The Last Vendée; or, the She-Wolves of Machecoul (part 4 of 5)

The Last Vendée; or, the She-Wolves of Machecoul (part 4 of 5)

"Yes," muttered Trigaud; hearing his master speak of dying he brought down his club convulsively on the head of a horseman, who fell like a log. Then, executing the order he had received, he walked backward to the cross--to cover as much as possible the body of his friend with his own body.

"A thousand thunders!" shouted a corporal; "we are wasting time and lives and powder on those beggars."

So saying, he spurred his horse and forced it with one bound upon the two Vendéans. The horse's head struck Trigaud full in the chest, and the shock was so violent that it brought the giant to his knees. The soldier profited by the chance to strike Courte-Joie a blow which entered his skull.

"Throw me at the foot of the cross and escape if you can!" said Courte-Joie, in a failing voice. "It is all over with me." Then he began the prayer: "Receive my soul, God!"

But the colossus no longer obeyed him; maddened with blood and fury he uttered hoarse, inarticulate cries, like those of a lion at bay; his eyes, usually dull and lifeless, cast out flames; his lips drew up, exposing the clenched and savage teeth ready to render eraunch for eraunch with a tiger. The gallop of the horse had carried the soldier who wounded Courte-Joie to some distance. Trigaud could not reach him; but he measured the space with his eye, and whirling the club above his head, he flung it hissing through the air as if from a catapult.

The rider forced his horse to rear, and so avoided the blow; but the horse received it on his head. The creature beat the air with his forefeet as he fell over backward, and rolled with his rider on the ground.

Trigaud uttered a cry of joy more terrible and horrible than a cry of pain; the rider's leg was caught beneath the animal. He flung himself upon him, parried with his arm, which was deeply gashed, a sabre-cut; seized the soldier by the leg; dragged him from the body of the horse; and then, twirling him in the air, as a child does a sling, he dashed out his brains upon an arm of the cross.

The byzantine stone shook to its base, and remained bent over to one side, and covered with blood. A cry of horror and of vengeance burst from the troops, but this specimen of the giant's strength deterred the soldiers from approaching him; they stopped where they were, to reload their guns.

During this time Courte-Joie breathed his last, saying, in a load voice:--

"Amen!"

Then Trigaud, feeling his beloved master dead, and utterly ignoring the preparations the chasseurs were making to kill him,--Trigaud sat down at the foot of the cross, unfastened the body of Courte-Joie from his shoulders and laid it on his knees, as a mother might handle the body of her child; he gazed on the livid face, wiping with his sleeve the blood that blurred it, while a torrent of tears--the first that being, indifferent to all the miseries of life, had ever shed--flowed thick and fast from his eyes, mingling with the blood he was piously and absorbedly removing.

A violent explosion, two new wounds, and the dull thud produced by three or four balls striking the body which Trigaud was holding in his arms and pressing to his breast, roused him from his grief and his insensibility, he rose to his full height; and this movement, which made the soldiers think he meant to spring upon them, caused them to gather up the reins of their horses, while a visible shudder ran through their ranks.

But Trigaud never looked at them; he thought of them no longer; he was seeking a means of not being parted from his friend by death; was he searching for a spot which promised him a union throughout eternity?

He walked toward the river. In spite of his wounds, in spite of the blood which flowed down his body from the holes of several pistol-balls and left a rivulet of blood behind him, Trigaud walked firm and erect. He reached the river-bank before a single soldier thought of preventing him; there he stopped at a point overlooking a black pool of water, the stillness of which proclaimed its depth. Clasping the body of the cripple still tighter to his breast, and gathering up his last remaining strength, he sprang forward into its depths without uttering a word.

The water dashed noisily above the mighty mass it now engulfed, boiling and foaming long over the place where Trigaud and his friend had disappeared; then it subsided into rings, which widened, widened ever till they died upon the shore.

The soldiers had ridden up. They thought the beggar had thrown himself into the water to reach the other bank, and pistol in hand they held themselves ready to fire the moment he came to the surface of the stream.

But Trigaud never reappeared; his soul had gone to join the soul of the only being he had loved in this world, and their bodies lay softly together on a bed of reeds in a pool of the river Maine.

XXI.

IN WHICH SUCCOR COMES FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER.

During the week which had just elapsed Maître Courtin kept prudently quiet and out of sight in his farmhouse at La Logerie. Like all diplomatists, Courtin had no great fancy for war; he calculated, very justly, that the period of pistol-shots and sabre-cuts must soon pass by, and he wished to be fresh and lively for the succeeding period, when he might be useful to the cause--and to himself--according to the petty means which Nature allotted to him.

He was not without some uneasiness, the cautious farmer, as to the consequences which might result to him from the part he had taken in the arrest of Jean Oullier and the death of Bonneville; and at this moment when hatred, rancor, vengeance of all kinds had put the country under arms, he thought it wisest not to foolishly risk his person within their range. He was even afraid of meeting his young master, Baron Michel (inoffensive as he knew him to be), ever since a certain night when he had cut the girths of the baron's saddle.

In fact, the day after that performance, thinking that the best way to escape being killed was to seem half dead, he took to his bed and gave out, by his servant-woman, to his neighbors and administrators that a malignant fever like that of poor old Tinguy had brought him to death's door.

Madame de la Logerie, in her distress at Michel's flight, had sent twice for her farmer; but danger paralyzed Courtin's desire to please her, and the proud baroness, goaded by anxiety, was forced to go herself to the peasant's house.

She had heard that Michel was a prisoner, and was about to start for Nantes to use all her influence with the authorities to get him released, and all her authority as a mother to take him far away from this disastrous neighborhood. Under no circumstances would she return to La Logerie, where further sojourn seemed to her dangerous by reason of the conflict about to take place; and she was anxious to see Courtin and leave him in charge of the château and her interests.

Courtin promised to be worthy of her confidence, but in so weak and dolorous a voice that the baroness left the farmhouse with a heart full of pity for the poor devil, even in the midst of her own personal anxieties.

After this came the fights at Chêne and La Pénissière. On the days of their occurrence the noise of the musketry, as it reached the farmer's ears, caused a relapse in his illness. But no sooner had he heard of the result of those fights than he rose from his bed entirely cured. The next day he felt so vigorous that, in spite of his woman's remonstrance, he determined to go to Montaigu, his market-town, and get the orders of the sub-prefect as to his future course. The vulture smelt the carnage, and wanted to be sure of his little share of the spoil.

At Montaigu Maître Courtin learned that his trip was useless; the department had just been placed under military authority. The sub-prefect advised the mayor of La Logerie to go to Aigrefeuille and get his instructions from the general, who was there at that moment.

Dermoncourt, fully occupied with the movement of his columns, and having, as a brave and loyal soldier, little liking for men of Courtin's character, received the latter's denunciations, made under the guise of necessary information, with an abstracted air, and, in fact, showed a coldness to the mayor of La Logerie which greatly chilled that functionary's hopes. Nevertheless the general accepted a proposal which Courtin made him, to put a garrison in the château de la Logerie; for the position seemed to him an excellent one from which to hold the whole region in hand, from Machecoul to Saint Colombin.

Heaven owed the farmer some compensation for the general's want of sympathy, and, with its usual justice, soon bestowed it.

As he left the house which served as headquarters, Maître Courtin was approached by a man whom he had no recollection of ever having met, but who, nevertheless, showed him the utmost civility and a friendliness that was altogether touching. This individual was a man about thirty years of age, dressed in black clothes, the cut of which resembled that of priestly garments worn in a city. His forehead was low, his nose hooked like the beak of a bird of prey. His lips were thin; and yet, in spite of their thinness, they were prominent, owing to a peculiar formation of the jaw; his pointed chin protruded at an angle which was more than sharp; his hair, of a leaden black, was plastered along his temples, and his gray eyes, often dropped, seemed to see through his winking eyelids. It was the countenance of a Jesuit grafted on the face of a Jew.

A few words said by this unknown man to Courtin appeared to remove the distrust with which the latter was inclined to receive advances which seemed to him at first suspicious. He even accepted with a good grace an invitation to dinner at the hôtel Saint-Pierre, which the stranger gave him; and after two hours passed tête-à-tête in a private room, where the individual we have described ordered the table to be laid, such mutual sympathy had been developed that they treated each other, Courtin and he, as old friends; exchanging, when they parted, many shakings of the hand, while the mayor of La Logerie, as he struck his spurs into his pony's flanks, promised his new acquaintance that he should not be long without hearing from him.

Toward nine o'clock that evening Maître Courtin was jogging along, with the tail of his beast toward Aigrefeuille and its nose toward La Logerie; he seemed quite lively and joyous, and was flirting his whip by its leather handle right and left on the flanks of his little steed, with a jollity and ease that were not characteristic of him.

Maître Courtin's brain was evidently larded with couleur-de-rose ideas. He was thinking how on the morrow he should have, at a stone's throw from his farm, a detachment of fifty soldiers, whose presence would relieve him of anxiety, not only about the consequences of what he had done, but also about those of certain things that he wanted to do; he was thinking, too, that in his capacity as mayor he could use those fifty bayonets according to the needs of his private animosities. This idea gratified his self-love and his hatred together.

But, seductive as this idea of a Pretorian guard which could, if cleverly managed, be turned into his private guard, might be, it was surely not sufficient to give Maître Courtin--a practical man if ever there was one--his present exuberant satisfaction.

The mysterious unknown had no doubt dazzled his eyes with something more than the glitter of an ephemeral glory,--in fact, it was neither more nor less than piles of gold and silver which Maître Courtin was beholding in his mind's eye through the mists of the future, and toward which he was mechanically stretching out his hand with a smile of covetousness.

Under the control of these agreeable hallucinations, and somewhat hazy from the fumes of wine which his is new friend had poured for him generously, Maître Courtin let himself drop into a state of gentle somnolence; his body swayed to right and left, according to the caprices of his ambling pony, until at last, the quadruped having stumbled over a stone, Maître Courtin pitched forward and remained doubled over on the pommel of his saddle.

The position was uncomfortable, but Maître Courtin was careful not to change it; he was then in the midst of so delightful a dream that, for all the world, he would not lose it by awaking. He thought he was meeting his young master, who said to him, waving his hand over the domain of La Logerie, "All this is thine!"

The gift was proving more considerable than Courtin at first thought it; untold riches were developing. The trees in the orchard were laden down with gold and silver fruit; all the poles in the neighborhood would not suffice to hinder the branches from breaking under the weight of such wealth. The wild-roses and hawthorns were bearing, instead of their usual haws, jewels of all colors, which sparkled in the sun like so many carbuncles; and there was such a quantity of them that, although he knew they were precious stones, Courtin saw, with an eye of equanimity, a small marauder filling his pockets with them.

The farmer entered his own stable. In that stable he beheld a file of fat and well-fed cows extending out of sight so far, so far, that the one which was nearest the door seemed to be of the size of an elephant, while the one in the farthest distance was no bigger than a worm. Under each of these cows was a young girl milking. The first two had the features of the "she-wolves," the daughters of the Marquis de Souday. From the teats of the cows they were milking ran a white and yellow liquid, brilliant as two metals in fusion. As it fell into the copper pails of the two girls it produced that delightful sound which is music to the ear,--the sound of gold and silver coins piling one above the other.

As he looked into the pails the happy farmer saw that they were more than half full of rare and precious coins of various effigies. He stretched out his eager, grasping, quivering hands to seize these treasures, and as he did so a violent shock accompanied by a cry of agony put to flight his soft illusions.

Courtin opened his eyes and saw in the darkness a peasant-woman with torn clothes and dishevelled hair stretching out her hands to him.

"What do you want?" cried Maître Courtin, assuming a gruff voice and raising his stick in a threatening manner.

"Your help, my good man; I implore it in God's name!"

Finding that pity alone was asked for, and certain now that he had only a woman to deal with, Maître Courtin, who at first had looked about him in a terrified manner, was completely reassured.

"You are committing a misdemeanor, my dear," he said. "You have no right to stop persons on the high-road and ask for alms!"

"Alms! who said anything about alms?" returned the woman, in a refined and haughty tone of voice which arrested Courtin's attention. "I want you to help in rescuing an unfortunate man who is dying of fatigue and exposure! I want you to lend me your horse to take him to some farmhouse in the neighborhood."

"Who is it I am to help?"

"You seem by your dress to belong to the country people. I shall therefore not hesitate to tell you the truth, for I am sure, whatever your political opinions may be, you will not betray us,--he is a royalist officer."

The voice of the unknown woman excited Courtin's curiosity to the utmost. He leaned from his saddle striving to see in the darkness the face of her to whom the voice belonged; but he did not succeed in doing so.

"Who are you, yourself?" he asked.

"What is that to you?"

"Do you expect me to lend my horse to persons I don't know?"

"I have made a mistake; your answer proves that I was wrong to treat you as a friend or a generous enemy. I had better have employed another means. Give me your horse at once!"

"Indeed!"

"You have two minutes for decision."

"And if I refuse?"

"I will blow your brains out!" said the woman, pointing a pistol at Courtin and clicking the trigger to let him know the execution of the threat would follow promptly.

"Ah, good! I recognize you now," said Courtin. "You are Mademoiselle de Souday."

Then, without allowing his questioner time to say more, the mayor of La Logerie got off his pony.

"Very good!" said Bertha, for it was she. "Now tell me your name, and to-morrow the horse shall be sent home to you."

"No need, for I'll go with you and help you."

"You! why this sudden change?"

"Because I take it the person you want me to help is the owner of my farm."

"His name?"

"Monsieur Michel de la Logerie."

"Ah! you are one of his tenants. Then we can go to your farmhouse for concealment."

"But," stammered Courtin, who was far from comfortable at the thought of meeting the young baron, especially when he reflected that if he took him with Bertha under his roof Jean Oullier would be certain to come there after them, "you see I am the mayor, and--"

"You are afraid of compromising yourself in serving your master!" exclaimed Bertha, in a tone of the deepest contempt.

"Oh, no, not that! I'd give my blood for the young man; but we are to have a garrison of soldiers in the château de la Logerie."

"So much the better; they will never suspect that Vendéans, insurgents, would take refuge so near them."

"But I think, in the interest of Monsieur le baron, that Jean Oullier could find you a safer retreat than my house, where the soldiers are likely to be, morning, noon, and night."

"Alas! poor Jean Oullier is not likely to help any of his friends in future."

"How so?"

"We heard this morning some brisk firing in the direction of the moor; we did not stir from where we were, as he told us to wait till he returned. But we waited, and waited, in vain! Jean Oullier is either dead or a prisoner, for he is not one of those who desert their friends."

If it had been daylight Courtin could not have concealed the joy this news, which relieved him of his worst anxieties, caused him. But, though he was not master of his countenance, he was of his words; and he answered Bertha, who had spoken in an agitated voice full of feeling, with a mournful ejaculation which rather reconciled her to him.

"Let us walk faster," said Bertha.

"I'm willing. What a smell of burning there is here!"

"Yes, they set fire to the heath."

"Ah! How came Monsieur le baron to escape the fire? He is in the direction of it."

"Jean Oullier put us among the reeds in the Fréneuse pond."

"Ah! that's why when I touched you just now I felt you were all wet?"

"Yes; as Jean Oullier did not return I crossed the pond to seek for help. Finding no one, I took Baron Michel on my shoulders and brought him ashore. I hoped to carry him to the nearest house, but I have not the strength. I have been obliged to leave him among the bushes and come to the high-road myself. We have had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours."

"Ha! you're a stalwart girl!" cried Courtin, who, in the uncertainty he felt as to how his young master might receive him, was not sorry to conciliate Mademoiselle Bertha's good-will. "You are just the helpmate Monsieur le baron needs in these stirring times."

"It is my duty to give my life for him," said Bertha.

"Yes," said Courtin, emphatically; "and that duty no one, I swear to God, understands as you do. But be calm and don't walk so fast!"

"But he suffers! he may be calling for me--if he comes out of his swoon."

"Did he swoon?" cried Courtin, eagerly, seeing in that small detail the chance of escaping an immediate explanation.

"Yes, poor fellow! he is badly wounded, too."

"Good God!"

"Just think! for twenty-four hours, in his state, he has had no proper care! for my help has been powerless, I may say."

"Good heavens!"

"And think, too! he has been all day in the burning sun in the middle of the reeds; and to-night, in spite of my precautions, the fog has wet him through and through, and he has had a chill.

"Good Lord!"

"Ah! if evil happens to him I'll expiate my fault in penance all my life for having urged him into dangers for which he was unfit!" cried Bertha, whose political sentiments vanished before the loving anguish Michel's sufferings caused her.

As for Courtin, Bertha's assurance that Michel was not in a state to talk to him seemed to double the length of his legs. The girl no longer needed to hasten him on; he walked at his top speed, with a vigor he seldom showed, pulling the pony after him by the bridle, the beast being recalcitrant over the rough and heated road.

Believed for ever and aye of Jean Oullier, Courtin believed it would be easy to excuse himself to his young master,--in fact, that the matter would settle itself.

They soon reached the spot where the girl had left Michel. He, with his back against a stone, his head dropped on his breast, was, if not actually unconscious, in such a state of utter prostration that he had only a dim and confused sense of what was passing about him. He paid no heed to Courtin; and when the latter, with Bertha's help, hoisted him on the pony, he pressed Courtin's hand, as he did that of Bertha, without knowing what he was about.

Courtin and Bertha walked on either side of the pony to support Michel, who, without their help, would have fallen to left or right.

They reached the farmhouse. Courtin woke up his servant-woman, on whom he knew he could rely, took his own mattress (the only one the house afforded) into a sort of lean-to above his bedroom, where he installed his young master with such zeal, self-devotion, and eager protestations that Bertha ended by regretting the opinion she had formed of him on the high-road.

When Michel's wound was dressed, and he was safely in the bed improvised for him, Bertha went to the servant's room to seek her rest.

Left alone, Maître Courtin rubbed his hands; he had done a good night's work. Violent behavior had not answered hitherto; gentleness, he was sure, was more likely to succeed. He had done better than enter the enemy's camp--he had brought the enemy's camp into his own house, which gave him every likelihood of detecting the secrets of the Whites, especially those concerning Petit-Pierre.

He went over in his brain all the injunctions given to him by the mysterious man at Aigrefeuille; the most important of which was to send him immediate information if he contrived to discover the retreat of the heroine of La Vendée, and not to communicate any facts to the generals,--men who cared nothing for the art of diplomacy, and were altogether below the level of great political machinations.

Courtin now thought it possible, through Michel and Bertha, to discover Madame's retreat; he began to believe that dreams were not always lies, and that, thanks to the two young people, the wells of gold and silver and precious stones, the streams of metallic milk, would become to him a reality.

XXII.

ON THE HIGHWAY.

During all this time Mary had no news of Bertha. Since the evening on which the latter left the Jacquet mill, announcing her resolve to search for Michel, Mary knew nothing of Bertha's movements. Her mind was lost in conjecture. Had Michel spoken? Had Bertha, reduced to despair, done some fatal deed? Was he wounded? Was he killed? Had Bertha herself been shot in one of her adventurous undertakings? Such were the gloomy alternatives Mary feared for the two objects of her affections; both left her a prey to the keenest anxiety, the sharpest anguish.

In vain she told herself that the wandering life she now led with Petit-Pierre, forced each evening to leave the shelter of the night before, made it very difficult for Bertha to recover their traces. Making all such allowances it seemed to Mary that, unless some misfortune had happened to her, Bertha would surely have sent some news of her whereabouts through the channels of communication which the royalists possessed among the peasantry. Mary's courage was already weakened by the many shocks she had just endured; and she herself, unsupported, isolated, deprived of her lover's presence, which had secretly sustained her in the hour of struggle, now gave way to gloomy distress, and broke down utterly under her trouble. She spent her days, which she ought to have employed in resting after the fatigues of the night, in watching for Bertha or for some messenger who never came; for hours at a time she sat silently absorbed in her grief, speaking only when spoken to.

Mary certainly loved her sister; the immense sacrifice to which she had resigned herself for Bertha's sake abundantly proved it--and yet she blushed, owning to herself, honestly, that it was not Bertha's fate that chiefly filled her mind. However warm, however sincere was the affection Mary felt for her sister, another and more imperious emotion had glided into her soul, and fed on the pain it brought there. In spite of all the poor girl's efforts, the sacrifice of which we speak had never detached her from him who was the occasion of it. Now that Michel was separated from her, she fancied she could indulge without danger the thoughts she had struggled to put away from her; and little by little Michel's image had so gained possession of her heart that it no longer left it, even for a moment.

In the midst of the sufferings of her life, the pain these remembrances of her lover gave her seemed comforting; she flung herself into it with a sort of passion. Day by day he had an ever-increasing share in the tears and anxiety caused by the strange and long-protracted absence of her sister. After yielding, without reserve, to her despair, after exhausting every gloomy supposition, after evoking all the cruel alternatives of the uncertainty in which each passing hour left her, after anxiously counting all the minutes of those hours, little by little Mary fell into regret,--regret intermingled with self-reproach.

She went over in her memory the smallest incidents of her relation and that of her sister with Michel. She asked herself whether she were not doing wrong in breaking the heart of the poor lad while she broke her own; whether she had the right to force the disposal of his love; whether she were not responsible for the misery into which she was plunging Michel by compelling him to be a sharer in the immense sacrifice she was offering to her sister. Her thoughts returned, with irresistible inclination, to the night spent on the islet of Jonchère. She saw once more those reedy barriers; she fancied she heard that softly harmonious voice, which said: "I love thee!" She closed her eyes, and again she felt the young man's breath as it touched her hair, and his lips laying on her lips the first, the only, but ah! the ineffable kiss she had received from him.

Then the renunciation which her virtue, her tenderness for her sister urged upon her seemed greater than her strength could bear. She blamed herself for rashly attempting a superhuman task, and Love regained so vigorously a heart all love, that Mary,--ordinarily pious, submissive, accustomed to seek, in view of a future life, the path of patient courage,--Mary had no longer the strength to look to heaven only; she was crushed. In the anguish of her passion she gave herself up to impious despair, asking God if this fleeting memory of the touch of those lips was all she was to know of the happiness of being loved; and whether life were worth the pain of living thus disinherited of joy.

The Marquis de Souday at last perceived the great alteration produced on Mary's face by these grievous emotions; but he naturally attributed it to the great bodily fatigue the young girl was now enduring. He was himself much depressed in seeing all his fine dreams vanishing, and all the predictions made to him by the general realized. He saw with dread a return of his exiled days without even having seen, as it were, the dawn of a struggle. Still, he felt it his duty to force his courage and resolution to the level of the misfortune which overwhelmed him, and that duty the marquis would have died rather than not fulfil; for was it not a soldier's duty? Little as he cared for social duties and proprieties, the more he stickled for those which concerned his military honor. Therefore, notwithstanding his inward depression, he showed no outward sign of it, and even found in the vicissitudes of their adventurous life the text of many a joke with which he tried to distract the minds of his companions from the anxiety and disappointment consequent on the failure of the insurrection.

Mary had told her father of Bertha's departure; and the worthy old gentleman had intelligently guessed that the girl's anxiety about the conduct and fate of her betrothed was at the bottom of it. As eye-witnesses had already brought him word that Michel, far from failing in his duty, had heroically contributed to, the defence of La Pénissière, the marquis,--who supposed that Jean Oullier, on whose care and prudence he implicitly relied, was with his daughter and future son-in-law,--the marquis did not think it necessary to be more uneasy at Bertha's absence than a general might have been about an officer dispatched on an expedition. Nevertheless, the marquis could not explain to himself why Baron Michel had preferred to fight so well under Jean Oullier's orders rather than under his own,--and he was inclined to be annoyed at the preference.

Surrounded by Legitimist leaders, Petit-Pierre, on the very evening of the fight at Chêne, left the Jacquet mill, where the danger of a surprise was imminent. The main-road, which was not far distant, was covered at intervals by bodies of soldiers escorting prisoners. Petit-Pierre and her bodyguard started, therefore, as soon as it was dark.

Wishing to follow the highway as much as possible, the little troop encountered a detachment of the government troops, and was forced to crouch in a wayside ditch, which was filled with brambles, for over an hour, while the detachment filed by. The whole region was so patrolled by these movable columns that it was only by following the most impassable wood-paths that the fugitives could be sure of escaping their vigilance.

Petit-Pierre's uneasiness was extreme; her physical appearance betrayed her mental sufferings, but her words, her behavior, never! In the midst of this hazardous life, so disturbed and often so gloomy, the same bright gayety sparkled from her, and held its own with that the marquis was assuming. Pursued as they were, the fugitives never had a full night's rest; and no sooner had the daylight dawned than danger and fatigue awoke when they did. These terrible night marches were sometimes dangerous, and always horribly fatiguing to Petit-Pierre. Sometimes she went on horseback, oftener on foot,--through fields divided by hedges and embankments, which could only be crossed after darkness had fallen; through vineyards, which, in that region, trail their vines on the ground, where they catch the feet and threaten a fall at every moment; through cow-paths trampled into mud by the constant passage of the cattle,--mud which came to the knees of foot-passengers and horses.

Petit-Pierre's companions were now very anxious as to the results of this life of incessant emotion and bodily fatigue on the health of their precious charge. They deliberated on the best means of putting her, once for all, in safety. Opinions differed; some were for taking her to Paris, where she might be lost in the midst of a vast population; others proposed Nantes, where a safe concealment was already prepared; a third party counselled immediate embarkation, not thinking it possible to ensure her safety so long as she stayed in France, where search would be only the more active because the actual insurrection was at an end.

The Marquis de Souday was of the latter opinion; to which objection was made that a vigorous watch was kept along the coast, and that it would be absolutely impossible to embark from any port, however insignificant, without a passport.

Petit-Pierre cut short the discussion by declaring that she should go to Nantes, and would enter it on the morrow in full daylight, dressed as a peasant-woman. As the great change and depression visible in Mary's appearance had not, as may well be supposed, escaped her, and as she supposed, like the marquis, that they were due to the great fatigue the girl was enduring,--and as this fatigue would continue if she stayed with her father,--Petit-Pierre proposed to the marquis to take his daughter with her. The marquis accepted the offer gratefully.

Mary did not readily resign herself. Shut up in a town she was not so likely to obtain news of Bertha and Michel, which she was now awaiting from hour to hour with feverish anxiety. On the other hand, refusal was impossible, and she therefore yielded.

On the morrow, which was Saturday, and market-day, Petit-Pierre and Mary, dressed as peasant-women, started for the town at six in the morning; they had about ten miles to go. After walking for half an hour the wooden shoes, but, above all, the woollen socks, to which Petit-Pierre was not accustomed, hurt her feet. She tried to keep on; but knowing that if she blistered her feet she would be unable to continue the journey, she sat down by the wayside, took off her shoes and stockings, stuffed them into her capacious pockets, and started again barefooted.

Presently, however, she noticed, as other peasant-women passed her, that the whiteness and delicacy of her skin might betray her; she therefore turned off the road a little way, took some dark, peaty earth, and rubbed it on her feet and legs till they were stained with it, and then resumed her way.

They had just reached the top of the hill at Sorinières when they saw in front of a roadside tavern two gendarmes who were talking with a peasant like themselves, who was on horseback.

Mary and Bertha were at this moment in the midst of a group of five or six peasant-women, and the gendarmes paid no attention to any of them. But Mary, who watched every one she passed, thinking some information as to Bertha and Michel might chance to reach her,--Mary fancied that the mounted peasant looked at her with peculiar attention. A few moments later she turned her head and saw that the peasant had left the gendarmes, and was hurrying his pony as if to overtake the group of peasant-women.

"Take care of yourself," she whispered hastily to Petit-Pierre; "there's a man I don't know who just examined me with great attention and then started to follow us. Go on alone, and seem not to know me!"

"Very good; but suppose he joins you, Mary?"

"I can answer him; don't be afraid."

"In case we are forced to separate, shall you know where to find me?"

"Yes; but don't let us say another word to each other--he is coming."

The horse's hoofs were now ringing on the paved centre of the road. Without appearing to do so Mary lagged behind the group of peasant-women. She could not help quivering when she heard, as she expected, the voice of the man addressing her.

"So we are going to Nantes, my pretty girl?" he began, pulling in his horse when he reached Mary's side, and again looking at her attentively.

"So it appears," she said, seeming to take the matter gayly.

"Don't you want my company?" asked the rider.

"Oh, no, thank you," replied Mary, imitating the speech of the Vendéan peasant-women; "I'll keep on with the rest from our parts."

"The rest from your parts? You don't expect me to believe that all those girls before us are from your village?"

"Whether they are or not, what's that to you?" retorted Mary, evading a question which was evidently insidious.

The man saw through her purpose.

"I'll make you a proposal," he said.

"What sort of proposal?"

"Get up behind me."

"Yes, that's likely!" replied Mary; "a pretty sight it would be to see a poor girl like me holding on to a man who looks like a gentleman."

"Especially as you are not accustomed to hug those who look and are such."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mary.

"I mean that you may pass for a peasant-girl in the eyes of gendarmes; but my eyes are another thing. You are not what you are trying to seem, Mademoiselle Mary de Souday."

"If you have no evil intentions toward me why do you say my name in a loud voice on the public highway?" asked the young girl, stopping short.

"What harm is there in that?" said the rider.

"Only that those women may have heard you; and if I wear these clothes you must know it is because my interests or my safety oblige me."

"Oh!" said the man, winking one eye and affecting a knowing air; "those women you pretend to be afraid of know all about you."

"No, they do not!"

"One of them does, any how."

Mary trembled in spite of herself; but summoning all her strength of will, she replied:--

"Neither one nor all. But may I ask why you are putting these questions to me?"

"Because, if you are really alone, as you say you are, I shall ask you to stop here for a few minutes."

"I?"

"Yes."

"For what purpose?"

"To save me a long search I should have made tomorrow if I had not met you now."

"Search for what?"

"Why, for you!"

"Do you mean that you are seeking me?"

"Not on my own account, you must understand."

"But who sent you on such an errand?"

"Those who love you." Then lowering his voice he added: "Mademoiselle Bertha and Monsieur Michel."

"Bertha? Michel?"

"Yes."

"Then he is not dead!" cried Mary. "Oh, tell me, tell me, monsieur, I implore you, what has become of them?"

The terrible anxiety betrayed by the tone in which Mary said the words, the agitation of her face as she awaited the answer, which seemed to be one of life or death to her, were noticed with curiosity by Courtin, on whose lips flickered a diabolical smile. He took pleasure in delaying his answer in order to prolong the young girl's anguish.

"No, no!" he said at last, "don't be uneasy; he'll get over it!"

"Get over it! is he wounded?" asked Mary, vehemently.

"Didn't you know it?"

"Oh, my God! my God! Wounded!" cried Mary, with her eyes full of tears.

"Pooh!" said Courtin, "his wound won't keep him long in bed or hinder his marriage!"

Mary felt that she turned pale in spite of herself. Courtin's words reminded her that she had not asked news of her sister.

"And Bertha?" she said, "you have told me nothing about her."

"Your sister? Ha! she's a dashing girl! When she hooks her arm into her husband's she may well say she has earned him."

"But she is not ill, she is not wounded, is she?"

"She is a trifle ill, but that's all."

"Poor Bertha!"

"She did too much. I tell you there's many a man would have died of the strain if he had done what she did."

"Good God!" cried Mary; "both ill, and both without care!"

"Oh, as for that, no; they are caring for one another. You ought to see how your sister, ill as she is, cossets the young baron. Some men have the luck of it, that's a fact; Monsieur Michel is just as much petted by his lady dove as he was by his mother. He'll have to love her well, if he doesn't want to be ungrateful."

Mary's agitation increased at these words,--a fact which did not escape the rider's notice, and he smiled.

"Shall I tell you something that I think I have discovered?" he said.

"What is it?"

"Why, that Monsieur le baron, in the matter of color, prefers fair hair to black."

"What do you mean?" asked Mary, quivering.

"If you wish me to explain, I'll tell something that you know as well as I do; and that is, that he loves you. And if Bertha is the name of his betrothed, Mary is the name of his heart's love."

"Oh!" cried Mary, "you are inventing all that; Monsieur de la Logerie never told you any such thing."

"No; but I have seen it for myself; and as I cherish him like my own flesh and blood, I want to see him happy, the dear lad! Therefore I said to myself yesterday, when your sister asked me to get word to you about her, that I'd clear my conscience of the matter and tell you what I think."

"You are mistaken in your thoughts, monsieur," replied Mary. "Monsieur Michel does not care for me; he is my sister's betrothed husband, and he loves her deeply; I can assure you of that."

"You are wrong not to trust me, Mademoiselle Mary. Do you know who I am? I am Courtin, Monsieur Michel's head farmer, and I may say, his confidential, man; and if you choose--"

"Monsieur Courtin, you will oblige me extremely," interrupted Mary, "if you would choose--"

"What?"

"To change the conversation."

"Very good; but allow me to renew my offer. Won't you ride behind me?--it would ease your journey. You are going to Nantes, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Mary, who, little as she liked Courtin, thought she had better not conceal her destination from the Baron de la Logerie's confidential man.

"Well," continued Courtin, "as I am going there myself we had better go together, unless--If you are going to Nantes on an errand, and I could do it for you, I'd willingly undertake it, and save you the trouble."

Mary, in spite of her natural truthfulness, felt compelled to dissimulate; for it was all-important that no one should even guess at the cause of her journey.

"No," she replied; "it is impossible. I am on my way to join my father, who has taken refuge in Nantes, where he is now concealed."

"Dear, dear!" said Courtin, "Monsieur le marquis hiding in Nantes! that's a clever idea. They are looking for him the other way, and talk of turning the château de Souday inside out to its foundations."

"Who told you that?" asked Mary.

Courtin saw that he had made a blunder by seeming to know the plans of the government agents; he tried to repair it as best he could.

"It was chiefly to prevent you from going back there that Mademoiselle Bertha sent me in search of you," he said.

"Well, you see," said Mary, "that neither my father nor I are at Souday."

"Ah, that reminds me!" exclaimed Courtin, as if the thought had just come naturally into his head; "if Mademoiselle Bertha and Monsieur de la Logerie want to communicate with you, how are they to address you?"

"I don't know myself as yet," replied Mary. "I am to meet a man on the pont Bousseau who will take me to the house where my father is concealed. After I get there and have seen him I will write to my sister."

"Very good; if you have any communication to make, or if Monsieur le baron and your sister want to join you, and need a guide, I will undertake to manage it." Then, with a meaning smile, he added: "I'll answer for one thing; Monsieur Michel will be sending me more than once."

"Enough!" said Mary.

"Ah! excuse me. I didn't know it would make you angry."

"It does; your suppositions are offensive both to your master and to me."

"Pooh!" said Courtin, "all that is only talk. Monsieur le baron has a fine fortune, and there isn't a young lady the country round, whether she is an heiress or not, who would turn up her nose at it. Say the word, Mademoiselle Mary," continued the farmer, who believed that everybody worshipped money as he did; "only say the word and I'll do my best to make that fortune yours."

"Maître Courtin," said Mary, stopping short, and looking at the farmer with an expression in her eye he could not mistake; "it needs all my sense of your attachment to Monsieur de la Logerie to keep me from being seriously angry. I tell you again, and once for all, you are not to speak to me in that manner!"

