"I tell you I know this for a fact. The Russian forces in the Crimea have been continually reinforced for weeks past. I know it; I saw them. I was there, in their midst, not many days ago. Besides, I am behind the scenes, deep in their counsels. Rely upon it, the allies are in imminent danger. You will hear soon of another and far greater fight, after which it will be all over with your friends!"

"Well, well! my friends, as you call them, must look to themselves. Still, this is mere talk of what may be. Tell me what has actually occurred. There has been a battle: are many slain? General Wilders—is he safe?"

"You need have no apprehensions for your dear husband, madam; his command was not engaged. The chief brunt of the fight fell upon the cavalry, who were cut to pieces."

"What of young Wilders? Hugo Wilders, I mean—Lord Lydstone's brother."

"His name is returned amongst the killed. It will be a blow for the noble house of Essendine, and not the only one."

"What do you mean?"

"The other brother, young Anastasius, whom you are going to see, cannot survive, I hear."

"Poor young fellows!" said Mrs. Wilders, with a well-assumed show of feeling.

"You pity them? I honour your sentiments, madam; but, nevertheless, they can be spared, especially by you."

"What do you mean?" she asked, quickly.

"I mean that after they are gone only one obstacle intervenes between you and all the Essendine wealth. If Lord Lydstone were out of the way, the title and its possession would come, perhaps, to your husband, certainly to your son."

"Silence! Do not put thoughts into my head. You must be the very fiend, I think."

"I know you, Cyprienne, and every move of your mind. We are such old friends, you see," he said, with a sneering, cynical smile. "And now, as before, I offer you my help."

"Devil! Do not tempt me!"

He laughed—a cold, cruel, truculent laugh.

"I know you, I repeat, and am ready to serve you as before. Come, or send, if you want me. I am living here in this hotel; Mr. Hobson they call me—Mr. Joseph Hobson, of London. My number is 73. Shall I hear from you?"

"No, no! I will not listen to you. Let me go!" And Mrs. Wilders, breaking away from him, hurried down the street.

It was not a long walk to the waterside. There she took a caique, or local boat, with two rowers in red fezzes, and was conveyed across the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side.

Landing at Scutari, Mrs. Wilders went straight to the great palace, which was now a hospital, and treading its long passages with the facility of one who had travelled the road before, she presently found herself in a spacious, lofty chamber filled with truckle-beds, and converted now into a hospital-ward.

"How is he?" she asked, going up at once to a sergeant who acted as superintendent and head nurse.

"Mr. Wilders, ma'am?" replied the sergeant, with a shake of the head.

"No improvement?"

"Far worse, ma'am, poor young chap! He died this morning, soon after daylight."

"And my lord—was his brother present?"

"Lord Lydstone watched with him through the night, and was here by the bedside when he died."

"Where is he now? Lord Lydstone, I mean."

"He went back on board his yacht, ma'am, I think. He said he should like a little sleep. But he is to be here again this afternoon, for the funeral."

"So soon?"

"Oh, yes! ma'am. It must take place at once, the doctors say."

Mrs. Wilders left the hospital, hesitating greatly what she should do. She would have liked to see and speak with Lydstone, but she had enough good feeling not to intrude by following him on board the yacht.

Then she resolved to attend the funeral too. It would show her sympathy, and Lord Lydstone would be bound to notice her.

He did see her, and came up after the ceremony to shake her hand.

"I am so sorry for you," she began.

"It is too terrible!" he exclaimed. "Both in one day."

He had heard of Balaclava, then.

"But I can't talk about it to-day. I will call on you to-morrow, if I may, in the morning. I am going back to England almost at once."

He came next day, and she received him in her little sitting-room at Misseri's.

"You know how I feel for you," she said, giving him both her hands, her fine eyes full of tears. "They were such splendid young fellows, too. It is so sad—so very sad."

"I am very grateful for your sympathy. But we will not talk about them, please," interrupted Lord Lydstone.

"You have my warmest and most affectionate sympathy. Is there anything I can do to console you, to prove to you how deeply, how sincerely, I feel for you?"

Her voice faltered, and she seemed on the point of breaking down.

"What news have you of the general?" asked Lord Lydstone, rather abruptly, as though to change the conversation.

"Good enough. He is all right," said Mrs. Wilders, dismissing inquiry for her husband in these few brusque words.

"I can't think of him just now," she went on. "It is you and your great sorrow that fill all my heart. Oh, Lydstone! dear Lord Lydstone, the pity of it!"

This tender commiseration was very captivating. But the low, sweet voice seemed to have lost its charm.

"I think I told you yesterday, Mrs. Wilders, that I intended to return to England," said Lord Lydstone, in a cold, hard voice.

"Yes; when do you start?"

"To-morrow, I think. Have you any commands?"

"You do not offer me a passage home?"

"Well, you see, I am travelling post haste," he answered. "I shall only go in the yacht as far as Trieste, and then on overland. I fear that would not suit you?"

"I should be perfectly satisfied"—she was not to be put off—"with any route, provided I go with you."

"You are very kind, Mrs. Wilders," he said, more stiffly, but visibly embarrassed. "I think, however, that as I shall travel day and night I had better—"

"In other words, you decline the pleasure of my company," she said, in a voice of much pique.

It was very plain that she had no longer any influence over him.

"But why are you in such a desperate hurry, Lord Lydstone?" she went on.

"I have had letters, urging me to hurry home. My father and mother are most anxious to see me; and now, after what has happened, it is right that I should be at their side."

"You are a good son, Lord Lydstone," she said, but there was the slightest sneer concealed beneath her simple words.

"I have not been what I ought, but now that I am the only one left I feel that I must defer to my dear parents' wishes in every respect." He said this with marked emphasis.

"They have views for you, I presume?" Mrs. Wilders asked, catching quickly at his meaning.

"My mother has always wanted me to settle down in life, and my father has urged me—"

"To marry. I understand. It is time, they think, for you to have sown your wild oats?"

"Precisely. I have liked my freedom, I confess. Now there are the strongest reasons why I should marry."

"To secure the succession, I suppose."

"We have surely a right to look to that!" said Lord Lydstone, rather haughtily.

"Oh! of course. Everyone is bound to look after his own. And the young lady—has she been found?"

Lord Lydstone coloured at this point-blank question.

"I have been long paying my addresses to Lady Grizel Banquo," he said.

"Oh! she is your choice? I have often seen her and you together."

"We have been friends almost from childhood; and it seems quite natural—"

"That you should tie yourself for life to a red-headed, raw-boned Scotch girl."

"To an English lady of my own rank in life," interrupted Lord Lydstone, sternly, "who will make me an honest, faithful helpmate, as I have every reason to hope and believe."

"You are just cut out for domestic felicity, Lord Lydstone. I can see you a staid, sober English peer, a pattern of respectability, the stay and support of your country, obeyed with reverent devotion by a fond wife, bringing up a large family—"

"As young people should be brought up, I hope—the girls as modest, God-fearing maidens; the boys to behave like gentlemen, and to tell the truth."

"A very admirable system of education, I'm sure. By-and-bye we shall see how nearly you have achieved your aim."

She was disappointed and bitterly angry, feeling that he had rebuffed and flouted her.

"We part as friends, I hope?" said Lord Lydstone, rising to go.

"Oh, certainly! why not?" she answered carelessly.

"I trust you will continue to get good news from Cousin Bill."

"And I that you will have a speedy voyage home. It would be provoking to be delayed when bound on such a mission."

Then they parted, never to meet again.



CHAPTER XV.

THE LAST OF LORD LYDSTONE.

The mixed population of Constantinople in these busy, stirring times was ripe for any great surprise. It was much moved and excited by a startling bit of news that spread very rapidly next day.

An atrocious murder had been committed on the Stamboul side, near the Bridge of Boats.

Certainly, murders were not unknown in this hive of complex life, harbouring as it did the very scum and refuse of European rascality. But the victims were mostly vile, nameless vagabonds, low Greeks, Maltese suttlers, Italian sailors, or one or other of the hybrid mongrel ruffians following in the track of our armies, any of whom might be sent to their long account without being greatly missed.

It was otherwise now: the murdered man was a prominent personage, an Englishman of high rank, a rich and powerful representative of a great people. No wonder that Constantinople was agitated and disturbed.

On this occasion Lord Lydstone was the murdered man.

He had been found at daybreak by the Turkish patrol, lying in a doorway just where he had fallen dead, stabbed to the heart.

The body was taken to the nearest guard, and inquiries were instituted. A card-case found on the body led to identification, and a report made to the British Embassy set in motion the law and justice of the peace.

Nothing satisfactory or conclusive was brought to light. No one could account for his lordship's presence in that, the lowest quarter of the city; the only clue to his movements was furnished by his steward and body-servant on board the yacht.

The valet came on shore and gave his evidence before the informal court, which was dealing with the case at the British Embassy, presided over by the attaches.

"When did you see his lordship last?"

"Last night. My lord dined on board alone. He appeared depressed, and altogether low. He told me he should go to bed early."

"And did he?"

