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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Do you particularly admire Molly Hesketh's hand?" she asked, indifferently. He turned crimson. How could she know of the episode in the orangery? Know? There was no mystery in that; Molly Hesketh had told her. But Rickerl von Elster, loyal in little things, saw but one explanation Dorothy must have seen him. "Yes I kissed her hand," he said. He did not add that Molly had dared him.
Ricky's broad face changed as he read his despatch; and Molly Hesketh, shamelessly peeping over his shoulder, exclaimed, "It's cipher! How stupid! Can you understand it, Ricky?" Yes, Rickerl von Elster understood it well enough. He paled a little, thrust the crumpled telegram into his pocket, and looked vaguely at the circle of faces.
Sir Thorald lay dead on the hillock above the river Lisse; Alixe slept beside him; Rickerl was somewhere in the country, riding with his Uhlan scourges; Molly Hesketh waited in Paris for her dead husband; the Marquis de Nesville's bones were lying in the forest where he now sat, watching the sleeping child of the dead man. His child? Jack looked at her tenderly.
"Yes, we can follow," whispered Jack, and dashed straight into the river where it washed the base of the wall. "Do exactly as I do. Follow close," urged Jack; and, wading to the edge of the wall, he felt along under the water for a moment, then knelt down, ducked his head, gave a wriggle, and disappeared. Rickerl followed him, kneeling and ducking his head.
"Your Lieutenant von Steyr is a dirty butcher," he said. "I hope you'll finish him when you find him." "He fired explosive bullets, which your franc-tireurs use on us," retorted Rickerl, growing red. "Oh," cried Jack in disgust, "the whole business makes me sick! Ricky, give me your hand there! Don't let this war end our friendship. Go to your Uhlans now. As for me, I must get back to Morteyn.
"I I don't see why we should cry," said Lorraine, while the tears ran down her flushed cheeks. "If he had died it would have been different." After a silence she said again: "You will see. We are not unhappy Jack and I. Monsieur Grahame came yesterday with Rickerl, who is doing very well." "Rickerl here, too?" whispered Dorothy.
Von Steyr turned and seized a horse, throwing himself heavily across the saddle; the surgeon and the two seconds scrambled into their saddles, and the remaining pair of Uhlans, already mounted, wheeled their horses and galloped headlong into the woods. Jack saw Rickerl set his foot in the stirrup, but his horse was restive and started, dragging him.
"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard "a brigade or two of Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy. Their rear-guard is making a stand that's all. Jack, what on earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"
"Give me your sabre, Ricky quick! Look yonder!" A loud explosion followed his words, and a column of smoke rose above the foliage of the vineyard before them. "Artillery!" blurted out Rickerl, in amazement. "French artillery look out! Here come the franc-tireurs over the wall! Give me that sabre and run for the French lines if you don't want to hang!"
Then Rickerl hurried away to dress, for he was to ride to the Rhine, nor spare whip nor spur; and Barbara Lisle comforted little Alixe, who wept as she watched the maids throwing everything pell-mell into their trunks; for they, too, were to leave at daylight on the Moselle Express for Cologne.
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