Courtin expected a different reply,--his conception of a "she-wolf" not admitting of such delicacy. He was all the more surprised because he saw very plainly that the young girl shared the love his prying eyes had detected in the depths of the young baron's heart. For a moment he was disconcerted. Then he reflected that he might lose all by hurrying matters; better let the fish get thoroughly entangled in the net before he pulled it in.

The mysterious man at Aigrefeuille had told him it was probable that the leaders of the Legitimist insurrection would seek shelter in Nantes. Monsieur de Souday--Courtin believed this--was there already; Mary was on her way; Petit-Pierre would probably follow. Michel's love for the young girl might be used, like Ariadne's thread, to lead the way to her retreat, which would probably be that of Petit-Pierre; and the capture of Petit-Pierre was the real end and object of Courtin's ambitious hopes. If he persisted in accompanying Mary he would rouse her suspicions; and although he was most desirous to succeed that very day in his enterprise, prudence and strategy prevailed, and he resolved to give Mary some proof which might reassure her completely as to his intentions.

"Ah!" said he, "I see you despise my horse; but all the same it hurts me to see your little feet cut to pieces on those stones."

"Well, it can't be helped," replied Mary. "I shall be less noticed on foot than if I were mounted behind you; and, if I dared, I would ask you not to keep at my side. Anything that draws attention to me is dangerous. Let me walk alone and join those peasant-women just in front of us. I run less risk in their company."

"You are right," said Courtin; "and all the more because the gendarmes are behind and will overtake us soon."

Mary started; true enough, two gendarmes were really following them about a thousand feet back.

"Oh! you needn't be afraid," said Courtin; "I'll detain them at that tavern. Go on alone; but tell me, first, what I am to say to your sister?"

"Tell her that all my thoughts and prayers are for her welfare."

"Is that all?"

The girl hesitated; she looked at the farmer; doubtless the expression of his countenance betrayed his secret thoughts, for she lowered her head and answered:--

"Yes, that is all."

Courtin was well aware that although Mary did not utter Michel's name, he was the first and last thought of her heart.

The farmer stopped his horse. Mary, on the other hand, hastened her steps and joined the other peasant-women, who had gained some distance ahead while she talked with Courtin. As soon as she reached them she walked on by Petit-Pierre and told her what had happened,--suppressing, of course, that part of the conversation that related to the young baron.

Petit-Pierre thought it wise to evade the curiosity of the man; for his name recalled in a vague way some unpleasant memory. She therefore dropped behind the other women with Mary; and when they were fairly out of sight--thanks to a turn in the road--the two fugitives slipped into a wood at a short distance from the highway, from the edge of which they could see who passed it. After about fifteen minutes they saw Courtin hurrying, as best he could, his stubborn pony. Unfortunately, the farmer passed too far from the place where they were hidden to allow of Petit-Pierre's recognizing him as the man who had visited Pascal Picaut's house, and cut the girths of Michel's horse.

When he was out of sight Petit-Pierre and her companion returned to the high-road and continued their way to Nantes. The nearer they came to the town, where Petit-Pierre was promised a safe retreat, the more their fears diminished. She was now quite used to her costume, and the farmers who passed them did not seem to perceive that the little peasant-woman who tripped so lightly along the road was other than she seemed to be. It was surely a great thing to have deceived an instinct so penetrating as that of the country-folk, who have no masters, and perhaps no rivals, in this respect except soldiers.

At last they came in sight of Nantes. Petit-Pierre put on her shoes and stockings, preparatory to entering the town. One thing, however, made Mary uneasy. Courtin would doubtless be watching for her on the bridge; therefore, instead of entering by the pont Rousseau, the two women took advantage of a boat to cross the Loire to the other side of the town.

As they passed the Bouffai a hand was laid on Petit-Pierre's shoulder. She started and turned round. The person who had taken that alarming liberty was a worthy old woman on her way to market, who had put down her basket of apples in order to rest herself, and was not able to lift it alone and replace it on her head.

"My dears," she said to Petit-Pierre and Mary, "do help me, please, to get up my basket, and I'll give you each an apple."

Petit-Pierre took one handle, motioned to Mary to take the other, and the basket was quickly replaced and balanced on the head of the old woman, who began to walk away without bestowing the promised reward. But Petit-Pierre caught her by the arm, saying:--

"Look here, mother, where's my apple?"

The market-woman gave it to her. Petit-Pierre set her teeth into it and was munching it with an appetite sharpened by a ten-mile walk, when, lifting her head, her eyes fell on a notice posted on the walls upon which appeared in large letters these words:--

STATE OF SIEGE.

It was a ministerial decree placing four departments in La Vendée under martial law.

Petit-Pierre went up to the notice and read it through from end to end tranquilly, in spite of Mary's entreaties to go as quickly as possible to the house where she was expected. Petit-Pierre very justly remarked that the matter was of such importance to her that she was right in obtaining a thorough knowledge of it.

Presently, however, the two women went their way into the dark and narrow streets of the old Breton city.

XXIII.

WHAT BECAME OF JEAN OULLIER.

Though it was next to impossible for the soldiers to discover Jean Oullier in the hiding-place poor Trigaud's herculean strength had made for him, nevertheless, now that Courte-Joie and his companion were dead, Jean Oullier had only exchanged the prison into which the Blues would have thrust him, had he fallen into their hands, for another prison more terrible, a death more awful than any his captors could inflict upon him. He was buried alive; and in this deserted region there was little hope that any human being would hear his cries.

Toward the middle of the night which followed his parting from his two associates, finding they did not return, he felt certain that some fatal event had overtaken them; evidently, they were either dead or prisoners. The mere idea of the position in which he himself was placed was enough to freeze the blood in the veins of the bravest man; but Jean Oullier had one of those strongly religious natures which continue a struggle in faith when the bravest despair. He commended his soul to God in a short but fervent prayer, and then set to work as ardently as he had done in the burning ruins of La Pénissière.

Up to this time he had been crouching, bent double, with his chin on his knees; it was the only position the cramped quarters of the excavation allowed. He now endeavored to change it, and after many efforts he succeeded in getting on his knees. Then bracing himself on his hands and applying his shoulders to the heavy stone, he endeavored to raise it. But that which was child's play to Trigaud was impossible to any other man. Jean Oullier could not even shake the enormous mass which the giant had placed between him and the heavens.

He felt the ground beneath him; it was not earth but rock,--rock to right, rock to left, above and below him, rock only.

The slab of granite which Trigaud had laid like a monstrous cover on the stone box, slanted forward and left an open space about four inches wide between the bed of the rivulet and the imprisoned man, through which the air could reach him.

It was on this side that Jean Oullier, after fully reconnoitring his position, decided to apply his efforts.

He broke the point of his knife against the rock and made a chisel of it. The butt-end of his pistol answered for a hammer, and he set to work to widen the aperture. He spent twenty-four hours at this labor, without other sustenance than that contained in his huntsman's brandy-flask, from which he sipped from time to time some drops of the strengthening liquor it contained. During those twenty-four hours his courage and force of will did not desert him for a single instant.

At last, on the evening of the second day, he succeeded in passing his head through the aperture he had cut in the base of his prison; before long his shoulders could follow his head; and then, clasping the rock and making a vigorous effort, he drew out the rest of his body.

It was indeed high time that he did so; his strength was exhausted. He rose to his knees, then to his feet, and attempted to walk. But his injured ankle had swelled to such a frightful extent during the thirty-six hours he had spent in that horribly constrained position that at the first step he took all the nerves of his body quivered as if they were wrung. He uttered a cry and fell gasping on the heather, mastered at last by the terrible pain.

Night was coming on. Listen as he might, Jean Oullier could hear no sound. The thought came to him that this night, now beginning to wrap the world in its shadows, would be his last. Again he commended his soul to God, praying him to watch over the two children he had loved so well, and who, but for him, would long ago have been orphaned through their father's indifference. Then, determined to neglect no chances, he dragged himself by his hands, or rather crept, in the direction where the sun had set, which he knew to be that of the nearest dwellings.

He had gone in this way nearly a mile when he reached a little hill, whence he could see the lights in a few lonely houses scattered on the moor. Each of them was to him a pharos, beckoning to life and safety; but, in spite of all his courage, his strength now deserted him and he could do no more. It was sixty hours since he had eaten anything. The stumps of the brambles and the gorse, cut down in the haying season and sharpened by the scythe, had torn his hands and chest, and loss of blood from these wounds still further weakened him.

He allowed himself to roll into a ditch by the wayside; determined to go no farther, but to die there. Intense thirst possessed him, and he drank a little water which was stagnant in the ditch. He was so weak that his hand could scarcely reach his mouth; his head seemed absolutely empty. From time to time he fancied he heard in his brain a dull, lugubrious roar, like that of the sea making a breach over a ship and about to engulf it; a sort of veil seemed to spread before his eyes, and behind that veil coursed myriads of sparks, which died away and sparkled again like phosphorescent gleams.

The unfortunate man felt that this was death. He tried to shout, not caring whether enemies or friends came to his relief; but his voice died away in his throat, and he scarcely heard himself the hoarse cry which he managed to emit.

Thus he remained for over an hour, in a dying condition. Then, little by little, the veil before his eyes thickened and took prismatic tints; the humming in his brain had strange modulations, and for a time he lost consciousness of all about him.

But his powerful being could not be annihilated without a further struggle; the lethargic stillness in which he remained for some time allowed the heart to regulate its pulses, the blood to circulate less feverishly. The torpor in which he now lay did not lessen the acuteness of his senses. Presently he heard a sound which his huntsman's ear did not mistake for a single instant. A step was coming across the heather, and that step he knew to be a woman's.

That woman could save him! Torpid as he was, Jean Oullier understood it. But when he tried to call or make a movement to attract her attention he was like a man in a trance, who sees the preparations for his funeral and is unable to arrest them; he perceived with terror that nothing remained of him but his intelligence, and that his body, completely paralyzed, refused to obey him. As the hapless being nailed in his coffin makes frantic efforts to burst the iron barrier which parts him from the world, so Jean Oullier strained at every spring which Nature puts at the service of man's will to conquer matter. In vain.

And yet, the steps were coming nearer; each minute, each second made them more distinct, more unmistakable to his ear. He fancied that every pebble they displaced rolled to his heart; his agony from the multiplicity of his abortive efforts grew intense; his hair rose on his head; an icy sweat stood on his brow. It was worse and more cruel than death itself, for death feels nothing.

The woman passed.

Jean Oullier heard the thorns on the briers catch and scrape her dress as if even they wished to stop her; he saw her shadow lying dark upon the bushes; then she passed away, and the sound of her steps was lost in the sighing of the wind among the reeds.

The unfortunate man believed he was doomed; and the moment hope abandoned him the awful struggle he had fought against himself came to an end. He recovered calmness and mentally prayed to God, commending his soul to Him.

This prayer so absorbed him that it was not until he heard the noisy breathing of a dog, which passed its head through the bushes scenting an emanation, that he noticed the coming of an animal. He turned, with an effort, not his head, that was impossible, but his eyes in the direction of the creature, and there saw a cur gazing at him with frightened but intelligent eyes.

Catching Jean Oullier's gaze the animal retreated to a little distance and began to bark. At this instant Jean Oullier fancied that he heard the woman calling to her dog; but the creature did not choose to leave its post, continuing to bark. It was a last hope,--a hope that was not balked.

Tired of calling to her dog, and curious to know what excited it, the woman retraced her steps. Chance, or Providence, willed that this woman should be the widow of Pascal Picaut. As she neared the bushes she saw a man; stooping over him she recognized Jean Oullier.

At first she thought him dead; then she saw his eyes, unnaturally wide open, fixed upon her. She laid her hand upon the huntsman's heart and felt it beating; she lifted him to a sitting posture, threw a little water on his face, and poured a few drops through his clenched teeth. Then--as if through contact with a living being he recovered contact with life itself--Jean Oullier felt the enormous weight which lay upon him lightening; warmth returned to his torpid limbs; he felt its glow steal softly to each extremity; tears of gratitude welled from his eyelids and rolled down his sunken cheeks; he caught the woman's hand and carried it to his lips, wetting it with tears.

She, on her side, was greatly moved. Philippist as she was, the good woman highly esteemed the old Chouan.

"Well, well," she said, "don't take on so, my Jean Oullier! It is all natural, what I am doing! I'd do as much for any Christian; and all the more for you, who are a man after God's own heart!"

"That doesn't prevent--" said Jean Oullier.

He could say no more, his breath failed him.

"Doesn't prevent what?" asked the widow.

Oullier made an effort.

"Doesn't prevent--that I owe you my life," he said.

"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Marianne.

"It is as I say. Without you, I should have died."

"Without my dog, Jean. You see it isn't me, but the good God you have to thank." Then noticing with horror that he was covered with blood, "Why, you are wounded!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, no, nothing but scratches. My worst trouble is that I have dislocated my ankle; and besides, I haven't eaten anything for nearly three days. It is chiefly weakness that is killing me."

"Good gracious! but see here, I was just carrying dinner to some men who are getting litter for me on the moor. You shall have their soup."

So saying, the widow put down the basket she was carrying, untied the four corners of a cloth in which were several porringers full of soup and bouilli smoking hot. She gave several spoonfuls to Jean Oullier, who felt his strength returning as every mouthful of the warm and succulent broth got down into his stomach.

"Ah!" he said; and he breathed noisily.

A smile of satisfaction crossed the grave, sad face of the widow.

"Now," she said, sitting down opposite to him, "what are you going to do? Of course you know the red-breeches are after you?"

"Alas!" said Jean Oullier; "I have lost all power with my poor leg. It will be months before I can roam the woods as I must to escape a prison. What I had better do," he added with a sigh, "is to get to Maître Jacques; he will give me a corner in some of his burrows, where I can stay till my leg is well."

"But your master?--and his daughters?"

"The marquis won't go back yet awhile to Souday; and he is right."

"What will he do, then?"

"Probably cross the channel with the young ladies."

"That's a pretty idea of yours, Jean Oullier, to go and live among that crew of bandits who follow Maître Jacques! Fine care they'll take of you!"

"They are the only ones who can take me in without being compromised."

"How about me? You forget me, and that isn't nice of you, Jean."

"You?"

"Yes, me!"

"But you forget the ordinance."

"What ordinance?"

"About the penalties incurred by those who harbor Chouans."

"Pooh! my Jean; such orders are not issued for honest folk, but for scoundrels!"

"Besides, you hate Chouans."

"No; it is only brigands I hate, whichever side they are. They were brigands who killed my poor Pascal, and on those brigands I'll avenge his death if I can. But you, Jean Oullier, your cockade, be it white or tricolor, is that of an honest man, and I'll save you."

"But I can't walk a step."

"That's no matter. Even if you could walk, Jean, I'd be afraid to take you to my house by daylight,--not that I fear for myself; but ever since the death of that young man I fear treachery. Get back under those bushes; hide as best you can; wait till dark, and I'll come back with a cart and fetch you. Then, to-morrow, I'll go for the bone-setter at Machecoul; he'll rub his hand over the nerves of your foot, and in three days you'll run like a rabbit."

"Hang it! I know that would be best, but--"

"Wouldn't you do as much for me?"

"You know, Marianne, I'd go through fire and water for you."

"Then don't say another word. I shall be back after dark."

"Thank you; I accept your offer. You may be very sure you are not helping an ungrateful man."

"It is not to get your gratitude I am doing it, Jean Oullier; but to fulfil my duty as an honest woman."

She looked about her.

"What are you looking for?" asked Jean.

"I was thinking if you tried to get farther back among the bushes you would be safer than in this ditch."

"I think it is impossible," said Oullier, showing his ankle, now swelled to the size of a man's head, and his torn hands and face. "Besides, I am not badly off here; you passed close by these bushes and did not suspect they hid a man."

"Yes, but a dog might pass and smell you out, just as mine did. Remember, my Jean, the war is over, and the days of denunciation and vengeance will begin, if they have not already begun."

"Bah!" said Jean Oullier, "we must leave something for the good God to do."

The widow was no less of a believer than the old Chouan. She gave him a piece of bread, cut an armful of ferns with which she made him a bed, and then, after carefully raising the branches of the briers and brambles about him, and satisfying herself that the eye of no passer would detect him, she departed, exhorting him to patience.

Jean Oullier settled himself as comfortably as he could, offered a fervent thanksgiving to the Lord, munched his bread, and presently went to sleep in that heavy sleep which follows great prostration.

He must have been lying there several hours when the sound of voices woke him. In the species of somnolence which followed the state of torpor he had been in, he fancied he heard the name of his young mistresses; suspicious as all men of his stamp are in the matter of their affections, he fancied some danger must be threatening either Bertha or Mary, and the thought was like a lever, which lifted in a second the torpor of his mind. He rose on his elbow, gently moved the brambles which made a thick rampart before him, and looked through them into the road.

It was dark, but not dark enough to prevent him from seeing the outline of two men who were sitting on a fallen tree on the other side of the road.

"Why didn't you continue to follow her, as you recognized her?" said one of them whom, from his strong German accent, Jean Oullier judged to be a stranger in these regions.

"Ha! damn it!" said the other. "She-wolf as she is, I never thought her so wily; but she gave me the slip, fool that I was."

"You might have been certain that the one we were after was in that group of peasant-women, and that Mary de Souday only stayed behind to meet and detain you."

"As for that, you are right enough; for when I asked that same group of women where the young girl was they said that she and her companion had lagged behind and left them on the road."

"What did you do then?"

"Hang it! I put up the pony at an inn, and hid myself at the farther end of Pirmile and waited for them."

"In vain, I suppose."

"In vain,--for more than two hours."

"They must have taken a cross-road and entered Nantes by the other bridge."

"Probably."

"It is very unfortunate. Who knows if such a piece of luck will ever happen to you again? Perhaps you may never find her now."

"Oh, yes. I shall. Let me alone for that."

"How will you do it?"

"Oh!--as my neighbor the Marquis de Souday, or my friend Jean Oullier would say--'God wants her soul;' and I have at home just the bloodhound we need for the hunt."

"Bloodhound?"

"Yes, a regular bloodhound. There is something the matter with one of his front paws, but as soon as that is well I'll put a chain round his neck and he'll take us straight in the direction we want to go, without any trouble to us, except taking care he does not pull too hard on the chain and break it in his hurry to get there."

"Come, stop joking; these are serious matters."

"Joking! what do you take me for? Do you suppose I joke in presence of the fifty thousand francs you have promised me?--for you really did say fifty thousand, didn't you?"

"You ought to be sure of it, for you have made me tell you a score of times."

"I know that; but I am never tired of hearing it, any more than I shall be tired of fingering the louis when I get them."

"Deliver us the person we want, and you shall have them."

"Bless me! I hear those yellow-boys chinking in my ears,--dzing! dzing!"

"Meantime, tell me what you mean by a bloodhound."

"Oh! I'd tell you willingly, but--"

"But what?"

"Give and take, you know."

"What do you mean by 'give and take'?"

"Well, as I told you the other day, I wish to oblige the government, partly because I respect it, and partly because I like to harass the nobles and all that belong to them--for I hate 'em all. But, all the same, while obliging the government of my choice, I should be glad to see the color of its money,--for, don't you see, thus far I have given it much more than I receive. Besides, how do I know that if the government lays hold of that person for whom they offer her weight in gold, how do I know, I say, that they will pay what they promised me, or rather promised you?"

"You are a fool."

"I should be a fool if I did not say what I am saying to you now. I like to make myself secure; and if I must speak frankly, I don't see much security in this affair."

"You run the same risks that I do. I have received from an eminent person the promise of one hundred thousand francs if I succeed."

"One hundred thousand francs! That's very little to have come so far to get. Come, own that it is two hundred thousand, and that you give me a quarter of it; because I am on the spot and don't have to travel for the money as you do. Two hundred thousand francs! You are pretty lucky! A good round sum and rings well. So be it, I'll have confidence in the government; but, let me ask, why should I have it in you? How can I be sure you won't slip off with the money when the government pays it? And if you should, where's the court or the judge before whom I could sue you, I'd like to know?"

"My good sir, political associates must trust each other; faith signs their contract."

"Is that why they are so wonderfully well kept? Frankly, I'd prefer another signature."

"Whose?"

"Yours, or that of the minister with whom you are dealing."

"Well, we'll try to satisfy you."

"Hush!"

"What?"

"Don't you hear something?"

"Yes; some one is coming this way. I think I hear the wheels of a cart."

The two men rose at once, and by the light of the moon, which was then shining, Jean Oullier, who had not lost a single word of the conversation, saw their faces. One of the men was a stranger to him; the other proved to be Courtin,--a fact he knew already by the tones of the farmer's voice and the mention he had made of Michel and the "she-wolves."

"Let us go," said the stranger.

"No," replied Courtin; "I've a number of things to say to you. Let us hide in this bush till the cart has gone by, and then we can finish our business."

They walked toward the ditch. Jean knew he was lost; but, unwilling to be caught like a hare on its form, he rose to his knees, and pulled his knife from his belt. It was blunt, to be sure, but in a hand to hand struggle could still be of use. He had no other weapon and supposed the two men to be unarmed. But Courtin, who had seen a man's form rise in the bush and heard the rustle of the reeds and brambles, made three steps backward, seized his gun hidden behind the fallen tree, cocked one barrel, lifted the weapon to his shoulder, and fired. A stifled cry followed the explosion.

"What have you done?" cried the stranger, who seemed to think Courtin's action rather too expeditious.

"See! see!" replied Courtin, trembling and very pale; "a man was watching us."

The stranger went to the bushes and parted the branches.

"Take care! take care!" said Courtin; "if it is a Chouan and he is not quite dead, he'll attack you."

So saying, Courtin, with his other barrel cocked, held himself ready to fire at a safe distance.

"It is a peasant," said the stranger, "but I think he is dead."

So saying, he took Jean Oullier by the arm and dragged him out of the ditch. Courtin, seeing that the man was motionless and apparently dead, ventured to approach.

"Jean Oullier!" he cried out, recognizing the Vendéan, "Jean Oullier! My faith! I never expected to kill a man, but since it was to be, it is a grand thing it was he instead of another. That, I can truly say, deserves to be called a lucky shot."

"Meantime," said the stranger, "here comes the cart."

"Yes, it is at the top of the hill, for the horse is trotting. Come, there's no time to lose; we had better be off. Is he really dead?"

"He seems so."

"Very good; forward then."

The stranger dropped Jean Oullier's arm, and the head fell back upon the ground with the heavy thud of a deadweight.

"Yes, yes, he's dead, sure enough!" said Courtin. Then, not daring to go nearer, he pointed his finger at the body. "There," said he, "that secures us our pay better than any signature; that dead body is worth two hundred thousand francs to us."

"How so?"

"He was the only man who could get that bloodhound I told you about away from me. I thought he was dead. I was mistaken. Now that I know it with my own eyes, we are safe. Forward! forward!"

"Yes, for here comes the cart."

The vehicle was now not a hundred steps from the body. The two men sprang into the bushes and disappeared in the darkness, while the widow Picaut, who was coming for Jean Oullier, alarmed by the shot, ran forward to the place where she had left him.

XXIV.

MAÎTRE COURTIN'S BATTERIES.

A few weeks had sufficed to bring about a radical upsetting of the lives of all those personages who, from the beginning of this narrative, have successively passed under the eyes of the reader.

Martial law was proclaimed in the four departments of La Vendée. The general who commanded them issued a proclamation inviting the country-people to give in their submission, promising to receive it with indulgence. The attempt at insurrection had so miserably failed that the greater part of the Vendéans abandoned all hope for the future. A few of them, who were openly compromised, followed the advice of their own leaders, given when they disbanded them, and gave up their arms. But the civil authorities would not accept this capitulation; they seized the offered arms and arrested their owners. A goodly number of these confiding persons were thrown into prison, and this impolitic severity paralyzed the pacific intentions of those who with greater prudence were awaiting events.

Maître Jacques owed to these proceedings a large increase in the number of his troop; he made so much, and made it so cleverly, out of the conduct of his adversaries, that he finally gathered about him a body of men large enough to still hold out in the forests while the rest of La Vendée disarmed itself.

Gaspard, Louis Renaud, Bras-d'Acier, and other leaders put the sea between them and a stern government. The Marquis de Souday alone could not resolve upon that step. Ever since he had parted from Petit-Pierre--that is, ever since Petit-Pierre had left him--the unfortunate gentleman had completely lost the jovial good-humor with which, as a matter of honor, he had, up to the last moment, opposed the gloomy views of his co-leaders; but as soon as duty no longer forced him to be gay, the marquis dropped to the lower extreme and became, as we may say, sad unto death. The defeat at Chêne not only wounded him in his political sympathies, but it knocked over to their foundations all the castles in Spain he had been so gleefully erecting. He now saw in this partisan existence, which his imagination had been endowing with romantic charm, things he had never dreamed of,--reverses which overwhelmed him, obscure poverty, the mean and trivial privations of an exile's life. He reached a point,--even he, who so recently had thought life in his little castle insufferably insipid,--he reached a point at which he regretted the good, pleasant evenings which the caresses and chatter of his girls made so pleasant,--above all, he missed his gossip with Jean Oullier; and he was so unhappy over the latter's continued absence that he made inquiries about his huntsman's fate with a solicitude not in any way customary with him.

The marquis was in this frame of mind when he one day encountered Maître Jacques loitering about the environs of Grand-Lieu and watching the movements of a column of soldiers. The Marquis de Souday had never had much liking for the master of "rabbits," whose first act of discipline had been to defy his authority. The independent spirit displayed by Maître Jacques had always seemed to the old gentleman a fatal example set to the Vendéans. Maître Jacques, on the other hand, hated the marquis, as he hated all whose birth or social position gave them naturally the position of leaders; and yet he was so touched by the misery to which he saw the old gentleman reduced in the cottage where, after Petit-Pierre's departure, the marquis had taken refuge, that he offered to hide him in the forest of Touvois; promising, besides the good cheer which always reigned in his little camp, and which he proposed to share with him, some amusement in occasional frays indulged in with the soldiers of King Louis-Philippe. Needless to say that the marquis always bluntly called that king "Philippe."

It was the last consideration we have mentioned which determined Monsieur de Souday to accept Maître Jacques' proposals. He burned to avenge the ruin of his hopes, and to make some one pay for his disappointments, for the annoyance his separation from his daughters caused him, and for the grief he felt at Jean Oullier's disappearance. He accordingly accompanied the lord of the burrows, who, from being his subordinate--or rather his insubordinate--now became his protector; and the latter, really touched by the simplicity and good-nature of the marquis, showed him much more considerate attention than his rough exterior and ways of life would seem to promise.

As for Bertha, the day after her retreat to Courtin's house, and as soon as she recovered some strength, she plainly perceived that to be under the same roof with the man she loved, far from the protection of her father, and without Jean Oullier, who could in a way replace him, was, to say the least of it, an impropriety; and, in spite of the fact that Michel was wounded, might be interpreted in a way to injure her reputation. She therefore left the farmhouse and installed herself with Rosine in the Tinguy cottage. This was about three quarters of a mile distant from Courtin's house, where she went daily to give Michel all the care of a sister, and the delicate attentions of a loving woman.

The tenderness, devotion, and self-abnegation of which Bertha gave Michel so many proofs touched the young man deeply; but as they did not in any degree affect his feelings for Mary, his situation became more and more difficult and embarrassing. He dared not think of the despair he might bring into the heart of the young girl to whom he owed his life. Nevertheless, little by little, a gentle resignation did succeed the bitter and violent repulsion he had felt at first, and without habituating himself to the idea of the sacrifice Mary demanded of him, he replied by smiles, which he tried to make affectionate, to the attentions which Bertha showered on him; and when she left his bedside the sigh that escaped him, and which she interpreted as meant for her, alone testified to his inward feelings.

If it had not been for Courtin, who always came to his room as soon as Bertha had disappeared through the trees of the garden, and sitting beside him talked of Mary, Michel's tender and impressionable soul might have ended in resigning itself to the necessities of the situation, and in accepting the fate they made for him. But Courtin talked to his young master so incessantly of Mary, he showed so earnest a wish to see him happy according to his heart's desire, that Michel, as the wound in his arm healed and his strength returned, felt his inward wound reopening, and his gratitude to Bertha disappearing before the image of her sister.

Courtin was doing a work analogous to that of Penelope; he undid at night that which Bertha, with so much care, had done by day. When he brought the young baron to his house the latter's feebleness precluded all necessity of asking pardon for his former conduct; and now, having, as we have heard him tell, got possession of Michel's secret, he managed, by protestations of devotion to his interests and by cleverly encouraging the young man's love for Bertha's sister, to worm himself back entirely into his master's confidence. Michel had suffered as much from not being able to tell his woes as from the woes themselves. Courtin seemed to be so sympathizing, he flattered his dreams so pleasantly, he seemed to admire Mary so truly, that, little by little, he led Michel to betray, if not to confess, what had passed between him and the sisters.

Courtin was very careful, however, not to assume a position hostile to Bertha. He managed, cleverly enough, to make her think he was devoted to the idea of her marriage with his young master. When they met away from Michel he always spoke to her as though to his future mistress; and he did this so well that Bertha, knowing nothing of his antecedents, was constantly talking to Michel of the great devotion of his farmer, whom she called "our good Courtin."

But no sooner was he alone with Michel than he entered, as we have said, into all the latter's secret feelings. He pitied him; and Michel, under the influence of that pity, allowed himself to tell his farmer the incidents of his relation to Mary. Courtin constantly repeated to him, "She loves you;" insinuating that he, Michel, ought to force Mary with a gentle violence, for which she would certainly be grateful, to follow the dictates of her own heart. He even went beyond Michel's own hopes and assured him that as soon as he was well and communications were once more open, he could so arrange matters that, without ingratitude to Bertha, she could be brought to renounce, of herself, the projected marriage.

Michel's convalescence did not progress as rapidly as Courtin desired. He saw, with deep anxiety, the days go by without affording any clue as to Petit-Pierre's actual hiding-place; and he restlessly awaited the moment when he could let loose his young master on Mary's traces,--for, of course, the reader has understood that Michel was the "bloodhound" he had talked of using.

Bertha, relieved of all anxiety about Michel's wound, had made, with Rosine, several trips into the forest of Touvois to see her father in his present refuge. Two or three times after such excursions Courtin had led the conversation to persons concerned in the insurrection in whom the sisters would probably take an interest; but Bertha remained impenetrable; and the farmer was too well aware that the topic was dangerous, and that the slightest imprudence on his part would speedily awaken suspicion, to press such inquiries. Still, as Michel grew better and stronger, he urged him, whenever they were alone together, to come to a determination; offering to take a letter at any time to Mary and bring back her answer, doing his best to make it favorable.

This state of things lasted six weeks. At the end of that time Michel was almost well; his wound had healed and his strength returned. The neighborhood of the post which the general had established at La Logerie prevented the young man from showing himself during the daytime; but as soon as it was dark he walked about the orchard leaning on Bertha's arm. These evening promenades annoyed Courtin, who, so long as Bertha and Michel talked together in the house, could overhear what they said by eavesdropping; and one day he told them positively that their nocturnal rambles must cease. On being asked why, he produced a judgment by default which condemned Michel de la Logerie to death.

This communication produced but little effect on Michel, but Bertha was terror-stricken. She almost flung herself at the young man's feet, and begged his pardon for having enticed him into this fatal position; and that night when she left the farmhouse she was in a state of pitiable agitation.

The next day she came early. All night she had dreamed dreadful dreams, and they followed her waking. She saw Michel discovered, arrested, shot! Two hours earlier than usual she was at the farmhouse. Nothing had happened; nothing seemed to make that day more alarming than other days. It passed as usual,--full of charm mingled with anguish for Bertha; full of melancholy internal aspirations for Michel.

Evening came,--a beautiful summer's evening. Bertha was leaning against a little window looking out into the orchard; she was watching the sunset beyond the great trees of the forest of Machecoul, the tops of which were undulating like waves of verdure. Michel was sitting on his bed breathing in the soft odors of the coming night. Suddenly they heard the wheels of a carriage coming up the avenue.

The young man darted to the window. Both saw a calèche entering the courtyard. Courtin ran to the carriage, hat in hand; a head looked out,--it was that of the Baronne de la Logerie.

Michel, on seeing his mother, felt a cold chill run through his veins; it was evident that she had come for him. Bertha questioned him with her eyes to ask what she ought to do. Michel pointed to a dark corner,--a sort of closet or recess without a door,--where she might hide, and hear all without being seen herself. He thought he should gather strength from her secret presence. Five minutes later the stairs creaked under his mother's step.

Bertha had rushed to her hiding-place and Michel had seated himself near the window, as if he had neither seen nor heard anything. The door opened and the baroness appeared.

Perhaps she had come with the intention of being harsh and stern as usual; but on seeing Michel by the paling light, pale himself as the twilight, she abandoned all severity, and opening her arms, cried out:--

"Oh, my unhappy child! have I found you?"

Michel, who did not expect this reception, was greatly moved; and he flung himself into his mother's open arms crying:--

"Oh, mother,--mother! My good mother!"

She, too, was greatly changed; traces were plainly to be seen upon her face of incessant tears and sleepless nights.

XXV.

MADAME LA BARONNE DE LA LOGERIE, THINKING TO SERVE HER SON'S INTERESTS, SERVES THOSE OF PETIT-PIERRE.

The baroness sat down, or rather, fell into a chair, drawing Michel to his knees before her, and taking his head, which she pressed to her lips. At last the words which she seemed unable to bring out came to her.

"Is it possible that you are here in this place, not a hundred steps away from the château, which is full of soldiers?"

"The nearer I am to them, mother," replied Michel, "the less they'll look for me here."

"But don't you know what has taken place in Nantes?"

"What has taken place there?"

"The military courts have passed sentence after sentence."

"That only signifies to those they catch," said Michel, laughing.

"It signifies to every one," said his mother; "for those who are not taken may be taken at any moment."

"Not when they are hiding in the house of a mayor well-known for his Philippist opinions."

"You are none the less--"

The baroness stopped, as if her mouth refused to utter the words.

"Go on, mother!"

"You are none the less condemned--"

"Condemned to death; I know that."

"What! you know it, unhappy boy, and you stay here quietly?"

"I tell you, mother, that as long as I am with Courtin I'm quite safe."

"Then he has been kind to you, has he, that man?"

"He has been simply a second providence. He found me wounded and dying of hunger; he brought me home, and since then he has fed and hidden me."

"I must own I have distrusted him."

"Then you are wrong, mother."

"Maybe so. But talk of our own affairs, my dear child. No matter how well hidden you may be, you cannot stay here."

"Why not?"

"Because a mere chance, the slightest imprudence would betray you." Michel shook his head. "You don't want me to die of terror, do you?" said his mother.

"No no; I will listen to you."

"Well, I shall die of terror if you stay in France."

"But, mother, have you reflected on the difficulties of flight?"

"Yes; and I have surmounted them."

"How so?"