"No. Late in the evening a shore-boat came off—one of those caiques, I think they called them—with a letter, very urgent."

"For Lord Lydstone?"

"For his lordship. He seemed much disturbed on reading it."

"Well?"

"My lord called me and said he would dress to go on shore. I gave him out the suit which he was wearing when the body was found."

"He said nothing about the letter, or its contents?"

"Oh, no! My lord was never given to talking much, although I was his confidential valet since he left college. He never spoke to me of his affairs. My lord always kept his distance, as it was proper he should."

"Could you tell at all what became of this letter?"

"My lord put it in his pocket when he was dressed."

"You are certain of this?"

"Most positive."

"Was any such letter found in the pockets of the deceased?" asked the attache of the Turkish police, through the dragoman of the Embassy.

Nothing of the kind had been found.

"The letter was no doubt removed purposely. This would destroy all trace of its origin. It was evidently a snare, a bait to lure the poor lord on shore," said one attache to another.

"It is curious that he should have been so ready to swallow it."

"There must have been something peculiarly persuasive in the letter."

"But we have heard that he was much distressed, or annoyed, at receiving it."

"Persuasive in a good or bad sense—probably the latter. At any rate, it was sufficient to lure him on shore."

"Of course there is something beneath all this: some intrigue, perhaps."

"The old story, 'who is she?' I suppose."

"But I thought he was devoted to his cousin, the fair Mrs. Wilders."

"Is she still in Constantinople?"

"Yes, I think so. Still at Misseri's, I believe."

"I wonder whether she has yet heard about this horrible affair. Some one ought to break it to her."

But no one was needed for a task from which all shrank, with not unnatural hesitation. While they still talked, a message was brought in to the effect that Mrs. Wilders was in the antechamber, and her first words, when one of the attaches joined her, plainly showed that she had heard of Lord Lydstone's death.

"What a horrible, frightful business!" she said, in a voice broken with emotion. "Oh! this wicked, accursed town! How did it happen? Do tell me all you know."

"We are completely in the dark. We know nothing more than that Lord Lydstone was found stabbed at daylight this morning in the streets of Stamboul."

"What could have taken him there?"

The attache shrugged his shoulders.

"There is nothing to show, except that he was inveigled by some mysterious communication—a letter sent on board the yacht."

"Inveigled for some base purpose—robbery, perhaps?"

"Very probably. When the body was found, it had been rifled of everything—watch, money, rings: everything had gone."

Mrs. Wilders sighed deeply. It might have been a sigh of relief, but to the attache it seemed a new symptom of horror.

"But how imprudent—how frightfully imprudent—of the poor dear lord to venture alone, and so late at night, into that vile quarter. What could have tempted him?"

"That's what we are all asking. Some unusually powerful motive must have influenced him, we may be sure, and that I hope we may still ascertain. It will be the first step towards detecting the authors of the crime."

"They will be discovered, you think?"

"No efforts will be spared, you may be sure. The means at our disposal are not very first-rate, perhaps, but we have been promised the fullest help by the Turkish Minister of Police, and we shall leave no stone unturned."

"Oh! I do so hope that the villains will be discovered. Is there anything I can do?"

"Hardly, Mrs. Wilders. But, as you are the only representative of the family, it would be well perhaps for you to go on board the yacht. Poor Lord Lydstone's papers and effects should be sealed up. One of us will accompany you."

"I shall be delighted to be of any use. When shall we start?"

"The sooner the better," said the attache, Mr. Loftus by name; and, leaving the inquiry, the two took boat, and were presently alongside the Arcadia.

They were received by the captain, a fine specimen of a west-country sailor, a hardy seaman, well schooled in his profession, who had long commanded a vessel in the Mediterranean trade, and was thus well qualified to act as sailing-master in the Arcadia's present cruise.

But Captain Trejago was soft-hearted, easily led, especially by any daughter of Eve, and he had long since succumbed to the fascinations of Mrs. Wilders's charms. From the day she first trod the deck of the yacht he had become her humblest, perhaps, but most devoted, admirer and slave.

They exchanged a few words of sympathy and condolence.

"You have lost a good friend, Captain Trejago," said the lady.

"He was that, ma'am. My lord was one of the finest, noblest men that ever trod in shoe-leather. And you, ma'am—it must be very terrible for you."

"Losing him in such a way, it is that which embitters my grief. But this gentleman"—she turned to Mr. Loftus—"comes from the Embassy to seal up his lordship's papers."

"Quite right, ma'am. That ought to be done without delay."

"We can go down into the cabin, then?" said Mrs. Wilders.

"Why! surely, ma'am, you ought to know the way. Mr. Hemmings"—this was the valet—"is not on board, as you know: but I will send the second steward if you want any help."

Assisted by the steward, Mr. Loftus proceeded in a business-like manner to place the seals of the Embassy upon the desk, drawers, and other receptacles in Lord Lydstone's cabin. While they were thus employed, Mrs. Wilders sat at the cabin-table under the skylight, her head resting on one hand, and in an attitude that indicated the prostration of great sorrow. The other hand was on the table, fingering idly the various objects that strewed it. There were an inkstand, a pen-tray, a seal, a blotting-book or portfolio, and many other odds and ends.

This blotting-book, with the same listless, aimless action, Mrs. Wilders presently turned to, and turned over the leaves one by one.

Between two of them she came upon a letter, left there by accident, or to be answered perhaps that day.

The feminine instinct of curiosity Mrs. Wilders possessed in no common degree. To look at the letter thus exposed, however unworthy the action, was a temptation such a woman could not resist. She began to read it, almost as a matter of course, but carelessly, and with no set purpose, as though it was little likely to contain matter that would interest her. But after the first few lines its perusal deeply absorbed her. A few lines more, and she closed the book, leaving her hand inside, and looked round the cabin.

Mr. Loftus and his assistants were still busily engaged upon their official task. Neither of them was paying the slightest attention to her.

With the hand still concealed inside the blotter, she folded up this missive which seemed so interesting and important, and, having thus got it into a small compass, easily and quickly transferred it to her pocket.

She looked anxiously round, fearing she might have been observed. But no one had noticed her, and presently, when Mr. Loftus had completed his work, they again left the yacht for the shore.

So soon as Mrs. Wilders regained the privacy of her own room at Misseri's, which was not till late in the day, she took out the letter she had laid hands on in the cabin of the yacht, and read it through slowly and carefully.

It was from Lord Lydstone's father, dated at Essendine Towers, the principal family-seat.

"My dear boy," so it ran, "your mother and I are very grateful to you for your very full and deeply interesting letter, with its ample, but most distressing, account of our dear Anastasius. It is a proud, but melancholy, satisfaction to know that he has maintained the traditions of the family, and bled, like many a Wilders before him, for his country's cause. His condition must, however, be a constant and trying anxiety, and I beseech you, more particularly on your mother's account, to keep us speedily informed of his progress. It is some consolation to think that you are by his side, and it is only right that you should remain at Constantinople so long as your brother is in any danger.

"But do not, my dear boy, linger long in the East. We want you back with us at home. This is your proper place—you who are our eldest born, heir to the title and estates—you should be here at my side. There are other urgent reasons why you should return. You know how anxious we are that you should marry and settle in life. We are doubly so now. Your brothers before this hateful war broke out made the succession, humanly speaking, almost secure. But the chances of a campaign are unhappily most uncertain. Anastasius has been struck down; we may lose him, which Heaven forbid; a Russian bullet may rob us any day of dear Hugo too. In such a dire and grievous calamity, you alone—only one single, precious life—would remain to keep the title in our line. Do not, I beseech you, suffer it to continue thus. Come home; marry, my son; give us another generation of descendants, and assure the succession.

"I have never made any secret of my wishes in this respect; but I have never told you the real reasons for my deep anxiety. It was my father's earnest hope—he inherited it from his father, as I have from mine—that the title might never be suffered to pass to his brother Anastasius's heirs. My uncle had married in direct opposition to his father's orders, in an age when filial disobedience was deemed a very heinous offence, and he was cut off with a shilling. I might say that he deserved no better; but he did not long survive to bear the penalty of his fault. He left a child—a daughter, however—to whom I would willingly have lent a helping hand, but she spurned all my overtures in a way that grieved me greatly, although I never openly complained. That branch of the family has continued estranged from us; and I am certainly indisposed to reopen communications with them.

"Yet the existence of that branch cannot be ignored. It might, at any time, through any series of mishaps of a kind I hardly like to contemplate, but, nevertheless, quite possible in this world of cross-purposes and sudden surprises, become of paramount importance in the family; for in point of seniority it stands next to ourselves. The next heir to the title, after you and your brothers, is the grandson of Anastasius Wilders, a lad of whom I know nothing, except that he is quite unfitted to assume the dignity of an Earl of Essendine, should fate ever will it that he should succeed. This unfitness you will readily appreciate when I tell you that he is at present a private soldier in a marching-regiment in the East. Stranger still, this regiment is the same as that in which poor Anastasius is serving—the Royal Picts. The young man's name is McKay—Stanislas Anastasius Wilders McKay. I have never seen him; but I am satisfied of his existence, and of the absolute validity of his claims. My agents have long had their eye on him, and through them I have full information of his movements and disposition. He appears a decent, good sort of youth. But I feel satisfied that we ought, as far as is possible by human endeavour, to prevent his becoming the head of the family.

