great Charles,
but with a heart as bold! The trumpet blast of La Riviere, sounding the
charge of Lorraine, went to his head like wine. He laughed when Herter's
mountain men began to sing "Le taureau d'Uri" and "La vache
d'Unterwald," to remind the proud Burgundian of his defeats at Granson
and Morat. Then came the crash of armour against armour, blade against
blade, and the day ended for Nancy according to Rene's prayers. The
southerners fled and died; and two days later, Rene was gazing down at
the drowned body of Charles the Bold, dragged out of a pond. Yes, a good
dream for ghosts of the chivalrous age to retire into, and shut the
door! But for us, in our throbbing flesh and blood, this present was
worth suffering in for the glory of the future.

There were other ghosts to meet in Nancy's old town of narrow streets
where moonlight trickled in a narrow rill. Old, old ghosts, far older
than the town as we saw it: Odebric of the eleventh century, who owned
the strongest castle in France and the most beautiful wife, and fought
the bishops of Metz and Treves together, because they did not approve of
the lady; Henri VI of England riding through the walled city with his
bride, Marguerite, by his side: ghostly funeral processions of dead
dukes, whose strange, Oriental obsequies were famed throughout the
world; younger and more splendid ghosts: Louis XIII and Richelieu
entering in triumph when France had fought and won Lorraine, only to
give it back by bargaining later; ghosts of stout German generals who,
in 1871, had "bled the town white"; but greater than all ghosts, the
noble reality of Foch and Castlenau, who saved Nancy in 1914, on the
heights of La Grande Couronne.

As we walked back to the new town, dazed a little by our deep plunge
into the centuries, I heard my name called from across the street. "Miss
O'Malley--wait, please! It's Julian O'Farrell. Have you seen my sister?"

Brian and I stopped short, and O'Farrell joined us, panting and out of
breath. "She's not with you?" he exclaimed. "I hoped she would be. I've
been searching everywhere--she wasn't in the hotel when I got home, and
it's close to midnight."

CHAPTER XIII

I felt unsympathetic, and wouldn't have cared if Miss Dierdre O'Farrell
had flown off on a broomstick, or been kidnapped by a German aviator. My
heart, however, was sure that nothing had happened and I suspected that
her brother had trumped up an excuse to join us. It vexed me that