"I have chartered a small Dutch vessel which is now lying in the river opposite to Couéron. Get on board of her and go. God grant that you are strong enough for the journey." Michel did not answer. "You will go to England," continued his mother. "You will leave this cursed land which drank your father's blood; say you will, my son! So long as you stay here I cannot have an easy moment; I fancy at all hours I see the hand of the executioner stretched out to tear you from my arms." Still Michel kept silence. "Here," continued the baroness, "is a letter to the captain; and here too is an order for fifty thousand francs to your credit in England or America. Wherever you are, write to me, so that I may follow and join you. But what is the matter? Why don't you answer me?"

The fact is, Michel received this proposal with an insensibility which almost amounted to stupor. Go away? why, that was to part from Mary! At the mere idea of that separation his heart was so wrung that he fancied he would rather face the death to which he was condemned. Since Courtin had assisted in reviving his passion, he had in his heart conceived new hopes, and without saying a word of them to his farmer, he thought day and night on the means of getting to her. He could not endure the idea of once more renouncing her; and instead of replying to his mother as she developed her plan, he was simply strengthening his determination to be Mary's husband. Hence the silence which, naturally, made the baroness uneasy.

"Mother," said Michel at last, "I do not answer you because I cannot answer as I wish."

"How do you mean, as you wish?"

"Listen to me, mother," said the young man, with a firmness of which at any other time she would have thought him, and perhaps he might have thought himself, incapable.

"You don't refuse to go, I hope?"

"I don't refuse to go," said Michel, "but I put conditions to my going."

"Conditions where it concerns your life, your safety? Conditions before you consent to relieve your mother's agony?"

"Mother," said Michel, "since we last saw each other I have suffered much, and consequently I have learned much. I have learned, above all, that there are moments which decide the whole future happiness or misery of our lives. I am now in one of those moments, mother."

"And you mean to decide for my misery?"

"No; I shall speak to you as a man, that is all. Do not be surprised at that; I was thrown, a child, into the midst of these events, and I have come out of them a man. I know the duties I owe my mother; those duties are respect, tenderness, gratitude,--and those duties I will never evade. But in passing from youth to manhood, mother, horizons open and broaden the farther we go; there we find duties, succeeding those of youth, not exclusively to our family, but also to society. When a man reaches that stage in his life, though he still loves his mother, he must inevitably love another woman, who will be to him the mother of his children."

"Ah!" exclaimed the baroness, starting back from her son with an impulse that was stronger than her will.

"Yes, mother," said the young man, rising, "I have given that love; another love has replied to mine; our lives are indissolubly united; if I go, I will not go alone."

"You will go with your mistress?"

"I will go with my wife, mother."

"Do you suppose that I shall give my consent to that marriage?"

"You are free not to give your consent, mother, but I am free not to leave this place."

"Oh, wretched boy!" cried the baroness; "is this my reward for twenty years of care, and tenderness, and love?"

"That reward, mother," said Michel, his firmness increased by the knowledge that another ear was listening to his words, "you have in the respect I bear you, and the devotion of which I will give you proofs on every occasion. But true maternal love is not a usurer; it does not say, 'I will be twenty years thy mother in order to be thy tyrant;' it does not say, 'I will give thee life, youth, strength, intelligence, in order that all those powers shall be obedient to my will.' No, mother, true maternal love says: 'While thou wert feeble I supported thee; while thou wert ignorant I taught thee; while thou wert blind I led thee. To-day thou art strong and capable; make thy future life, not according to my will, but thine own; choose one among the many paths before thee, and wherever it may lead, love, bless, reverence the mother who made and trained thee to be strong;' that is the power of a mother over her son, as I see it; that is the respect and the duty which he owes to her."

The baroness was speechless; she would sooner have expected the skies to fall than to hear such firm and argumentative language from her son. She looked at him in stupefaction.

Proudly satisfied with himself, Michel looked at her calmly, with a smile upon his lips.

"So," she said, "nothing will induce you to give up this folly?"

"Say rather that nothing will induce me to break my word."

"Oh!" cried the baroness, pressing her hands upon her eyes, "unhappy mother that I am!"

Michel knelt beside her.

"I say to you: blessed mother you will be on the day you make the happiness of your son!"

"What is there so seductive about those wolves?" cried the baroness.

"By whatever name you call the woman I love," said Michel, "I shall reply to you: she has every quality that a man should seek in a wife; and it is not for you and me, mother, who have suffered so much from calumny, to seize, as readily as you have done, on the calumnies told of others."

"No, no, no!" cried the baroness, "never will I consent to such a marriage!"

"In that case, mother," said Michel, "take back those cheques and the letter to the captain of the vessel; they are useless to me, for I will not leave this place."

"What else can you do, you miserable boy?"

"Oh, that's simple enough. I'd rather die than live separated from her I love. I am cured. I am able to shoulder a musket. The remains of the insurrectionary army are collected in the forest of Touvois under command of the Marquis de Souday. I will join them, and fight with them, and get myself killed at the first chance. This is the second time death has missed me," he added with a pallid smile. "The third time his aim may be true and his hand steady."

The young man laid the letters and cheques on his mother's knees. In his tones and gestures there was such resolution and firmness that his mother saw that she cherished in vain the hope of changing him. In presence of that conviction her strength gave way.

"Well," she said, "be it according to your will, and may God forget that you have forced your mother to yield to you."

"God will forget it, mother; and when you see the happiness of your son you will forget it yourself."

The baroness shook her head.

"Go," she said, "marry, far away from me, a stranger I do not know and have never seen."

"I shall marry, I hope, a woman whom you will know and appreciate, mother; and that great day of my happiness will be blessed by your sanction. You have offered to join me wherever I go; wherever that may be I shall expect you, mother."

The baroness rose and made a few steps toward the door.

"Going without a word of farewell, without a kiss, mother? Are you not afraid it may bring me evil?"

"My unhappy boy, come to my arms, to my heart!"

And she said the words with that maternal cry which, sooner or later, must come from a mother's heart. Michel pressed her tenderly to his breast.

"When will you go, my child?" she said.

"That must depend on her, mother."

"As soon as possible, will you not?"

"To-night, I hope."

"You will find a peasant's dress below in the carriage. Disguise yourself as best you can. It is twenty-four miles from here to Couéron. You could get there by five in the morning. Don't forget the vessel's name,--the 'Jeune Charles.'"

"Don't be anxious, mother. The moment I know my end is happiness I shall take every precaution to reach it."

"As for me, I shall go back to Paris and use all my influence to get that fatal sentence revoked. But you--I entreat you, and I repeat it--take care of your life, and remember that my life is wrapped up in yours."

Mother and son again kissed each other, and Michel took his mother to the door. Courtin, as a faithful servitor, was keeping watch below. Madame de la Logerie begged him to accompany her to the château.

When Michel, after locking the door, turned round he saw Bertha, with a smile of happiness on her lips, and a halo of love about her head. She was waiting the moment to throw herself into his arms. Michel received her in them; and if the little room had not been dark she must have seen the embarrassment on the young baron's face.

"And now," she said, "nothing can part us; we have my father's consent, and now your mother's."

Michel was silent.

"Shall we start to-night?"

Still Michel said nothing.

"Well," she said, "why don't you answer me?"

"Because nothing is less sure than our departure," he replied.

"But you promised your mother to go to-night."

"I told my mother it depended on her."

"That is, on me," said Bertha.

"What!" exclaimed Michel, "would Bertha, true royalist and so devoted to the cause, leave France without thinking of those she leaves behind her?"

"What can you mean?" asked Bertha.

"I mean something grander and more useful to the country than my own escape, my personal safety," said the young man.

Bertha looked at him in astonishment.

"I mean the escape and safety of Madame," added Michel.

Bertha gave a cry; she began to understand.

"Ah!" she ejaculated.

"That vessel my mother has chartered for me can take from France not only you and me, but the princess, your father, and," he added in a lower voice, "your sister."

"Oh, Michel, Michel!" cried the young girl, "forgive me for not thinking of that! Just now I loved you; now I admire you! Yes, yes, you are right; Providence itself inspired your mother; yes, I will forget all the hard and cruel things she said of me, for I see in her an instrument of God sent to our succor to save us all. Oh, my friend, how good you are!--more than that, you are grand for having thought of it."

The young man stammered unintelligible words.

"Ah!" continued Bertha, in her enthusiasm, "I knew you were the bravest and most loyal of men; but to-day you have gone beyond my hopes and expectations. Poor child! wounded, condemned to death, he thinks of others before he thinks of himself! Ah, friend, I was happy, now I am proud in my love!"

If the room had been lighted Bertha must have seen the flush on Michel's cheek; he knew what his disinterestedness really was. It is true that after obtaining his mother's consent to marry the woman he loved, Michel had really dreamed of something else,--namely, the idea of rendering to Petit-Pierre the greatest service the most devoted follower could do for her at that moment, and afterward avow all and ask her, as a reward for that service, to procure for him Mary's hand. We can readily imagine his shame and confusion of face in Bertha's presence, and why, to all these demonstrations of the young girl the baron, cold in spite of himself, replied merely:--

"Now that all is arranged for us, Bertha, we have no time to lose."

"No," she said, "you are right. Give your orders. Now that I recognize the superiority not only of your heart but of your mind, I am ready to obey."

"Well," said Michel, "we must part here."

"Why so?" asked Bertha.

"Because you must go to the forest of Touvois and notify your father of what has happened, and bring him away with you. From there you must get to the bay of Bourgneuf, where the 'Jeune Charles' shall stop and pick you up. I shall go to Nantes and tell the duchess."

"You, in Nantes! Do you forget that you are condemned to death and that the authorities are watching for you? It is I who must go to Nantes and you to Touvois."

"But the 'Jeune Charles' expects me, Bertha, and in all probability the captain would obey no one but me; seeing a woman in place of a man he might suspect some trap and throw us into inextricable difficulties."

"But just reflect on the dangers you run in Nantes."

"On the contrary, it may be, if you think of it, Bertha, the very place where I should run the least. They will never suppose that, being condemned to death in Nantes, I should enter the town which condemned me. You know very well that there are times when the greatest boldness is the greatest safety. This is one of those times; and you must let me do as I choose."

"I told you I would obey you, Michel; I obey."

And the proud and beautiful young girl, submissive as a child, awaited the orders of the man who, thanks to an appearance of devotion, had just acquired almost gigantic proportions in her eyes.

Nothing was simpler than the decision they had made and its mode of execution. Bertha gave Michel the address of the duchess in Nantes and the different passwords by which he could gain admittance to her. She herself, dressed in Rosine's clothes, was to reach the forest of Touvois. Michel, of course, was to wear the peasant's costume brought to him by his mother. If nothing occurred to interfere with these arrangements the "Jeune Charles" would be able to sail at five o'clock on the following morning, carrying Petit-Pierre away from France, and with her the last vestiges of civil war.

Ten minutes later Michel was astride of Courtin's pony, saddled and bridled by himself, and taking leave, by a wave of his hand, of Bertha, who returned to the Tinguy cottage, from which she intended to start immediately by a cross-road toward the Touvois forest.

XXVI.

MARCHES AND COUNTER-MARCHES.

In spite of the adornment of wind-galls and spavin, with which age and toil had favored Maître Courtin's pony, that brave beast showed energy enough in the amble which served him for a trot to bring Michel into Nantes before nine o'clock at night. His first stopping-place was to be the tavern of the Point du Jour.

He had hardly crossed the pont Bousseau before he began to look about him for the said tavern. Recognizing its sign,--a star lengthened by a ray of the most beautiful yellow ochre painter ever used,--he stopped his pony, or rather the pony of Maître Courtin, before a wooden trough where the horses of the wagoners, who wanted to halt without unharnessing, were watered.

No one appeared at the door of the inn. Forgetting the humble clothes which he wore, and remembering only the alacrity with which the servants at La Logerie welcomed his arrival, Michel rapped impatiently on the trough with the heavy stick he held in his hand. At the sound a man in his shirt-sleeves came out of the courtyard and advanced to Michel; he wore on his head a blue cotton cap pulled down to his eyes. Michel fancied that what he saw of the face was not unknown to him.

"The devil!" cried the man in a grumbling tone; "are you too much of a lord, my young gars, to take your horse to the stable yourself? However, no matter; you shall be served as well as any."

"Serve me as you please, but answer a question."

"Ask it," said the man, folding his arms.

"I want to see Père Eustache," added Michel, sinking his voice.

Low as the tone was, the man showed signs of annoyance; he looked furtively about him, and though there was no one to be seen but a few children who were gazing with their hands behind their backs in naïve curiosity at the new-comer, he took the horse hastily by the bridle and led him into the courtyard.

"I told you I wanted to see Père Eustache," said Michel, getting off the pony as soon as the man in the blue cap had led him to the shed which served as stable to the hôtel Point du Jour.

"I know that," said the latter. "I heard it, confound you; but I don't keep your Père Eustache in my oat-bin. Besides, before I tell you where to find him I'd like to know where you come from."

"The South."

"Where are you going?"

"To Rosny."

"Very good; then you must go to the church of Saint-Sauveur, and there you will find the man you want. Go; and try not to speak so loud, Monsieur de la Logerie, when you talk in the street--if you want to gain the object of your journey."

"Ah, ha!" cried Michel, somewhat astonished; "so you know me?"

"I should think so!" said the man.

"I must have that horse taken back to its home."

"It shall be done."

Michel put a louis into the man's hand, who seemed delighted with the fee and made him many offers of service; then he boldly went out into the town. When he reached the church of Saint-Sauveur the sexton was in the act of shutting the gates. The lesson the young baron had just received at the gate of the inn bore fruits; Michel waited cautiously and looked about him before putting any questions.

Four or five beggars, before leaving the church porch, where they had asked alms all day of the faithful, were kneeling beneath the organ to say their evening prayer. No doubt Père Eustache was among them; for besides two or three women with their cotton capes, patched with various colors, thrown over their heads, there were three male beggars, each with a holy-water sprinkler in his hand. Either of the three might be the man Michel was in search of; luckily he knew the sign of recognition. He took the branch of holly that was fastened in his hat, which Bertha had told him was the sign by which Père Eustache would know him, and let it drop before the door. Two of the beggars passed without taking the least notice of it; the third, who was a little old man, thin and weakly, whose enormous nose projected boldly beyond a black silk cap, stopped when he saw the holly on the pavement, picked it up, and looked about him uneasily. Michel issued from behind the pillar which concealed him.

Père Eustache (for it was he) cast a sidelong look at the young man; then, without a word, he walked toward the cloister. Michel understood that the holly was not a sufficient sign to the distrustful giver of holy water; after following for about ten yards, he hastened his steps and accosted him, saying:--

"I am from the South."

The beggar stopped.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To Rosny," replied Michel.

The beggar turned round and retraced his steps; this time he went toward the town. A look from a corner of his eye told Michel it was all right. The latter then let his guide pass him and followed him at a distance of five or six paces. They returned past the portal of the church, and soon after, having entered a dark and narrow alley, the beggar stopped for a few seconds before a low door placed in the wall of a garden; then he continued his way.

Michel was about to follow him; but the beggar made him a sign as if to point out the little door, and rapidly disappeared. The young man then saw that Père Eustache had slipped the holly branch he had picked up through the iron ring that served as a knocker.

So this was the end of his journey. He raised the knocker and let it fall. At the sound a small wicket made in the door itself opened and a man's voice was heard asking what was wanted. Michel repeated the passwords, and he was shown into a room on the ground-floor, where a gentleman, whom he recognized as having seen at the château de Souday on the evening when General Dermoncourt ate the supper prepared for Petit-Pierre, and seen again, gun in hand, before the fight at Chêne, was quietly reading a newspaper, sitting before a large fire with his feet on the fender, wrapped in his dressing-gown.

In spite of his very pacific appearance and occupation, a pair of pistols lay within reach of his hand on a table where there were also, laid out for use, pens, ink, and paper. The gentleman recognized Michel at once and rose to receive him.

"I think I have seen you in our ranks, monsieur," he said.

"Yes, monsieur," replied Michel, "the evening before the fight at Chêne."

"And the day of the fight?" asked he of the dressing-gown, smiling.

"I was fighting at La Pénissière, where I was wounded."

The gentleman bowed.

"Will you have the goodness to tell me your name?" he said.

Michel told his name; the gentleman in the dressing-gown consulted a pocket-book, gave signs of satisfaction, and turning to the young man asked:--

"Will you now tell me what has brought you?"

"The wish to see Petit-Pierre, and do her a great service."

"Pardon me, monsieur; but no one can see the person of whom you speak, at least not so easily. You are indeed one of us; I know that you may be relied on so far; but you will readily understand that all going and coming about a retreat which has hitherto been able to keep its secret successfully, would soon attract the attention of the police. Have the kindness, therefore, to tell me your plans, and I will see that you receive an answer."

Michel then related what had passed between himself and his mother; how she had chartered a vessel for his escape, and how the idea had occurred to him that it might be used to put Petit-Pierre in safety. The man in the dressing-gown listened with ever-increasing interest, and as soon as the young baron had given full information he exclaimed:--

"It really seems as though Providence had sent you. It is impossible--no matter what precautions we take to conceal the place where Petit-Pierre is hidden--it is really impossible to escape the police investigations much longer. For the good of the cause, for Petit-Pierre's own sake and for ours, it is much better that she should leave the country; and as the difficulty of chartering a vessel is thus removed, I will at once see Petit-Pierre, explain the circumstances, and receive her orders."

"Shall I go with you?" asked Michel.

"No; your peasant's dress beside me would immediately attract the attention of the police spies, by whom we are surrounded. What inn are you stopping at?"

"The Point du Jour."

"That is where Joseph Picaut is hostler; there is nothing to fear there."

"Ah!" exclaimed Michel, "I knew his face was not unknown to me; but I thought he lived in the open country between the river Boulogne and the forest of Machecoul!"

"You were right; he is only a tavern hostler as occasion demands. Wait there for me. I will go to you in two hours from now,--either alone, or accompanied by Petit-Pierre,--alone, if Petit-Pierre rejects your proposal; with her, if she accepts."

"Are you perfectly sure of that man Picaut?" asked Michel.

"Yes, as we are of ourselves. If there is any fault to find with him it is that he is too zealous. Remember that since Petit-Pierre has been in La Vendée more than six hundred peasants have known at different times of her various hiding-places; and the noblest claim of those poor people to honor, is that not one, poor as he was, thought of betraying her. Let Joseph know that you expect friends, and that he must be on the watch for them. If you merely say to him the words, 'Rue du Château, No. 3,' you will obtain from him, and all connected with the inn, the most absolute and also the most passive obedience."

"Have you any other advice to give me?"

"Perhaps it may be prudent for the persons who will accompany Petit-Pierre to leave the house where she is hidden singly, and go singly to the tavern of the Point du Jour. Ask them to give you a room with a window looking on the quay; have no light in your room, but keep the window open."

"You have forgotten nothing?"

"Nothing. Adieu, monsieur, or rather, au revoir! If we succeed in reaching your vessel safely you will have done an immense service to the cause. As for me, I am in continual fear. They say enormous sums have been offered for the betrayal of the princess, and I tremble lest some one may yet be tempted to sacrifice her."

Michel was ushered out; but instead of taking him by the door through which he had entered, they took him through an entrance which opened on another street. Thence he rapidly crossed the town and returned to the quay. When he reached the tavern of the Point du Jour he found that Joseph Picaut had engaged a boy to take Courtin's pony back to the farmhouse as Michel had requested.

On entering the stable Michel made Joseph a sign, which the latter understood perfectly; he sent the boy away, postponing the return of the horse till the next day.

"You said you knew me," remarked Michel as soon as they were alone.

"I did more, Monsieur de la Logerie; I called you by your name."

"Well, I'm not sorry to know that we have equal advantages in that respect. I know your name; it is Joseph Picaut."

"I don't say it isn't," said the peasant, with a sly look.

"Are you to be trusted, Joseph?"

"That depends on who trusts me,--blues and reds, no; whites, yes."

"Then you are white?"

Picaut shrugged his shoulders.

"If I were not, should I be here,--I who am condemned to death as you are? That's so; they have done me the honor of a sentence by default. Yes, you and I are equal before the law now."

"And you are here--"

"As hostler, neither more nor less."

"Then take me to the master of the inn."

Picaut woke up the inn-keeper, who was in bed. The latter received Michel with some distrust; and the young man, feeling there was no time to lose, decided on striking the great blow, and said deliberately the five words:--

"Rue du Château, No. 3."

The words were scarcely heard by the inn-keeper before his distrust disappeared and his whole manner changed. From that moment he and his house were at Michel's disposal. It was now Michel's turn to make inquiries.

"Have you other travellers in the house?"

"Only one."

"Of what kind?"

"The very worst,--a man to fear."

"You know him, then?"

"It is the mayor of La Logerie, Courtin, a vile cur."

"Courtin!" exclaimed Michel. "Courtin here! Are you sure?"

"I don't know him; but Picaut says it is he."

"When did he get here?"

"About fifteen minutes ago."

"Where is he?"

"He has just gone out. He got something to eat and went off immediately, telling me he should not be in till late,--not before two in the morning. He said he had business in Nantes."

"Does he know you knew him?"

"I think not; unless he recognized Joseph Picaut just as Picaut recognized him. But I doubt if he did, for he stood in the light and Joseph kept in the shade."

Michel reflected a moment.

"I don't think Courtin is as bad as you suppose him to be," he said; "but never mind, it is as well to distrust him, and on no account must he know of my presence in your inn."

Picaut, who had hitherto been standing on the threshold of the door, here came forward and joined in the conversation.

"Oh!" he said, "if he is likely to trouble you, say so; we can settle him so that he shall know nothing, or if he does know anything he shall be made to hold his tongue. I have old scores against him which I've long wanted a pretext to--"

"No, no!" cried Michel, hastily, "Courtin is my farmer. I am under obligations to him which make me anxious that no harm shall happen to him; besides," he hastened to add, seeing the frown on Picaut's brow, "he is not what you think he is."

Joseph Picaut shook his head; but Michel did not notice the gesture.

"Don't trouble yourself," said the inn-keeper. "If he comes in I'll look after him."

"Very good. As for you, Joseph, take the horse on which I came. I want you to do an errand. By the bye, Courtin must not see that horse in the stable; he would certainly recognize it, inasmuch as it is his own beast."

"What next?"

"You know the river, don't you?"

"There's not a corner of the left bank I've not shot over. I know less of the right."

"That's all right; it is the left bank you'll have to follow."

"Follow where?"

"To Couéron. Opposite to the second island, between the two old wrecks, you will see a vessel called the 'Jeune Charles.' Though at anchor its foretopsail will be set; you'll know it by that."

"Trust me to know it."

"Take a boat and row out to her. They'll call to you, 'Who's there?' Answer, 'Belle-Isle en Mer.' Then they'll let you go aboard. You'll give the captain this handkerchief, just as it is,--that is to say, knotted at three corners,--and you will tell him to be all ready to weigh anchor at one o'clock to-night."

"Is that all?"

"Yes--or rather, no, it is not all. If I am satisfied with you, Picaut, you shall have five pieces of gold such as the one I gave you to-night."

"Well, well," said Joseph Picaut, "leaving out the chance of being hung, it is not such a bad business; and if I can only get a shot now and then at the Blues, or revenge myself on Courtin, I sha'n't regret Maître Jacques and his burrows. What next?"

"How do you mean?"

"Why, after I have done the errand?"

"Then you will hide somewhere on the bank of the river, and wait for us; whistle to let us know where you are. If all goes well imitate a cuckoo; if on the contrary you see anything that ought to make us uneasy, give the owl's cry."

"Ha! Monsieur de la Logerie," said Joseph, "I see you've been well trained. All you've ordered is clear, and seems to me well arranged. It is a pity, though, you haven't a better horse to put between my legs; otherwise the matter could be quickly done."

Joseph Picaut departed on his mission. The inn-keeper then took Michel to a poor-looking room on the first floor, which served as an annex to the dining-room, and had two windows opening on the main-road; then he put himself on the watch for Courtin.

Michel opened one of the windows as agreed upon with the gentleman in the dressing-gown; after which he sat down on a stool, placing himself so that his head could not be seen from the road he was watching.

XXVII.

MICHEL'S LOVE AFFAIRS SEEM TO BE TAKING A HAPPIER TURN.

Michel, under his apparent composure, was really in a state of extreme anxiety. He was about to meet Mary; and, at the mere idea his breast tightened, his heart swelled, his blood coursed in leaps along his veins; he felt himself trembling with emotion. He formed no hopes as to what the result might be, but the firmness which, contrary to all his habits, he had shown in presence of his mother and also of Bertha had answered so well that he now resolved to be equally firm with Mary. He saw very plainly that he had come to a crisis in this singular situation, and that eternal happiness or irreparable misery would result from his present conduct.

He had been on the watch about an hour and a half, following anxiously with his eyes all the human forms which seemed to be approaching the little inn, looking to see if they came toward the door, feeling wretched when they passed it and his hopes vanished, thinking minutes eternities, and wondering whether his heart would not burst in his bosom when he was actually in Mary's presence.

All of a sudden he saw a shadow coming from the direction of the rue du Château, walking rapidly, skirting the house, and making no sound with its motions. By the clothing he recognized a woman; but it could not, of course, be Petit-Pierre, or Mary, for it was not to be supposed that either would venture there alone.

And yet, it seemed to the baron as if the woman were looking up at the house trying to recognize it; next he saw her stop before the inn, and then he heard the three little raps, the signal, struck on the door. With one bound he sprang from his post of observation to the staircase, rushed hastily down, opened the door, and in the woman, closely wrapped in a mantle, he recognized Mary.

Their two names were all the young pair dared to say when they found themselves face to face; then Michel seized the young girl by the arm, guided her through the darkness, and took her to the chamber on the first floor. But scarcely had they entered it, when, falling on his knees, he burst forth:--

"Oh, Mary, Mary! is it really you? Am I not dreaming? I have dreamt so often of this blessèd moment, so often have I tasted this infinite joy in imagination only, that I fancy I am still the plaything of a dream. Mary, my angel, my life, my love, oh! let me hold you to my heart!"

"Michel, my friend," said the young girl, sighing to feel she could not conquer the emotion that now seized upon her, "I, too, am happy that we meet again. But tell me, poor, dear friend, you have been wounded, have you not?"

"Yes, yes; but it was not my wound that made me suffer; it was the misery of being parted from all I love in this world. Oh, Mary! believe me, death was deaf and obstinate, or it would have come at my call."

"Michel, how can you say such things? How can you forget all that my poor Bertha has done for you? We have heard all; and I have only loved and admired my dear sister the more for the devotion she has proved to you at every instant."

But at Bertha's name Michel, who was resolved not to let Mary impose her will upon his any longer, rose abruptly and walked about the room with a step which betrayed his emotion. Mary saw what was passing in his soul and she made one last effort.

"Michel," she said, "I ask you, I conjure you, in the name of all the tears I have shed to your memory, speak to me only as though to a sister; remember that you are soon to become my brother."

"Your brother! I, Mary?" said the young man, shaking his head. "As for that, my decision is made, and firmly made. Never, never, will I be your brother, I swear it!"

"Michel, do you forget that you once swore otherwise?"

"I did not swear it; no! you wrung the promise from me, you wrung it cruelly; you took advantage of the love I bear you to compel me to renounce it. But all that is within me rises against that promise; there's not a fibre in my body that does not refuse to keep it. And I here say to you, Mary, that for two months, ever since we have been parted, I have thought of you only! Buried in the blazing ruins at La Pénissière and near to death, I thought of you only! Wounded with a ball through my shoulder, which just missed my heart, I thought of you only! Dying of hunger, weariness, and weakness, I thought of you only--of you alone! Bertha is my sister, Mary; you are my beloved, my precious treasure; and you, Mary, you shall be my wife!"

"Oh, my God! how can you say it, Michel; are you mad?"

"I was for a moment, Mary--when I thought I could obey you. But absence, grief, despair, have made another man of me. Count no longer on the poor, weak reed which bent at your breath; whatever you may say or do, you shall be mine, Mary!--because I love you, because you love me, because I will no longer lie to God or to my own heart."

"You forget, Michel," said Mary, "that my resolutions do not change as yours do. I swore to a course of conduct, and I shall keep my oath."

"So be it; then I will leave Bertha forever; Bertha shall never see me again!"

"My friend--"

"Seriously, Mary, for whose sake do you suppose I am here now?"

"You are here to save the princess, to whom we are all devoted, body and soul."

"I am here, Mary, to meet you. Don't think more of my devotion to the princess than it deserves. I am devoted to you, Mary, and to no other. What inspired in my mind the thought of saving Petit-Pierre? My love for you! Should I have thought of it, think you, if it had not been that in saving her I should see you? Don't make me either a hero or a demigod; I am a man, and a man who loves you ardently and is ready to risk his head for you! Why should I care, otherwise, for these quarrels of dynasty against dynasty? What have I to do with the Bourbons of the elder branch or the Bourbons of the younger branch,--I, whose past has nothing to do with either of them; I, who have not a single memory connecting me with theirs? My opinions are--you; my beliefs are--you. If you were for Louis Philippe, I should be for Louis Philippe. You are for Henri V. and I am for Henri V. Ask for my blood and I shall say, 'There it is, take it!' but don't ask me to lend myself any longer to an impossible state of things."

"What do you mean to do, then?"

"Tell Bertha the truth."

"The truth! impossible! you will never dare to?"

"Mary, I declare to you--"

"No, no!"

"Yes, I declare to you that I shall do it. Every day I am shaking off the swaddling-clothes of my weak youth. There's a vast distance already between me and that child you met in the sunken road, scratched and weeping with fear at the very name and thought of his mother. It is to my love that I owe this new strength. I have borne, without blenching, a look which formerly made me bow my head and bend my knees. I have told all to my mother, and my mother has replied to me, 'I see you are a man; do as you will!' My will is to consecrate my life to you; but I also will that you shall be mine. See, therefore, in what a senseless struggle you have plunged us. I, the husband of Bertha! let us suppose it for a moment; why, there could be no greater misery on earth than that poor creature would endure, not to speak of mine. They told me tales in my infancy of Carrier's 'republican marriages,' when living bodies were tied to dead ones and flung into the Loire. That, Mary, would be our marriage, Bertha's and mine; and you, you would stand by and see our agony! Mary, would you be glad of your work then? No, I am resolved; either I will never see Bertha again, or the first time that I do see her I will tell her how my stupid timidity misled Petit-Pierre, and how courage has always failed me until now to speak the truth; and then--then--no, I will not tell her that I do not love her, but I will tell her that I love you."

"Good God!" cried Mary, "but don't you know, Michel, that if you do that she will die of it?"

"No, Bertha will not die of it," said the voice of Petit-Pierre, who had entered the room behind them without their hearing her. The two young people turned round hurriedly with a cry. "Bertha," continued Petit-Pierre, "is a noble and courageous girl, who will understand the language you propose to address her, Monsieur de la Logerie, and who will also know how to sacrifice her happiness to that of the sister she loves. But you shall not have the pain of telling her. It is I who did the wrong,--or rather, who made the mistake,--and it is I who will repair it; begging Monsieur Michel," she added, smiling, "to be in future a little more explicit in his confidences."

At the first sound of Petit-Pierre's voice, which had startled them into a cry, the lovers hastily stepped apart from each other; but the princess caught them by the arm, drew them once more together, and joined their hands.

"Love each other without remorse!" she said. "You have both been more generous than any one has the right to expect of our poor human race. Love each other without stint! for blessed are they who have no other ambition in this world."

Mary lowered her eyes, but as she lowered them her hand pressed Michel's. The young man knelt at the feet of the little peasant lad.

"It needs all the happiness you order me to take, to console me for not dying for you," he said in a spasm of gratitude.

"Oh, don't talk of being killed or dying! Alas! I see how useless it is to be killed or to die. Look at my poor Bonneville! What good did all his great devotion do me? No, Monsieur de la Logerie, live for those you love; and you have given me the right to place myself among them! Live for Mary, and--I will take upon myself to declare that Mary will live for you!"

"Ah! madame," cried Michel, "if all Frenchmen had seen you as I have seen you, if they knew you as I know you--"

"I should have some chance of returning in triumph--especially if they were lovers! However, let us, if you please, talk of other things; before dreaming of future triumphs we must think of present retreat. See if our friends have arrived. I must blame you, my brave sentinel, for being so absorbed in Mademoiselle Mary that you failed to make me the concerted signal; and I might have waited in the street till morning if I had not heard your voice through the window; happily, you had left the door open and I was able to get in."

As Petit-Pierre uttered this reproach in a laughing tone two other persons who were to accompany her in her flight arrived; but after a short consultation it was decided that her safety might be endangered by the presence of too many persons, and they stayed behind. Petit-Pierre, Michel, and Mary started alone.

The quay was deserted; the pont Rousseau seemed absolutely solitary. Michel led the way. They crossed the bridge without incident. Michel took a path along the bank; Petit-Pierre and Mary followed him, walking side by side. The night was splendid,--so splendid that they feared to continue along this open way. Michel proposed to take the road to Pèlerin, which ran parallel with the river, but was less exposed than the path along the bank.

Thanks to the moonlight, they could see the river from time to time, like a broad and brilliant silver sheet, marked here and there with wooded islets, their tree-tops clearly defined against the sky. This clearness of the night, though it had its inconveniences, had on the other hand, some advantages. Michel, who served as guide, was sure of not losing his way; and, as they walked along, they could even see the schooner itself at intervals.

When they had passed, or rather gone round the village of Pèlerin, the young baron hid the duchess and Marie in a rocky hollow of the shore, and going to a little distance along the bank he gave the whistle which was to signal Joseph Picaut.

As Joseph did not reply with the owl's cry,--the cry of alarm,--Michel, who, up to that time had been very anxious, felt more easy. He felt sure that, as he received no answer, the Chouan would soon come to him.

He waited five minutes; nothing stirred. He whistled again, more sharply than before; still nothing answered, no one came. He thought he might have been mistaken as to the place of meeting, and he hurried along the bank. But no! a hundred steps farther took him past the isle of Couéron; and there was no other island within sight where a vessel could lie,--yet the vessel was not visible.

It certainly was the spot agreed upon, and he returned upon his steps. The vessel must be within sight where he had first stopped; but even so, he could not explain to himself Joseph Picaut's absence.

An idea came to him. Had the enormous sum promised to whoever would deliver up the person passing under the name of Petit-Pierre tempted the Chouan, whose cast of countenance had not impressed him favorably? He communicated his suspicions to Petit-Pierre and Mary, who now joined him.

But Petit-Pierre shook her head.

"It is not possible," she said. "If that man had betrayed us we should have been arrested before now; besides, that doesn't explain the absence of the vessel."

"You are right. The captain was to send a boat ashore, and I don't see it."

"Perhaps it is not yet time."

Just then the church clock at Pèlerin struck two, as though it was ordered to make answer to her words.

"There!" said Michel, "it is two o'clock!"

"Was there any fixed hour with the captain?"

"My mother could only act on probabilities, and she told him it might be as late as five o'clock."

"He had, then, no reason to be impatient, for we have got here three hours too soon."

"What shall we do?" asked Michel. "My responsibility is so great I dare not act by myself."

"We must take a boat and look for the ship. As the captain is aware we know his anchorage, very likely he expects us to go to him."