"You are now in possession of the whole of the facts, my dear Lydstone, and I need scarcely insist upon the way in which you are affected by them. You will not hesitate, I am sure, after reading this letter, to return to England the moment you can leave your poor brother."

There was more in the letter, but it dealt with purely business matters, which did not interest the person who had become clandestinely possessed of it.

To say that Mrs. Wilders read this letter with surprise would inadequately express its effect upon her. She was altogether taken aback, dismayed, horror-stricken at its contents.

Now, when chance, or something worse, had cleared the way towards the great end, after which she had always eagerly, but almost hopelessly, hankered, a new and entirely unexpected obstacle suddenly supervened.

Another life was thrust in between her and the proximate enjoyment of high rank and great wealth.

Who was this interloper—this McKay—this private soldier serving in the ranks of the Royal Picts? What sort of man? What were his prospects—his age? Was it likely that he would stand permanently in her way?

These were facts which she must speedily ascertain. The regiment to which he belonged was in the Crimea, part of her uncle's brigade. Surely through him she might discover all she wanted to know. But how could this be best accomplished?

The more she thought over it, the more convinced she was that she ought to go in person to the Crimea, to prosecute her inquiries on the spot. While still doubtful as to the best means of reaching the theatre of war, it occurred to her that she could not do better than make use of Lord Lydstone's yacht.

It would have to go home eventually—to be paid off and disposed of by Lord Lydstone's heirs. But there was surely no immediate hurry for this, and Mrs. Wilders thought she had sufficient influence with Captain Trejago to persuade him, not only to postpone his departure, but to take a trip to the Crimea.

In this she was perfectly successful, and the day after Lord Lydstone's funeral the Arcadia, with a fine breeze aft, steered northward across the Black Sea.

It reached Balaclava on the morning of the 5th of November, and Mrs. Wilders immediately despatched a messenger on shore to inform the general of her arrival. That day, however, the general and his brigade were very busily employed. It was the day of Inkerman!



CHAPTER XVI.

"HARD POUNDING."

Mr. Hobson, as he called himself, had been perfectly right when he gleefully assured Mrs. Wilders that the Russians were gathering up their strength for a supreme effort against the allies. Reinforcements had been steadily pouring into the Crimea for weeks past—two of the Czar's sons had arrived to stir up the enthusiasm of the soldiers. Menschikoff, who still commanded, counted confidently upon inflicting exemplary chastisement upon the invaders. He looked for nothing less, according to an intercepted despatch, than the destruction or capture of the whole allied army.

No doubt the enemy had now an overwhelming superiority in numbers. The total land forces under Prince Menschikoff's command, including the garrison of Sebastopol, were 120,000 strong. Those numbers included a large body of cavalry and a formidable field artillery.

The entire allied army was barely half that strength. It was called upon, moreover, to occupy an immense front—a front which extended from the sea at Kamiesch to the Tchernaya, and from the Tchernaya, by a long and circuitous route, back to the sea at Balaclava. This line, offensive as regards the siege-works, but defensive along the unduly extended and exposed right flank at Balaclava, was close on twenty miles. The great length of front made severe demands upon the allied troops; it could only be manned by dangerously splitting up their whole strength into many weak units, none of which could be very easily or rapidly reinforced by the rest.

Perhaps the weakest part of the whole line was the extreme right, held at this moment by the British Second Division. Here, on an exposed and vitally important flank, the whole available force was barely 3,000 men. For some time past it had been intended to fortify this flank by field-works, armed with heavy artillery. But, although the necessity for protecting it was thus admitted, the urgency was not exactly understood, or at least was subordinated to other operations; as a matter of fact, this flank was "in the air," to use a military phrase, lying quite open and exposed, with only an insufficient, greatly harassed garrison on the spot, and no supports or reserves near at hand.

The utmost assistance on which this small body could count, as was afterwards shown, under stress, too, of most imminent danger, was 14,000 men. Not that all these numbers were fully available at any one time; they were constantly affected and diminished by casualties in the height and heat of the action; so that never were there more than 13,000, French and English, actually engaged.

On the other hand, the Russian attacking force was 70,000 strong, and they had with them 235 guns.

It was in truth another battle of giants, like Waterloo. "Hard pounding," as the great duke said of that other fight; a fierce trial of strength; a protracted, seemingly unequal, struggle between the dead weight of the aggregate many and the individual prowess of the undaunted, indomitable few.

The enemy's plan of action had been minutely and carefully prepared. We know it now. He meant to use his whole strength along his entire front—in part with feigned and deceiving demonstrations to "contain" or hold inactive the troops that faced him, in part with determined onslaught, delivered with countless thousands, in massive columns, against the reputed weakest point of our line.

This plan Menschikoff hastened to put into execution. Time pressed: the enemy had learnt through spies that an assault on Sebastopol was close at hand. Besides, the Grand Dukes had arrived, and the troops, worked up to the highest pitch of loyal fanatic fervour, were mad to fight under the eyes of the sons of their father, the holy Czar.

Dawn broke late on that drear November morning: November the 5th—a day destined to be ever memorable in the annals of British arms: a dawn that was delayed and darkened by dense, driving mists, and rain-clouds, black and lowering.

Nothing, however, had broken the repose of the British camp, or hinted at the near approach of countless foes.

The night had been tranquil; the enemy quiet; only, in the valley beneath our pickets on the Inkerman heights, some sentries had heard the constant rumbling of wheels, but their officers to whom they reported did not interpret the same aright, as the movement of artillery.

An hour or more before daylight the church-bells of Sebastopol rang out a joyous peal. Why not? It was the Sabbath morning. But these chimes, alas! ushered in a Sunday of struggle and bloodshed, not of peaceful devotion and prayer.

The outlying pickets had been relieved, and were marching campwards; the Second Division had had its customary "daylight parade"; the men had stood to their arms for half-an-hour, and, as nothing was stirring, had been dismissed to their tents; the fatigue-parties had been despatched for rations, water, fuel—in a word, the ordinary daily duties of the camp had commenced, when the sharp rattle of musketry rang out angrily, and well sustained in the direction of our foremost picket on Shell Hill.

"That means mischief!" The speaker was General Codrington, who, according to invariable rule, had ridden out before daylight to reconnoitre and watch the enemy. "Halt the off-going pickets; we may want all the men we can lay hands on."

Then this prompt and judicious commander proceeded to line the Victoria ridge, which faced Mount Inkerman, with the troops he had thus impounded, and galloped off to put the rest of his brigade under arms.

The firing reached and roused another energetic general officer, Pennefather, who now commanded the Second Division in place of De Lacy Evans.

"Sound the assembly!" he cried. "Let the division stand to its arms. Every man must turn out: every mother's son of them. We shall be engaged hot and strong in less than half-an-hour."

As pugnacious as any terrier, Pennefather, with unerring instinct, smelt the coming fight.

His division was quickly formed on what was afterwards called the "Home Ridge," and which was its regular parade-ground. But the general had no idea of awaiting attack in this position. It was his plan rather to push forward and fight the enemy wherever he could be found. With this idea he sent a portion of his strength down the slope to "feed the pickets," as he himself called it, whilst another was advanced to the right front under General Wilders, and with this body went the Royal Picts. The Second Division benefited greatly by this advance, for the Russians were now absolute masters of the crest of the Inkerman hill, where they established their batteries, and poured forth volley after volley, all of which passed harmlessly over the heads of our men. Meanwhile the alarm spread. A continuous firing, momentarily increasing in vigour, showed that this was no affair of outposts, but the beginning of a great battle. The bulk of the allied forces were under arms, and notice of the attack had been despatched to Lord Raglan at the English headquarters.

In less than a quarter-of-an-hour, long before 7 a.m., Lord Raglan was in his saddle, ready to ride wherever he might be required most.

But whither should he go? The battle, as it seemed, was waging all around him, on every side of the allied position. A vigorous fire was kept up from Sebastopol; down in the Tchernaya valley the army, supposed to be still under Liprandi, but really commanded by Gortschakoff, had advanced towards the Woronzoff road, and threatened to repeat the tactics of Balaclava by attacking with still greater force the right rear of our position; last of all, around Mount Inkerman, the unceasing sound of musketry and big guns betrayed the development of a serious attack.

Lord Raglan was not long in doubt. He knew the weakest point of the British position, and rightly guessed that the enemy would know it too.

"I shall go to Inkerman," he said. "That is their real point, I feel sure. And we must have up all the reinforcements we can muster. You, Burghersh, tell Sir George Cathcart to move up his division and support Pennefather and Brown. You, Steele, beg General Bosquet to lend me all the men he can spare."

Pennefather had his hands full by the time Lord Raglan arrived. With a paltry 3,000 odd men he was confronting 25,000; but, happily, the morning was so dark and the brushwood so thick that his men were hardly conscious that they were thus outnumbered.

