'My God! _'tis Nicola!_' I ejaculated in a breathless voice--a voice, at least, unheard amid the clamour round us; and so overwhelming were my emotions, on making this discovery, that, had not that good fellow, the sergeant, supported me, I must have fallen at his feet. Bareheaded, travel-stained, crest-fallen in bearing, and crushed in spirit, I stood a guarded prisoner in the open streets of Nanci, while this brilliant pageant passed before me; and a tide of strange emotions, but chiefly astonishment and grief, with many bitter, bitter thoughts, swept in one wild current through my heart. There was a buzz in my ears; but I heard nothing now, neither the clanging of the church bells, the salvoes from tower and rampart, nor the acclamations of the people; I saw only Nicola; and this fantastic procession in quaint costumes, glittering garbs and armour, that like some fairy pageant or the phantasmagoria of delirium, were bearing her away from me--she whom I loved so well! Yet it was no dream, no delusion, and no mockery of the brain, for I knew that beloved face too well to be mistaken for a moment now. 'Nicola! Nicola!' I strove to speak, but my voice could only whisper; I strove to stretch my arms towards her, but they sank powerless by my side. As the Switzers of the ducal garde du corps roughly beat back the people with the staves of their halberds, and opened a passage again, the procession moved on. As she passed, I thought her eye caught a sight of my upturned face, amid that sea of faces round her; and, if so, I am assured that the stupefaction and agony it expressed, must have struck a pang in her heart--for she trembled, grew ghastly pale, and nearly fell from her white horse, but Pappenheim caught her hand; the pageant moved on, and I saw her no more--for that day at least. Pen cannot describe all that whirled through my heart and brain on that dreadful day, in the streets of Nanci--a day, to me, of sorrow and bewilderment. A huge cup of wine, brought by the old sergeant, and dashed with brandy, restored me to a certain extent; and in one hour after this, I found myself, with my escort, in a chamber of the ducal palace, awaiting the behest of Count Pappenheim, who had not yet returned from the church of St. Epurus. 'It is all a dream--a nightmare--from which I shall soon awaken!' thought I. CHAPTER XLVII. THE PALACE. The Duke's garde du corps of horse, consisting of a hundred Lorraine troopers, who wore white hocquetons over their cuirasses, with a regiment of German imperial infantry, clad in buff coats, with black helmets of hammered iron, occupied the gates, approaches, and lower apartments of the palace in which they had been quartered, so that the people of Nanci might be as little as possible oppressed by their presence.