Michel went a few hundred feet toward Pèlerin and found a boat made fast to the shore. Evidently, it had been lately used, for the oars, which were lying in the bottom of it, were still wet. He came back with the news to his companions, asking them to go back into their hiding-place while he crossed the river.

"Do you know how to row?" asked Petit-Pierre.

"I own to you," replied Michel, blushing for his ignorance, "that I am not very good at it."

"Then," said Petit-Pierre, "we will go with you. I will steer the boat; many a time I have done that in the bay of Naples for amusement."

"And I'll help him to row," said Mary. "My sister and I often row over the lake of Grand-Lieu."

All three embarked. When they reached the middle of the river Petit-Pierre, looking forward in the direction of the current, cried out:--

"There she is! there she is!"

"Who? What?" exclaimed Mary and Michel together.

"The ship! the ship! There, don't you see?"

And Petit-Pierre pointed down the river in the direction of Paimb[oe]uf.

"No," said Michel, "that can't be the ship!"

"Why not?"

"Because it is sailing away from us!"

Just then they reached the extremity of the island. Michel jumped ashore, helped his two companions to land, and ran with all speed to the other side.

"It is our vessel!" he cried, returning. "To the boat! to the boat, and row as fast as we can!"

All three sprang again into the boat; Mary and Michel strained at the oars while Petit-Pierre took the helm. Helped by the current the little boat flew along rapidly; there was still a chance of overtaking the schooner if she kept on her present course.

But presently a black shadow came between their eyes and the lines of the masts and cordage standing out against the sky; she had hoisted her mainsail. Soon another bit of canvas, the foretopsail, rose into the air; the jib followed; and then the "Jeune Charles," profiting by the breeze which was steadily rising, hoisted her other sails, one by one.

Michel took the second oar from Mary's tired hands and bent to the thwarts like a convict on the galleys. Despair had seized him; for in that second of time he had seen all the consequences which would follow on the loss of the schooner. He began to shout and hail her; but Petit-Pierre stopped him, exhorting him to prudence.

"Ah!" she cried, her gayety surmounting all vicissitudes of fortune, "Providence evidently does not choose that I shall leave this glorious land of France!"

"God grant it may be Providence!" said Michel.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Petit-Pierre.

"I fear there is some horrible machination under all this."

"Nonsense, my poor friend; it is only a bit of ill-luck. They mistook the day or the hour, that's all. Besides, how do we know whether we could have slipped through the cruisers at the mouth of the Loire? All's for the best, perhaps."

But Michel was not convinced by Petit-Pierre's reasoning; he continued to lament; talked of throwing himself into the river and swimming to the schooner, which was now gently widening the distance and beginning to disappear in the mists on the horizon. It was, in fact, with much difficulty that Petit-Pierre succeeded in calming him; perhaps she might not have done so without Mary's help.

Three o'clock was now ringing from the steeples at Couéron; in another hour it would be daylight. There was no time to lose. Michel and Mary took up the oars; they regained the shore and left the boat about where they found it. It then became a question whether they should return to Nantes. This being decided upon, it was most important to get there before daybreak.

Suddenly Michel, as they walked along, stopped and struck his forehead.

"I'm afraid I have committed a great folly," he said.

"What folly?" asked the duchess.

"I ought to have returned to Nantes by the other bank."

"Pooh! all roads are safe if you follow them cautiously; besides, what should we have done with the boat?"

"Left it on the other shore."

"So that the poor fisherman to whom it belongs would have lost a whole day in looking for it! No, no! better take more trouble ourselves than snatch the bread out of the mouth of some poor fellow who has little enough as it is."

They reached the pont Rousseau. Here Petit-Pierre insisted that Michel should let her return to the house alone in company with Mary; but Michel would not consent. Perhaps he was too happy in the sense of Mary's presence; for she, under the influence of Petit-Pierre's promise, replied (with sighs, it is true, but still she replied) to the tender words her lover said to her. For this reason, perhaps, he positively refused to leave them, and all they could induce him to do was to walk behind them, at some distance.

They had just crossed the place du Bouffai when Michel, as he turned the corner of the rue Saint-Sauveur, felt certain that he heard a step behind him. He turned and saw a man, who, perceiving that he was noticed, darted hastily into a doorway. Michel's first idea was to follow him; but he reflected that if he did so he should lose sight of Petit-Pierre and Mary. He therefore hurried on and overtook them.

"We are followed!" he said to Petit-Pierre.

"Well, let them follow us!" said the duchess, with her usual serenity. "We have plenty of ways of evading them."

Petit-Pierre signed to Michel to follow her up a cross-street, where, after taking about a hundred steps, they reached the end of the little alley which Michel had once before taken, and where he had recognized a door by the branch of holly hung there by Père Eustache.

Petit-Pierre lifted the knocker and struck three blows at varying intervals. At this signal the door opened as though by magic. Petit-Pierre made Mary enter the courtyard and then she entered herself.

"Good!" said Michel. "Now I will see if that man is still watching us."

"No, no!" cried Petit-Pierre, "you are condemned to death. If you forget it, I don't; and as you and I are running the same danger, you will be good enough to take the same precautions. Come in--quick!"

During this time the man whom Michel had seen reading his paper the evening before, appeared on the portico, wearing the same dressing-gown and apparently half asleep. He raised his arms to heaven on seeing Petit-Pierre.

"Never mind! never mind!" said the latter, "don't lose time in lamentation. It is all a failure, and we are followed. Open the door, my dear Pascal!"

He turned to the half-open door behind him.

"No, not the house door," said Petit-Pierre, "the garden door. In ten minutes the house will be surrounded; we must make for the hiding-place at once!"

"Follow me, then."

"We will follow. So sorry to disturb you, my poor Pascal, at such an early hour; and all the more distressed because my visit will force you to come too, if you don't want to be arrested."

The garden door was now open. Before passing through, Michel stretched out his hand to take Mary's. Petit-Pierre saw the action and gently pushed the girl into the young man's arms.

"Come," she said, "kiss him, or, at any rate, let him kiss you! Before me, it is quite permissible; I stand to you as a mother, and I think the poor lad has fully earned it. There! Now go your way, Monsieur de la Logerie, and we will go ours; but remember that the care of my own interests will not prevent me from looking after yours."

"When may I see her again?" said Michel, timidly.

"It will be dangerous, I know that," replied Petit-Pierre; "but after all, they say there's a God who protects both lovers and drunkards, and if so, I'll rely on him. You shall pay one visit at least to the rue du Château, No. 3. I intend, if I can, to return your Mary to you."

So saying, Petit-Pierre gave Michel a hand, which he kissed respectfully; then Petit-Pierre and Mary turned in the direction of the upper town, while Michel took his way back toward the pont Rousseau.

XXVIII.

SHOWING HOW THERE MAY BE FISHERMEN AND FISHERMKN.

Maître Courtin had been very unhappy in mind during the whole evening Madame de la Logerie had compelled him to pass with her. By gluing his ear to the door he had heard every word the baroness had said to her son, and he knew, therefore, of the scheme of the schooner.

Michel's departure would, of course, upset all his projects for the discovery of Petit-Pierre; consequently, he was little desirous of the honor the baroness did him in taking him home with her. He was, in fact, most anxious to get back to the farmhouse. He hoped, by evoking the image of Mary, to prevent, or at least delay, the flight of his young master; for if the latter departed he lost, of course, the thread by which he expected to penetrate the labyrinth in which Petit-Pierre was hidden.

Unluckily for him, as soon as Madame de la Logerie reached the château she struck another vein of ideas. In taking Courtin from the farmhouse her only idea had been to hide her son's departure and protect him from the farmer's curiosity; but on reaching the château she found the house, occupied for the last few weeks by a band of soldiers, in such deplorable disorder that she forgot, in presence of a devastation which assumed to her eyes the proportions of a catastrophe, all her natural distrust of Courtin, and she kept him with her as the recipient and echo of her lamentations. Her despair, expressed with the energy of conviction, prevented Courtin from leaving her, without some decided pretext, and therefore delayed his return to the farmhouse.

He was too shrewd not to suspect that the baroness had brought him to keep him away from her son; but her despair was so genuine at the sight of her broken china, shattered mirrors, greasy carpets, and her salon transformed into a guard-room and adorned with primitive but most expressive designs, that he began to doubt his first suspicion, and to think that if his young master had really not been cautioned against him it would be an easy matter to join him before he could board the vessel.

It was nine o'clock before the baroness, after shedding a last tear over the filthy defacements of the château, got into her carriage and Courtin was enabled to give the order to the postilion to drive on: "Road to Paris!" No sooner had he done so than he turned round rapidly and ran with all his might toward the farmhouse.

It was empty; the servant told him that Monsieur Michel and Mademoiselle Bertha had been gone two hours, and had taken the road to Nantes.

Courtin at once thought of following them, and ran to the stable to get his pony,--that, too, had gone! In his hurry he had forgotten to ask the servant by what manner of locomotion his young master had started. The recollection of his pony's extremely slow method of progression reassured him somewhat; but, at any rate, he only stopped in his own house long enough to get some money and the insignia of his dignity as mayor; then he started bravely afoot in quest of him whom by this time he regarded as a fugitive and almost as the embezzler of a hundred thousand francs, which his imagination had already discounted through the person of Mary de Souday's lover.

Maître Courtin ran like one who sees the wind whirling away his bank-notes; in fact, he went almost as fast as the wind. But his haste did not prevent him from stopping to make inquiries of every one he passed. The mayor of La Logerie was innately prying at all times, and on this occasion, as may well be supposed, he was not backward with his questions.

At Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu, he was told that his pony had been seen about half-past seven o'clock that evening. He asked who rode it; but he got no satisfactory answer on that point,--the inn-keeper, of whom he inquired, having taken notice only of the obstinacy of the animal in refusing to pass the tavern sign (a branch of holly and three apples saltierwise) where his master usually baited him on the way to Nantes.

A little farther on, however, the farmer was luckier; the rider was described to him so exactly that he could have no doubt about his being the young baron; and he was also told that the traveller was alone. The mayor, a prudent man if ever there was one, supposed that the two young people had parted company out of prudence, meaning to rejoin each other by different roads. Luck was evidently on his side; the pair were parted, and he knew, if he could only meet Michel alone, the game was won.

He felt so sure that the young baron had not deviated from the road and was now in Nantes that when he reached the inn of the Point-du-Jour he did not trouble himself to ask the inn-keeper for further information, which, by the bye, he doubted if the man would give him. He stopped only long enough to eat a mouthful, and then, instead of following Michel into Nantes, he turned back over the pont Rousseau and then to the right, in the direction of Pèlerin. The wily farmer had his plan.

We have already explained the hopes which Courtin had founded on Michel. Mary's lover would sooner or later betray to him, for some personal end, the secret hiding-place of the woman he loved; and as that beloved woman was living with Petit-Pierre, Michel's betrayal of Mary's retreat would also betray the duchess. But if Michel contrived to escape, all Courtin's hopes went with him. Consequently, at any cost Michel must not escape. Now, if Michel did not find the "Jeune Charles" at her anchorage Michel would be forced to remain.

As for Madame de la Logerie, she being well on the road to Paris, it would be some days at least before she could hear that her son had not sailed, and could take other measures to remove him from La Vendée. Courtin was confident that this delay would suffice him to obtain from Michel the clue he sought.

The only difficulty was that he did not know in what way to reach the captain of the "Jeune Charles," the name of the schooner which he had heard the baroness tell to Michel; but--without dreaming of his likeness in this to the greatest man of antiquity--Courtin resolved to run for luck.

Luck did not escape him. When he reached the top of the hill above Couéron he saw, above the poplar-trees on the islet, the masts of the schooner; the foretopsail was hoisted and was flapping to the breeze. Undoubtedly, it was the vessel he was in search of. In the lessening twilight, which was beginning to make all things indistinct, Maître Courtin, glancing along the shore, saw at about ten paces from him a fishing-rod held horizontally over the river with a line at the end, and a cork at the end of the line which floated on the current.

The rod seemed to come from a small hillock, but the arm that held it was invisible. Maître Courtin was not a man to remain in ignorance of what he wanted to know; he walked straight to the hillock and round it; there he discovered a man crouching in a hollow between two rocks, absorbed in contemplation of the swaying of his float at the will of the current.

The man was dressed as a sailor,--that is, he wore trousers of tarred-cloth and a pea-jacket; on his head was a species of Scotch-cap. A few feet from him the stern of a boat, fastened by its bow to the shore, swayed gently to the wash of the water. The fisherman did not turn his head as Courtin approached him, although the latter took the precaution to cough, and make his cough significant of a desire to enter into conversation. The fisherman not only kept an obstinate silence, but he did not even look Courtin's way.

"It is pretty late to be fishing," remarked the mayor of La Logerie at last.

"That shows you know nothing about it," replied the fisherman, with a contemptuous grimace. "I think, on the contrary, that it is rather too early. Night is the time it is worth while to fish; you can catch something better than the young fry at night."

"Yes; but if it is dark how can you see your float?"

"What matter?" replied the fisherman, shrugging his shoulders. "My night eyes are here," he added, showing the palm of his hand.

"I understand; you mean you feel a bite," said Courtin, sitting down beside him. "I'm fond of fishing myself; and little as you think so, I know a good deal about it."

"You? fishing with a line?" said the other, with a doubtful air.

"No, not that," replied Courtin. "I depopulate the river about La Logerie with nets."

Courtin dropped this hint of his locality, hoping that the fisherman, whom he took to be a sailor stationed there by the captain of the schooner to take Monsieur Michel de la Logerie on board, would catch it up; but he was mistaken; the man gave no sign of recognizing the name; on the contrary he remarked coolly:--

"You boast of your talent for the great art of fishing, but I don't believe in it."

"Pray why?" asked Courtin. "Have you the monopoly?"

"Because you seem to me, my good sir, to be ignorant of the first principle of that art."

"And what may that principle be?" asked Courtin.

"When you want to catch fish avoid four things."

"What are they?"

"Wind, dogs, women, and chatterers. It is true, I might say three," added the man in the pea-jacket, philosophically, "for women and chatterers are one."

"Pshaw! you'll soon find out that my chattering, as you call it, is not out of season, for I am going to propose to you to earn a couple of francs."

"When I've caught half a dozen fish I shall have earned more than a couple of francs, and amused myself into the bargain."

"Well, I'll go as far as four, or even five francs," continued Courtin; "and you will have the chance to do a service to your neighbor, which counts for something, doesn't it?"

"Come," said the fisherman, "don't beat round the bush; what do you want of me?"

"I want you to take me on board your schooner, the 'Jeune Charles,' the masts of which I see over there beyond the trees."

"The 'Jeune Charles,'" said the sailor, reflectively, "what's the 'Jeune Charles'?"

"Here," said Maître Courtin, giving the fisherman an oil-skin hat he had picked up on the shore, on which appeared the words, in gilt letters: "LE JEUNE CHARLES."

"Well, I admit you must be a fisherman, my friend," said the sailor. "The devil take me if your eyes are not in your fingers, like mine; otherwise you never could have read that in the darkness! Now, then, what have you to do with the 'Jeune Charles'?"

"Didn't I mention something just now that struck your ear?"

"My good man," said the fisherman, "I'm like a well-bred dog; I don't yelp when bitten. Heave your own log and don't trouble yourself about my keel."

"Well, I am Madame la Baronne de la Logerie's farmer."

"What of it?"

"I am sent by her," said Courtin, growing more and more audacious as he went on.

"What of that?" asked the sailor, in the same tone, but more impatiently. "You come from Madame de la Logerie; well, what have you got to say for her?"

"I came to tell you that the thing is a failure; it is all discovered, and you must get away as fast as you can."

"That maybe," replied the fisherman; "but it doesn't concern me. I am only the mate of the 'Jeune Charles;' though I do know enough of the matter to put you aboard and let you talk with the captain."

So saying, he tranquilly wound up his line and threw it into the boat, which he pulled toward him. Making a sign to Courtin to sit down in the stern, he put twenty feet between him and the shore with one stroke of the oars. After rowing five minutes he turned his head and found they were close alongside the "Jeune Charles," which, being in ballast, rose some twelve feet above them out of the water.

At the sound of oars a curiously modulated whistle came from the schooner, to which the mate replied in somewhat the same manner. A figure then appeared in the bows; the boat came up on the starboard side and a rope was thrown to it. The man with the pea-jacket climbed aboard with the agility of a cat, then he hauled up Courtin, who was less used to such nautical scrambling.

XXIX.

INTERROGATORIES AND CONFRONTINGS.

When, to his great joy, the mayor of La Logerie found himself safely on the deck of the vessel, he saw a human form whose features he could not distinguish, so hidden were they in a thick woollen muffler which was wound around the collar of an oil-skin coat; but whom, by the respectful attitude of the cabin-boy, who had summoned him on deck, Courtin took to be the captain of the schooner himself.

"What's all this?" said the latter, addressing the mate and swinging the light of a lantern, which he took from the cabin-boy, full in the face of the new-comer.

"He comes from you know who," replied the mate.

"Nonsense!" returned the captain. "What are your eyes good for if they can't tell the difference between the cut of a young fellow of twenty and an old hulk like that?"

"I am not Monsieur de la Logerie, that's a fact," said Courtin. "I am only his farmer and confidential man."

"Very good; that's something, but not all."

"He has ordered me--"

"In the name of all the porpoises! I don't ask what he ordered you, you miserable land-lubber," cried the captain, squirting a black jet of saliva,--an action which somewhat hindered the explosion of his evident wrath. "I tell you that's something, but not all."

Courtin looked at the captain with an amazed air.

"Don't you understand,--yes or no?" demanded the latter. "If no, say so at once, and you shall be put ashore with the honors you deserve,--and that's a good taste of the cat-o'-nine-tails round your loins."

Courtin now perceived that in all probability Madame de la Logerie had agreed with the captain of the "Jeune Charles" on a password, or sign of recognition; that sign he did not know. He felt he was lost; all his plans crumbled to naught, his hopes vanished; besides which, caught in a trap like a fox, he would appear in the young master's eyes when he came aboard for what he really was. His only way of escape from the luckless position he had put himself into was to pretend that simplicity of a peasant which sometimes amounts to idiocy and to empty his face of all intelligence.

"Hang it, my dear gentleman," he said, "I don't know a thing more, myself. My good mistress said to me, says she: 'Courtin, my good friend, you know the young baron is condemned to death. I've arranged with a worthy sailor to get him out of France; but we've been denounced by some traitor. Go and tell this to the captain of the "Jeune Charles," which you'll find at anchor opposite Couéron, behind the islands!' and I came just as hard as I could, and that's all I know."

Just then a vigorous "Ahoy!" was given from the bows of the vessel and diverted the captain's mind from the violent reply he was doubtless about to make. He turned to the cabin-boy, who, lantern in hand and mouth open, was listening to the conversation between his master and Courtin.

"What are you doing there, you shirk, booby, whelp?" cried the captain, accompanying his words with a pantomine which--thanks to the rapid evolutions of the young aspirant to a broad pennant--touched him only on the fleshy parts, though it sent him whirling into the gangway. "Is that how you mind your work?" Then, turning to the mate he added: "Don't let any one aboard without knowing him."

But the words were hardly out of his mouth before then new-comer, using the rope which had hoisted Courtin, and which was still hanging, appeared on deck. The captain picked up the lantern which the cabin-boy had dropped in his skurry, and which, providentially, was not extinguished; and then, light in hand, he advanced to his visitor.

"By what right do you come aboard my vessel without hailing me, you!" cried the angry captain, seizing the stranger by the collar.

"I came aboard because I have business with you," replied the other, with the confident air of a man who is sure of his facts.

"What is it, then? Out with it, quick!"

"Let go of me, first. You may be sure I sha'n't get away, as I came of my own accord."

"Ten thousand millions of whales!" cried the captain, "holding you by the collar doesn't choke the words in your throat, does it?"

"But I can't talk when I'm embarrassed!" said the new-comer, without showing the least timidity at the tone of his questioner.

"Captain," said the mate, intervening, "it seems to me, sacredié! that you are mistaken. You ask the fellow who is backing and filling to show his colors, and you are tying the halliards of the other when he wants to run his up."

"True," said the captain, loosening his hold of the new-comer, whom our readers of course know to be Jean Picaut, Michel's real messenger.

The latter now felt in his pocket, pulled out the handkerchief given to him by Michel, and offered it to the captain, who carefully unfolded it and counted the three knots with as much particularity as though they were so much money. Courtin, to whom no one was paying attention, watched the whole scene and lost nothing of it.

"Good!" said the captain; "you are all right. We'll talk presently; but first, I must get rid of that fellow aft. You, Antoine," he added, addressing the mate, "take this one to the steward's pantry and give him a quantum of grog."

The captain returned aft and found Courtin sitting on a coil of rope. The mayor of La Logerie held his head in his hands as if he were paying not the slightest attention to the scene forward. He seemed stupefied, whereas, as we know, he had not lost a word of the conversation between the captain and Joseph Picaut.

"Oh, do have me put ashore, captain!" he said, as soon as he saw the latter approaching him. "I don't know what's the matter with me; but for the last few minutes I have felt very ill--as if I were going to die!"

"Pooh! if you are like that in a river swell you'll have a hard time of it before we cross the line!"

"Cross the line? good God!"

"Yes, my fine fellow; your conversation strikes me as so agreeable that I sha'n't part company with you. You'll stay aboard of me during the little trip half round the world I'm bound for."

"Stay aboard! what, here?" cried Courtin, feigning more terror than he really felt. "And my farm, and my good mistress, what'll become of them?"

"As for the farm, I'll engage to show you such sights in foreign lands that you can make it a model farm when you get back. And as for your good mistress, I'll replace her advantageously."

"But why, monsieur? What makes you take this sudden resolution to carry me off? Just think, if my stomach turns with this river swell, as you call it, I sha'n't be fit for anything all the way!"

"That will teach you to fool the captain of the 'Jeune Charles,' lubberly thief that you are!"

"But how have I offended you, my worthy captain?"

"Come," said the officer, apparently resolved to cut short the dialogue, "answer plainly; it is your only chance to escape going to the sharks. Who sent you here?"

"I told you," cried Courtin, "it was Madame de la Logerie! and when I tell you that I am her farmer, it is as true as it is that there's a God in heaven!"

"But," said the captain, "if Madame de la Logerie sent you, she must have given you something by which you could be recognized,--a note, a letter, a scrap of paper. If you have nothing to show, you don't come from her; and if you don't come from her, you are a spy!--in which case, beware! The moment I'm sure of it, I'll treat you as spies should be treated!"

"Ah! my God!" cried Courtin, pretending to be more and more terrified; "I can't allow myself to be so suspected. There, take these; they are letters to me which I happen to have about me; they'll show you I really am Courtin, as I told you; and there's my scarf, as mayor of La Logerie. My God! what can I do to convince you I speak the truth?"

"Your mayor's scarf!" cried the captain. "How is it, you rascal, that if you are a public functionary under oath to the government, how is it, I say, that you are aiding and abetting a man who has borne arms against the government, and is now condemned to death?"

"Ah! my dear monsieur, that's because I am so attached to my masters that my feelings for them are stronger than my sense of duty. Well,--if I must tell you,--it was in my capacity as mayor that I knew the plan was betrayed, and that you were to be boarded to-night. I told Madame de la Logerie of the danger; and it was then she said to me: 'Take that handkerchief and find the captain of the "Jeune Charles"--'"

"She gave you a handkerchief?"

"Yes, upon my word!"

"Where is it?"

"In my pocket."

"Fool, idiot, jackass, give it to me!"

"Give it to you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I'm willing,--there it is!"

And Courtin slowly drew a handkerchief from his pocket.

"Give it me, you dog!" cried the captain, snatching the handkerchief from Courtin's hand and convincing himself by a rapid examination that the three knots were really there.

"But, you stupid brute, you idiot, beast!" continued the captain, "didn't Madame de la Logerie tell you to give me that handkerchief?"

"Yes, she told me," replied Courtin, making his expression of face as vacant as possible.

"Then why didn't you give it to me?"

"Hang it!" said Courtin; "when I was hoisted on to the deck I saw you blowing your nose with your fingers, and I said to myself, 'Bless me! if the captain does that he won't need a handkerchief.'"

"Ha!" said the captain, scratching his head, with remains of doubt in his mind, "either you are a clumsy trickster or a downright imbecile. In either case, as there is more chance of your being imbecile, I prefer to settle on that. Now, tell me over again what you are here for, and what the person who sent you told you say to me."

"Well, here's word for word what my good mistress said to me: 'Courtin,' says she, 'I know I can trust you, can't I?' 'Yes, that you can,' says I. 'Well,' says she, 'you must know that my son, whom you've watched over, and nursed, and hidden in your house at the risk of your life, is to escape to-night on board of the "Jeune Charles." But, as I have heard, and as you have told me yourself, the plan is discovered. You have only just time to go and tell the worthy captain that he must not wait for my son, but had better sail away as fast as he can, or he will be arrested this very night for aiding and abetting the escape of a political prisoner--and also, for other things.'"

Maître Courtin added the conclusion of his speech, presuming from the general appearance of the captain of the "Jeune Charles" that he might have other peccadilloes on his conscience than the one in question. Perhaps the mayor's astute mind was not mistaken, for the worthy sailor was somewhat pensive for a few moments.

"Come," he said at last, "follow me."

The farmer passively obeyed; the captain took him to his own cabin, put him in, and double-locked the door. A few minutes later Courtin, who was in darkness and not a little uneasy at the turn that matters were taking, heard a tramp of footsteps on the deck which presently approached the cabin door. The door was unlocked, the captain entered first; he was followed by Joseph Picaut, behind whom came the mate, bearing a lantern.

"Ah, ça!" cried the captain of the 'Jeune Charles,' "now we'll get at the bottom of this matter! We'll unravel the thread which seems to me pretty well tangled up, or, by the hull of my ship, I'll brush the shoulders of both of you with the cat-o'-nine-tails till the devil himself would pity you!"

"As for me, captain, I have said all I have to say!" exclaimed Courtin.

Picaut quivered at the sound of that voice; he had not yet seen his enemy, and was not aware that he was on board the vessel. He made one step forward to convince himself.

"Courtin!" he cried, "the mayor of La Logerie! Captain, if that man knows our secret, we are lost!"

"Who is he, then?" demanded the captain.

"A traitor, a spy, a sneak!"

"The devil he is!" cried the captain. "You needn't tell it me fifty times before I believe it; for there's something sly and false in the fellow's face which doesn't a bit suit me."

"Ha!" continued Joseph Picaut, "you are not mistaken. He's the damnedest cur and lowest scum in the whole Retz district!"

"What have you got to say to that, come now?" said the captain to Courtin.

"He can't say anything; I defy him!" continued Picaut.

Courtin was silent.

"Well, well, I see I shall have to take strong measures to make you speak, my fine fellow!" said the captain, who, thereupon, pulled from his bosom a little silver whistle hanging to a silver chain, and produced therefrom a prolonged and piercing sound. At the signal two sailors entered the cabin.

At sight of them a diabolical smile crossed Courtin's face.

"Good!" said he; "that's just what I wanted before speaking."

Taking the captain by the arm he led him to a corner of the cabin and said a few words in his ear.

"Is that true, actually true?" asked the captain.

"Easy enough to prove it!" replied Courtin.

"You are right there," said the captain.

At a word from him the mate and the two sailors seized Joseph Picaut, pulled off his jacket and tore open his shirt. The captain then came up to him and gave him a smart blow on the shoulder. Instantly the two letters branded on the Chouan when he went to the galleys were visible on his rugged skin.

Picaut had been so suddenly and violently seized and handled by the three men that he had no time to defend himself in the first instance; but he no sooner perceived the object of the assault than he made the most desperate efforts to escape the clutches by which he was held; of course, however, he was mastered by the triple strength against him and could only roar with rage and blaspheme.

"Lash his hands and feet!" cried the captain, judging of the man's honesty by the tell-tale certificate on his shoulder, "and down with him to the hold between two hogsheads!" Then, turning to Maître Courtin, who gave a sigh of relief, "I beg your pardon, my worthy mayor," he said, "for confounding you with a scoundrel of that kind; but don't be uneasy, I'll guarantee that if any one sets fire to your barn within the next three years it won't be that fellow's hand that applies the match!"

Then, without losing a moment he went on deck, and Courtin, to his great satisfaction, heard him call all hands to get the vessel under way.

Once convinced of the danger he was in, the worthy sailor seemed in so great a hurry to put as much space as possible between the law and himself, that he excused himself to the mayor of La Logerie without even the civility of offering him a glass of brandy, shoved him into the boat with a hasty good-bye, and left him to find his way to the shore as best he could.

Maître Courtin rowed as directly to the bank as the current would let him; and just as the boat's keel touched the sandy shore he saw the "Jeune Charles" slowly moving as sail after sail was hoisted to the breeze.

Courtin then hid himself in the same nook of the rocks where he had found the mate of the vessel fishing, and there he waited.

But not for long; he had hardly been there half an hour before Michel arrived, and he saw, to his great astonishment, that neither of the two women who accompanied him was Bertha. A moment later, and he discovered that they were Mary and Petit-Pierre.

Then, indeed, he congratulated himself on the success of his trick, so wonderfully seconded by chance, and he now bent all his mind to profit by the rare good luck which providence had bestowed upon him.

It will readily be understood that he never lost sight of Michel, Mary, and Petit-Pierre as long as they waited on the shore, and that when the three embarked in the boat to overtake the ship, he watched them with his eyes every inch of their way; that he saw them return and land, and followed them back to Nantes with such precautions that the three fugitives were wholly unaware they were spied upon.

And yet, cautious as Courtin was, it was actually he whom Michel had caught sight of at the corner of the place du Bouffai; it was he who followed the trio to the house which he saw them enter.

When the door into the courtyard closed after them, and they disappeared from sight, he was certain that he now knew the duchess's hiding-place. He passed before the door, and as he did so, he drew from his pocket a bit of chalk and made a cross upon the wall beside it; then, certain that he had the fish in his net, he felt he had only to draw it in and put his hand on a hundred thousand francs.

XXX.

WE AGAIN MEET THE GENERAL, AND FIND HE IS NOT CHANGED.

Maître Courtin was not a little excited. As the last of the three persons he had followed from Couéron disappeared into the courtyard a vision danced before his eyes, such as he had seen that night on the moor returning from Aigrefeuille,--a vision that seemed to him the most beautiful of all possible visions: he saw before his dazzled eyes the sparkling of a pyramid of coins, casting their adorable gold reflections into the far, far future.

Only, the pyramid was double the size of the one he had then seen: for his first thought on finding the fish in his net was that he should be a monstrous fool if he let that mysterious man at Aigrefeuille share in the benefits of his catch. He resolved on the spot not to let him know of the discovery, but to go himself straight to the authorities of Nantes and reveal the matter to them. To do him justice, however, it must be said that Maître Courtin did think, in this first flush of his hopes, of his young master, and of the fact that he was about to deprive him of liberty, perhaps of life; but he instantly smothered that sentiment of untimely remorse, and, in order not to let his conscience send forth another such cry, he began to run with all his might toward the Prefecture.

He had hardly gone fifty yards before, just as he turned the corner of the rue du Marché, a man, running from the opposite direction, bolted against him and knocked him to the wall. Courtin gave a cry, not of pain, but amazement, for the man was no other than Monsieur Michel de la Logerie, whom he thought he had left safely behind the green door he had carefully marked with a white cross.

His stupefaction was so great that Michel would certainly have noticed it had he not himself been so preoccupied; but at the moment he was only delighted to see a man he thought to be his friend, and who, as he believed, might now be of use to him.

"Oh, Courtin!" he cried, "tell me, did you come down the rue du Marché?"

"Yes, Monsieur le baron."

"Then you must have met a man running away."

"No, Monsieur le baron."

"Why, yes, you must! It is impossible that you did not see him,--a man who seemed to be on the watch for some one?"

Maître Courtin reddened; but he instantly recovered himself.

"Wait! stop! yes, I did," he said, suddenly resolving to profit by this unexpected chance of averting all suspicion from himself. "There was a man walking in front of me, but I saw him stop at that green door you see down there."

"That's it!" cried Michel, forgetting everything except his desire to discover the man who had followed them. "Courtin, will you give me a proof of your fidelity and devotion? I positively must discover that man. Which way do you think he went?"

"That way," replied Courtin, pointing to the first street his eyes lighted on.

"Come on, then, and follow me."

Michel started to run in the direction Courtin had pointed out; but the latter, as he followed, began to reflect. For an instant he thought of leaving his master to run where he liked, and going himself about the business he was engaged in; but the next instant he thought otherwise and congratulated himself heartily for not following his first idea.

It was evident to his mind that the house had two issues; and as Michel had discovered they were watched, both must have been used to throw the pursuer off the scent. Petit-Pierre had probably gone out as Michel did, by another door. Michel must surely know, by this time, the real retreat where Mary lived with Petit-Pierre; he would therefore stay by Michel, from whom he could undoubtedly obtain the information he wanted; whereas he might lose all by pushing matters too hastily. He therefore resigned himself to the loss of his expected catch and possessed his soul in patience.

He hastened his pace, and rejoined Michel.

"Monsieur le baron," he said, "I must remind you to be cautious. It is getting to be daylight; the streets will soon be full of people, and they will all look at you if you run in this way with your clothes all wet and muddy. If we meet a police-agent he will certainly think it suspicious and arrest you; and what will your mother say then? She has given me so many cautions about you!"

"My mother? why, she thinks me at sea, on my way to England!

"Were you going away?" asked Courtin, with the most innocent air in the world.

"Yes; didn't she tell you so?"

"No, Monsieur de la Logerie," replied the farmer, giving an expression of deep and bitter sadness to his countenance, "no. I see that, in spite of all I have done for you, the baroness distrusts me; and I tell you that cuts me to the heart as a ploughshare cuts into the ground."

"Oh, nonsense! don't trouble about that, my good Courtin; but your change of front has been rather sudden and needs explanation. In fact, when I think of that night you cut the girths of my horse's saddle, I ask myself why you have become so kind and attentive and devoted."

"Oh, hang it, Monsieur Michel! that's easy told. At that time I was fighting for my political opinions; now that all danger of insurrection is over, and I am certain the government I love can't be overthrown, I don't see anything in Chouans and she-wolves but friends of my master; and it makes me sorry to be so little understood."

"Well," said Michel, "I am going to give you a proof that I appreciate your return to better ideas by confiding to you a secret I believe you have already guessed. Courtin, it is probable that the new Baronne de La Logerie will not be the one who, till now, people think it is."

"You mean you won't marry Mademoiselle de Souday?"

"Quite the contrary; only, my wife's name may be Mary, and not Bertha."

"Ah, I'm glad for you! for you know I helped that on as much as I could; and if I didn't do more it was because you wouldn't let me. Ah, ça! have you seen Mademoiselle Mary since you came to Nantes?"

"Yes, I have seen her; and the few minutes I spent with her sufficed, I hope, to secure my happiness," cried Michel, giving way to the intoxication of his joy. Then he added: "Are you obliged to go back to La Logerie to-night?"

"Monsieur le baron ought to feel that I am at his service," replied Courtin.

"Very good; then you shall see her yourself, Courtin; for to-night I'm to meet her again."

"Where?"

"Where I met you just now."