Not that they would have greatly cared; they were manifestly animated with a dogged determination to deny the enemy every inch of the ground, and with unflagging courage they disputed his advance, although they were so few. Once more it was the "Thin Red Line" against the heavy column: hundreds against thousands, a task which for any other troops would have been both hopeless and absurd.

But Pennefather's people stoutly held their own. On his left front, one wing of the 49th Regiment routed a whole Russian column, and drove it back at the point of the bayonet down the hill; to give way in turn, but not till it was threatened by 9,000 men. Next, four companies of the Connaught Rangers stoutly engaged twenty times their number, and only yielded after a stubborn fight. General Buller came up next, with a wing of the 77th, which was faced by a solid mass five times as strong.

"There are the Russians," cried Egerton, who commanded the 77th. "What shall we do, general?"

"Charge them!" was Buller's prompt reply.

The next instant the slender line, with a joyous hurrah, was engulfed in a giant column. The effect was instantaneous. The Russian column reeled before the fiery charge, wavered, then broke and fled.

More to the right, Mauleverer prolonged the line with the 30th, and gave so good an account of the Russians in his front that they, too, fell back in disorder; and Bellairs, with a party of the 49th, was equally triumphant.

Beyond these forces, General Wilders, with whom young McKay now rode as extra aide, led a fraction of his brigade, including the Royal Picts, against the Sandbag Battery, a point deemed important because it commanded the extreme right of the position.

On the far sides of the slopes, beyond the battery were 4,000 Russian troops, and the mere sight of Wilders with his deployed line sufficed to shake the steadiness of the foe. The Russian bugles sounded a retreat, the leading companies faced about, and, communicating the panic to those behind the hill, the whole mass gave way and ran down the slope, followed by a destructive fire from the British line.

Thus ended the first phase of this unequal contest. Pennefather had triumphed to an extent of which neither he nor his heroes were fully aware. Barely 1,200 men had routed 15,000! The few had achieved a decisive victory over the many.

But the struggle had only just begun. Many more and still severer trials awaited our starving, weary, sorely-beset soldiers that day.

The enemy had numberless fresh and still untried troops at hand. Column after column had been moving steadily forward, some from the town, some from the eastern side of the Tchernaya, and already the Russian generals were in a position to renew the fight. A new onslaught was now organised, to be made by 19,000 men under cover of ninety guns.

So far in those early days of the battle the brunt of it had fallen upon the Second Division, supported by a portion of the Light. Stout old General Pennefather had had the supreme control throughout.

"I will not interfere with you," Lord Raglan said, as, standing by his staff, he watched the progress of the fight from the ridge. "You know your ground, as you have occupied it so long with your camp. I'm sure I can trust you."

"Thank you, my lord. I'll do my best, never fear," replied Pennefather.

"Their artillery fire is very troublesome, and must be over-mastered. If I could only get up some of the siege-train guns to help you. Let some one go back to the artillery park, and tell them I want a couple of eighteen pounders."

An aide-de-camp at once galloped off with the order, but two or three eventful hours elapsed before these guns were brought to bear upon the action.

Pennefather's men, although for the moment triumphant, had their hands full. They showed an undaunted front or "knotted line" of fighting-men: the remnants of the pickets, fragments, and odds-and-ends of many regiments, mixed up and intermingled, still in contact with the enemy, and so far still without supports.

Officers came back rather despondingly to ask for help.

"I cannot send you a single man," was the firm reply to one applicant. "You must stand your ground somehow."

"We should be all right, sir, but the men have run out of ammunition."

"It's no use. I can't give you a round. What does it matter? Don't make difficulties. Stick to your bayonets. And remember you've got to hold on where you are, or we shall be driven into the sea."

The want of cartridges was what the troops felt most direly. They growled savagely and grumbled at the mismanagement that kept back these indispensable supplies.

Only here and there the energetic action of a few shrewd officers did something to mend the mischief.

Thus the Royal Picts benefited by the astute promptitude of long-headed Sergeant Hyde. He was acting as quartermaster, and as such had been left behind in camp, although sorely against his will, when the rest of the regiment went out to fight. But he had heard the long, well-sustained roll of musketry-fire, and it satisfied one not new to war that a very close contest had begun.

"They'll soon fire away their cartridges at this rate," he said to himself. "If I could only get the ammunition-reserves up to them! I'll do it." And on his own responsibility he laid hands on all the beasts in camp: spare chargers, officers' ponies, and other animals, and quickly loaded them with the cartridge-boxes. Then, leading the cavalcade, he hurried to the front, asking as he went for the Royal Picts.

He found his regiment in the Sandbag Battery, and they received him, so soon as his errand was known, with a wild cheer.

"Excellently done!" cried Colonel Blythe. "You have a good head on your shoulders, Hyde: ammunition was the one thing we needed."

"Yes," shouted a brawny soldier, "we were just killed for want of cartridges."

"And want of food," grumbled another; "sorra bite nor sup since yesterday."

"Sergeant darling," said a third, "won't you sound the breakfast-bugle? Fighting on an empty stomach is but a poor pastime."

Thus, in the interval between two combats, but always under a galling and destructive fire, they joked and bandied words with a freedom that discipline would not have tolerated at any other time.

"I think, colonel, I could bring up the rations: biscuits and cold pork, anyhow," suggested Hyde.

"And the grog-tub: don't forget that, sergeant" cried a fresh voice.

"By all means, Hyde, get us what you can," replied Blythe; "the men are all fasting, and some sort of a meal would be very good for them, only you must keep a sharp look-out for us. We may not be still here when you return."

This Sandbag Battery, which for the moment the Royal Picts still held, was the object of ceaseless contention that day. Although at best but an empty prize, useful to neither side, because its parapet was too high to be fired over, the battery was lost and won, captured and recaptured, constantly during the battle.

Even now the Russians, regaining heart, had made it the first aim of their fresh attack.

General Dannenberg, who was now in chief command, had a twofold object: he was resolved to press the centre of the English position and at the same time vigorously attack the right, throwing all his weight first upon the Sandbag Battery.

The small force under General Wilders, which included the Royal Picts, soon began to feel the stress of this renewed onslaught.

"They are coming on again and in great numbers, sir," said McKay to his general.

"I see, and menacing both our flanks. We shall be surrounded and swallowed up if we don't take care."

"Some support ought to be near by this time, sir," replied McKay.

"Ride back, and see. I don't want to be outflanked."

McKay retired and presently came upon two battalions of Guards, Grenadiers and Fusiliers, advancing under the command of the Duke of Cambridge.

"General Wilders, sir, is very hard pressed in the Sandbag Battery," said McKay, briefly.

"I'll march at once to his aid," replied the duke, promptly.

"Sir George Cathcart and part of the Fourth Division are coming up, and not far off," added one of the staff; "we won't wait for any one. Ride on ahead, sir,"—this was to McKay,—"and let your general know he is about to be supported by her Majesty's Guards."



CHAPTER XVII.

A COSTLY VICTORY.

Now followed one of the fiercest and bloodiest episodes of the day.

Wilders had made the best show with his little band and clung tenaciously to the battery yet. The Russians came on and on, with stubborn insistence, and all along the line a hand-to-hand fight ensued. Numbers told at length, and the small garrison was slowly forced back, after enduring serious loss.

It was in this retreat that General Wilders received a dangerous wound: a fragment of a shell tore away the left leg below the knee.

"Will some one kindly lift me from my horse?" he said quietly, schooling his face to continue calm, in spite of the agony he endured.

McKay was on the ground in an instant and by his general's side.

"Don't mind me, my boy" said the general. "Leave me with the doctors."

"On no account, sir; I should not think of it." "Yes, yes. They want every man. Attach yourself to Blythe; he will command the brigade now. Do not stay with me: I insist."

McKay yielded to the general's entreaties, but first saw the wounded man bestowed in a litter and carried to the rear.

Then he joined Colonel Blythe.

But now fortune smiled again. Our artillery had stayed the Russian advance; and the Grenadier Guards, followed by the Fusiliers, once more regained the coveted but worthless stronghold.

They could not hold it permanently, however: the tide of battle ebbed and flowed across it, and the victory leant alternately to either side. The Guards fought like giants, outnumbered but never outmatched, wielding their weapons with murderous prowess, and, when iron missiles failed them, hurling rocks—Titan-like—at their foes.

Even when won this Sandbag Battery was a perilous prize: tempting the English leaders to adventure too far to the front and to leave a great gap in the general line of defence unoccupied and undefended.

Lord Raglan saw the error and would have skilfully averted the impending evil.

"That opening leaves the left of the Guards exposed," he said to Airey. "Tell Cathcart to fill it."

"You are to move to the left and support the Guards," was the message conveyed to Cathcart, "but not to descend or leave the plateau. Those are Lord Raglan's orders."

But Sir George chose to interpret them his own way, and already—with Torrens's brigade and a weak body at best—he had gone down the hill to join the Guards. In the sharp but misdirected encounter which followed, the general lost his life, and his force, with the Guards, were for a time cut off from their friends.

