you from the gates of heaven!" The Jesuit sighed as he said the last words. "As for myself, it is not time yet."

Nigel had no reply ready. He decided however that, as he did not feel any resentment against the poleman, he was not yet prepared for the end his companion, evidently in good faith, desired for him.

A night and a day at Neuburg and the army with its men and its waggons, its artillery, its swarms of camp-followers, passed on to Ingolstadt.

Count Tilly still lived, and while he lived Maximilian acted upon his advice.

"Defend Ingolstadt as long as possible. Throw troops forward into Ratisbon and hold that. Holding the two you hold the Danube!"

Other advice he gave, that all wounded and camp-followers should be sent forward to Ratisbon. Ingolstadt was strongly fortified and might turn the edge of Gustavus' sword if it contained nothing but fighting men. Ratisbon would be a safe refuge for a few weeks.

Nigel was carried into the presence of Count Tilly at Ingolstadt.

The old general, looking shrivelled, sunken, his eyes feverishly bright, lay in his bed. His hat with the red feather and his sword hung upon the wall.

He looked up and recognised Nigel.

"You too, boy?"

"Not badly!" said Nigel.

"Go on to Ratisbon! You'll be well enough to fight the Swede again in three weeks!" His voice faltered even in its weakness. He turned his head away a minute or two. Nigel knew what the old warrior was thinking, and could not find it in him to utter the worthless consolatory hopes that he might.

"But _I_ shall never fight again! The Swede has beaten me. I would that we had fought in the open and not cooped up behind trenches and rivers. Well! It is Wallenstein's chance now, and for _me_ nothing but the priest's viaticum. God be with you, boy!"

Nigel clasped his thin sword-hand with his own, and the young soldier of fortune looked into the eyes, the stern, sharp, wistful, wild eyes of the old soldier, who was doomed beyond possible help of army surgeon, and the old man knew that the young one held him for a brave man, who had been staunch to his profession, and loyal to the Emperor even to the death. There was more comfort in Nigel's eyes than in a thousand protestations from men who had never faced ball and pike-thrust on a hard-fought field.

Nigel gulped down something and whispered hoarsely--

"Good-bye, General. The Holy Saints help you!"

His orderlies carried him out, and two days afterwards Tilly died, the sound of Gustavus' cannon, without the walls of Ingolstadt, ringing in his ears.

Nigel reached Ratisbon in the train of the troops sent on to defend it. Every day he was under the ministrations of the Jesuit, who combined the art of the healer with that of spiritual director, as if he had never, sword in hand, hewn down Swedish pikemen on the bridge at the Lech. Every day made him gain something of ease. And once lodged in a comfortable upper room at Ratisbon he began to recover the usage of his legs.

But he was still far from the recovery of his full vigour, and spent most of the day looking from a window seat, his shoulders leaning against cushions because of his wounds, upon the passing trivialities of the street, while the aide-de-camp was out about his military duties.

It was while he was thus employed that his soldier servant announced, "A high-born lady visiting the sick, colonel!"

Wondering what new adventure this might be, he bade the soldier bring her up.

First came a sour-visaged dame, whom Nigel half recognised and then decided that he did not. Hard on her heels came one that brought a sudden flush into his pallor. It was the Archduchess Stephanie.

It was clearly as unexpected on her part. But with wonderful presence of mind she entreated him not to rise, and bade her maid set down her basket and wait below.

Then as the door closed she sprang to him.

"Nigel! My love, Nigel! In Ratisbon!"

She knelt at his side, and placing his arm about her neck laid her face against his, and crooned softly to him as she would have done to a babe.

And he could say little but press her dear hand closer to him and whisper "Stephanie! You too in Ratisbon!"

"We came, my brother Ferdinand and I, to strengthen the hands of the Elector Maximilian, so that he fell not into the sin of neutrality."

"You and Ferdinand?" There was a world of inquiry in his tone.

"Yes, Nigel! Ferdinand was to play the fisherman and I the bait." She sprang from him and dropped a stately curtsey, pulling her face straight, serene and wonderful to behold for any one, but to Nigel not the Queen of Sheba nor Zenobia of Palmyra would have seemed more wonderful.

"And I the bait!" she repeated and laughed.

"But Maximilian had hopelessly broken his neutrality by the time you arrived!" said Nigel.

"We could not know it till we came! And then I told the Elector what I had told him in any hazard, I would not wed him were he twenty times Elector and the Great Mogul besides. It is not in my blood or my humour."

Nigel's eyes spoke the admiration for her boldness that he felt.

"Then you have tricked the Emperor, and Father Lamormain, and flouted Maximilian----"

"To follow you, Tall Captain, or carry you off in my arms, or what shall I do? I had no certain knowledge you were here. I had learned that the camp had been broken up, that Tilly had retired to Ingolstadt, and when I heard that the wounded were sent on to Ratisbon I began my search, wondering how much of you I might find."

"It is naught!" said Nigel, getting up. "I have lost blood. I have a scratch in the ribs, a thrust of pike in my left shoulder, but they heal. A Jesuit is living with me, Captain von Grätz, salving me, preaching to me, and doing military duty too."

"Not a word to him! Father Lamormain suspects! I know not how much, but much!"

"You must plan, and I must plan!" said Nigel. "We are in a serious case. If we be not wedded in a little, wedded we two shall never be. It is too much to set the Emperor and the Elector at defiance and not expect reprisals. But if we be wedded, beloved Stephanie, we may even get off with a hair shirt and smock, saving your Highness, and exile to some remote castle in the Grisons."

Nigel was no screech-owl, nor in the way of seeing ill before it came except to prevent it, so his tone was gay; but there was doubt beneath.

"How did the Elector take it?" he went on.

"Faith, Nigel mine, but like as a pinch of sunshine peeps out between the gathering clouds and is now quite shut out, so he seemed to smile, but his brows were threatening black and his teeth gleamed a little.

"There is a touch of fantasy about the Wittelsbachers. Born in a lowlier station, Maximilian might have become a sad kind of troubadour, or a prophesying friar. Being a prince, he is capable of carrying out any wild imagining he might have to snatch me to him, or to wreak his disappointment."

"And we are in his hands here!" said Nigel.

"To-morrow, think you, Tall Captain, if I took the air on horseback without the walls, the Swede not yet being come up, that you could mount a charger and meet me by chance three leagues distance. If there were no guards out we might perchance slip further still and make our way----"

"To what port of shelter?"

"To Znaim! Sure Wallenstein would make you one of his new captains, and Znaim would be a veritable city of refuge!"

Nigel drew in his breath. "Stephanie, you have a godlike courage! To Wallenstein! And yet why not? He will want officers. Here I am on the list of the sick. There shall I be serving the Emperor! It is a bold plan, Stephanie, but we must venture all, or be forever cravens!"

"To-morrow! Nigel! Heaven send not the Swedes too soon to close the gates. At midday three leagues away by the road from the eastern gate!"

"And to-morrow if it see not our wedding shall see the eve of the bridal!" She took Nigel by both hands, dealing as tenderly as with any babe, and looked upon him with such a look of mystery and love and motherhood in her eyes as caught him up into heaven and left him entranced while one might count a hundred. Her look smote through his eyes and on to his very soul, and put her impress there as it had been the seal of the greatest Empire of all the world.

Then they kissed in solemn troth-plight, and the Archduchess went down the stair leaving the room a darkness, though it was still broad day.