"Oh, that's good!" said Courtin, his face brightening with a satisfaction equal to that on Michel's own face. "That's good! you don't know how happy I am to have you marry according to your own likings. Faith! if your mother consents, you are right enough to take the one you love. You see, now, I gave you good advice."

And the worthy farmer rubbed his hands as though he were on a pinnacle of satisfaction.

"My good Courtin," said Michel, touched by his farmer's sympathy, "where shall I find you this evening?"

"Where you please."

"Didn't you put up, as I did, at the Point du Jour?"

"Yes, Monsieur le baron."

"Well, then, we can pass the day there. To-night you can go with me when I meet Mary, and keep watch for us."

"But," said Courtin, much embarrassed by a proposal which interfered with all his plans, "I've got a good deal to do in town."

"Well, I'll go with you; it will help me to kill time."

"No, that won't do; my business as mayor will take me to the Prefecture, and you mustn't go there. No, do you go back to the inn and keep quiet, and to-night at ten o'clock I'll be on hand to start,--you as happy as a king, and I very glad of your happiness."

Courtin was most anxious to be rid of Michel for the present. The idea of gaining the whole reward for the capture of Petit-Pierre so filled his mind that he was determined not to leave Nantes without knowing the exact amount offered, and laying some plan to obtain it all himself and not divide it with any one.

Michel yielded to Courtin's reasoning, and giving a glance at his muddy clothing he decided to take leave of him then and there and go back to the tavern.

As soon as his young master had left him Courtin made his way to the quarters of General Dermoncourt. He gave his name to the orderly, and after a few minutes' delay he was shown into the presence of the man he came to see.

The general was a good deal dissatisfied with the turn matters were taking; he had sent to Paris plans of pacification, somewhat like those which had succeeded so well under General Hoche. These plans had not been approved; the general saw the civil authority encroaching everywhere on the powers which martial law assigned to the military alone; and his susceptibilities as an old soldier, wounded at every turn, together with his patriotic feelings, made him deeply dissatisfied.

"What do you want?" he said to Courtin, looking him over from head to foot.

Courtin bowed as low as he was able.

"General," he said, "perhaps you remember the fair at Montaigu?"

"Parbleu, as if it were yesterday! and especially the night after it. Ha! that expedition would have been a success, and I might have strangled the insurrection at its birth if a scoundrelly keeper hadn't inveigled one of my troopers. By the bye, what was that man's name?"

"Jean Oullier."

"What became of him?"

Courtin could not help turning pale.

"He died," he said.

"The best thing he could do, poor devil; and yet, I'm sorry too,--he was a brave fellow."

"If you remember the man who defeated the affair, general, it seems strange you have forgotten the one who helped you with information."

The general looked at Courtin.

"Jean Oullier was a soldier, a comrade, and soldiers remember each other; the rest--I mean spies and informers--they forget as soon as possible."

"Very well," said Courtin. "Then I shall have to refresh your memory, general, and tell you that I am the man who informed you of Petit-Pierre's hiding-place."

"Oh, are you?" said the general. "Well, what do you want to say now? Speak out, and briefly!"

"I want to do you exactly the same service over again."

"As for that, times are changed, my good friend. We are no longer among the sunken roads of the Retz region, where a tiny foot, a fair skin, and a soft voice are remarkable because they are rare in the country. Here, all the women look like great ladies; and a score of men of your kind have been to me to sell their mare's-nests. My soldiers have been kept on the qui-vive all the time; we have searched a dozen different places, and all to no purpose."

"General, I have a right to expect you to put faith in me, because the information I gave you first was correct."

"Upon my word," muttered the general, in a low tone, "it would be rather pleasant to discover, all by myself, what that man from Paris with his squads of spies, and sneaks, and pimps, and criminal and detective police can't find out. Are you sure of what you say?" he continued, raising his voice.

"I am sure that within twenty-four hours I shall know the street and the number of the house--"

"Then come and see me."

"But, general, I should wish to know--Courtin stopped.

"Know what?" asked the general.

"I have heard talk of reward, and I wish to know--"

"Ah, true!" said the general, looking at Courtin with sovereign contempt. "I forgot, though you are a public functionary, that you are one of those who don't neglect their private interests."

"You said yourself, general, that we were the ones that were soonest forgotten."

"And you want money to take the place of public gratitude? Well, that's logical. So, then, you don't give, my worthy mayor, you sell, you traffic, you trade in human flesh; and to-day, having something to sell, you come to what you think the best market,--is that it?"

"You have said it. Oh, don't feel embarrassed, general, business is business; and I am not ashamed to attend to mine!"

"So much the better; but I'm not the man you ought to go to. They've sent down a gentleman from Paris who is specially charged to attend to this matter. When you can lay hands on your prey, you had better go to him and sell it."

"So I will, general. But," continued Courtin, "as I did you such a service that first time, don't you feel inclined to give me some reward?"

"My good fellow, if you think I owe you anything I am ready to pay it. Speak out! I'm listening."

"It will be all the easier because I don't ask much."

"Go on."

"Tell me the sum the government has promised to the man who delivers Petit-Pierre into your hands."

"Fifty thousand francs, perhaps; I didn't pay much attention to it, any way."

"Fifty thousand francs!" exclaimed Courtin, stepping back as if he had been struck. "Why, fifty thousand francs is nothing!"

"I agree with you there; it isn't worth while to be infamous for such a sum as that. But you can say that to those it concerns; as for you and me, we have done with each other, I think. Take yourself away. Good-day to you!"

And the general, resuming the work he had laid aside to receive Courtin, paid not the slightest attention to the bows and civilities with which the mayor of La Logerie endeavored to make a proper retreat.

The latter departed far less satisfied in mind than he was when he entered. He had no doubt whatever that the general knew correctly the exact amount of the reward, and he could not reconcile what he had just heard with what the mysterious man at Aigrefeuille had told him,--unless it might be that the said mysterious man was the agent sent by the government from Paris. He now gave up all idea of acting without him, and he resolved, while practising the utmost caution, to let him know as soon as possible what had happened.

Until now the man had come to Courtin; but the farmer had his address, and was directed to write to him if anything important occurred. Courtin did not write; he went in person. After a good deal of trouble he managed to find, in the lowest quarter of the town, at the farther end of a damp and muddy blind alley full of the sordid booths of rag-pickers and old-clothes men, a tiny shop, where, following certain directions, he asked for Monsieur Hyacinthe. He was told to go up a ladder, and was then shown into a small room, much cleaner and more decent than might have been expected from the general appearance of this lair.

There he found the man from Aigrefeuille, who received him far better than the general had done; and with whom he had a long conference.

XXXI.

COURTIN MEETS WITH ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT.

If the day seemed long to Michel, to Courtin its length was intolerable; he thought that night would never come. And though he felt he ought to keep away from the rue du Marché and the adjacent streets, it was impossible to avoid airing his impatience in their neighborhood.

When evening came, mindful of his engagement with Michel, he returned to the tavern of the Point du Jour. There he found Michel awaiting him eagerly. As soon as the young man saw him he exclaimed:--

"Ah, Courtin, I am thankful to see you. I have discovered the man who followed us last night."

"Hein! what? what did you say?" asked Courtin, making, in spite of himself, a step backward.

"I have discovered him, I tell you!"

"But the man--who is he?" asked Courtin.

"A man in whom I felt sure I might trust; and you would have trusted him too in my position,--Joseph Picaut."

"Joseph Picaut!" repeated Courtin, feigning astonishment.

"Yes."

"Where did you meet him?"

"At this inn, where he is hostler, or rather, where he is playing the part of hostler."

"Why did he follow you? You can't have had the imprudence to tell him your secret? Ah, young man, young man!" exclaimed Courtin; "they may well say youth and imprudence go together. A former galley-slave!"

"That's the very reason. Don't you know why he was sent to the galleys?"

"Damn it, yes! for highway robbery."

"But it was in the time of the great war. However, that's neither here nor there. I gave him an errand to do."

"If I were to ask you what errand, you'd think me inquisitive; and yet it is my real interest in you that makes me ask, and nothing else."

"Oh! I have no reason for concealing the matter from you. I sent him to let the captain of the 'Jeune Charles' know that I should be on board at three o'clock in the morning. Well, no one has since seen Picaut or the horse--and, by the bye," added the young baron, laughing, "the horse was your pony, my poor Courtin; your pony, which I took from the farm and rode to Nantes."

"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Courtin, "then Sweetheart is--"

"Sweetheart is probably lost to you forever."

"Perhaps he has gone back to his stable," said Courtin, who, even in presence of the grand financial horizon which was opening before him, felt a profound regret for the twenty or twenty-five pistoles at which he valued his pony.

"Well, what I want to tell you is, that if, as I suppose, Joseph Picaut followed us he must now be on the watch about the neighborhood."

"What object has he?" inquired Courtin. "If he wanted to deliver you up nothing could have been easier than to bring the gendarmes here."

Michel shook his head.

"No,--do you say no?"

"I say it is not I whom he is after, Courtin; it is not on my account he watched us yesterday."

"Why so?"

"Because the price on my head would not pay him for his treachery."

"But whom else can he be spying on?" said the farmer, calling up all the vacant simplicity he was capable of imprinting on his face and accent.

"A Vendéan leader whom I was anxious to save while making my own escape," replied Michel, beginning to perceive whither Courtin's questions were leading him,--though he was not sorry to admit the latter into half his secret in order to use him when occasion came.

"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Courtin; "and you think he has discovered the hiding-place of the Vendéan leader? That would be a misfortune, Monsieur Michel."

"No; he only got to the outworks, as it were; but I am afraid, now that he is once on the scent, he may have better luck this time."

"This time,--how do you mean?"

"Why, to-night, if he watches us, he will find out I have a meeting with Mademoiselle Mary."

"Mordieu! you're right."

"And that makes me very uneasy," said Michel.

"But I shall be on the watch; and if you are followed I'll whistle in time for you to get away."

"And you?"

Courtin laughed.

"Oh! I--I don't risk anything. My opinions are well-known, thank God; and in my capacity as mayor I can have all the dangerous companions I choose."

"Evil is good sometimes," said Michel, laughing in his turn. "But listen, what time is that?"

"Striking nine from the clock at Bouffai."

"Then, come on, Courtin."

Courtin took his hat, Michel his, and they both went out and were soon at the corner where Michel had met his farmer the night before. The latter stood with his right to the rue du Marché and his left toward the alley into which opened the green door he had marked with a cross.

"Stay there, Courtin," said Michel. "I'll wait at the farther end of this alley; I don't know which way Mary means to come. If she passes you, direct her toward me; if she comes my way, do you move up nearer to us, so as to be ready in case of need."

"Don't trouble about that," said Courtin, as he settled himself on the watch.

Courtin was now at the summit of happiness; his plan had completely succeeded. In one way or another he was certain to come in contact with Mary; Mary was the intimate attendant on Petit-Pierre; he would fellow Mary when she left Michel, and he had no doubt that the young girl, unconscious of being tracked, would herself betray the hiding-place of the princess by going there.

Half-past nine o'clock ringing from all the belfries in Nantes surprised Courtin in the midst of these reflections. Their metallic vibrations were hardly stilled before he heard a light step coming up on his right; he went in that direction, and saw a young peasant-woman wrapped in a mantle and carrying a package in her hand, whom he recognized to be Mary. The young girl, seeing a strange man apparently on the watch, hesitated. Courtin went up to her and made her recognize him.

"It is all right, Mademoiselle Mary," he said, replying to her relieved gesture; "but I'm not the one you are looking for, am I? You want Monsieur le baron; well, there he is, waiting for you down there."

And he pointed with his finger to the alley. The girl thanked him with a gesture of her head and moved hastily away in the direction given her. As for Courtin, convinced that the interview would be a long one, he sat down, philosophically, on a milestone, prepared to wait. From that milestone, however, he could keep the two young people in sight while dreaming of his coming fortune, which now seemed a certainty,--for he held in Mary one end of the thread that would lead him through the labyrinth; and this time, he vowed, the thread should not break.

But he had scarcely begun to set up the scaffolding of glorious dreams on the golden clouds of his imagination, when the two young people, after exchanging a few sentences, returned in his direction. They passed in front of him; the young baron had Mary on his arm and was carrying the little package the farmer had lately seen in Mary's hand. Michel nodded to him.

"Ho, ho!" thought Courtin, "is it going to be as easy as this? There's absolutely no credit in it." And he followed the lovers on a sign from Michel, keeping at a short distance behind them.

Presently, however, he began to feel a slight uneasiness. Instead of going to the upper town, where Courtin felt instinctively that the princess was hidden, the pair turned down toward the river. The farmer followed their movements with deep anxiety. Soon, however, he began to fancy that Mary had some errand in that direction, and that Michel was only accompanying her.

Nevertheless, his anxiety again deepened when, on turning the corner of the quay, he saw the young pair making straight for the tavern of the Point du Jour, which they presently entered. Unable to restrain himself any longer he ran hastily forward and overtook the baron.

"Ah, here you are,--just in time!" said Michel.

"What is it?" asked the spy.

"Courtin, my dear fellow, I'm the happiest man on earth!"

"Why so?"

"Quick! saddle me two horses!"

"Two horses?"

"Yes."

"And Mademoiselle Mary? don't you mean to take her back?"

"No, Courtin, I shall carry her off!"

"Where?"

"To Banl[oe]uvre; where we shall make some plan to get away together."

"But will Mademoiselle Mary desert--"

Courtin stopped short; he was about to betray himself. But Michel was much too happy and excited to be distrustful.

"Mademoiselle Mary will not desert any one, my dear Courtin; we are to send Bertha in her place. Don't you see that I can't be the one to tell Bertha I do not love her?"

"Then who will tell her?"

"Don't trouble yourself about that, Courtin; somebody will tell her. Now, quick! saddle those horses!"

"Have you any horses here?"

"No, none of my own; but there are always horses, don't you understand, for those who travel for the good of the cause."

And Michel pushed Courtin toward the stable, where, in fact, two horses were munching their oats as if awaiting the young people.

Just as Michel was putting the saddle on the second horse the master of the inn came down, followed by Mary.

"I come from the South and am going to Rosny," Michel said to him, continuing to saddle one of the horses, while Courtin was saddling, but more slowly, the other. Courtin heard the password, but did not comprehend it.

"Very good," said the master of the inn, nodding his head in sign of intelligence.

Then, as Courtin seemed rather behindhand, he helped him to saddle the other horse and rejoin Michel.

"Monsieur Michel," said Courtin, making a last effort, "why go to Banl[oe]uvre instead of to La Logerie? You would be more comfortable at my house."

Michel questioned Mary by a look.

"Oh! no, no, no!" she said. "Remember, my dear friend," she whispered, "that Bertha will be certain to return there to get news of us, and to know why the vessel was not at the place agreed upon; and I wouldn't for all the world see her before the friend you know of speaks to her. I think I should die of shame and grief if I saw her just now."

At Bertha's name, which he overheard, Courtin raised his head as a horse raises his to the sound of trumpets.

"Mademoiselle does not want to go to La Logerie?" he said.

"But, Mary," said Michel, hesitating.

"What?" asked the girl.

"Who will give your sister the letter that summons her to Nantes?"

"As for that," said Courtin, "it isn't hard to find a messenger. If there is anything you want said or done, Monsieur Michel, I'll undertake it."

Michel hesitated; but he, like Mary, dreaded Bertha's first outbreak of anger. Again he looked at Mary; she replied with an assenting sign.

"Then we will go to Banl[oe]uvre; and you must take the letter," said Michel, giving Courtin a paper. "If you have anything to say to us, Courtin, you will find us there for the present."

"Ah, poor Bertha! poor Bertha!" said Mary, springing on her horse. "How shall I ever console myself for my happiness?"

The two young people were now in their saddles; they made a friendly sign to the master of the inn; Michel commended the letter once more to Courtin's care, and then they both rode away from the tavern of the Point du Jour.

At the end of the pont Rousseau they came near riding over a man who, in spite of the heat of the weather, was wrapped in a sort of mantle which almost hid his face. This sombre apparition alarmed Michel; he quickened his horse's pace and told Mary to do the same. After going about a hundred yards Michel turned round. The stranger had stopped, and, in spite of the darkness, was watching them.

"He is looking at us!" said Michel, feeling instinctively that they had just passed some great danger.

After the unknown man had lost sight of the riders he continued his way to Nantes. At the door of the Point du Jour he stopped, looked about him as if in search of some one, and saw a man reading a letter by the light of a lantern. He went up to the man, who, at the sound of his steps, looked round.

"Ah, it's you!" said Courtin. "Faith, you've just missed getting here too soon; a minute earlier and you would have found yourself in company you wouldn't have liked."

"Who were those two young people who nearly knocked me over on the bridge?"

"The very ones I mean."

"Well, what's the news,--good, or bad?"

"Both; but more good than bad."

"Is it to be to-night?"

"No; the affair is postponed."

"You mean failed, blunderer!"

Courtin smiled.

"It is true that luck has been against me since yesterday; but no matter! we must be satisfied with walking, not running, that's all. Though to-day is a failure, in view of immediate results, I wouldn't take twenty thousand francs for it."

"Ah, ha! you are sure of that?"

"Yes, very sure. The proof is that I've got hold of something already."

"What?"

"This," said Courtin, showing the letter he had just unsealed and read.

"A letter?"

"A letter."

"What's in it?" said the man in the cloak, putting out his hand to take the paper.

"One moment. We will read it together. I prefer to hold it, because it is intrusted to me for delivery."

"Well, let us read it," said the man.

They both went up to the lantern and read as follows:--

Come to me as soon as possible; you know the passwords. Your affectionate PETIT-PIERRE.

"To whom is that letter addressed?" asked the man in the cloak.

"To Mademoiselle Bertha de Souday."

"Her name is not on the cover, nor at the bottom of the page."

"Because a letter might be lost."

"And you are commissioned to deliver that letter?"

"Yes."

The man gave a second glance at the paper.

"The writing is certainly hers," he said. "Ah! if you had only allowed me to accompany you we should have her by this time."

"What does that matter, if you are sure of her later?"

"Yes, true. When shall I see you again?"

"Day after to-morrow."

"Here, or in the country?"

"At Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu; that is half way between Nantes and my house."

"I hope next time you won't stir me up for nothing."

"I promise you that."

"Try to keep your word; I keep mine. Here's the money. See, I hold it ready, so that you may not have to wait for it."

He opened his wallet and showed the farmer, complacently, a mass of bank-bills amounting probably to a hundred thousand francs.

"Oh," said Courtin, "only paper!"

"Paper, of course, but signed 'Garat;' that is a good signature."

"No matter," said Courtin; "I prefer gold."

"Well, gold you shall have," said the other, replacing the portfolio in his pocket and crossing his mantle over his coat.

If the pair had not been so engrossed in their conversation they would have seen that a peasant had climbed the wall between the street and the courtyard by the help of a cart which stood outside, and was listening to what they said, and gazing at the bank-notes with an air which implied that in Courtin's place he would have been quite satisfied with Garat's signature.

"Very good; then the day after to-morrow at Saint-Philbert," repeated the man in the cloak.

"Day after to-morrow."

"What time?"

"Evening, of course."

"Say seven o'clock. The first comer will wait for the other."

"But you'll bring the money?"

"You mean the gold? yes."

"All right."

"Do you expect to bring the matter to conclusion then?"

"I hope to. It costs nothing to hope."

"Day after to-morrow, at Saint-Philbert, seven o'clock," muttered the peasant on the wall, letting himself gently down into the street. "We'll be there." Then he added with a laugh that sounded terribly like the grinding of teeth: "When a man is branded he ought to earn his label."

XXXII.

THE MARQUIS DE SOUDAY DRAGS FOR OYSTERS AND BRINGS UP PICAUT.

Bertha, who had left the farmhouse at La Logerie at the same time as Michel, reached, her father after a tramp of about two hours. She found him extraordinarily depressed and utterly disgusted with the hermit's life he was leading in Maître Jacques' warren, though the latter had arranged it for his personal comfort and installed him safely in it.

From a feeling that was purely chivalrous, Monsieur de Souday had not been willing to leave the country so long as Petit-Pierre was in it, and in danger. Therefore, when Bertha came to him with the news of the duchess's probable departure, the old Vendéan gentleman resigned himself, though without heartiness, to follow the advice of General Dermoncourt and depart for the third time to foreign lands.

He and his daughter left the forest of Touvois at once. Maître Jacques, whose hand was now nearly well, though it lacked two fingers, wished to accompany them to the coast and assist in their embarkation.

It was midnight when the three travellers, following the high-road from Machecoul, reached the heights above the valley of Souday. As the marquis looked at the four weathercocks on his four towers, which were shimmering in the moonlight above the sea of verdure which surrounded them, he sighed. Bertha heard him and came nearer to his side.

"What is it, father?" she said. "What are you thinking of?"

"Of many things, my poor child," he answered, shaking his head.

"Don't take gloomy thoughts into your head, father. You are still young and vigorous; you'll see the house again some day."

"Yes," said the marquis, with another sigh, "but--" he stopped, half choking.

"But what?" asked Bertha.

"I shall never see my poor Jean Oullier again."

"Alas!" said the girl.

"Oh, house,--poor house!" said the marquis; "how empty you will seem to me without him!"

Though there was really more of egotism than attachment to his faithful servant in the marquis's regret, if Jean Oullier could have heard that lament it would certainly have touched him deeply.

Bertha resumed the subject.

"Do you know, father," she said, "I can't help fancying, though I am sure I don't know why, that our poor friend, in spite of all they say, is not dead. It seems to me that if he were really dead I should have wept more for him; a secret hope, which I can't explain, comes and stops my tears."

"That's odd," interrupted Maître Jacques; "but I have just the same feeling. No, Jean Oullier is not dead; and I have something better than presumption to go upon,--I saw the body they said was his, and I couldn't recognize it."

"Then what has become of him?" asked the marquis.

"Faith, I don't know!" replied Maître Jacques; "but I keep expecting every day to get news of him."

The marquis sighed again. At this moment they were passing through an angle of the forest. Perhaps he was thinking of the hecatombs of game he and his faithful keeper had piled beneath those verdant arches,--a sight, alas! he might never see again. Perhaps the few words said by Maître Jacques had opened his heart to a renewed hope of recovering his old friend. The latter supposition is the more probable, for he urged the master of rabbits to make most particular inquiries about Jean Oullier's fate, and to let him know the result.

When they reached the seashore the marquis would not wholly conform to the plan laid down by Michel and Bertha for his embarkation. He feared that if they followed the shore along the bay of Bourgneuf, as agreed upon, they might draw the attention of the coast-guard cutter to the schooner; nothing would induce him to incur the reproach of compromising Petit-Pierre's safety for personal considerations, and he decided that the proper thing to do was for himself and daughter to go out to sea and meet the "Jeune Charles."

Maître Jacques, who had friends and accomplices everywhere, soon found a fisherman who was willing, for the consideration of a few louis, to take them in his boat to the schooner. The little craft was drawn up on the shore. The marquis and Bertha, instructed by Maître Jacques, who was familiar with all smuggling man[oe]uvres, slipped into it and escaped the eyes of the custom-house officers who watched the coast. An hour later the tide floated the boat; the owner and his two sons, who served as crew, got into her and put out to sea.

As it still wanted half an hour till daybreak, the marquis did not wait till the boat was in the offing to come out of his hiding-place in the little deck cabin, where he was even more cribbed and confined than in Maître Jacques' burrow. As soon as the fisherman saw him he began to ask questions.

"You say, monsieur, that the vessel you expect is coming from the mouth of the Loire?"

"Yes," replied the marquis.

"At what hour was she to leave Nantes?"

"From three to five this morning," said Bertha.

The fisherman consulted the wind.

"The wind is southwest," he said; "the tide was high at three o'clock. We ought to meet them between eight and nine; it will take them four hours to get here. Meantime, in order not to attract attention from the coast-guard, we had better throw over some drag-nets and make a pretence of fishing, to explain our being here."

"Make a pretence!" cried the marquis; "why, I should like to fish in good earnest! All my life I have wanted the opportunity for that sport; and faith, as I can't hunt in Machecoul this year, it is a fine compensation which Heaven sends me,--too fine to miss it!"

In spite of Bertha's cautions--for she feared her father's great height might attract attention--the marquis began to work with the fisherman at once.

The net was thrown out and allowed to drag for some time at the bottom of the sea; but before long, the Marquis de Souday, who had valiantly hauled on the ropes to bring the net to the surface, was as delighted as a child with the shining mass of eels, turbot, plaice, skate, and oysters which came up palpitating from the depths of the sea. He at once forgot his griefs, his hopes, his memories; he forgot Souday and the forest of Machecoul, the marches of Saint-Philbert, the great moors; and with them he forgot wild-boars, deer, foxes, hares, partridges, and snipe, and thought only of the shining population with smooth or scaly skins which each throw of the net produced before his eyes.

Daylight came.

Bertha, who till then had sat in the bows absorbed in thought, watching the waves as they parted at the prow of the little vessel and floated away in two phosphorescent furrows,--Bertha now climbed on a coil of rope to examine the horizon.

Through the morning mists, thicker at the mouth of the river than elsewhere, she could see the tall masts and spars of several vessels; but none of them carried the blue pennant by which they were to recognize the "Jeune Charles." She observed this to the fisherman, who assured her, with an oath, that it was impossible for the schooner, if she left Nantes during the night, to have made the open sea already.

The marquis did not give the worthy fisherman and his men much time for discussion, for he was so pleased with his taste of their trade that he allowed no spare time between the throws of the net; and any little pause that occurred he filled up with questions to the old sailor on the rudiments of nautical science.

It was in the course of this instructive conversation that the fisherman requested him to observe that by throwing the net as a drag they were forced to make long tacks, and that this method of proceeding would end by leading them astray from their post of observation. But the marquis, with that careless indifference which was the basis of his character, paid no attention to the skipper's argument, and continued to fill the hold of the boat with the products of the haul.

The morning went by. It was ten o'clock, and still no vessel approached them. Bertha became very uneasy; she mentioned her fears to her father several times, and at last with so much urgency that the marquis could do no less than consent to go nearer to the mouth of the river. He profited by the man[oe]uvre, however, to make the old sailor teach him how to haul his wind,--that is to say, how to trim his sails so as to make as slight an angle with the keel as the rigging would allow. They were in the most tangled part of the demonstration when Bertha uttered a cry.

She had just seen at a few hundred feet from the boat a large vessel with all sail spread, to which she had hitherto paid no attention, as it did not fly the promised signal, and was now partly hidden by the jib of the boat.

"Look out! look out!" she cried; "there's a ship coming down upon us!"

The fisherman saw in an instant the danger that threatened them, and springing to the helm he wrenched it from the hand of the marquis, then, without observing that he knocked the latter flat on the deck, he managed to get the boat round to windward of the ship, which was close upon them. Rapid as the man[oe]uvre was, he could not prevent a slight collision; the boom of the lugger's mainsail grazed the side of the schooner with a loud noise, her gaff was entangled for a moment with the latter's bowsprit; the boat heeled over, shipped a sea, and if the skipper's rapid man[oe]uvre had not enabled him to catch the wind, she might not have righted as rapidly as she did, or perhaps not have righted at all.

"The devil take that damned coaster!" cried the old fisherman. "Another minute and we should have gone to the bottom in exchange for the fish we've just caught!"

"Go about! go about!" cried the marquis, exasperated by his fall. "After him! the devil take me if I don't board him and ask the captain what he means by such insolence!"

"Do you expect me," said the old sailor, "with my one sail and two poor jibs, to overhaul a craft of that kind? Look at his canvas, the villain!--every stitch set! And see how it draws!"

"Yet we must overtake him!" cried Bertha, running aft. "It is the 'Jeune Charles!'"

And she showed her father a broad, white band at the stern of the other vessel on which could be read, in letters of gold. "LE JEUNE CHARLES."

"Faith, you are right, Bertha!" cried the marquis. "Go about, my friend, go about! But why doesn't he carry the signal agreed upon with Monsieur de la Logerie? And why, instead of steering for the bay of Bourgneuf, is he heading east?"

"Perhaps some accident has happened," said Bertha, turning pale.

"God grant it may not be to Petit-Pierre!" muttered the marquis.

Bertha admired her father's stoicism, but in her heart she murmured: "God grant it may not be to Michel!"

"Never mind!" said the marquis, "we must find out what all this means."

The lugger had meantime gone about, and again catching the wind, began to move rapidly through the water; this man[oe]uvre on a vessel of her size could be done so quickly that the schooner, in spite of her volume of sail, did not get far in advance. The fisherman was able to hail her.

The captain appeared on the poop.

"Are you the 'Jeune Charles' from Nantes?" asked the skipper of the boat, making a trumpet of his two hands.

"What's that to you?" answered the captain of the schooner, whose good humor did not seem to be restored by the certainty of having evaded the clutches of the law.

"I have folks aboard for you!" cried the fisherman.

"More messengers! A thousand devils! I tell you if you bring me any more such fellows like those I have had this night, I'll run you down, you old oyster-dredger, before I let 'em aboard!"

"No, they are passengers! Aren't you looking out for passengers?"

"I'm looking out for a good wind to take me round Cape Finisterre!"

"Let me come alongside," said the fisherman, at Bertha's suggestion.

The captain of the "Jeune Charles" looked at the sea, and not perceiving between himself and the coast anything to warrant apprehension, and desirous, moreover, to know if the passengers asking to come aboard were those for whom his vessel was chartered, he did as the fisherman requested, hauled down his foresail and mainsail and brought-to his vessel sufficiently to throw a line to the lugger and bring her alongside.

"Now, then!" cried the captain, leaning over his bulwarks, "what's all this about?"

"Ask Monsieur de la Logerie to come and speak to us," said Bertha.

"Monsieur de la Logerie is not aboard of me," replied the captain.

"But," returned Bertha, in a troubled voice, "at any rate, you have two ladies, haven't you?"

"Ladies or passengers, I haven't any," said the captain; "except a rascal in irons down in the hold, where he is cursing and swearing fit to take the masts out of the ship and make the bulkhead he's lashed to tremble."

"Good God!" cried Bertha, trembling herself. "Do you know if any accident has happened to the persons who were to embark on your ship?"

"Faith, my pretty young lady," said the captain, "if you would tell me what all this means you would oblige me greatly; for the devil is in it if I can make out anything about it. Last night two men came on board, both from Monsieur de la Logerie, with two different messages: one ordered me to sail at once; the other told me to stay where I was. One of these men was an honest farmer,--a mayor, I think, for he showed me a bit of a tricolor scarf. It was he who told me to up anchor and be off as fast as I could. The other, who wanted me to stay, was an old galley-slave. I put faith in the most respectable of the two, for, after all, his advice was safest, and I came away."

"My God!" exclaimed Bertha, "it must have been Courtin; some accident has happened to Monsieur de la Logerie!"

"Do you want to see the other man?" asked the captain.

"What man?" said the marquis.

"The one I've got below in irons. You may recognize him, and then we shall get at the truth of this business,--though it is too late now to do any good."

"Too late to get away,--yes, that may be," said the marquis; "but not too late to save our friends if they are in any peril. Show us the man!"

The captain gave an order, and a few seconds later Joseph Picaut was brought on deck. He was still chained and bound; but, in spite of his bonds, he had no sooner caught sight of the coast of La Vendée, which he thought he was fated never to see again, than, without reckoning distance, or the impossibility of swimming, bound as he was, he tried to escape his captors and fling himself into the sea.

This happened on the starboard side forward, so that the passengers in the lugger, which was now to leeward near the stern of the vessel, could not see what happened; but they heard Joseph Picaut's cry and knew that a struggle of some kind was taking place on the schooner. The fisherman pushed his boat along the side of the ship, and they then saw Joseph Picaut struggling in the grasp of four men.

"Let me jump into the water!" he was shouting. "I'd rather die at once than rot in that hole!"

He might possibly have succeeded in flinging himself overboard if he had not at that instant recognized the faces of the Marquis de Souday and Bertha, who were looking up at him in amazement. "Ah, Monsieur le marquis! ah, Mademoiselle Bertha!" cried Picaut; "you will save me, won't you? It is for executing Monsieur Michel's orders that this brute of a captain treats me as he does; and the lies of that scoundrel Courtin are at the bottom of it."

"Now, then, I want to know the truth about all this," interposed the captain. "If you can relieve me of that blaspheming fellow I shall be glad enough; for I'm not bound for either Botany-Bay or Cayenne."

"Alas!" said Bertha, "it is all true, captain. I don't know what motive the mayor of La Logerie could have had to send you to sea without your passengers; but it is very certain that this man is the one who told you the truth."

"Unbind him, then! Ten thousand cat-o'-nine-tails! let him go hang where he pleases! Now, as for you, what do you want? Are you coming with me, or are you not? It won't cost any more to take you or leave you. I was paid in advance; and to ease my conscience I'd rather like to take somebody."

"Captain," said Bertha, "isn't it possible to go back up the river and let our friends embark to-night as they meant to do last night?"

"Impossible!" replied the captain, shrugging his shoulders. "Think of the custom-house officers and the river-police! No, no; a plan postponed is a plan defeated. Only, I say again, if you wish to use my vessel to get over to England, I am at your service, and it shall cost you nothing."

The marquis looked at his daughter, but she shook her head.

"Thank you, captain, thanks," replied the marquis. "It is impossible."

"Then we had better part company at once," said the captain. "But before we do so, let me ask you to do me a service."

"What is it?"

"It is about a little note of hand which I will give you, duly signed, requesting you to draw my share of it when you draw your own."

"I'll do anything to please you, captain," said the marquis, affably.

"Very good; then add one hundred lashes on the back of the fellow who fooled me last night, in addition to your own."

"It shall be done," replied the marquis.

"If he has any strength to bear them after he has paid what he owes to me," said a voice.

At the same instant a heavy body fell into the water, and the head of Joseph Picaut was seen about ten paces off, its owner swimming vigorously to the lugger. Once freed of his irons, the Chouan, fearful, no doubt, that some unforeseen circumstance should detain him on the vessel, had plunged head foremost over the schooner's bulwark.

The skipper and the marquis gave him each a hand, and Joseph Picaut clambered into the boat. He was scarcely there before he shouted:--

"Monsieur le marquis, tell that old whale up there that the brand on my shoulder is a cross of honor!"

"Yes, captain, that's true!" cried the marquis. "This peasant was sent to the galleys for doing his duty in the days of the Empire,--his duty as we see it, I mean; and though I don't wholly approve of the means he took, I can declare to you that he has not deserved the treatment you gave him."

"Very well," said the captain, "that's all right. Once, twice, thrice, will you come aboard, or will you not?"

"No, captain, thank you."

"Then good-bye, and better luck."

So saying, the captain signed to the helmsman, the schooner paid off into the wind, the sails were squared again, and the vessel sailed rapidly away, leaving the lugger stationary.

While the old fisherman was working his boat to shore, Bertha and her father held counsel together. In spite of Picaut's explanations (and those explanations were brief, the Chouan having only seen Courtin at the moment when he was seized and bound) they could not understand the motives of the mayor of La Logerie. His conduct, however, was plain enough, and seemed to them extremely suspicious,--although, as Bertha now told her father, he had shown a true devotion to Michel during his illness, and had often expressed to her the utmost attachment to his young master. The marquis, however, was strongly of opinion that his present tortuous behavior concealed some scheme that was not only dangerous to Michel's safety, but to that of their other friends.