A Russian column had wedged in at the gap and for a time forbade retreat, but it was at length sheered off by the first of the French reinforcements; and the intercepted British, in greatly diminished numbers, by degrees won their way home.

This fighting around the Sandbag Battery had cost us very dear: Cathcart was killed, the Guards were decimated, and Wilders's brigade, now commanded by Colonel Blythe, had fallen back, spent and disorganised. So serious indeed were these losses that for the next hour the brigade possessed no coherent shape, and only by dint of the unwearied exertions of its officers was it rallied sufficiently to share in the later phases of the fight.

Meanwhile the centre of our line, where Pennefather stood posted on the Home Ridge, had been furiously assailed. Gathering their forces under shelter of a deep ravine, the Russian general sent up column after column, first against the left and then against the right of the Ridge. Gravely weakened by his early encounter, Pennefather had only a handful of his own men to meet this attack. They were now pressed back indeed, although their general was beginning to wield detachments from other commands. A portion of the Fourth Division had been put under his orders.

General Cathcart, just before his death, had come to him with a battalion of the Rifle Brigade.

"They can do anything," he had said. "Where are they wanted most?"

"Everywhere!" had been old Pennefather's reply.

But now, having at hand this splendid body of infantry, of whom their leader had been so pardonably proud, he hurled them at the flank of a column that was forcing back its own men.

The effect of the charge was instantaneous: the Russians could not withstand it; and, the men of the Second Division again advancing, the foe was pressed as far as the Barrier, where he was held at bay.

But the left of the ridge was still menaced, although the centre was cleared. On this flank Pennefather disposed of some new troops, also of the Fourth Division: the 63rd and part of the 21st.

He rode up to their head and made them a short but stirring address.

"Now, Sixty-third, let's see what metal you are made of! The enemy is close upon you: directly you see them, fire a volley and charge!"

His answer was a vehement cheer. The 63rd fired as it was ordered, and then drove the Russians down the hill.

One more trial awaited Pennefather at this period of the battle. His right, on the Home Ridge, was now assailed; but here again the 20th, with their famous Minden yell—an old historical war-cry, always cherished and secretly practised in the corps—met and overcame the enemy. They were actively supported by the 57th, the gallant "Diehards," a title they had earned at Albuera, one of the bloodiest of the Peninsular fights.

Thus, for the second time, Pennefather stood victorious on the ground he so obstinately held. After two hours of incessant fighting the Russians had made no headway. But although twice repulsed they had inflicted terrible losses on our people. They had still in hand substantial supports untouched; they had brought up more and more guns; they were as yet far from despondent, and their generals might still count upon making an impression by sheer weight of numbers alone.

As for ourselves, the English were almost at the end of their resources. There were no fresh troops to bring up; only the Third Division remained in reserve, and it was fully occupied in guarding the trenches.

The French, it is true, could have thrown the weight of many thousands into the scale; but General Canrobert had not set his more distant divisions in motion, and the only troops that could affect the struggle—Bosquet's—were still far to the rear.

In the contest that was now to be renewed the balance between the offensive forces was more than ever unequal.

Dannenberg gathered together upon the northern slopes of Mount Inkerman some 17,000 men, partly those who had been already defeated, but were by no means disheartened, and partly perfectly fresh troops. On the other hand, Pennefather's force was reduced to a little over 3,000, to which a couple of French regiments might now be added, 1,600 strong. The Russians had a hundred guns in position; the allies barely half that number.

Yet in the struggle that was imminent the battle of Inkerman was practically to be decided.

The Russian general had now resolved to make a concentrated attack in column upon Pennefather's Ridge. He sent up another great mass from the quarry ravine, flanked and covered by crowds of skirmishers. In the centre, the vanguard pressed forward swiftly, drove back the slender garrison of the Barrier, and advanced unchecked towards the Ridge. There were no English troops to oppose their advance; a French battalion only was close at hand, and they seemed to shrink from the task of opposing the foe.

"They do not seem very firm, these Frenchmen," said Lord Raglan, who was closely watching events. "Why, gracious goodness, they are giving way! We must strengthen them by some of our own men. Bring up the 55th—they have re-formed, I see. Stay! what is that?"

As he spoke, an English staff officer was seen to ride up to the wavering French battalion. From his raised hand and impassioned gestures he was evidently addressing them. He was speaking in French, too, it was clear, for his harangue had the effect of restoring confidence in the shaken body. The battalion no longer stood irresolute, but advanced to meet the foe.

"Excellently done!" cried Lord Raglan. "Find out for me at once who that staff-officer is."

An aide-de-camp galloped quickly to the spot, and returned with the answer—

"Mr. McKay, my lord, aide-de-camp to General Wilders."

"Remember that name, Airey, and see after the young fellow. But where is his general?"

"Wounded, and gone to the rear, my lord," was the reply.

The bold demeanour of the French battalion restrained the advancing enemy until some British troops could reach the threatened point. Then together they met the advance. The Russian attack was now fully developed, and his great column was well up the slopes of the ridge. While the French, animated by the warm language of Pennefather, stopped its head, a mad charge delivered by a small portion of the 55th broke into its flank.

The Russians halted, hesitating under this unexpected attack. Pennefather instantly saw the check, and gave voice to a loud "hurrah." The cry was taken up by his men, and the French drums came to the front and sounded the pas de charge. With a wild burst of enthusiasm, the allies, intermingled, raced forward, and once again the foe was driven down the hill. At the same time his flanking columns were met and forced back on the left by the 21st and the 63rd.

The Barrier was again re-occupied by our troops, and the third, the chief and most destructive Russian onslaught, had also failed.

The day was still young; it was little past 9 a.m., and the battle as yet was neither lost nor won.

The Russians had been three times discomfited and driven back, but they still held the ground they had first seized upon the crests of the Inkerman hill, and, seemingly, defied the allies to dislodge them.

The English were far too weak to do this. Our whole efforts were concentrated upon keeping the enemy at bay at the Barrier, where Blythe, now in chief command, managed with difficulty, and with a very mixed force, to beat off assailants still pertinacious and tormenting.

The French were now coming up in support, but of their troops already on the ground two battalions had gone astray, wandering off on a fool's errand towards the pernicious Sandbag Battery, where they, too, were destined to meet repulse.

Indeed, the Russians, despite their last discomfiture, were regaining the ascendant.

But now the sagacious forethought of Lord Raglan was to bear astonishing fruit. It has been told in the previous chapter how he was bent upon bringing up some of the siege-train guns, and how he had despatched a messenger for them. His aide-de-camp had found the colonel of the siege-park artillery anticipating the order. Two 18-pounders, which since Balaclava had been kept ready for instant service, were waiting to be moved. There were no teams of horses at hand to drag them up to the front, but the man-harness was brought out, and the willing gunners cheerily entered the shafts, and threw themselves with fierce energy into the collars. Officers willingly lent a hand, and thus the much-needed ordnance was got up a long and toilsome incline.

It was a slow job, however, and two full hours elapsed before they were placed in position on the right flank of the Home Ridge.

"At last!" was Lord Raglan's greeting; "now, my lads, load and fire as fast as you can."

The artillery officers themselves laid their guns, which were served and fired with promptitude and precision.

Now followed a short but sanguinary duel. The Russian guns answered shot for shot, and at first worked terrible havoc in our ranks.

Colonel Gambier of the artillery was struck down: other officers were wounded, and many of the men.

Still Lord Raglan stood his ground, watching the action with keen interest and the most admirable self-possession. He was perfectly unmoved by the heavy fire and the carnage it occasioned.

One or two of his staff besought him to move a little further to the rear, but he met the suggestion with good-natured contempt.

"My lord rather likes being under fire than otherwise," whispered one aide-de-camp to another.

He certainly took it uncommonly cool, and in the thick of it could unbend with kindly condescension when a sergeant who was passing had his forage-cap knocked off by the wind of a passing shot.

"A near thing that, my man," he said, smiling.

The sergeant—it was Hyde, returning from the Barrier, where he had been with more ammunition—coolly dusted his cap on his knee, replaced it on his head, and then, formally saluting the Commander-in-Chief, replied with a self-possession that delighted Lord Raglan—

"A miss is as good as a mile, my lord."

Through all this the 18-pounders kept up a ceaseless and effective fire. They were clearly of a heavier calibre than any the Russians owned, and soon the weight of their metal and our gunners' unerring aim began to tell upon the enemy's ranks.

The Russian guns were frequently shifted from spot to spot, but they could not escape the murderous fire.

At last, in truth, the Russian hold on Inkerman hill was shaken to the core.

Victory at last was in our grasp, and, but for the old and fatal drawback of insufficient numbers, the battle must have ended in a complete disaster for the Russian arms. A vigorous offensive, undertaken by fresh troops, must have ended in the speedy overthrow, possibly annihilation, of the enemy.

But the only troops available for the purpose were the French. Bosquet had now come up with his brigade, and D'Autemarre, released by Gortschakoff's retreat, had followed with a second. There were thus some seven or eight thousand French available. Still Canrobert was disinclined to move.