As for Picaut, he declared plainly that he lived and breathed for vengeance only, and that if Monsieur de Souday would give him a suit of sailor's clothes to replace those which were torn from his back in the struggles he had gone through, he would start for Nantes the instant he touched land.

The marquis, convinced that Courtin's treachery was in some way connected with Petit-Pierre, wished to go to the town himself; but Bertha, who believed that Michel, finding the escape a failure, would return to the farmhouse at La Logerie, where he would expect her to join him, persuaded her father to put off entering Nantes till he could get some more definite information.

The fisherman landed his passengers at the Pornic point. Picaut, for whose benefit the skipper's son had given up his spencer and his oilskin cap, started across country in a bee-line for Nantes, swearing in every key that Courtin had better look out for himself. But before leaving the marquis he begged him to tell Maître Jacques all the particulars of his adventure, feeling quite certain that the master of the warren would fraternally assist in his revenge.

It was thus that, thanks to his knowledge of localities, he was able to reach Nantes about nine that evening; and going, naturally, to his old post at the Point du Jour, he overheard a part at least of the conversation between Courtin and the mysterious individual of Aigrefeuille, and saw the money, or rather the bank-bills, which Courtin did not regard as valuable until they were changed into coin.

As for the marquis and his daughter, it was not until nightfall that they ventured, notwithstanding Bertha's impatience, to start for the forest of Touvois; and it was not without actual grief of heart that the old gentleman thought of the happy morning he had spent among the fishes, reflecting that it would have no morrow, and that he was fatally condemned to live, for an indefinite time, like a rat in his hole.

XXXIII.

THAT WHICH HAPPENED IN TWO DWELLINGS.

Maître Jacques was not mistaken in his presentiments; Jean Oullier was living. The ball which Courtin had fired at random into the bush--on chance, as it were--had entered his breast; and when the widow Picaut (the wheels of whose cart had alarmed Courtin and his companion) reached him, she felt sure she was lifting a dead body. With a charitable sentiment, very natural to a peasant-woman, she did not choose that the body of a man for whom her husband had always, in spite of their political differences, expressed the utmost respect, should be left as food for the buzzards and jackals; she was determined that the good Vendéan should lie in holy ground, and she therefore placed him on her cart to take him home.

Only, instead of hiding him in the cart, as she had intended doing, she now laid him on it uncovered, and several of the peasants whom she met on the way stopped to look at and touch the bloody remains of the Marquis de Souday's old keeper. In this way the news of Jean Oullier's death was spread about the canton; and this was how the marquis and his daughters heard of it, and why Courtin,--who, the next day, wanted to make sure that the man he most feared was no longer living to terrify him,--why Courtin had been deceived and misled like the rest.

It was to the old cottage where she had formerly lived with her husband that Marianne Picaut now took the body. Since Pascal's death she had, in her loneliness, removed to the inn kept by her mother at Saint-Philbert. The cottage was nearer to Machecoul, Jean Oullier's parish, than the inn; to which, had he been living, she intended to take him and keep him safely concealed till he was well.

Just as the cart reached the open crossway we have often mentioned, one road of which led to the dwelling of the two Picaut brothers, it met a man on horseback following the road to Machecoul. This man, who was no other than our old acquaintance, Monsieur Roger, the doctor at Légé, questioned some of the little ragamuffins who, with the persistency and curiosity of their age, were following the cart. When the doctor heard that it contained the body of Jean Oullier, he left his present direction and followed the cart to the Picaut dwelling.

The widow placed Jean Oullier on the bed where Pascal Picaut and the poor Comte de Bonneville had lain side by side. While thus busy in doing him the last offices, and wiping the blood and dust which covered his face and matted his hair, the widow suddenly looked up and saw the doctor.

"Alas! dear Monsieur Roger," she said, "the poor gars is beyond your help, more's the pity. There are so many left on this earth who are not worth their salt that it is doubly sad when one like Jean Oullier is carried off before his time."

The doctor made the widow tell him all she knew of Jean Oullier's death. The presence of her sister-in-law and the children and women who had followed the cart out of curiosity, prevented the widow from relating how she had met him and left him a few hours earlier, full of life, except for his broken ankle; and how, returning after dark, she heard a pistol-shot and the footsteps of men who were running away, having no doubt murdered him. She merely said that coming from the moor she had found the body on the road.

"Poor, brave man!" said the doctor. "But after all, better such a death--the death of a soldier--than the fate that awaited him had he lived. He was seriously compromised, and if taken, they would have sent him, no doubt, to the cells on Mont Saint-Michel."

As he said the words the doctor went nearer to the body and mechanically took the inert arm to lay it over the breast; but his hand had no sooner come in contact with the flesh than the doctor started.

"What is it?" asked the widow.

"Nothing," replied the doctor, coldly. "The man is dead and only needs the last offices."

"Why did you bring his body here?" said the wife of Joseph Picaut, angrily. "We shall have the Blues down upon us! You know what happened the first time, and can judge by that."

"What does that signify to you," said the widow, "as neither you nor your husband live here any longer?"

"It is the very reason we don't live here," replied Joseph's wife. "We are afraid the Blues may be after us and destroy the little property that is left."

"You would do well to have him recognized before you bury him," interrupted the doctor; "and if that will be any trouble to you I'll undertake to remove the body to the château of the Marquis de Souday, whose physician I am." Then, seizing a moment when the widow passed close beside him, he whispered, "Get rid of these people." This was easy to do, as it was then near midnight. As soon as they were alone the doctor said, going close up to Marianne:--

"Jean Oullier is not dead."

"Not dead?" she cried.

"No. I said nothing before those people, because, in my opinion, it is of the utmost consequence that no one shall come here and disturb you in the care I am sure you will give him."

"God bless you!" said the good woman, joyfully. "If I can help to cure him you may count on me; I'll do it with the greatest happiness, for I shall never forget the friendship my poor husband felt for him. Neither shall I cease to remember that though I was then working against him and his, Jean Oullier wouldn't let me die by the hand of a murderer."

Then, having carefully closed all the shutters and the door of her room, the widow lighted a fire, heated water, and while the doctor examined the wound and tried to discover what, if any, vital organs were involved, she said good-bye to a few old gossips still lingering about the house, saying she was on her way back to Saint-Philbert. Then at the first turn of the road she darted into the woods and returned to the cottage by way of the orchard.

She listened at Joseph Picaut's part of the house; it was closed and she heard no sound. Evidently her sister-in-law and the children had returned to the hiding-place in which they lived while the husband and father continued to keep up, under Maître Jacques, the partisan warfare.

Marianne re-entered her own part of the house by the back door. The doctor had finished dressing the wound: the signs of life in the body were becoming more and more evident. Not only the heart, but the pulses too were beating; and on putting a hand before the lips the breath could be distinctly felt. The widow listened joyfully to what the doctor told her.

"Do you think you can save him?" she asked.

"That's in God's hands," replied the doctor. "All I can say is that no vital organ is involved, but the loss of blood has been enormous; and I have also found it impossible to extract the ball."

"But," said Marianne, "I have heard that men can be cured and live to old age with a ball in the body."

"So they can," replied the doctor. "But now, how are you going to manage?"

"I did mean to take the poor fellow to Saint-Philbert and hide him there till he died or recovered."

"You can't do that now," said the doctor. "He must have been saved by what we call a clot, which has plugged the artery. The slightest jar now would prove fatal. Besides, in your mother's inn at Saint-Philbert, with so many going and coming, you could never conceal his presence."

"Good God! do you believe that in such a state they would have the cruelty to arrest him?"

"They would not put him in prison, of course; but they would take him to some hospital, and as soon as he recovers they would try him, and condemn him either to death or to the galleys. Jean Oullier is one of those obscure leaders who are so dangerous through their influence on the body of the people that the government will be pitiless toward him. Why don't you confide in your sister-in-law? Jean Oullier and she hold the same opinions."

"You heard what she said?"

"That's true. I see you can't have much confidence in her pity. And yet, God knows, she of all people ought to be merciful to her neighbor, for if her husband were taken it might go far worse with him than with Jean Oullier."

"Yes, I know that," said the widow, in a gloomy voice. "Death is upon them all."

"Well," said the doctor, "the question is, can you hide him here?"

"Here? Yes, of course I can; he will even be safer here than elsewhere, because the house is thought to be empty. But who would take care of him?"

"Jean Oullier is not a girl or a baby," replied the doctor. "Two or three days hence, after the fever subsides, he can be left alone all day; and I'll promise you to visit him at night."

"Very good; and I'll be here all the time I can without exciting suspicion."

Marianne, with the doctor's help, carried the wounded man into the stable adjoining her room; she bolted the door carefully, placed her own mattress on a pile of straw, and then, appointing to meet the doctor there the following night, and knowing that the sick man would need only a little fresh water at first, she threw herself on a heap of straw beside him and waited patiently till he showed some signs of returning life, either by words or even by a sigh.

The next day she showed herself at Saint-Philbert; and when asked about Jean Oullier, replied that she had followed the advice of her sister-in-law, and fearing to be molested, had taken the dead body back to the moor where she had found it. Then she returned to her house on pretence of putting it in order. The following evening she again closed it carefully and went back to Saint-Philbert before dark, so that all the town might see her. But no sooner was it really night than she returned to Jean Oullier.

She nursed him in this way for three days and nights, shut up with him in the stable, fearing to make the slightest noise that might betray her presence; and though at the end of those three days Jean Oullier was still in the state of torpor which follows great physical commotions and loss of blood, the doctor advised her to stay at home during the day and return to him only at night.

Jean Oullier's wound was so severe that he really hung for a fortnight between life and death; fragments of his clothing carried in by the ball remained in the wound, where they kept up the inflammation, and it was not till Nature herself eliminated them that the doctor, to the widow's great joy, declared him out of danger. The good woman's care redoubled as soon as she felt he would recover; and though her patient was still weak and could hardly articulate more than a few words, and the signs were few of his being any better, she never failed to spend the night beside him and supply all his wants, taking at the same time the utmost precautions.

In spite of all drawbacks, however, no sooner were the foreign substances expelled from the wound, and a steady and healthful suppuration set up, than he made rapid strides to recovery. As his strength returned he began to worry greatly about those he loved; and he now implored the widow to bring him some news of the Marquis de Souday, Bertha, Mary, and even Michel,--Michel, who had actually triumphed over the old Vendéan's antipathies and conquered a place, however small, in his affections. Marianne did as he requested, and made some inquiries of the royalist travellers who stopped at her mother's inn; and she was soon able to relieve Jean Oullier's mind by telling him that his friends were all living and well; that the marquis was in the forest of Touvois, Bertha and Michel at Courtin's farmhouse, and Mary, in all probability, at Nantes.

But the widow had no sooner uttered the name of Courtin than a total change came over her patient's face; he passed his hand across his forehead as if to clear his thought, and rose in his bed for the first time without assistance. Friendship and tenderness had occupied his first returning thoughts; hatred and thoughts of vengeance now filled his hitherto empty brain, and over-excited it with all the more violence because it had been torpid so long.

To her terror, Marianne Picaut heard Jean Oullier again uttering phrases he had cried out in his fever, and which she had then taken for delirium; she heard him mingle Courtin's name with accusations of treachery and murder and of fabulous sums paid for some crime. Talking thus, her patient became violently excited; with flashing eyes, and in a voice trembling with emotion he implored her to go and find Bertha and bring her to his bedside. The poor woman believed his excitement was caused by a return of the fever, and was all the more uneasy because the doctor had told her that he should not return for two nights. She nevertheless promised the patient to do as he requested.

On this promise Jean Oullier calmed down, and little by little, overcome with the violence of the emotions he had just passed through, he went to sleep.

The widow, sitting on the straw beside the bed, and conscious of her own fatigue, felt her eyes closing and sleep overtaking her in spite of herself, when, all of a sudden she heard, or fancied she heard, some unusual sound in the courtyard. She listened attentively; it was certainly a man's step on the pavement which surrounded the pile of manure which lay in the yard of the two dwellings. Presently a hand unfastened the latch of the adjoining door, and Marianne heard a voice, which she recognized as that of her brother-in-law, cry out: "This way, this way!" and then the steps went up to Joseph's house.

Marianne knew that the house was empty; this nocturnal visit of her brother-in-law excited her curiosity. She did not doubt it concerned some scheme of violence such as all Chouans cherish traditionally, and she resolved to listen.

She softly raised the shutter of a hole through which the cows, when in the stable, poked their heads to eat the provender laid for them on the floor of the room itself. Through this narrow opening she crawled into her own room; then she climbed noiselessly up the ladder on which the Comte de Bonneville had met his death, entered the garret, which, as we know, was common to the two houses, and there, with her ear to the floor above her brother-in-law's room, listened attentively.

She came into the midst of a conversation already begun.

"Did you see the sum?" said a voice which was not completely unknown to her, though she could not recall the owner of it.

"As plain as I see you," replied Joseph Picaut. "It was all in bank-bills; but he insisted on having it in gold."

"So much the better! for bills, I must say, don't attract me much; it is difficult to get them taken in country places."

"I tell you he is to have gold."

"Good! and where are they to meet?"

"At Saint-Philbert, to-morrow night. You have plenty of time to collect your gars."

"My gars! are you crazy? How many did you say they were?"

"Two; that villain and his companion."

"Well, then, two against two; that's the right kind of war, as Georges Cadoudal of glorious memory used to say."

"But you have only one hand now, Maître Jacques."

"That doesn't matter, if the one hand is a good one. I'll settle the strongest of the pair."

"No, no! that's not in the agreement!"

"What do you mean?"

"I want the mayor for myself."

"You are exacting!"

"Oh, the villain! it will be little enough satisfaction for all he has made me suffer."

"If they have the money you say they have, there'll be enough to compensate you, even if he had sold you on the shambles like a negro. Twenty-five thousand francs! You are not worth all that, my good fellow, I know!"

"Perhaps not; but revenge is what I am after, and I've long wanted to get my hand on him, the damned cur. It was he who caused--"

"Caused what?"

"No matter; I know."

Joseph Picaut's meaning was unintelligible to every one except Marianne. She was certain that the recollection in the Chouan's mind related to the killing of her poor husband, and a shudder ran through her frame.

"Well," said Joseph's companion, "you shall have your man. But, before undertaking the matter, will you swear that all you have said is true, and that it is really a government agent on whom I am to lay hands? Otherwise, you understand, the affair won't suit me."

"The devil! Do you suppose any private man is rich enough to make presents like that to such a villain? Besides, those fifty thousand francs are only on account; I heard that plainly."

"And you couldn't find out what they were paying such a large sum for?"

"No, but I can guess."

"Tell me."

"It is my opinion, Maître Jacques, that in ridding the earth of that pair of rascals we shall be killing two birds with one stone,--a private matter first, and a political stroke next. But don't be uneasy; I'll know more by to-morrow night, and let you know."

"Sacredié!" exclaimed Maître Jacques; "you make my mouth water. Look here! I retract my word; you can only have your man if I leave a bit of him!"

"Leave a bit of him! what do you mean?"

"Why, before you settle with him I want my share in the conversation."

"Pooh! do you suppose you could get his secret out of him?"

"Yes, if he is once my prisoner."

"He's a sly one!"

"Nonsense. You, who knew the old days, don't you remember how we used to make 'em speak,--those who didn't want to?" said Maître Jacques, with a dangerous look.

"Ha, yes! how we roasted their paws! Faith, you are right; that will serve my vengeance better still," replied Joseph Picaut.

"And then we shall find out why and wherefore the government sends those little gifts of fifty thousand francs, on account, to a country mayor. That knowledge may be worth more to us than the gold we pocket."

"Hey! gold has its value, especially to us who are old offenders and likely to leave our heads on the place du Bouffai. With my share, that is, twenty-five thousand francs, I can get away and live elsewhere."

"You shall do as you like. But come! tell me exactly where your pair are to meet; it is important not to miss them."

"At the inn of Saint-Philbert."

"Then that's all right. Isn't that inn kept by your sister-in-law, or pretty nearly? She shall have her share; it will be in the family."

"Oh, no, no!" cried Joseph. "In the first place she is not one of ours; and besides, she doesn't speak to me since--"

"Since what?"

"My brother's death, there! since you force me to tell you."

"Ah, ha! so it was true, what they said, that if you did not strike the blow, you at least held the candle?"

"Who said that,--who said that?" shouted Joseph Picaut. "Name him, Maître Jacques, and I'll hack him into pieces like that stool!" And suiting the action to the word, he dashed the stool on which he was sitting to the stone hearth and shivered it to fragments.

"Quiet! quiet!" said Maître Jacques; "what's all that to me? You know I never meddle in family affairs. Come back to our own business. You were saying?"

"I was saying, don't mix the matter up with my sister-in-law."

"Then it must be settled in the open country. But where? They'll be sure to come by different roads."

"Yes, but they will go away together. In order to get home, the mayor will have to take the road to Nantes as far as the Tiercet."

"Well, then, let's ambush by the road to Nantes among the reeds; it is a good hiding-place. For my part, I've made more than one good stroke just there."

"So be it. Where shall we meet? I shall leave here to-morrow, before daylight," said Joseph.

"Well, then, meet me at the Ragot crossways in the forest of Machecoul," said the master of warrens.

Joseph agreed to the place and promised to be there. The widow heard him offer Maître Jacques a night's lodging under his roof; but the old Chouan, who had his burrows in every forest of the canton, preferred those asylums to all the houses in the world, if not for comfort, at least for security.

He departed therefore, and all was silent in Joseph's part of the house.

Marianne returned to her stable and found Jean Oullier fast asleep; she did not wake him. The night was far advanced,--so advanced that she had only time to get back to Saint-Philbert before daylight. After arranging, as usual, everything that her patient might want during the morrow, she left the stable through the window.

As she walked thoughtfully along, the hatred she felt to her brother-in-law, because of her firm conviction that he had shared in the death of Pascal, and her deep desire for vengeance, which the loneliness and sufferings of her widowhood made daily more imperious, came over her. It seemed to her that heaven, by calling her providentially to the discovery of Joseph's secret intention of crime, put itself on her side; she believed she would be serving its designs (while satisfying her hatred) in preventing the accomplishment of this crime and the ruin and death of those she considered innocent. Her first idea had been to denounce Maître Jacques and Joseph either to the police or to those they intended to attack; but she now renounced that scheme and resolved to be herself, and all alone, the intermediary between fate and the victims of the intended crime.

XXXIV.

COURTIN FINGERS AT LAST HIS FIFTY THOUSAND FRANCS.

Petit-Pierre's letter to Bertha had not told Courtin much, except that Petit-Pierre was in Nantes and awaited Bertha. As to her hiding-place and the means of reaching it, the letter left him in the dark.

He did, however, possess an important piece of information in his knowledge of the house with two entrances, through which Michel, Mary, and the duchess had undoubtedly passed. For a moment he thought of continuing his method of spying, and of following Bertha when, in obedience to Petit-Pierre's injunction, she should seek the princess in Nantes; and he also thought of discounting to his profit the distress of the girl's mind when she should discover the true relations of Michel and her sister. But the farmer had now come to doubt the efficacy of the means he had hitherto employed; he felt he might lose, without recovery, his last chance of success, if accident or the vigilance of those he watched were to baffle once more his sagacity and cunning. He therefore decided to try another means and take the initiative.

Was the house which opened on the nameless alley to which we have several times taken the reader, and also on the rue du Marché, actually inhabited? If so, who lived there? Through that person, or persons, might it not be possible to reach Petit-Pierre? Such were the questions which reflection placed before the mind of the mayor of La Logerie.

In order to solve them it was necessary that he should stay in Nantes; and Maître Courtin at once resolved to give up returning to his farm, where it was very probable that Bertha had already gone to meet Michel on learning of the failure of his attempt to escape. He therefore boldly decided on his new course.

The next day, at ten o'clock in the morning, he knocked at the door of the mysterious house; but instead of presenting himself at the door on the alley, he went to that on the rue du Marché,--his intention being to convince himself that the two doors gave entrance to the same house.

When the person who answered the knock had satisfied himself through a little iron grating that the person knocking was alone, he opened, or rather half-opened the door. The two heads now came face to face.

"Where do you come from?" asked the man inside.

Taken aback by the suddenness with which this question was put, Courtin hesitated.

"Pardieu!" he said, "from Touvois."

"No one is expected from there," replied the man, attempting to close the door; but it was not so easy to do this, for Courtin had his foot against it.

A ray of light darted into the farmer's mind; he remembered the words Michel had used to obtain the two horses from the landlord of the Point du Jour, and he felt certain that those words, which he had not understood at the time, were the countersign.

The man continued to push the door; but Courtin held firm.

"Wait, wait!" he said. "When I said I came from Touvois I was only trying to find out if you were in the secret; one can't take too many precautions in these devilish times. Well, there! I don't come from Touvois, I come from the South."

"And where are you going?" asked his questioner, without, however, yielding one inch of the way.

"Where do you expect me to go, if I come from the South, but to Rosny?"

"That's all right," said the servant; "but don't you see, my fine friend, that no one can come in here without showing a white paw?"

"For those who are all white, that isn't difficult."

"Hum! so much the better," said the man, a peasant of Lower Brittany, who was running over the beads of a chaplet in his hand while speaking.

But inasmuch as Courtin had really answered with the proper passwords, he showed him, though with evident reluctance, into a small room, and said, pointing to a chair:--

"Monsieur is engaged just now. I will announce you as soon as he has finished with the person who is now in his office. Sit down,--unless you want to spend the time more usefully."

Courtin saw that he had gained more than he expected. He had hoped to meet some subordinate agent from whom he could extract, either by trickery or corruption, the clues he wanted. When the man who admitted him spoke of announcing him to his master, he felt that the matter was becoming serious, and that he ought to be ready with some tale to meet the necessities of the situation. He refrained from questioning the servant, whose stern and gloomy countenance showed him to be one of those rigid fanatics who are still to be found on the Celtic peninsula. Courtin instantly perceived the tone he ought to take.

"Yes," he said, giving to his countenance a humble and sanctimonious expression, "I will wait Monsieur's leisure and employ the time in prayer. May I take one of those prayer-books?" he added, glancing at the table.

"Don't touch those books if you are what you pretend to be; they are not prayer-books, they are profane books," replied the Breton. "I'll lend you mine," he continued, drawing from the pocket of his embroidered jacket a little book, the cover and edges of which were blackened by time and usage.

The movement he made in carrying his hand to his pocket disclosed the shining handles of two pistols stuck into his wide belt, and Courtin congratulated himself on not having risked any attempt on the fidelity of the Breton, whom he now felt to be a man who would have answered it in some dangerous way.

"Thank you," he said, as he received the book and knelt down with such humility and contrition that the Breton, much edified, removed the hat from his long hair, made the sign of the cross, and closed the door very softly, that he might not trouble the devotions of so saintly a person.

As soon as he was alone, the farmer felt a desire to examine in detail the room in which he found himself; but he was not the man to commit such a blunder as that. He reflected that the Breton's eye might be fixed on him through the keyhole; he therefore controlled himself and remained absorbed in prayer.

Nevertheless, while mumbling his pater-nosters, Courtin's eyes did rove about the floor below him. The room was not more than a dozen feet square, and was separated from an adjoining room by a partition, in which there was a door. This little room was plainly furnished in walnut, and was lighted by a window on the courtyard, the lower panes of which were provided with a very delicate iron grating painted green, which prevented any one on the outside from seeing into the apartment.

He listened attentively to hear if any sound of voices could reach him; but as to this, precautions had doubtless been taken, for though Maître Courtin strained his ears toward the door and toward the chimney, near which he was kneeling, not a sound reached him.

But, as he stooped beneath the chimney-piece to listen better, Courtin caught sight, among the ashes, of several bits of crumpled paper lying in a heap, as if placed there to be burned. These papers tempted him; he dropped his arm, and then, leaning his head against the chimney-piece, he slowly stretched out his hand and took up the papers, one by one. Without changing his position he managed to open them, confident that his movements at that level were hidden from any eye at the keyhole by a table in the middle of the room.

He had examined and thrown away as of no interest several of these papers, when on the back of one (among a number of insignificant bills which he was about to crumple up on his knee and return to the ashes) he spied certain words in a delicate and refined handwriting, which struck him; they were as follows:--

"If you feel uneasy, come at once. Our friend desires me to say that there is an empty room in our retreat which is at your service."

The note was signed M. de S. Evidently, as the initials indicated, it was signed by Mary de Souday. Courtin put it carefully away in his pocket; his peasant craftiness had instantly perceived the possible good he might get out of its possession.

He continued his investigations, however, and came to the conclusion, from sundry bills for large payments, that the owner or lessee of the house must be intrusted with the management of the duchess's money-matters. Just then he heard the sound of voices and of steps in the passage. He rose hastily and went to the window. Through the grating we have mentioned he saw the servant escorting a gentleman to the door. The latter held in his hand an empty money-bag, and before leaving the premises he folded it up and put it in his pocket. Until then Courtin had not been able to see his face; but, just as he passed in front of the servant to go out of the door, Courtin recognized Maître Loriot.

"Ah, ha!" he said. "So he's in it, is he? It is he who brings them money. Decidedly, I made a good stroke in coming here."

He returned to his place near the chimney, thinking that the time for his interview had probably arrived. When the Breton opened the door he found the visitor so absorbed in his orisons that he never stirred. The peasant went to him, touched him gently on the shoulder, and asked him to follow him; Courtin obeyed, after ending his prayer as he began it, by making the sign of the cross, which the Breton imitated.

The farmer was now shown into the same room where Maître Pascal had formerly received Michel; on this occasion, however, Maître Pascal was much more seriously employed. Before him was a table covered with papers, and Courtin fancied he saw the shining of various gold-pieces among a pile of opened letters, which seemed to have been lately heaped there as if to hide them.

Maître Pascal intercepted the farmer's glance; at first he was not displeased, attributing it to nothing more than the inquisitive interest which the peasantry always attach to the sight of gold and silver. Nevertheless, as he did not choose to allow that curiosity to go too far, he pretended to search for something in a drawer, and in order to do so threw up an end of the long green table-cloth so that it covered the pile of papers effectually. Then, turning to his visitor he said roughly:--

"What do you want?"

"To fulfil an errand."

"Who sends you?"

"Monsieur de la Logerie."

"Ah, do you belong to that young man?"

"I am his farmer, his confidential man."

"Then say what you have to say."

"But I don't know that I can do that," said Courtin, boldly.

"Why not?"

"Because you are not the person to whom Monsieur de la Logerie sent me."

"Who was it, then?" asked Maître Pascal, frowning with some uneasiness.

"Another person, to whom you were to take me."

"I don't know what you mean," returned Maître Pascal, unable to conceal the impatience he felt at what he supposed to be an unpardonable piece of heedlessness on Michel's part.

Courtin, noticing his annoyance, saw that he had gone too far; but it was dangerous to beat too rapid a retreat.

"Come," said Pascal, "will you, or will you not tell me what you are here for? I have no time to waste."

"Bless me! I don't know what to do, my good gentleman," said Courtin. "I love my young master enough to jump into the fire for him. When he says to me 'do this' or 'do that,' I always try to execute his orders just as he gives them, so as to deserve his confidence; and he did not tell me to give his message to you."

"What is your name, my good man?"

"Courtin, at your service."

"What parish do you belong to?"

"La Logerie."

Maître Pascal took up a note-book, and looked it over for a few moments; then he fixed an investigating and distrustful eye on Courtin.

"You are the mayor of La Logerie?" he asked.

"Yes, since 1830." Then, observing Maître Pascal's increasing coldness, "It was my mistress, Madame la baronne, who had me nominated," he added.

"Did Monsieur de la Logerie only give you a verbal message for the person to whom he sent you?"

"Yes; I have a bit of a letter here, but it isn't for that person."

"Can I see that bit of a letter?"

"Of course; there's no secret in it, because it isn't sealed."

And Courtin held out to Maître Pascal the paper Michel had given him for Bertha, in which Petit-Pierre begged her to come to Nantes.

"How happens it that this paper is still in your hands?" asked Maître Pascal. "It is dated some days ago."

"Because one can't do everything all at once; and I am not going back our way just yet, and till I do I can't meet the person to whom I'm to give the note."

Maître Pascal's eyes had never left the farmer's face from the moment he had failed to find Courtin's name on the list of those whose loyalty could be trusted. The latter was now affecting the same idiotic simplicity that had succeeded so well with the captain of the "Jeune Charles."

"Come, my good man," said Maître Pascal, "it is impossible for you to give your message to any one but me. Do so if you think proper; if not, go back to your master, and tell him he must come himself."

"I sha'n't do that, my dear monsieur," replied Courtin. "My master is condemned to death, and I don't wish to say a word to bring him back to Nantes. He is better off with us. I'll tell the whole thing to you; you can do what you think best about it, and if Monsieur is not pleased, he may scold me; I'd rather that than bring him here."

This artless expression of devotion reconciled Maître Pascal in a degree to the farmer, whose first answer had seriously alarmed him.

"Go on, my good man, and I will answer for it your master will not blame you."

"The matter is soon told: Monsieur Michel wants me to tell you, or rather tell Monsieur Petit-Pierre,--for that is the name of the person he sent me to find,--"

"Go on!" said Maître Pascal, smiling.

"I was to tell him that he had discovered the man who ordered the ship to sail a few moments before Monsieur Petit-Pierre, Mademoiselle Mary, and himself reached the rendezvous."

"And who may that man be?"

"One named Joseph Picaut, lately hostler at the Point du Jour."

"True; the man whom we placed there has disappeared since yesterday," said Maître Pascal. "Go on, Courtin!"

"I was to warn Monsieur Petit-Pierre to beware of this Picaut in town, and to say he would look out for him in the country. And that's all."

"Very good; thank Monsieur de la Logerie for his information. And now that I have received it, I can assure you that it was intended for me."

"That's enough to satisfy me," said Courtin, rising.

Maître Pascal accompanied the farmer as he went out with much civility, and did for him what Courtin had noticed that he did not do for Maître Loriot,--he followed him to the very door of the street.

Courtin was too wily himself to mistake the meaning of these attentions; and he was not surprised, when he had gone about twenty paces from the house, to hear the door open and close behind him. He did not turn round; but, certain that he was followed, he walked slowly, like a man at leisure, stopping to gaze like a countryman into all the shop-windows, reading the posters on the walls, and carefully avoiding everything that might confirm the suspicions he had not been able to destroy in Maître Pascal's mind. This constraint was no annoyance to him; in fact, he enjoyed his morning, feeling that he was on the verge of obtaining the reward of his trouble.

Just as he arrived in front of the hôtel des Colonies he saw Maître Loriot under the portico, talking to a stranger. Courtin, affecting great surprise, went straight to the notary, and inquired how he came to be at Nantes when it was not the market-day. Then he asked the notary if he would give him a seat in his cabriolet back to Légé, to which the latter very willingly assented, saying, however, that he still had a few errands to do and should not be ready to leave Nantes for four or five hours, and advising Courtin to wait in some café.

Now, a café was a luxury the farmer would not allow himself under any circumstances, and that day least of all. In his religious fervor he went devoutly to church, where he assisted at vespers said for the canons; after which he returned to Maître Loriot's hotel, sat down on a stone bench under a yew-tree, and went to sleep, or pretended to do so, in the calm and peaceful slumber of an easy conscience.

Two hours later the notary returned; he told Courtin that unexpected business would detain him at Nantes, and that he could not start for Légé before ten o'clock. This did not suit the farmer, whose appointment with Monsieur Hyacinthe (the name, it will be remembered, of the mysterious man of Aigrefeuille) was from seven to eight o'clock at Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu. He therefore told Monsieur Loriot that he must give up the honor of his company and go on foot, for the sun was getting low and he wanted to get home before night-fall.

When Courtin, sitting on the bench, had first opened his eyes, he saw the Breton servant watching him; he now paid no attention to him and seemed not to see him as he started to keep his rendezvous. The Breton followed him over the river; but Courtin never once betrayed, by looking backward, the usual uneasiness of those whose consciences are ill at ease. The result was that the Breton returned to his master and assured him that it was a great mistake to distrust the worthy peasant, who spent his leisure hours in the most innocent amusements and pious practices; so that even Maître Pascal, cautious as he was, began to think Michel less to blame for confiding in so faithful a servant.

XXXV.

THE TAVERN OF THE GRAND SAINT-JACQUES.

One word on the lay of the land about the village of Saint-Philbert. Without this little topographical preface, which shall be short, like all our prefaces, it would be difficult for our readers to follow in detail the scenes we are now about to lay before their eyes.

The village of Saint-Philbert stands at the angle formed by the river Boulogne as it falls into the lake of Grand-Lieu; the village is on the left bank of the river. The church and the principal houses are somewhere about fifteen hundred yards from the lake; the main, in fact the only street follows the river-bank, and the lower it goes to the lake, the fewer and poorer the houses; so that when the vast blue sheet of water, framed in reeds, which forms the terminus of the street is reached, there is nothing to be seen but a few thatched huts occupied by men who are employed in the fisheries.

Yet there is, or rather was at the time of which we write, one exception to this decadence of the lower end of the village street. About thirty steps away from the huts we have mentioned stood a brick and stone house, with red roofs and green shutters, surrounded with hay and straw stacks, like sentinels round a camp, and peopled with a world of cows, sheep, chickens, ducks,--all either lowing and bleating in the stables or clucking and gabbling before the door as they preened themselves in the dust of the road.

The road served as the courtyard of the house, which, if deprived of that useful resort, could still fall back upon its gardens, which are simply the most magnificent and productive of all the country round. From the road the crests of the fruit-trees can be seen above the farm-buildings, covered in spring-time with the rosy snow of their blossoms; in summer, with fruits of all kinds; and during nine months of the year, with verdure. These trees spread in a semi-circle about a thousand feet southerly, to a little hill crowned with ruins which looks down upon the waters of the lake of Grand-Lieu.

This house is the inn kept by the mother of Marianne Picaut. These ruins are those of the château de Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu.

The high walls and gigantic towers of this the most celebrated baronial castle in the province, built to hold the country in check and command the waters of the lake, the gloomy arches that once echoed to the clanking spurs of Comte Gilles de Retz as he trod its paved floors, meditating on those monstrous debauches which surpassed all that Rome in its decadence ever invented,--now, dismantled, dilapidated, swathed in ivy, overgrown with gilliflowers, crumbling on all sides, have descended, from degradation to degradation, to the lowest of all; grand, savage, terrible as they once were, they are now humbly utilitarian; they have been reduced at last to making a living for a family of peasants, descendants of poor serfs who in former days regarded them, no doubt, with fear and trembling.

These ruins shelter the gardens from the northwest wind, so fatal to fertility, and make this little corner of earth a perfect Eldorado, where all things grow and prosper,--from the native pear to the grape, the fruiting sorbus to the fig-tree.

But this was not the only service which the old feudal castle did to its new proprietors. In the lower halls, cooled by currents of impetuous air, they kept their fruits and garden products, preserving them in good condition after the ordinary season had passed; thus doubling their value. And besides this source of profit, the dungeons, where Gilles de Retz had piled his victims, were now a dairy, the butter and cheese of which were justly celebrated. This is what time has done with the Titanic works of the former lords of Saint-Philbert.

One word now on what they once were.

The château de Saint-Philbert consisted originally of a vast parallelogram enclosed with walls, bathed on one side by the waters of the lake and protected on the other side by a broad moat hollowed in the rock. Four square towers flanked the four corners of this enormous mass of stone; a citadel in the centre, with its portcullis bristling with spikes, defended the entrance. Opposite to the citadel, on the other side of the castle, a fifth square tower, taller and more imposing than the rest, commanded the whole structure, and the lake, which surrounded it on three sides.

With the exception of this fifth tower and the citadel, or keep, all the rest of the fortress, walls and main-buildings, had pretty much crumbled away, and time had not entirely spared the great tower itself. The rotten beams of the first floor, unable to support the stones which year by year slid down upon them in greater numbers, had sunk to the ground-floor, raising it by over a foot, leaving no other ceiling in the tower than the rafters of the roof.

It was in this lower room that the grandfather of the widow Picaut had principally kept his fruit, and the walls were lined with shelves on which the good man spread in winter the various products of his garden. The doors and windows of this portion of the tower had remained more or less intact, and at one of these windows could still be seen an iron bar covered with rust, which undoubtedly dated from the days of Comte Gilles.

The other towers and the walls of the main building were completely in ruins; the masses of masonry which had fallen had rolled either into the courtyard, which they obstructed, or into the lake, which covered them with its reeds at all times and its foam in stormy weather. The citadel, about as intact as the great tower, was crowded with an enormous mass of ivy which took the place of a roof; in it were two small chambers, which, notwithstanding the colossal appearance of the structure, were not more than eight or ten feet square, owing to the enormous thickness of the walls.

The inner courtyard, used in feudal days as the barrack-ground of the castle's defenders, obstructed by the rubbish which time had heaped there,--fragments of columns and battlements, broken arches, dilapidated statues,--was now impassable. A narrow path led to the great tower; another, less carefully cleared, led to a remaining vestige of the east tower, where a stone staircase was actually left standing, by which all persons desirous of enjoying a beautiful view could, after a series of acrobatic feats, reach the platform of the main tower by following a gallery which ran along the wall like those Alpine paths cut on the face of the rock between precipice and mountain.

It is unnecessary to say that, except during the period of the year when the fruits were stored there, no one frequented these ruins of the château de Saint-Philbert. At that period a watchman was stationed there, who slept in the keep; all the rest of the year the gates of the tower were locked and the place was abandoned to lovers of historical reminiscences, and to the boys of the village, who pervaded the old ruins, where they found nests to pillage, flowers to pick, dangers to brave,--all things of eager attraction to children.

It was in these ruins that Courtin had appointed to meet Monsieur Hyacinthe. He knew they would be absolutely deserted at the hour he named to his associate, inasmuch as the lingering ill-repute of the place drove away at night all the village urchins who, as long as the sun was above the horizon, scampered like lizards among the dentelled ridges of the old ruin.

The mayor of La Logerie left Nantes about five o'clock; he was on foot, and yet he walked so fast that he was an hour earlier than he needed to be when he crossed the bridge which led into the village of Saint-Philbert. Maître Courtin was somewhat of a personage in the village. To see him desert the Grand Saint-Jacques (the inn before which he usually tied his pony Sweetheart) in favor of the Pomme de Pin, the tavern kept by the mother of the widow Picaut, would have been an event which, as he very well knew, would have set the village tongues a wagging. He was so convinced of this that, although, being deprived of his pony and never taking any refreshment except what was offered to him, it seemed a useless matter to go to an inn at all, the mayor of La Logerie stopped, as usual, before the door of the Grand Saint-Jacques, where he held with the inhabitants of the village (who, since the double defeat at Chêne and La Pénissière, had drawn closer to him) a conversation which, under present circumstances, was not unimportant to him.

"Maître Courtin," said one man, "is it true what they say?"

"What do they say, Matthieu?" replied Courtin. "Tell me; I'd like to know."

"Hang it! they say you've turned your coat, and nothing can be seen but the lining of it,--so that what was blue is now white."

"Well done!" said Courtin; "if that isn't nonsense!"

"You've given occasion for it, my man; and since your young master went over to the Whites it is a fact that you've stopped gabbling against them as you once did."

"Gabbling!" exclaimed Courtin, with his slyest look, "what's the good of that? I have something better to do than gabble, and--and you'll hear of it soon, my lad."

"So much the better! for, don't you see, Maître Courtin, all these public troubles are death to business. If patriots can't agree, they'll die of poverty and hunger instead of being shot like our forefathers. Whereas, if we could only get rid of those troublesome gars who roam the forests about here and make trouble, business would soon pick up, and that's all we want."

"Roaming?" repeated Courtin, "who are roaming? Seems to me that none but ghosts are left to roam now."

"Pooh! there's plenty of them left. It isn't ten minutes since I saw the boldest of them go by, gun in hand, pistols in his belt,--just as if there weren't any red-breeches in the land."

"Who was he?"

"Joseph Picaut, by God!--the man who killed his brother."

"Joseph Picaut! here?" exclaimed Courtin, turning livid. "It isn't possible!"

"It's as true as you live, Maître Courtin! as true as there is a God! He did have on a sailor's hat and jacket, but never mind, I recognized him all the same."

Maître Courtin reflected a moment. The plan he had laid in his head, which rested on the existence of the house with two issues, and the daily intercourse of Maître Pascal with Petit-Pierre, might fail; in which case, he had Bertha to fall back upon as a last resource. There would then remain, in order to discover Petit-Pierre's retreat, one means open to him,--the means he had already failed in with Mary,--namely, to follow Bertha when she went to Nantes. If Bertha saw Joseph Picaut all was lost; still worse would it be if Bertha put Picaut in communication with Michel! Then the part he had played in stopping the embarkation would be disclosed to the young baron, and the farmer was a ruined man.

Courtin asked for pen, ink, and paper, wrote a few lines, and gave them to the man who had spoken to him.

"Here, gars Matthieu," he said, "here's a proof that I'm a patriot and that I don't turn round like a weathercock to the wind of any master. You accuse me of following my young landlord in all his performances; well, the fact is that I have only known within the last hour where he is hiding, and now I am going to lay hands on him. The more occasion I have to destroy the enemies of the nation, the better pleased I am, and the more I hasten to take advantage of it; and what's more, I do it without inquiring whether it is to my advantage or disadvantage, or whether the persons I denounce are my friends or not."

The peasant, who was a double-dyed Blue, shook Courtin's hand heartily.

"Are your legs good?" continued the latter.

"I should think so!" said the peasant.

"Well, then, carry that to Nantes at once; and as I have a good many haystacks out, I rely on you to keep my secret; for, you understand, if I'm suspected of having the young baron arrested, those stacks will never get into my barn."

The peasant made a promise of secrecy, and Courtin, as it was now dusk, left the inn on the right, made a tack across the fields, and then, returning cautiously on his steps, took a path which led to the ruins of Saint-Philbert.

He reached them by the shore of the lake, followed the moat, and entered the courtyard by a stone bridge which had long replaced the portcullis that gave entrance to the citadel.

As he entered the courtyard he whistled softly. At the signal a man sitting on the fallen masonry rose and came to him. The man was Monsieur Hyacinthe.

"Is that you?" he said, as he approached with some caution.

"Yes," said Courtin, "don't be alarmed."

"What news?"

"Good; but this is not the place to tell it."

"Why not?"

"Because it is as dark as a pocket. I almost walked over you before I knew it. A man might be hidden here at our feet and we not be the wiser. Come! the affair is in too good shape just now to risk anything."

"Very good; but where will you find a lonelier place than this?"

"We must find one. If I knew of an open desert in the neighborhood I'd go there and speak low. But, for want of a desert, we'll find some place where we are certain of being alone."

"Go on; I'll follow you."

XXXVI.

JUDAS AND JUDAS.

It was toward the great middle tower that Courtin now guided his companion, not without stopping once or twice to listen; for, whether it was reality or fancy, the mayor of La Logerie thought he saw shadows gliding near them. But as Monsieur Hyacinthe reassured him after every pause, he ended by thinking it an effect of imagination; and when they reached the tower he opened a door, entered first, took from his pocket a wax candle and a sulphur match, lighted the candle and carried it cautiously into all the corners and angularities of the room to make sure that no one was hidden there.

A door, cut in the wall to the right and partly broken down by the rubbish of the ceiling, excited his fears and also his curiosity. He pushed it open and found himself in front of a yawning space from which a damp vapor was rising.

"Look there!" said Monsieur Hyacinthe, who followed him, showing Courtin a wide breach in the outer wall, through which they could see the lake sparkling in the moonlight. "Look at that!"

"I see it plain enough," said Courtin, laughing. "Yes, Mère Chompré's dairy needs repairing; since I was here last the hole in that wall is double the size it used to be. One might get a boat in now."

Raising his light and holding it outward he tried to look into the depths below; not succeeding, he took a stone and flung it into the water, where it fell with a sonorous noise that sounded like a threat, while the wash of the ruffled water against the steps and the foundations gave an answering ripple.

"Well," said Courtin, "there is evidently nothing there that can hear us but the fish of the lake; and the old proverb says, you know, 'Mute as a fish.'"

Just then a stone came rolling down from the roof along the tower wall and fell into the courtyard.

"Did you hear that?" asked Monsieur Hyacinthe, uneasily.

"Yes," replied Courtin. Unlike his companion, who seemed to grow more timorous in the gigantic shadow thrown by the ruins, the farmer recovered courage after convincing himself that no human being could possibly be lurking in the courtyard. "I've seen large bits of masonry fall from the top of that old tower just from the blow of a bat's wing."

"Hé, hé!" exclaimed Monsieur Hyacinthe, with his nasal laugh, which was like that of a German Jew; "it is precisely the night-birds we have to fear."

"Yes, the Chouans," replied Courtin. "But no! these ruins are too near the village; and though a villain I thought I had got rid of has been seen roaming about here to-day, I feel sure he won't dare to risk a visit by night."

"Put out your light, then!"

"No, no; we don't need it to talk by, that's true, but we have something else to do than talk, I'm thinking."

"Have we?" said Monsieur Hyacinthe, eagerly.

"Yes. Come into this recess, where we shall be sheltered, and where the light can be hidden."

So saying he led Monsieur Hyacinthe beneath the archway that led down to the gate of the cellars, placed the light behind a fallen stone, and sat down himself on the cellar steps.

"Do you mean to say," said Monsieur Hyacinthe, planting himself in front of Courtin, "that you are going to give me the name of the street and the number of the house in which the duchess is hidden?"

"That, or something like it," replied Courtin, who had heard the clinking of gold on Monsieur Hyacinthe's person, his eyes sparkling with greed.

"Come, don't lose time in useless words. Do you know where she is living?"

"No."

"Then why have you brought me here? Ha! if I have a regret it is that I ever committed myself to a dawdler like you."

For all answer Courtin took the paper he had picked from the ashes of the hearth in the rue du Marché and held it out to Monsieur Hyacinthe, raising the light that he might see to read it.

"Who wrote that?" asked the Jew.

"The young girl I told you about, who was with the person we are in search of."

"Yes, but she is not with her now."

"That is true."

"Therefore I should be glad to know what good this letter is. What does it prove? How can it help our purpose?"

Courtin shrugged his shoulders and replaced the candle beside the stone.

"Really, for a city gentleman," he said, "you are not very sharp."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Don't you see that the duchess offers an asylum to the man to whom the letter is addressed, in case he is in any danger?"

"Yes, what next?"

"Next? Why, if we put him in danger he is certain to take it."

"And then?"

"Then we can search the house he goes to, and catch them all together."

Monsieur Hyacinthe reflected.

"Yes, the scheme is a good one," he said, turning the letter over and over in his hand and holding it near the candle to make sure it contained no other writing.

"I should think it was a good one!" exclaimed Courtin.

"Where does that man live?" asked Monsieur Hyacinthe, carelessly.

"Oh, as for telling you where he lives, that's another matter. I've told you the scheme, and you think it a good one,--you said so yourself; if I told you how to carry it out I should just be giving myself away for nothing."

"But suppose the man does not accept the retreat offered to him, and does not go to the house where she is hidden?" said Monsieur Hyacinthe.

"Oh, that's impossible if we follow a plan I'll explain to you. His own house has two issues. We go to one with a posse of soldiers; he escapes by the other, which we leave clear; he sees no danger that way, but we follow him from a distance. You see for yourself the thing can't fail. And now, unfasten your belt and pay me the money."

"Will you come with me?"

"Of course I will."

"From now till the game is played you will not leave me a single instant?"

"I don't wish to, inasmuch as you only pay me half now."

"But remember this," said Monsieur Hyacinthe, with a determination scarcely to be expected from his pacific demeanor, "I warn you that if you make even one suspicious gesture, if I have the slightest reason to think you are deceiving me, I will blow your brains out."

So saying Monsieur Hyacinths drew a pistol from his pocket and showed it to his companion. The face of the man who made the threat was cold and calm, but a dangerous flash in his eye convinced the other that he was a man to keep his word.

"As you please," said Courtin; "and all the easier for you because I have no weapon."

"That's a blunder," remarked Monsieur Hyacinthe.

"Come," said Courtin, "pay me what you promised, and swear to me that if the thing succeeds you will pay me as much more."

"You may rely upon my word, which is sacred; a man is honest, or he is not honest. But why do you want to carry this gold yourself, as you and I are not to part?" continued Monsieur Hyacinthe, who seemed to have as much reluctance to part with his belt as Courtin had eagerness to grasp it.

"What!" exclaimed the latter; "don't you see I'm in a fever to touch that gold, to feel it, to handle it? I am dying to know if it is really there, even if I don't touch it. Why, for the joy of that, for that one moment of happiness when I feel it in my fingers, I've risked all! You shall give it to me now, or I'll not say another word. Yes! for this one moment I've braved everything, I've summoned courage,--I who am afraid of my shadow, I who trembled and shook when I walked up our avenue at night. Give me that gold, give me that gold, monsieur! We have many dangers to face, many risks to run yet; that gold will give me courage. Give me that gold if you wish me to be as calm, as relentless as yourself."

"Yes," replied Monsieur Hyacinthe, who had watched the vivid lighting up of the peasant's dull, wan face as he said these words. "Yes, you shall have the money the instant you give me the address; but I will have the address, the address!"

One was as eager as the other for the thing each desired. Monsieur Hyacinthe rose, and took off his belt; Courtin, intoxicated with the metallic sound he heard, again stretched forth his hand to seize it.

"One moment!" cried Monsieur Hyacinthe; "give and take!"

"Yes, but let me first see if it is really gold you have there."

The Jew shrugged his shoulders, but he yielded to the wishes of his accomplice; he pulled the iron chain that closed the mouth of the leathern bag, and Courtin, dazzled by the gleam of gold, felt a shudder pass through all his body, while with elongated neck, and fixed eyes, and trembling lips, he plunged his hands with ineffable, indescribable pleasure into the heap of coin which rippled through his fingers.

"He lives," he said, "rue du Marché, No. 22; the other door is in an alley running parallel with the rue du Marché."

Maître Hyacinthe released his hold on the belt, which Courtin seized with a deep sigh of satisfaction. But almost at the same instant he raised his head with a terrified look.

"What is it?" asked Monsieur Hyacinthe.

"I heard steps," said the farmer, his face convulsed.

"No, no," said the Jew, "I heard nothing. I've been a fool to give you that money."

"Why?" said Courtin, clasping the belt to his breast as if afraid the other might snatch it back.

"Because it seems to double your fears."

With a rapid movement Courtin clutched his companion's arm.

"What is the matter?" asked Monsieur Hyacinthe again, beginning to feel uneasy.

"I tell you I hear steps overhead!" said Courtin, looking up to the dark and gloomy space above them.

"Nonsense; perhaps you are ill."

"I don't feel well, that's true."

"Then let's leave the place; we have nothing more to do here, and it is time we were on the way to Nantes."

"No, no, not yet."

"Why not yet?"

"Let us hide here and listen. People are about, and they are watching for us; and if they are watching for us they'll guard the door. Oh, my God! my God! can it be that they are after my gold already?" moaned the farmer, trying to fasten the belt about his waist, but trembling so violently that he could not do it.

"My good friend, you are certainly losing your head," said Monsieur Hyacinthe, who proved to be the more courageous man of the two. "Let us put out the light and hide in the cellar. We can see from there if you are mistaken."

"You are right, you are right," said Courtin, blowing out the candle as he opened the cellar door and went down the first step into the inundated vault.

But he went no farther. A cry of terror burst from him, in which could be heard the words:--

"Help, help! Monsieur Hyacinthe!"

The latter laid a hand on his pistol, when a powerful hand seized his arm and twisted it as if to break it. The pain was so great that the Jew fell on his knees, the sweat pouring from his face as he cried out for mercy.

"One word, and I'll kill you like the dog you are!" said the voice of Maître Jacques. Then, addressing Joseph Picaut, who was just behind him, he went on: "Well, do-nothing, haven't you got him? What are you about?"

"Oh, the villain!" exclaimed Joseph, in a voice that was broken and breathless from his efforts to hold Courtin, whom he had seized the moment the latter opened the door to go down the cellar stairs, and who was now making desperate efforts to save, not himself, but his gold. "Oh, the traitor! he is biting me, tearing me. If you hadn't forbidden me to bleed him, I'd soon have done for him."

At the same instant two bodies fell within six feet of Monsieur Hyacinthe, whom Maître Jacques was pinning to the ground.

"If he kicks too long, kill him, kill him!" said Maître Jacques. "Now that I know all I want to know, I don't see why not."

"Damn it! why didn't you say so before, and I'd have finished him at once!"

By a violent effort Picaut threw Courtin under him and got a knee upon his breast, pulling a long-bladed knife from his belt, on which, dark as it was, Courtin saw the light flashing.

"Mercy! mercy!" cried the mayor. "I'll tell all, I'll confess all; but don't kill me!"

Maître Jacques' hand stayed Picaut's arm, which, in spite of Courtin's offer, was in the act of descending upon him.

"Don't kill him!" said Maître Jacques, "on reflection, he may still be useful. Tie him up like a sausage, and don't let him stir, paws or toes!"

The luckless Courtin was so terrified that he actually held out his hands to Joseph, who bound them with a slender, loose rope Maître Jacques had made his companion bring with him. Nevertheless, the wretched man would not release his clutch on the belt full of gold, which he held pressed to his stomach by his elbow.

"Haven't you bound him yet?" cried Maître Jacques, impatiently.

"Let me finish roping this paw," replied Joseph.

"Very good; and when you've done bind this fellow, too," continued Maître Jacques, pointing to Monsieur Hyacinthe, whom he had allowed to get upon his knees, in which posture the Jew remained silent and motionless.

"I could do it faster if there were any light," said Joseph Picaut, provoked to find a knot in his rope, which in the darkness he could not undo.

"Well, after all," said Maître Jacques, "why the devil are we in a hurry? Why not light the lantern? It would do my soul good to see the faces of these sellers of kings and princes."

Suiting the action to the word, Maître Jacques pulled out a little lantern and lighted it with a sulphur match as imperturbably as if he had been in the depths of his forest of Touvois; then he turned the light full on the faces of Monsieur Hyacinthe and Courtin. By the gleam of that light Joseph Picaut saw the leather belt the farmer was hugging to his breast, and he sprang forward to tear it from him. Maître Jacques mistook the object of his action. Thinking that the Chouan's hatred to Courtin had got the better of him, and that he meant to kill him, the master of rabbits sprang forward to prevent it.

As he did so a line of fire darted from the upper part of the tower and shot through the darkness; a dull explosion was heard and Maître Jacques fell head foremost on Courtin's body, who felt his face covered with a warm and fetid liquid.

"Ha! villain!" cried Maître Jacques, rising on one knee and addressing Joseph, "ha! you have led me into a trap. I forgave you your lie, but you shall pay for your treachery!"

Raising his pistol, he fired at close quarters on Pascal Picaut's brother. The lantern rolled down the steps into the waters below and was extinguished; the smoke of the two shots made the darkness deeper.

Monsieur Hyacinthe, when Maître Jacques fell, rose pale, mute, mad with terror, and ran hither and thither about the tower, endeavoring to find an exit. At last he saw through a narrow window the sparkle of a star on the black vault of heaven, and with the strength of terror he climbed to the opening, giving no heed to the fate of his accomplice, and plunged head foremost into the lake.

The immersion into cold water calmed the blood which was rushing violently to his brain, and he recovered his self-control. He came to the surface of the water, where he kept himself by swimming. Then he looked about him to see in which direction he had better turn, and his eyes lighted on a boat moored at the breach in the wall through which the waters of the lake had forced their way into the tower. Shuddering, he swam for it, making as little noise as he could, climbed in, seized the oars, and was five hundred feet away from the shore before he even thought of his companion.

"Rue du Marché, No. 22," he cried. "No, terror hasn't made me forget it. Success depends now on the rapidity with which I get to Nantes. Poor Courtin!--I may now consider myself heir to the last fifty thousand francs; but what a fool I was to give him the first! I might at this very moment have had the address and the money both. What a blunder! what a blunder!"

Then, to stifle his remorse, the Jew bent to his oars and made the boat spin across the lake with a vigor which seemed quite incompatible with his weakly appearance.

XXXVII.

AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.

In order to follow Monsieur Hyacinthe for a moment we were obliged to leave our older acquaintance, Courtin, stretched on the ground, legs and arms tied, in thickest darkness, between the two wounded bandits.

The sound of Maître Jacques' heavy breathing and Joseph's moans terrified him as much as their threats had done. He trembled lest one or the other might revive and remember he was here, and execute summary vengeance on him; he held his breath, lest even its tremor might recall him to their minds.

And yet, another feeling was even more powerful in him than the love of life. He was resolved to keep to the very last moment the precious belt from those who might be his murderers, and he continued to hug it to his breast, even daring, in order to hide it, that which he would not have dared to save his life; he gently suffered the belt to slip to the ground beside him, and then with an almost imperceptible motion he crept in the same direction until he had covered it with his body.

Just as he had managed to execute this difficult man[oe]uvre he heard the door of the tower rolling and creaking on its rusty hinges, and he saw a sort of phantom clothed in black advancing toward him, holding a torch in one hand, and dragging with the other a heavy musket, the butt-end of which resounded on the stones.

Though the shades of death were already darkening his eyes, Joseph Picaut saw the apparition; for he cried out, in a voice broken with agony:--

"The widow! the widow!"

The widow of Pascal Picaut, for it was she, walked slowly forward, without a glance at Courtin or Maître Jacques, who, pressing his left hand on a wound in his breast, was striving to rise upon his right; then she stopped in front of her brother-in-law and gazed at him with an eye that was still threatening.

"A priest! a priest!" cried the dying man, horrified by that awful phantom, which roused a hitherto unknown feeling in his breast,--that of remorse.

"A priest! What good will a priest do you, miserable man? Can he bring back to life your brother whom you murdered?"

"No, no!" cried Joseph; "no, I did not murder Pascal. I swear it by eternity, to which I am now going!"

"You did not kill him, but you let others do so,--if, indeed, you did not urge them to the crime. Not content with that, you fired at me. You would have been twice a fratricide in one day if the hand of a brave man had not pushed aside your weapon. But be sure of this: it is not the harm you tried to do to me that I am avenging. It is the hand of God that strikes you through me--Cain!"

"What!" exclaimed Joseph Picaut and Maître Jacques, "that shot--"

"I fired it; I knew I should surprise you here in the commission of another crime, and it was I who shot you in the act. Yes, Joseph, yes; you so brave, you so proud of your strength, bow down before God's judgment!--you die by a woman's hand."

"What matters it to me how I die? Death comes from God. I implore you, woman, give my repentance chance for efficacy; let me be reconciled to the Heaven I have offended; bring me a priest, I implore you!"

"Did your brother have a priest in his last hour? Did you give him, you, the time to lift his soul to God when he fell beneath the blows of your accomplices at the ford of the Boulogne? No, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth! Die a violent death; die without help temporal or spiritual, as your brother died. And may all brigands," she added, turning to Maître Jacques, "all brigands who, in the name of any flag, no matter which it is, bring ruin to their country and mourning to their homes, descend with you to the lowest hell!"

"Woman!" cried Maître Jacques, who had succeeded in raising himself, "whatever be his crime, whatever he may have done to you, it is not good that you should speak to him thus. Forgive him, that you may yourself be forgiven!"

"I?" said the widow. "Who dares to raise a voice against me?"

"The man whom, without intending it, you have sent to his grave; he who received the ball you meant for your brother-in-law; the man who speaks to you, I--I whom you have killed. And yet I am not angry with you; for, by the way the world wags now, the best thing men of heart can do is to go and see if that three-colored rag which seems to be to the fore here waves in God's heaven."

Marianne gave a cry of astonishment, almost of horror, when she heard what Maître Jacques told her. As the reader has doubtless understood, she had watched for the arrival of Courtin; then when he and his companion had entered the tower she went up the old staircase and along the outer gallery till she reached the platform of the tower; thence, through the rafters of the roof, she had fired on her brother-in-law.

We have seen how, in consequence of the movement, made by Maître Jacques to save Courtin, he was the one to receive the shot.

This miscarriage of her hatred had, as we have said, bewildered the widow; but quickly recovering herself as she remembered what bandits these men really were, she said:--

"Even if that is true, if I did shoot one intending to shoot the other, my shot struck you as you were both about to commit another crime. I have saved the life of an innocent man."

A savage smile curled the pale lips of Maître Jacques on hearing her last words. He turned toward Courtin and felt in his belt for the handle of his second pistol.

"Ha! yes!" he said with a dangerous laugh; "here's an innocent man; I had almost forgotten him. Well, that innocent, since you remind me of him, I'll give him his brevet as martyr. I won't die without accomplishing my mission."

"You shall not stain your last hour with blood, as you have stained your whole life, Maître Jacques!" cried the widow, placing herself between Courtin and the Chouan. "I know how to prevent it."

And she turned the muzzle of her gun full on Maître Jacques.

"Very good," said Maître Jacques, as if he resigned himself. "Presently, if God allows me time and strength, I will make you know the two scoundrels whom you call innocent; but, for the time being, I will let this one live. In exchange, and to deserve the absolution I gave you just now, forgive your poor brother. Don't you hear the rattle in his throat? He will be dead in ten minutes, and then it will be too late."

"No, never! never!" said the widow, in a muffled voice.

Not only the voice but the rattle in Joseph's throat grew perceptibly weaker, and yet he did not cease to use his last remaining strength in beseeching his sister's pardon.

"It is God and not I whom you must implore," she said.

"No," said the dying man, shaking his head; "I dare not pray to God so long as your curse is upon me."

"Then address your brother, and pray to him to forgive you."

"My brother!" murmured Joseph, closing his eyes as if a terrible spectre were before him; "my brother! I shall see him! I shall be face to face with him!"

And he strove to push away with his hand the bloody phantom which seemed to beckon to him. Then, in a voice that was hardly intelligible, and was indeed scarcely more than a whisper,--

"Brother! brother!" he murmured, "why do you turn away your head when I pray to you? In the name of our mother, Pascal, let me clasp your knees. Remember the tears we shed together in our childhood, which the first Blues made so bitter. Forgive me for having followed the terrible path our father enjoined on both of us. Alas! alas! how could I know it would bring you and me face to face as enemies? My God! my God! he does not answer me! Oh, Pascal, why do you turn away your head? Oh! my poor child, my little Louis, whom I shall never see again," continued the Chouan, "pray to your uncle, pray to him for me! He loved you as his own child; ask him, in the name of your dying father, to help a repentant sinner to reach the throne of God! Ah, brother! brother!" he murmured, with a sudden expression of joy that bordered on ecstasy, "you hear him, you pardon me, you stretch your hand to the child. My God! my God! take my soul now, for my brother has forgiven me!"

He fell back upon the ground from which, by a mighty effort, he had risen to stretch his arms toward the vision.

During this time, and gradually, the hatred and vengeance in the widow's face subsided. When Joseph spoke of the little boy whom Pascal loved as his own child, a tear forced its way from her eyelids; and when at last, by the gleam of her torch, she saw the face of the dying man illuminated, not with an earthly light, but by a sacred halo, she fell upon her knees, and pressing the hand of her wounded brother, she cried out:--

"I believe you, I believe you, Joseph! God unseals the eyes of the dying and lets them see into the heights of heaven. If Pascal pardons you, I pardon you. As he forgets, so I forget. Yes, I forget all to remember one thing only,--that you were his brother. Brother of Pascal, die in peace!"

"Thank you, thank you," stammered Joseph, whose voice now hissed through his lips, which were stained with a bloody froth. "Thank you! but--the wife, the children?"

"Your wife shall be my sister, and your children are my children," said the widow, solemnly. "Die in peace, Joseph!"

The hand of the Chouan went to his forehead as though he meant to make the sign of the cross; his lips murmured a few words, doubtless not said for human ears, for no one understood them. Then he opened his eyes unnaturally wide, stretched out his arm, and gave a sigh; it was his last.

"Amen!" said Maître Jacques.

The widow knelt down and prayed beside the body for some instants,--quite amazed that her eyes should be filled with tears for him who had made her weep so bitterly.

A long silence followed. No doubt this silence oppressed Maître Jacques, for he suddenly called out:--

"Sacredié! who would suppose there was one living Christian still here? I say one, for I don't call Judas a Christian."

The widow quivered; beside the dead she had indeed forgotten the dying.

"I'll go back to the house and send help," she said.

"Help? Don't do anything of the kind; they'd only cure me for the guillotine; and, thank you, la Picaut, I'd rather die the death of a soldier. I've got it, and I won't let go of it now."

"Do you suppose I'd give you up to the authorities?"

"Yes; for you are a Blue and the wife of a Blue. Damn it! the capture of Maître Jacques would make a fine figure on your record-book."

"My husband was a patriot, and I shared his feelings, that is true. But I have a horror, above all things, of traitors and treachery. For all the gold in the world I would not betray a person, not even you."

"You say you have a horror of treachery. Do you hear that, you cur?"

"Come, Jacques, let me send help," said the widow.

"No," said the Chouan bandit, "I'm at the end of my tether; I feel it and I know it. I've made too many such holes not to know all about it. In two hours, or three at most, I shall be disporting myself on the great open moor,--the last, grand, beautiful moor of the good God. But listen to me now."

"I am listening."

"This man whom you see here," he continued, pushing Courtin with his foot as he might a noxious animal, "this man, for a few gold coins, has sold a head which ought to be sacred to all, not only because it is of those who are destined to wear a crown, but because her heart is noble and kind and generous."

"That head," replied the widow, "I have sheltered beneath my roof."

In the portrait Maître Jacques had drawn she recognized the duchess.

"Yes, you saved her that time, la Picaut, I know it; and it is that which makes you so great in my eyes; it is that which leads me to make you my last request."

"Tell me what it is."

"Come nearer and stoop down; you alone must know what I have to say."

The widow went close to Maître Jacques and leaned over him and listened attentively.

"You must," he said in a very low voice, "tell all this to the man you have in your house."

"Who is that?" asked the widow, thunderstruck.

"The man you are hiding in your stable; the one you go every night to nurse and comfort."

"But who told you?"

"Pooh! do you think anything can be hidden from Maître Jacques? All I say is true, la Picaut, and it makes Maître Jacques the Chouan, Maître Jacques the Chauffeur, proud to be among your friends."

"But the gars is a very sick man; he has hardly strength to stand, and then only by leaning on the wall."

"He'll find strength, never fear; he's a man,--a man indeed such as there'll be no more of after we have gone," said the Vendéan, with savage pride; "and if he can't take the field himself he'll make others do so. Tell him merely that he must warn Nantes instantly, without losing a minute, a second; he must warn he knows who. That other man who was here is already on the march while we are talking."

"It shall be done, Maître Jacques."

"Ah! if that rascal Joseph had only spoken sooner!" resumed Maître Jacques, raising his body to stop the blood which was rushing violently to his chest. "He knew, I am certain, what was plotting between these two villains; but he had them in his power and he never thought to die. Well! man proposes, and God disposes. It must have been the booty that tempted him. By the bye, widow, you ought to be able to find that booty somewhere."

"What must I do with it?"

"Divide it in two parts; give one to the orphans this war has made, white as well as blue; that's my share. The other belongs to Joseph; give that to his children."

Courtin gave a sigh of anguish; for the words were spoken loud enough for him to hear.

"No," said the widow, "no, it is the money of Judas; it would bring evil. I will not take that money for those poor children, innocent as they are."

"You are right; then give it all to the poor. The hands that receive alms cleanse everything, even crime."

"And he?" said the widow, motioning toward Courtin but not looking at him, "what is to be done with him?"

"He's well bound and gagged, isn't he?"

"He seems to be."

"Well, leave it to the man you have at your house to say what shall be done with him."

"So be it."

"By the bye, la Picaut, when you go for him, give him this roll of tobacco. I have no further use for it, and I think it will please him mightily. I declare, though," continued the master of warrens, "it makes me half sorry to die. Ha! I'd give my twenty-five thousand francs prize-money to see the meeting of our man and this one; droll enough, that will be!"

"But you must not stay here," said Marianne Picaut. "We have a little bedroom in the citadel, where I will carry you. There, at any rate, you can see a priest."

"As you please, widow; but first, do me the kindness to make sure that my scoundrel is securely bound. It would embitter my last moments, don't you see, if I thought he would get loose before the shaking up he is going to have presently."

The widow bent over Courtin. The ropes were so tightly bound around his arms that they entered the flesh which was red and swollen on each side of them. The farmer's face, above all, betrayed the misery he was enduring and was paler than that of Maître Jacques.

"He can't stir," said Marianne. "See! Besides, I'll turn the key on him."

"Very good; it won't be for long. You will go at once, won't you, la Picaut?"

"Yes, I promise."

"Thank you. Ah! the thanks I give you are nothing to those the man you have over there will give when you tell him all."

"Well, well! Now let me carry you to the citadel, where you can have the care you need. The confessor and the doctor will both hold their tongues, don't be afraid of that."

"Very good; carry me along. It will be queer to see Maître Jacques die in a bed, when he never, in all his life, slept on anything but ferns and heather."

The widow took him in her arms and carried him to the little room we have mentioned, and laid him on a pallet that was kept there. Maître Jacques, in spite of the suffering he must have endured, in spite of the gravity of his position, continued, in the presence of death, the same merry but sardonic being he had been all his life. The nature of this man, totally unlike that of his compatriots, never belied itself for a single instant. But, in the midst of his lively sarcasms, flung at the things he had defended quite as much as at those he had attacked, he never ceased to urge the widow Picaut to go at once and fulfil the errand to Jean Oullier which he had intrusted to her.

Thus urged, Marianne only took time to lock the door and push the bolts of the fruit-room in which she left Courtin a prisoner. She crossed the garden, re-entered the inn, and found her old mother greatly alarmed by the noise of the shots which had reached her. Her daughter's absence increased the old woman's fears, and she was beginning to be terribly alarmed lest the widow had been made the victim of some trap by her brother-in-law, when Marianne returned.