He was now with Lord Raglan on the Ridge, with his arm in a sling, for he had just been struck by a shrapnel-shell.

He was downcast and dejected, for Bosquet had gone off on a wild-goose chase after two errant battalions, and had shared in their repulse. Just now, indeed, so far from proving the saviours of the hard-pressed English, our French allies were themselves in retreat.

Lord Raglan strove to reassure his colleague.

"All is going well, my general," he said; "we are winning the day."

"I wish I could think so," replied Canrobert.

"Well, but listen to the message my aide-de-camp has brought from General Pennefather. What did he say, Calthorpe?"

"General Pennefather, my lord, says he only wants a few fresh troops to follow the enemy up now, and lick them to the devil. These are his very words, my lord."

Lord Raglan laughed heartily, and translated his stout-hearted lieutenant's language literally for Canrobert.

"Ah! what a brave man!" cried the French general, lighting up. "A splendid general, a most valiant man."

"You see now, general; one more effort and the day is ours. Won't you help?"

"But, my lord, what can I do? The Russians are all round us still, and in great strength. See there, there, and there," he cried, pointing with his unwounded arm.

"Tell General Pennefather to come and speak to me at once," Lord Raglan now said to the aide-de-camp, hoping that the gallant bearing of the victorious veteran would infuse fresh hope in Canrobert.

Now General Pennefather galloped up, as radiantly happy as any schoolboy who has just finished his fifteenth round.

"I should like to press them, my lord. They are retreating already, and we could give a fine account of them."

"What have you left to pursue with?" asked Lord Raglan, still hoping to encourage the French to undertake the offensive.

"Seven or eight hundred now, in the first brigade alone."

"To pursue thousands!" exclaimed Canrobert, when this was interpreted to him; "you must be mad! I will have nothing to do with this; we have done enough for one day."

Now again, as on the Alma, when the heights had been carried by storm, the fruits of victory were lost by our unenterprising, over-cautious allies.

This, indeed, is the true story of Inkerman, as told on incontestable evidence of the great historian of the war. The French did not rescue the English from disaster; they were themselves repulsed. At the close of the action, when they might have actively pursued, their irresolution robbed the victory of its most decisive results.

It was a terrible and far too costly victory, after all. The English army, already terribly weak, suffered such serious losses in the fight that there were those who would have at once re-embarked the remnants and raised the siege. Retreat on the morrow of victory would have been craven indeed, but to stand firm with such shattered forces was a bold and hazardous resolve, for which Lord Raglan deserves the fullest credit, and the coming winter, with its terrible trials, was destined to put his self-reliance to the proof.

It is time to return more particularly to our friends, who took part in this hard-fought, glorious action.

By midday the worse part of the battle was over, and although Colonel Blythe still clung to his Barrier, whence he launched forth small parties to harass the retreating foe, McKay was released of his attendance upon the acting brigadier, and suffered to follow his own general to the rear.

They had carried poor old Wilders in a litter to one of the hospital marquees in the rear of the Second Division camp. The aide-de-camp found him perfectly conscious, with two doctors by his side.

McKay was allowed to enter into conversation with his chief.

"How does it go?" asked the old general, feebly, but with eager interest.

"The enemy are in full retreat, sir; beaten all along the line."

"Thank Heaven!" said the general, as he sank back upon his pillow.

"How are you, sir?"

"Very weak. My fighting days are done."

"You must not say that, sir; the doctors will soon pull you round. Won't you?" said McKay, looking round at the nearest surgeon's face.

"Of course. I have no fear, provided only the general will keep quiet, and—"

"That means that I should go," said the aide-de-camp. "I shall be close at hand, sir, for I mean to be chief nurse," and he left the tent.

Outside the surgeon ended the sentence he had left incomplete.

"The general," he said, "will be in no immediate danger if we could count upon his having proper care. With that, I think we could promise to save his life."

"He shall have the most devoted attention from me," began McKay.

"We know that. But he wants more: the very best hospital treatment, with all its comforts and appliances; and how can we possibly secure these here on this bleak plateau?"

Just then one of the general's orderlies came in sight and approached McKay.

"A letter, sir, for the general, marked 'Immediate.'"

"The general can attend to no correspondence. You know he has been desperately wounded."

"Yes, sir, but the messenger would not take that for an answer."

"Who is he?"

"A seaman from Balaclava, belonging to some yacht that has just arrived."

"Lord Lydstone's perhaps. That would indeed be fortunate," went on McKay, turning to the doctor. "It is the general's cousin, you know; and on board the yacht—if we could get him there?"

"That is not impossible, I think. In fact, it would have to be done."

"Well, on board the yacht he would get the careful nursing you speak of. Is he well enough, do you think, to read this letter?"

"Under the circumstances, yes. Give it me, and I will take it in to the general."

A few minutes later McKay was again called in to the marquee.

"Oh, McKay, I wish you would be so good—" began the wounded man. "This letter, I mean, is from Mrs. Wilders; she has just arrived."

"Here, in the Crimea, sir?"

"Yes, she has come up in Lord Lydstone's yacht, and I want you to be so good as to go to her and break the news." He pointed sadly down the bed towards his shattered limb.

"Of course, sir, as soon as I can order out a fresh horse I will go to Balaclava. Perhaps I had better stay on board for a time, and make arrangements to receive you; if Lord Lydstone will allow me, that is to say."

"Lord Lydstone is not there. Mrs. Wilders tells me she has come up alone, and in the very nick of time. But now be off, McKay, and lose no time. Be gentle with her: it will be a great shock, I am afraid."

The aide-de-camp galloped off on his errand, and finding a boat from the yacht waiting by the wharf in Balaclava harbour he put up his horse and went off to the Arcadia. She was still lying outside.

McKay's appearance was not exactly presentable. He had been turned out at daybreak with the rest of the division at the first alarm, and had had no time to attend to his toilette, such as it was in these rough campaigning days. Since then he had been in his saddle for several hours and constantly in the heat and turmoil of the fight. His clothes were torn, mud-encrusted, and bloodstained; his face was black and grimy with gunpowder smoke.

But he had no thought of his looks as he sprang on to the white, trimly-kept deck of the yacht.

Captain Trejago met him.

"Who are you?" asked the sailing-master, rather abruptly.

"I wish to see Mrs. Wilders," replied McKay, still more curtly.

"You had better wash your face first," said Captain Trejago, very jealous of the proper respect due to Mrs. Wilders. "It is uncommonly dirty."

"And so would yours be if you had been doing what I have."

"What might that be?"

"Fighting."

"Perhaps you are ready to begin again? If so, I'm your man. But you will have to wait till we get on shore."

"Pshaw! don't be an idiot. We have been engaged with the Russians ever since daybreak. But there, this is mere waste of breath. I tell you I want to see Mrs. Wilders. I come from the general. I am his aide-de-camp. Show the way, will you?"

"It may be as you say," muttered Trejago, not half satisfied. "But you will have to wait till Mrs. Wilders says she will receive you."

"What's the matter? Who is this person?"

It was the voice of Mrs. Wilders, who now advanced from the stern of the yacht, having seen but not overheard the latter part of the altercation.

McKay stepped forward.

"I have brought you a message from the general."

"Why did he not come himself?"

"It was quite impossible."

"I particularly begged him to come. Who, pray, are you? Stay!" she went on, "I ought to know your face. We have met before: at Gibraltar, was it not?"

"Yes, at Gibraltar. I was the general's orderly sergeant."

"And do you still hold the same distinguished position?"

"No, Mrs. Wilders," said McKay, simply; "I am now a commissioned officer, and have the honour to be the general's aide-de-camp."

"Rapid promotion that: I hope you deserved it. May I ask your name?"

"McKay—Stanislas McKay."

Could it be possible? The very man she was in search of the first to speak to her on arrival here at Balaclava! Surely there must be some mistake! Mastering her emotion at the suddenness of this news, she said—

"You will forgive my curiosity, but have you any other Christian names?"

"My name in full is Stanislas Anastasius Wilders McKay."

"That answer is my best excuse for asking you the question. You are, then, our cousin?"

McKay bowed.

"I have heard of you," said Mrs. Wilders. "Allow me to congratulate you," and she held out her hand.



CHAPTER XVIII.

A NOVEMBER GALE.

"Will you not come down into the cabin?" said Mrs. Wilders, civilly; "the lunch is still on the table, and I daresay you will be glad of something to eat."

"I have not touched food all day, Mrs. Wilders."

"You must have been very busy, then?"

"Surely you have heard what has happened this morning?"

Mrs. Wilders looked at him amazed.

"A desperate battle has been fought."

"Another!" She thought of what Mr. Hobson had told her. "How has it ended? In whose favour? Are we safe here?"

"There is no cause for alarm. The Russians have been handsomely beaten again; but we have suffered considerable loss," he said, hesitating a little, fearing to be too brusque with his bad news.

"Is that why the general could not come?"

"Exactly. He has had a great deal to do."

"Nothing should have prevented him from coming here."

It never seemed to have occurred to her that he had been in any danger; nor, as McKay noticed, had she asked whether he was safe and well.

"It was quite impossible for him to come. He—he—"

"Pray go on! You are very tantalising."

"The general has been badly wounded," McKay now blurted out abruptly.

"Dear! dear!" she said, rather coolly. "I am very sorry to hear it. When and how did it occur?"

McKay explained.

"Poor dear!" This was the first word of sympathy she had spoken, and even now she made no offer to go to him.

"The doctors think there is no great danger if—"

"Danger!" This seemed to rouse her. "I trust not."

"No danger," went on McKay, "if only he can be properly nursed. They were glad to hear of the arrival of the yacht, and think he ought to be moved on board."

"Oh, of course this will be the best place for him. When can he be brought? I suppose I ought to go to him. Will it be possible to get a conveyance to the front?"

"Nothing but an ambulance, I fear. And you know there is no road."

"Upon my word I hardly know what to say."

"We could manage a saddle-horse for you, I daresay."

"I'm a very poor horsewoman: you see I'm half a foreigner. No; the best plan will be to stay on board and get everything ready for the poor dear man. When may we expect him?"

"The doctors seem to wish the removal might not be delayed. You may see us in the morning."

"So, then, I am to have the pleasure of meeting you again, Mr. McKay?"

"I should be sorry to leave the general while I can be of any use. He has been a kind friend to me."

"And you are a relation. Of course it is very natural you should wish to be at his side. I am sure I shall be delighted to have your assistance in nursing him," said Mrs. Wilders, very graciously; and soon afterwards McKay took his leave.

"So that is the last stumbling-block in my son's way: a sturdy, self-reliant sort of gentleman, likely to be able to take care of himself. I should like to get him into my power: but how, I wonder, how?"

Next day they moved the wounded general to Balaclava, and got him safely on board the Arcadia. He was accompanied by a doctor and McKay.

Mrs. Wilders received her husband with the tenderest solicitude.

"How truly fortunate I came here!" she said, with the tears in her eyes.

"Lydstone made no objection, then? Has he remained at Constantinople?" the general asked, feebly.

"Lydstone? Don't you know? He—" But why should she tell him? It would only distress him greatly, and, in his present precarious condition, he should be spared all kind of emotion. With this idea she had begged Captain Trejago to say nothing as yet of the sad end of his noble owner.

"Will it not be best to get the general down to Scutari?" she asked the doctor.

"In a day or two, yes. When he has recovered the shaking of the move on board."

"The captain wanted to know. He has no wish to go inside the harbour, as it is so crowded; but he would not like to remain long off this coast. It might be dangerous, he says."

"A lee-shore, you know," added Captain Trejago, for himself. "Look at those straight cliffs; fancy our grinding on to them, with a southerly, or rather a south-westerly, gale!"

"Is there any immediate prospect of bad weather?" asked McKay. He and the sailing-master were by this time pretty good friends.

"I don't much like the look of the glass. It's rather jumpy; if anything, inclined to go back."

"What should you do if it came on dirty?" the skipper was asked.

"Up stick, and run out to get an offing. It would be our only chance, with this coast to leeward."

Three or four days later the skipper came with a long face to the doctor.

"I like the look of it less and less. The glass has dropped suddenly: such a drop as I've never seen out of the tropics. Is there anything against our putting to sea this afternoon?"

It so happened that General Wilders was not quite so well.

"I'd rather you waited a day or two," replied the surgeon. "It might make all the difference to the patient."

"Well, if it must be," replied the captain, very discontentedly.

"It's his life that's in question."

"Against all of ours. But let it be so. We'll try and weather the storm."

Next morning, about dawn, it burst upon them—the memorable hurricane of the 14th November, which did such appalling damage on shore and at sea. Not a tent remained standing on the plateau. The tornado swept the whole surface clean.

At sea the sight as daylight grew stronger was enough to make the stoutest heart, ignorant landsman's or practised seaman's, quail. A whole fleet—great line-of-battle ships, a crowd of transports under sail and steam—lay at the mercy of the gale, which increased every moment in force and fury. The waves rose with the wind, and the white foam of "stupendous" breakers angrily lashed the rock-bound shore.

"Will you ride it out?" asked McKay of the captain, as the two stood with the doctor crouched under the gunwale of the yacht and holding on to the shrouds.

"Why shouldn't we?" replied Trejago, shortly, as though the question was an insult to himself and his ship.

"That's more than some can say!" cried the doctor, pointing to one great ship, the ill-fated Prince, which had evidently dragged her anchors and was drifting perilously towards the cliffs.

"Our tackle is sound and the holding is good," said Trejago, hopefully. "But we ought not to speak so loud. It may alarm Mrs. Wilders."

"Does she not know our danger? Some one ought to tell her. You had better go, McKay."

The aide-de-camp made rather a wry face. He was not fond of Mrs. Wilders, whose manner, sometimes oily, sometimes supercilious, was too changeable to please him, and he felt that the woman was not true.

However, he went down to the cabin, where he found Mrs. Wilders, with a white, scared face, cowering in a corner as she listened to the howling of the storm.

"Is there anything the matter?" she cried, springing up as he appeared. "Is there any danger?"

"I trust not; still, it is well to be prepared."

"For what? Do you mean that we may be lost, drowned—here, in sight of port—all of us—my dear general and myself? It is too dreadful! Why does not the captain run inside the harbour and put us on dry ground?"

"I fear it would be too great a risk to try and make the mouth of the harbour in this gale."

"Then why don't you seek help from some of the other ships—the men-of-war? There are plenty of them all around."

"Every ship outside Balaclava is in the same stress as ourselves. They could spare us no help, even if we asked for it."

"What, then, are we to do?—in Heaven's name!"

"Trust in Providence and hope for the best! But I think—if I might suggest—it would be as well to keep the general in ignorance of our condition, which is not so very desperate after all."

"How do you mean?"

"'Our cables are stout,' Captain Trejago says, and we ought to be able to ride out the storm."

And the Arcadia did so gallantly all that day, in the teeth of the hurricane, which blew with unabated fury for many more hours, and in spite of the tempest-torn sea, which now ran mountains high.

All through that anxious day Trejago kept the deck, watching the sky and the storm. It was late in the afternoon when he said, with a sigh of relief—

"The wind is hauling round to the westward; I expect the gale will abate before long."

He was right, although to eyes less keen there was small comfort yet in the signs of the weather.

It was an awful scene—ships everywhere in distress: some on the point of foundering, others being dashed to pieces on the rocks. The great waves, as they raged past in fearful haste, bore upon their foaming crests great masses of wreck, the dread vestiges of terrible disasters. Amongst the floating timbers and spars, encumbered with tangles of cordage, floated great bundles of hay, the lost cargo of heavily-laden transports that had gone down.

Still, as Trejago said, there was hope at last. The gale had spent its chief force and was no longer directly on shore. The more pressing and immediate danger was over.

"It won't do to stop here, though," he went on, "not one second longer than we can help. Now that there is a slant in the wind we can run south under a close-reefed trysail and storm-jib. What say you, doctor?"

"I'll step down and see the general."

"Don't lose any time. I should like to slip my cable this next half-hour. I shan't be happy till we've got sea-room."

McKay went below with the doctor, and, while the latter sat with his patient, the aide-de-camp had a short talk with Mrs. Wilders.

"The captain wants to put to sea."

"Never! not in this storm!"

"It is abating fast. Besides, he says it will be far safer to be running snug under storm-canvas than remaining here on this wild coast."

"I hope he will do no such thing. It will be madness. I must speak to him at once."

She seized a shawl, and, throwing it over her head, ran up on deck.

McKay followed her and was by her side before she had left the companion-ladder.

"Take care, pray. There is a heavy sea on still and the deck is very slippery. I will call Captain Trejago if you will wait here."

"One moment; do not leave me, Mr. McKay. What an exciting, extraordinary scene! But how terrible!"

The yacht rode the waves gallantly: now on their crest, now in the trough between two giant rollers, and always wet with spray. Fragments of wreck still came racing by, borne swiftly by the waters and adding greatly to the horrors of the dread story they told.

"There must have been immense loss among the shipping," said McKay. "It is a mercy and a marvel how we escaped."

"The poor things! To be lost—cast away on this cruel, inhospitable land. How very, very sad!"

"It is safer, you see, to leave this dangerous anchorage. Do you still want the captain? He is busy there forward."

For the moment everyone was forward: they were all intent on the straining cables and the muddle of gear that would have to be cleared or cut away when they got up sail.

So Mrs. Wilders and McKay stood at the cabin companion alone—absolutely alone—with the raging elements, the whistling wind still three parts of a gale, and the cruel, driving sea.

"Shall I fetch the captain?" McKay repeated.

"No, no! Don't disturb him; no doubt he is right. I will go below again. This is no place for me." She took one long, last survey of the really terrifying scene, but then, quite suddenly, there burst from her an exclamation of horror.

"There! there! Mr. McKay, look: on that piece of timber—a figure, surely—some poor shipwrecked soul! Don't you see?"

McKay, shading his eyes, gazed intently.

"No. I can make nothing out," he said at length, shaking his head.

"How strange! I can distinguish the figure quite plainly. But never mind, Mr. McKay; only do something. Give him some help. Try to save him. Throw him a rope."

McKay obediently seized a coil of rope, and, approaching the gunwale, said, quickly—

"Only you must show me where to throw."

"There, towards that mast; it's coming close alongside."

In her eagerness she had followed him, and was close behind as he gathered up the rope in a coil to cast it.

Once, twice, thrice, he whirled it round his head, then threw it with so vigorous an action that his body bent over and his balance was lost.

He might have regained it, but at this supreme moment a distinct and unmistakeable push in the back from his companion completed his discomfiture.

He clutched wildly at the shrouds with one hand—the other still held the rope; but fruitlessly, and in an instant he fell down—far down into the vortex of the seething, swirling sea.

"Ah, traitress!" he cried, as he sank, fully conscious, as it seemed, of the foul part she had played.

Had she really wished to drown him? Her conduct after he had disappeared bore out this conclusion.

One hasty glance around satisfied her that McKay's fall had been unobserved. If she gave the alarm at once he might still be saved.

"Not yet!" she hissed between her teeth. "In five minutes it will be too late to help him. The waters have closed over him—let him go down, to the very bottom of the sea."

But she was wise in her fiendish wickedness, and knew that as they had been seen last together she must account for McKay's disappearance. At the end of an interval long enough to make rescue impossible she startled the whole yacht with her screams.

"Help! Help! Mr. McKay! He has fallen overboard!"

They came rushing aft to where she stood once more holding on to the top of the companion, and plied her with questions.

"There! there! make haste!" she cried—"for Heaven's sake make haste!"

"A boat could hardly live in this sea," said Captain Trejago, gravely. "Still, we must make the attempt. Who will go with me?" he asked, and volunteers soon sprang to his side.

It was a service of immense danger, but the boat was lowered, and for more than half-an-hour made such diligent search as was possible in the weather and in the sea.

After that time the boat was brought back to the yacht by its brave but disappointed crew.

"No chance for the poor chap," said Captain Trejago, shaking his head despondingly in reply to Mrs. Wilders's mute but eager appeal.

Soon afterwards they got up the anchor, and the yacht sped southward under a few rags of sail.



CHAPTER XIX.

UNCLE AND NEPHEW.

It will be well to relieve at once the anxiety which the reader must feel—unless I have altogether failed to interest him—in the fate of my hero, Stanislas McKay.

He was not drowned when, through the fiendish intervention of Mrs. Wilders, he fell from the deck of the Arcadia, and was, as it seemed, swallowed up in the all-devouring sea.

He went under, it is true, but only for a moment, and, coming once more to the surface, by a few strong strokes swam to a drifting spar. To this he clung desperately, hoping against hope that he might yet be picked up from the yacht. Unhappily for him, the waves ran so high that the boat under Trejago's guidance failed to catch sight of him, and, as we know, returned presently to the Arcadia, after a fruitless errand, as was thought.

Very shortly the yacht and the half-submerged man parted company. The former was steered for the open sea; the latter drifted and tossed helplessly to and fro, growing hourly weaker and more and more benumbed, but always hanging on with convulsive tenacity to the friendly timber that buoyed him up, and was his last frail chance of life.

All night long he was in the water, and when day dawned it seemed all over with him, so overpowering was his despair. Consciousness had quite abandoned him, and he was almost at the last gasp when he was seen and picked up by a passing steamship, the Burlington Castle.

"Where am I?" he asked, faintly, on coming to himself. He was in a snug cot, in a small but cosy cabin.

"Where you'd never have been but for the smartness of our look-out man," said a steward at his bedside. "Cast away, I suppose, in the gale?"

"No: washed overboard," replied McKay, "last evening."

"Thunder! and in the water all those hours! But what was your craft? Who and what are you?"

"I was on board the yacht Arcadia. My name is Stanislas McKay. I am an officer of the Royal Picts—aide-de-camp to General Wilders. Where am I?" he repeated.

"You'll learn that fast enough; with friends, anyhow. Doctor said you weren't to talk. But just drink this, while I tell the captain you've come to. He hasn't had sight of you yet; we hauled you aboard while it was his watch below."

Five minutes more and the captain, a jolly English tar, red in face and round in figure, came down, with a loud voice and cheering manner, to welcome his treasure-trove.

"Well, my hearty, so this is how I find you, eh? Soused in brine. Why, I hear they had to hang you up by the heels to let the water run out of your mouth. Come, Stanny, my boy, this won't do."

"Uncle Barto!"

"The same: master of the steamship Burlington Castle, deep in deals—timbers for huts—and other sundries, now lying in Balaclava, waiting to be discharged. But, my dearest lad, you've had a narrow squeak. Tell me, how did it happen, and when?"

"I fell overboard, and I've been all night in the water: that's all."

He did not choose as yet to make public his suspicions as to the real origin of his nearly fatal accident.

"I always said you had nine lives, Stanny, only don't go using them up like this. There's not a tom-cat could stand it."

"Were you out in the gale, uncle?"

"Ay; and weathered it. At dawn, after the first puff, I knew we'd have a twister, so I got up steam and regularly worked against it. Made a good offing that way, and when the storm abated came back here. We were close in when we picked you up on a log."

"It was a providential escape," said Stanislas, thankfully. "I thought it was all over with me."

"We'll set you up in no time, never fear. But tell more about yourself. Jove! you are a fine chap, Stanny. Why, you'll die a general yet, if the Russians 'll let you off a little longer, and you're not wanted for the House of Peers."

"What do you mean, uncle?"

"Why, of course, you haven't heard. There's trouble among your fine relations. Lord Essendine has lost all his sons."

"All?"

"Yes; all. Hugo was killed, as you know; Anastasius died at Scutari; and Lord Lydstone, two days later, was found dead in the streets of Stamboul."

"Dead? How? What did he die of, uncle?"

"A stab in the heart. He was murdered."

"And I—"

He understood now the cause of the foul blow struck at him, and the base attempt to get him also out of the way.

"You are now next heir to the peerage, in spite of all they may say. But you'll find my lord civil enough soon. He'll be wanting you to go straight home."

"And leave the army? Not while there's fighting to be done, Uncle Barto. I may not be much good as I am, but I'll do all I can, trust me. I ought to be getting on shore and back to the front."

"My doctor will have a word to say to that. He won't let you be moved till you're well and strong."

But on the second day McKay, thanks to kindly care and plenty of nourishment, was able to leave his cot, and on the third morning he was determined to return to his duty.

"I won't baulk you, Stanny," said his uncle; "good soldiers, like good sailors, never turn their backs on their work. But mind, this ship is your home whenever and wherever you like to come on board; and if you want anything you have only to ask for it, d'ye hear?"

McKay promised readily to draw upon his uncle when needful, and then, his horse being still at Balaclava, he once more got into the saddle and rode up to camp.

The journey prepared him a little for what he found. All the way from Balaclava his horse struggled knee-deep in mud: a very quagmire of black, sticky slush. Yet this was the great highway—the only road between the base of supply and an army engaged eight miles distant in an arduous siege. Along it the whole of the food, ammunition, and material had to be carried on pony-back, or in a few ponderous carts drawn by gaunt, over-worked teams, which too often left their wheels fast-caught in the mire.

At the front—it had been raining in torrents for hours—the mud was thicker, blacker, and more tenacious. Tents stood in pools of water; their occupants, harassed by trench duty, lay shivering within, half-starved and wet.

McKay made his way at once to the colonel and reported his return.

"Oh! so you've thought fit to come back," said Colonel Blythe, rather grumpily. Since war and sickness had decimated his battalion he looked upon every absentee, from whatever cause, right or wrong, as a recreant deserter.

"I was with my general, sir," expostulated Stanislas.

"The general has no need of an aide-de-camp now. We want every man that can stand upright in his boots. I have given up the command of the brigade myself so as to look the better after my men."

McKay accepted the reproof without a murmur, and only said—

"Well, sir, I am here now, and ready to do whatever I may be called upon. I feel my first duty is to my own colonel and my own corps."

"Do you mean that, young fellow?" said the colonel, thawing a little.

"Certainly, sir."

"Because they want to inveigle you away—on the staff. Lord Raglan has sent to inquire for you."

"I have no desire to go, sir," said McKay, simply; although his face flushed red at the compliment implied by the Commander-in-Chief's message.

"It seems he was pleased with the way you rallied those Frenchmen, and he has heard you are a good linguist, and he wants to put you on the staff."

"I had much rather stay with the regiment, sir," said McKay.

"Are you quite sure? You must not stand in your own light. This is a fine chance for you to get on in the service." The colonel's voice had become very friendly.

"I know where my true duty lies, sir; I owe everything to you and to the regiment. I should not hesitate to refuse an appointment on the general staff if it were offered me now." McKay did not add that his future prospects were now materially changed, and that it was no longer of supreme importance to him to rise in his profession.