The widow, without telling her mother a word of what had happened, begged her not to let any one pass into the ruins; then, flinging her mantle over her shoulders, she prepared to go out. Just as she laid her hand on the latch of the door a light knock was given without. Marianne turned back to her mother.

"Mother," she said, "if any stranger asks to pass the night at the inn say we have no room. No one must enter the house this night; the hand of God is upon it."

The person outside rapped again.

"Who's there?" said the widow, opening the door, but barring the way with her own person.

Bertha appeared on the threshold.

"You sent me word this morning, madame," said the young girl, "that you had an important communication to make to me."

"You are right," said the widow. "I had wholly forgotten it."

"Good God!" cried Bertha, noticing that Marianne's kerchief was stained with blood, "has any harm happened to my people,--to Mary, my father, Michel?"

And in spite of her strength of mind, this last thought shook her so terribly that she leaned against the wall to keep herself from falling.

"Don't be uneasy," answered the widow. "I have no misfortune to tell you; on the contrary, I am to say that an old friend whom you thought lost is living, and wants to see you."

"Jean Oullier!" cried Bertha, instantly guessing whom she meant, "Jean Oullier! It is he whom you mean, isn't it? He is living? Oh, God be thanked! my father will be so glad! Take me to him at once,--at once, I entreat you!"

"It was my intention to do so this morning; but since then events have happened which lay upon you a duty more pressing still."

"A duty!" exclaimed Bertha, astonished. "What duty?"

"That of going to Nantes immediately; for I doubt if poor Jean Oullier, exhausted as he is, can possibly do what Maître Jacques requests of him."

"What am I to do in Nantes?"

"Tell him, or her, whom you call Petit-Pierre that the secret of her present hiding-place has been sold and bought, and she must leave it instantly. Any place is safer than the one she is now in. Betrayal is close upon her; God grant you may get there in time!"

"Betrayed!" cried Bertha, "betrayed by whom?"

"By the man who once before sent the soldiers to my house to capture her,--by Courtin, the mayor of La Logerie."

"Courtin! Have you seen him?"

"Yes," replied Marianne, laconically.

"Oh!" cried Bertha, clasping her hands, "let me see him!"

"Young girl, young girl," said the widow, evading a reply to this request, "it is I, whom the partisans of that woman have made a widow, who urge you to make haste and save her; and it is you, who boast of being faithful to her, who hesitate to go!"

"No, no; that is not so!" cried Bertha. "I do not hesitate; I am going."

She made a motion to go out; the widow stopped her.

"You cannot go to Nantes on foot; you would get there too late. In the stable of this house you will find two horses; take either you please, and tell the hostler to saddle him."

"Oh," said Bertha, "I can saddle him myself. But what can we ever do for you, my poor widow, who have twice saved her life?"

"Tell her to remember what I said to her in my cottage beside the bodies of two men killed for her sake; tell her that it is a crime to bring discord and civil war into a region where her enemies themselves protect her from treachery. Go, mademoiselle, go! and may God guide you."

So saying, the widow left the house hurriedly,--going first to the rector of Saint-Philbert, whom she asked to visit the citadel, and then, as rapidly as possible, she struck across the fields to her own house.

XXXVIII.

THE RED-BREECHES.

For the last twenty-four hours Bertha's anxiety had been extreme. It was not only on Courtin that her suspicions fell; they extended to Michel himself.

Her recollections of that evening preceding the fight at Chêne, the apparition of a man at her sister's window, had never entirely left Bertha's mind; from time to time they crossed it like a flash of flame, leaving behind them a painful furrow, which the passive attitude taken toward her by Michel during his convalescence was far from soothing. But when she learned that Courtin, whom she supposed to have acted under Michel's directions, had ordered the schooner to sail, and when, above all, she returned, frightened and breathless with love, to the farmhouse at La Logerie, and did not find him whom she came to seek, then indeed her jealous suspicions became intense.

Nevertheless, she forgot all to obey the duty laid upon her by the widow; before that duty all considerations must give way, even those of her love. She ran to the stable without losing another moment; chose the horse that seemed to her most fit to do the distance rapidly; gave him a double feed of oats to put into his legs the elasticity they needed; threw upon his back, as he ate, the sort of pack-saddle used in those regions; and, bridle in hand, waited until the animal had finished eating.

As she stood there waiting, a sound, well-known in those days, reached her ears. It was that of the regular tramp of a troop of armed men. At the same moment a loud knocking was heard on the inn door.

Through a glazed sash, which looked into a bake-house that opened into the kitchen, the young girl saw the soldiers, and discovered at the first words they said that they wanted a guide. At that moment everything was significant to Bertha; she trembled for her father, for Michel, for Petit-Pierre. She therefore would not start until she had found out what these men were after. Confident of not being recognized in the peasant-woman's dress she wore, she passed through the bake-house and entered the kitchen. A lieutenant was in command of the little squad.

"Do you mean," he was saying to Mère Chompré, "that there's not a man in the house,--not one?"

"No, monsieur; my daughter is a widow; and the only hostler we have is out somewhere, but I don't know where."

"Well, your daughter is the person I want. If she were here she would serve us as guide, as she did at the Springs of Baugé one famous night; or, if she couldn't come herself, she might tell us of some one to take her place. I know I could trust her; but these miserable peasants, half Chouans, whom we compel to guide us against their will, never leave us an easy moment."

"Mistress Picaut is absent; but perhaps we can supply some one in her place," said Bertha, advancing resolutely. "Are you going far, gentlemen?"

"Bless my soul! a pretty girl!" said the young officer, approaching her. "Guide me where you will, my beauty, and the devil take me if I don't follow you!"

Bertha lowered her eyes and twisted the corner of her apron like a bashful village-girl, as she answered:--

"If it isn't very far from here, and the mistress is willing, I'll go with you myself. I know the neighborhood."

"Agreed!" cried the lieutenant.

"But on one condition," continued Bertha,--"that some one shall bring me back here. I am afraid to be out in the roads alone."

"God forbid I should yield that privilege to any one, my dear, even if it costs me my epaulets!" said the officer. "Do you know the way to Banl[oe]uvre?"

At the name of the farmhouse belonging to Michel, where she had lived herself for some days with the marquis and Petit-Pierre, Bertha felt a shudder run through her body, a cold sweat came upon her forehead, her heart beat violently, but she managed to master her emotion.

"Banl[oe]uvre?" she repeated. "No, that's not in our parts. Is it a village or a château, Banl[oe]uvre?"

"It is a farmhouse."

"A farmhouse! Whom does it belong to?"

"To a gentleman of your neighborhood."

"Are you billeted at Banl[oe]uvre?"

"No; we have an expedition there."

"What is an expedition?"

"Well done!" cried the lieutenant. "Here's a pretty girl who wants information!"

"Natural enough, too. If I take you, or get some one to take you to Banl[oe]uvre, of course I want to know why you are going there."

"We are going," said the sub-lieutenant, joining in the conversation for the sake of showing his wit, "to give a white such a dose of lead that he'll turn blue."

"Ah!" cried Bertha, unable to repress the exclamation.

"Hey! what's the matter with you?" asked the lieutenant. "If we had told you the name of the man we are going to arrest, I should have said you were in love with him."

"I?" said Bertha, calling up her strength of mind to hide the terror in her heart. "I, in love with a gentleman?"

"Kings have married shepherdesses," said the sub-lieutenant, who seemed to be of a comic humor.

"Well, well!" cried the lieutenant; "here's the shepherdess fainting away like a fine lady."

"I? fainting!" exclaimed Bertha, endeavoring to laugh. "Nonsense, we don't have city manners here!"

"Nevertheless, you are as pale as your linen, my pretty girl."

"Goodness! you talk of shooting a man as you would a rabbit in a hedge!"

"Not at all the same thing," said the sub-lieutenant; "for a rabbit is good to eat, whereas a dead Chouan is good for nothing."

Bertha could not prevent her proud, energetic face from betraying, by its expression, the disgust she felt at the jokes of the young officer.

"Ah, ça!" said the lieutenant, "you are not as patriotic as your mistress. I see we sha'n't get much help from you."

"I am patriotic; but much as I hate my enemies, I can't see them killed with a dry eye."

"Pooh!" said the officer, "you'll get accustomed to it, just as we soldiers get accustomed to sleeping on the high-roads instead of our beds. To-night, when the letter of that cursed peasant came to the guard-house at Saint-Martin, and obliged me to start off at once, I damned the State to all the devils. Well, I now see I was wrong, for it has its compensations,--in fact, instead of cursing and swearing, I find the expedition charming."

So saying, and as if to add to the pleasures of the situation, he stooped and tried to snatch a kiss from the neck of the young girl. Bertha, who did not suspect his amorous intention, felt the young man's breath upon her face and started away, red as a pomegranate, her nostrils quivering, her eyes sparkling with indignation.

"Oh, oh!" continued the lieutenant, "you are not going to get angry for a silly kiss, are you, my beauty?"

"Do you think, because I am a poor country-girl, that I can be insulted with impunity?"

"'Insulted with impunity'! hey, what fine language!" said the sub-lieutenant; "and they told us we were coming to a land of savages."

"Do you know," said the lieutenant, looking fixedly at Bertha, "that I've a great mind to do something."

"Do what?"

"Arrest you on suspicion, and not let you off till you pay me the ransom I would set upon your liberty."

"What would that be?"

"A kiss."

"I can't let you kiss me, because you are neither my father, nor brother, nor husband."

"Are they the only ones who will have the right to put their lips to those pretty cheeks?"

"Of course they are."

"Why so?"

"I don't wish to forget my duty."

"Your duty! oh, you little joker!"

"Don't you think we peasant-girls have our duties as well as you soldiers have yours? Come" (Bertha tried to laugh), "if I were to ask you the name of the man you are going to arrest, and it would be against your duty to tell it, would you tell it to me?"

"Faith," said the young man, "I shouldn't fail much in duty if I did tell you; for there isn't, I think, the slightest harm in your knowing it."

"But suppose there were any harm?"

"Oh, then--but I declare I don't know; your eyes have turned my head, and I really can't say what I should do. Well, yes, if you are really as curious as I am weak, I'll tell you that name and betray the country; only, I must be paid for it with a kiss."

Bertha's apprehensions were so great,--she was so convinced that Michel was the object of the expedition,--that she forgot, with her usual impetuosity, all caution, and without reflecting on the suspicions she gave rise to by her persistency, she abruptly offered him her cheek. He took two resounding kisses.

"Give and take," he said, laughing. "The name of the man we are going to arrest is Monsieur de Vincé."

Bertha drew back and looked at the officer. A misgiving crossed her mind that he had tricked her.

"Come, let's start," said the lieutenant to his subordinate. "I shall go and ask the mayor for the guide we evidently can't get here." Turning to Bertha he added, "Any guide he may give me won't please me as you do, my dear," and he gave an affected sigh. Then he called to his men: "Forward there, march!"

Before starting himself he asked for a match to light his cigar. Bertha searched in vain on the mantel-piece. The officer then took a paper from his pocket and lighted it at the lamp. Bertha watched his movements and threw a glance at the paper, which the flames were beginning to shrivel up, and she distinctly saw there Michel's name.

"I suspected it," thought she. "He lied to me. Yes, yes, it is Michel they are going to arrest."

As the officer threw down the half-burned paper, she put her foot upon it with some difficulty, and the officer took advantage of her motions to seize another kiss.

"Hush!" he said, putting his finger on his lip; "you are not a peasant-girl. Look out for yourself, if you have any reason for hiding. If you play your part as badly with those who are seeking you as you have with me, who am not instructed to arrest you, you are lost."

So saying, he hastily turned away, fearing perhaps to be lost himself. He was no sooner out of sight than Bertha seized the remains of the paper. It contained the denunciation that Courtin had sent to Nantes by the peasant Matthieu, which the latter, to save himself trouble, had put into the first post-office he came to. This post-office was that of Saint-Martin, the next village to Saint-Philbert.

Enough remained unburned of Courtin's writing to enlighten Bertha as to the object of the troop now advancing on Banl[oe]uvre. Her head swam. If the sentence already pronounced on the young man were executed by the soldiers, Michel would be dead in two hours; she saw him, a bloody corpse, reddening the earth about him. Her mind gave way.

"Where is Jean Oullier?" she cried to the old landlady.

"Jean Oullier?" said the latter, gazing stolidly at the girl. "I don't know what you mean."

"I ask you, where is Jean Oullier?"

"Isn't Jean Oullier dead?" replied Mère Chompré.

"But your daughter, where has your daughter gone?"

"I'm sure I don't know; she never tells me where she is going when she goes out. She is old enough to be the mistress of her own actions."

Bertha thought of the Picaut cottage; but to go there would take her an hour, and it might prove a waste of time. That hour would suffice to insure Michel's death.

"She will be back in a minute," she said to the old woman. "When she comes tell her I could not go as soon as she expected to the place she knows of; but I will be there before daylight."

Running to the stables, she slipped the bridle on the horse, sprang upon his back, rode him out of the building, and giving him a vigorous blow with a switch, put him at once into a gait that was neither trot nor gallop, but fast enough to gain half an hour at least on the soldiers. As she crossed the market-place of Saint-Philbert she heard on her right the receding footsteps of the little troop.

Then she took her bearings, passed the houses, dashed her horse into the river Boulogne, and came out to join the road a little above the forest of Machecoul.

XXXIX.

A WOUNDED SOUL.

Fortunately for Bertha the horse she was riding had better qualities than his appearance denoted. He was a little Breton beast which, when quiet, seemed gloomy, sad, depressed, like the men of his native region; but once warmed to action (like them again) he increased every moment in vigor and energy. With flaring nostrils, and his tangled mane floating in the wind, he attained to a gallop; presently his gallop became a run. Plains, valleys, and hedges passed and disappeared behind him with fantastic rapidity, while Bertha, bending low upon his neck, gave rein and urged him onward with voice and whip.

The belated peasants whom she met, seeing the horse and its rider fade into the distance as quickly as they had seen them appear, took them for phantoms, and signed themselves devoutly behind them.

Rapid as this going was, it was not as fast as Bertha's heart demanded; to her a second seemed a week, a minute a year. She felt the terrible responsibility that rested on her,--the responsibility of blood and death and shame. Could she save Michel, and, having saved him, should she still have time to avert the danger that threatened Petit-Pierre? That was the question.

A thousand confused ideas coursed through her brain; she blamed herself for not having given Marianne's mother more careful instructions; she was seized with vertigo at the thought that after the headlong rush of that mad ride, the poor little Breton horse would surely be unable to return from Banl[oe]uvre to Nantes; she reproached herself for using in the interests of her love the time and resources which might be necessary to save the noblest head in France; then she reflected that unless others possessed, as she did, the passwords, it would be impossible for any one to reach the illustrious fugitive. So thinking, and torn by a thousand conflicting emotions, culminating in a sort of intoxication or madness, she pressed her horse with her heel and continued her wild ride, which, at any rate, cooled her brain, burning with thoughts that were like to burst it.

At the end of an hour she reached the forest of Touvois. There she was compelled to slacken speed; the way was full of quagmires. Twice the little horse plunged into them. She was forced to let him walk, calculating that in any case she had gained sufficiently on the soldiers to give Michel time to escape.

She hoped; she breathed. A moment of joyful satisfaction came to quench the all-consuming anguish of her fears; once more Michel would owe to her his life!

We must have loved, we must have known the ineffable joy of sacrifice, to comprehend what there was of happiness in this immolation of herself to the man she loved, and the proud joy with which Bertha thought for an instant that Michel's life, which she was now about to save, might cost her dear.

Her mind was full of these thoughts when she saw the white walls of the farmhouse shining in the moonlight, framed by the dark tufts of the nut-trees. The gate of the farmyard was open. Bertha dismounted, fastened her horse to a ring in the outer wall, and crossed the yard on foot.

The manure which covered the ground deadened the sound of her steps; no dog barked to welcome her, or to signify her presence to the inmates. To her great surprise Bertha noticed a horse standing, saddled and bridled, by the door of the house. The horse might belong to Michel; but then again it might belong to a stranger. Bertha was determined to make sure before entering the house.

One of the shutters in the room where Petit-Pierre had asked her hand of her father in Michel's name stood open. Bertha went softly up to it and looked within.

Hardly had her eyes rested on the interior of the room when she gave a stifled cry and almost fainted. She had seen Michel at Mary's knees; one hand was round her sister's waist, and the latter's hand was toying with his hair; their lips were smiling to each other; their eyes shone with that expression of joy which can never be mistaken by hearts that have loved.

The prostration caused by this discovery lasted but a second. Bertha rushed to the door of the room, pushed it open violently, and appeared on the threshold like an embodiment of Vengeance, her hair dishevelled, her eyes flaming, her face livid, her breast heaving.

Mary gave a cry and fell on her knees with her face in her hands. She had guessed the whole at a single glance, so frightfully convulsed was Bertha's face.

Michel, horrified by Bertha's look, rose hastily, and, as though he found himself suddenly in presence of an enemy, he mechanically put his hand on his arms.

"Strike!" cried Bertha, who saw his action; "strike, miserable man! It will be a fit conclusion to your baseness and your treachery!"

"Bertha," stammered Michel, "let me tell you, let me explain to you!"

"To your knees! to your knees!--you and your accomplice!" cried Bertha. "Say on your knees the lies you will invent for your defence! Oh, the vile wretch! And I have flown here to save his life! I, half mad with terror and despair for the fate that was hanging over him; I, who have forgotten all, all, honor, duty; I, who laid my life at his feet, who had but one thought, one object, one desire, one wish,--that of saying to him, 'Michel, look! see how I love you!'--I come, and I find him betraying his word, denying his promises, faithless to sacred ties--I will not say of love, but of gratitude--and with whom? for whom? The being I loved next to him in this world, the companion of my childhood,--my sister! Was there no other woman to seduce? Speak! speak, wretch!" went on Bertha, seizing the young man's arm and shaking it with violence. "Or did you wish, in deserting me, to take away my only consolation,--the heart of that second self I called a sister?"

"Bertha, listen to me!" said Michel. "Listen to me, I implore you! We are not, thank God, as guilty as you think us. Oh, if you did but know, Bertha!"

"I will hear nothing; I listen only to my heart, which grief is breaking, which despair has crushed; I listen only to the voice within me which says you are a coward! base! My God! my God!" she cried, grasping her hair in her clenched hands, "my God! is this the reward of my tenderness, which was so blind that my eyes refused to see, my ears to hear when they told me that this child, this timid, trembling, wavering, unmanly creature, was not worthy of my love? Oh, poor fool that I have been! I hoped that gratitude would bind him to her who took pity on his weakness, who braved all prejudice and public opinion to drag him from the bog of infamy and make his name, his degraded name, an honorable and honored one!"

"Ah!" cried Michel, rising, "enough! enough!"

"Yes, enough of a degraded name!" repeated Bertha. "That touches you, does it? So much the better; I will say it again and again. Yes, a name soiled and degraded by all that is most odious, cowardly, infamous,--by treachery! Oh, family of betrayers! The son continues in the way of the father; I ought to have expected it."

"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!" said Michel, "you abuse the privilege of your sex in thus insulting me; and not only me, but all that a man holds most sacred,--the memory of his father!"

"Sex! sex! So I have a sex now, have I? I had none when you were betraying me at the feet of that poor fool, none when you were making me the most miserable of creatures; but now, because I do not lament and tear my hair and beat my breast and drag myself to your feet, now, now you suddenly discover I am a woman, a being to be respected because she is gentle, to whom suffering must be spared because she is weak! No, no! for you I have no longer a sex. You have before you, from this hour, a being whom you have mortally offended, and who returns you insult for insult. Baron de la Logerie, coward and traitor double-dyed is he who seduces the sister of his betrothed wife,--yes, I was the affianced wife of that man! Baron de la Logerie, not only are you a traitor and a coward, but you are the son of a traitor and a coward; your father was the infamous wretch who sold and betrayed Charette. He, at least, paid the penalty of his crime, which he expiated with his life. You have been told that he was killed in hunting,--a benevolent lie, which I here refute. He was killed by one who saw him do his deed of treachery; he was killed by--"

"Sister!" cried Mary, springing forward and laying her hand on her sister's lips, "you are about to commit the crime you denounce in others; you are betraying secrets which do not belong to you!"

"Be it so; but that man shall speak! The contempt I cast upon him shall make him raise his head! He shall find, in his shame or in his pride, the strength to send me out of a life that is odious to me, a life which can be henceforth but a long delirium, an eternal despair. Let him complete with one blow the ruin he has begun! My God! my God!" continued Bertha, in whose eyes the tears were beginning to force their way, "why dost thou suffer men to break the hearts of thy living creatures? My God! my God! what can ever console me for this?"

"I will," said Mary. "I will, my sister, my good sister, my precious sister, if you will but hear me, if you will only pardon me."

"Pardon you! you?" cried Bertha, pushing Mary away from her. "No! you are the partner of that man; I know you no more! But, I warn you, watch each other mutually, for your treachery will bring evil on both of you."

"Bertha! Bertha! in God's name, do not say such things! Do not curse us, do not insult us thus!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Bertha, "you feel it, do you? Yes, it is not without good reason that we are called 'she-wolves'! And now they'll say: 'The Demoiselles de Souday both loved Monsieur de la Logerie, and after promising to marry' (for I suppose he promised it to you as he did to me) 'he deserted them and took a third!' Why, even for wolves it would be monstrous!"

"Bertha! Bertha!"

"If I scorned the epithet they gave us, as I scorn all empty considerations of mock propriety," continued the young girl, still at the height of her excitement, "if I laughed at the conventions of society and the world, it was because we both--both, do you hear that?--because we both had the right to walk proudly in a virtuous independence of unsullied honor; because we were so high in our inward consciousness that such miserable insults were beneath our notice. But to-day all that is changed, and I here declare that I will do for you, Mary, what I disdain to do for myself,--if that man will not marry you, I will kill him. It will at least save our father's name from dishonor."

"That name is not dishonored; I swear it, Bertha!" cried Mary, kneeling down before her sister, who, shaken at last beyond her strength, fell into a chair and clasped her head in her hands.

"So much the better; it is one pain the less for her whom you will never see again." Then, twisting her arms with a gesture of despair, "My God! my God!" she cried, "after having loved them so well, to be forced to hate them!"

"No, you shall not hate me, Bertha! Your tears, your sufferings are worse to me than your anger. Forgive me! Oh, my God! what am I saying? You will think me guilty if I clasp your knees and ask your pardon. I am not guilty, I swear it. I will tell you--but oh! you must not suffer, you must not weep! Monsieur de la Logerie," continued Mary, turning to Michel a face that was bathed in tears, "Monsieur de la Logerie, all that has happened is a dream; the daylight has come. Go! go far away; forget me! Go at once!"

"Mary," said Bertha, who had suffered her sister to take her hand, which the latter covered with tears and kisses, "you do not reflect; it is too late; it is impossible."

"Yes, yes, it is possible, Bertha!" said Mary, with a heart-rending smile. "Bertha, we will each take a spouse whose name will protect us from the calumnies of the world."

"Whom do you mean, poor child?"

Mary raised her hand to heaven.

"God!" she said.

Bertha did not answer; grief was choking her; but she held Mary tightly clasped against her breast, while Michel, utterly overcome, fell on a bench in a corner of the room.

"Forgive us!" murmured Mary, in her sister's ear. "Do not crush him! Is it his fault if a mistaken education has made him so irresolute and timid that he had no courage to speak when it was his duty to do so? He has long wished to tell you the truth, but I have withheld him. I alone am to blame, I hoped we should forget each other. Alas, alas! God has made us very feeble against our own hearts! But now, we will never leave each other, you and I, dear sister. Look at me! let me kiss your eyes! No one shall ever come between us! no man shall bring trouble and discord between two sisters. No, no! we will live alone together, loving each other,--alone with ourselves and God, to whom we will consecrate our lives; and there will still be happiness, my Bertha, happiness in our solitude, for we can pray for him, we can pray for him!"

Mary uttered the last words in a heart-rending tone. Michel, convulsed with anguish, came and knelt beside her before Bertha, who, with her mind bent on her sister, did not notice him.

At this moment the soldiers appeared at the door which Bertha had left open, and the officer we have seen at the inn of Saint-Philbert advanced into the middle of the room and laid his hand on Michel's shoulder.

"You are Monsieur Michel de la Logerie?" he said.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Then I arrest you, in the name of the law."

"Great God!" cried Bertha, recovering her senses. "I had forgotten it! Ah, it is I who have killed him! And the other! down there! down there! Oh, what is happening there?"

"Michel, Michel!" said Mary, forgetting what she had just said to her sister. "Michel, if you die, I will die with you."

"No, no," cried Bertha, "he shall not die; I swear to you, sister, you shall still be happy! Make way, monsieur, make way!" she said to the officer.

"Mademoiselle," replied the latter, with painful politeness, "like you I cannot trifle with my duty. At Saint-Philbert you were only, to me, a suspicious person. I am not a commissary of police, and I was not called upon to interfere with you. Here I find you in flagrant rebellion against the laws, and I arrest you."

"Arrest me! arrest me at this moment! You may kill me, monsieur, but you shall not have, me living!"

And before the officer could recover from his surprise, Bertha climbed the window, sprang into the courtyard, and reached the gate. It was guarded by soldiers. Looking about her the girl saw Michel's horse, which, frightened by the noise and the apparition of the soldiers, had broken loose and was running hither and thither about the yard.

Profiting by the confidence that the officer felt in the precaution taken of surrounding the house, a security which prevented him from ordering violence against a woman, she went straight to the animal and sprang into the saddle with a bound, then passing like a thunderbolt before the eyes of the amazed officer, she reached a place in the wall which was slightly broken down; there with heel and bridle she urged on the horse, which was an excellent English hunter, made it jump the barrier which was still nearly five feet high, and darted away across the plain.

"Don't fire! don't fire upon that woman!" cried the officer, who did not think the prize worth taking dead if he could not get her living.

But the soldiers who formed the cordon outside the courtyard did not understand the order, and a rain of balls hissed around Bertha as the vigorous stride of her good English beast carried her toward Nantes.

XL.

THE CHIMNEY-BACK.

Let us now see what was happening in Nantes during this night which began with the death of Joseph Picaut, followed by the arrest of Monsieur Michel de la Logerie.

Toward nine o'clock that evening a man with his clothes soaked in water and soiled with mud presented himself at the Prefecture, and on refusal of the usher in charge to take him to the prefect, he sent in to that official a card, bearing, as it appeared, some all-powerful name, for the prefect immediately left his employment to receive this man, who was no other than the one known to us as Monsieur Hyacinthe.

Ten minutes after their interview a strong force of gendarmes and police officers was on its way to the house occupied by Maître Pascal in the rue du Marché, and soon appeared before the door of the house which opened on the street.

No precaution was taken to dull the sound of the column's advance, or to mislead any one as to its intentions; so that Maître Pascal, on becoming aware of its advance, had plenty of time to notice that the door into the alley was not guarded, and to escape in that way before the emissaries of the law could burst in the door on the rue du Marché, which was not opened to them.

He made at once for the rue du Château and entered No. 3. Monsieur Hyacinthe, whom he had not perceived, hidden as he was behind a stone block near the entrance of the alley, followed him with all the practised skill of a hunter stalking the game he covets.

During this preliminary operation, for the success of which Monsieur Hyacinthe had probably vouched, the authorities had taken strong military measures; and no sooner had the Jew made his report of what he had seen to the prefect of the Loire than twelve hundred men advanced upon the house into which the spy had seen Maître Pascal disappear. These twelve hundred men were divided into three columns. The first went down the Cours, leaving sentinels stationed along the walls of the Archbishop's garden and the adjoining houses, skirted the castle moat and came in front of No. 3 rue du Château, where it deployed. The second, following the rue de l'Evêché, crossed the place Saint-Pierre, went down the main street, and joined the first column by the rue Basse-du-Château. The third united with the two others from the upper end of the rue du Château, leaving, like the others, a long line of sentries with fixed bayonets behind it.

The investment was complete; the whole nest of houses, in the midst of which was No. 3, was securely surrounded.

The troops entered the ground-floor, preceded by the commissaries of police, who marched before them, pistol in hand. The soldiers spread themselves through the house and guarded all the exits; their mission was then fulfilled. That of the police began.

Four ladies were, apparently, the only occupants of the house. These ladies, who belonged to the upper aristocracy of Nantes, and were respected, not only for their social position, but for their honorable characters, were arrested.

Outside the house a crowd gathered, and formed another cordon behind that of the soldiers. The whole town seemed to have turned into the streets; but no sign of royalist sympathy was shown. The crowd was grave and curious, that was all.

Investigations began inside the house; and their first result confirmed the authorities in the conviction that Madame la Duchesse de Berry occupied it. A letter addressed to her Royal Highness was lying open on a table. The disappearance of Maître Pascal, who was seen to enter the house and known not to have left it, proved the existence of some hiding-place within its walls. That hiding-place must be found.

All articles of furniture were opened if the keys were in them; broken open if they were not. The sappers and masons sounded the walls and floors with their hammers; builders, who were taken from room to room, declared it impossible, comparing the internal with the external construction, that any hiding-place was made in the walls. In several of the rooms, however, articles were found, such as printed papers, jewels, articles of silver, which might, to be sure, have belonged to the owners of the house, but, under the circumstances, seemed to point to the presence of the princess within the walls. When the garret was reached the builders declared that there, less than elsewhere, was it possible for a hiding-place to exist.

The police then searched the neighboring houses, sounding the walls with such violence that fragments of masonry were detached, and at one time it was thought that the walls themselves were coming down.

While these things were happening about them the ladies of the house, who were under arrest, showed the greatest coolness; though kept in sight by their guards, they calmly sat down to dinner. Two other women,--and history ought, ere this, to have searched out their names and preserved them for posterity,--two other women were the special objects of police investigation; these women, the servants of the household, named Charlotte Moreau and Marie Boissy, were taken to the castle, thence to the barracks of the gendarmerie, where, finding that they resisted all threats, an attempt was made to corrupt them. Large and still larger sums of money were offered to them, but they answered steadily that they knew nothing whatever of the Duchesse de Berry.

After these ineffectual efforts the search relaxed; the prefect was the first to retreat, leaving, by way of precaution, a sufficient number of men to guard each room in the house, while the commissaries of police took up their quarters on the ground-floor. The house was still surrounded and the National Guard sent a detachment to relieve the troops of the line, who took a rest.

In distributing sentries, two gendarmes were placed in two attic rooms, which had, of course, been carefully searched. The cold was so sharp that these men suffered from it. One of them went downstairs and returned with an armful of peat-fuel, and ten minutes later a fine fire was blazing in the chimney, the iron back of which was soon red-hot.

Almost at the same time, although it was scarcely daylight, the work of the masons began again; their crow-bars and mallets struck the walls of the attic rooms and made them tremble. In spite of this noisy racket, one of the gendarmes was fast asleep; his companion, now comfortably warm, had ceased to keep up the fire, and the masons, satisfied at last, gave up the search in this part of the house, which, with the instinct of their trade, they had carefully explored.

The gendarme who was awake, profiting by the silence that followed the diabolical uproar which had continued since early on the previous evening, went to sleep himself. His companion soon after waked up cold. His eyes were scarcely open before he thought of warming himself, and relighted the fire; but as the peat did not ignite very readily, he threw into the fireplace a number of copies of the "Quotidienne" which lay pell-mell upon the table. The flames from the newspapers produced a thicker smoke and greater heat than the peat had done at any time. The gendarme, feeling comfortable, was occupying his time by reading the "Quotidienne," when all of a sudden his pyrotechnic edifice came tumbling clown, and the peat squares which he had set against the chimney-back rolled into the room.

At the same instant he heard from behind that back a noise which gave him an odd idea; he fancied there were rats in the chimney, and that the heat of his fire had forced them to decamp. On this he woke up his comrade, and together they made ready to chase the rodents, sabre in hand.

While their attention was wholly fixed on this new species of game, one of them noticed a decided movement of the chimney-back, and he called out:--

"Who's there?"

A woman's voice replied:--

"We surrender,--we will open the door; put out your fire!"

The two gendarmes jumped to their fire and scattered it out with a few kicks. The chimney-back then slowly turned on a pivot and disclosed a hollow space, from which a woman, bareheaded, her face pale, her hair standing up from her forehead like that of a man, dressed in a simple Neapolitan gown of a brown color, scorched in many places, came forth, placing her feet and hands on the heated hearth.

This woman was Petit-Pierre, her Royal Highness Marie-Caroline, the Duchesse de Berry.

Her companions followed her. For sixteen hours they had been confined in that cramped place without food. The hole which was thus their asylum was made between the flue of the chimney and the wall of the adjoining house under the roof, the rafters of which served to conceal it.

At the moment when the troops surrounded the house her Royal Highness was listening to Maître Pascal, who gave her an amusing account of the scare which had led him to leave his house and come to hers. Through the windows of the room in which she sat the duchess could see the moon rising in the calm sky, and defining, like a brown silhouette, the massive towers, the silent, motionless towers of the old castle.

There are moments when nature seems so gentle, so friendly, that it is impossible to believe a danger lurks and threatens us from the midst of such perfect quietude.

Suddenly Maître Pascal, coming nearer to the window, saw the flash of bayonets. Instantly he threw himself back, exclaiming:--

"Escape! save yourself, Madame!"

The duchess at once rushed up the staircase, the others following her. Reaching the hiding-place, she turned and called to her companions. As they knew the place could only be entered on their hands and knees, the men went first; then, as the young lady who attended on her Royal Highness was unwilling to pass before her, the duchess said, laughing:--

"Go in, go in! Good strategy requires that when a retreat is made the commander should always be in the rear."

The soldiers entered the door of the house just as that of the hiding-place was closed on the princess and her friends.

We have seen with what minute care the search had been made. Every blow struck on the walls resounded in the refuge of the duchess; the plaster fell in showers, the bricks were loosened, and the prisoners came near being buried in the mass of rubbish shaken down by the jar of the hammers and the iron-bars and joists of the searchers. When the gendarmes built their fire the back of the chimney and the wall gave forth a heat which made the little chamber almost insupportable. After a while those who were imprisoned in it could scarcely breathe, and they would have perished asphyxiated if they had not succeeded in getting a few slates off the roof, which made an opening that let in air.

The duchess suffered the most; for, having entered last, she was nearest to the chimney-back. Each of her companions begged her to change places, but she would not consent to it. To the danger of being suffocated was now added that of being burned alive. The door of the hiding-place was red-hot, and threatened at every moment to set fire to the clothing of the women. In fact, Madame's gown had been twice on fire and she had put it out with her hands, which were badly burned; the scars remained visible for many months.

Every minute exhausted the interior air, and the external air admitted through the tiny holes did not suffice to renew it. The breathing of the prisoners became more and more difficult; another ten minutes in that furnace might sacrifice the future life of the duchess. Her companions implored her to surrender; but she would not. Her eyes filled with tears of anger, which the scorching air dried upon her cheeks. The fire had again caught her gown and again she had extinguished it; but in the movement she thus made she chanced to touch the spring of the chimney-back, which moved and attracted the attention of the gendarme.

Supposing that this accident had betrayed her retreat, and pitying the sufferings of her companions, Madame consented to surrender, leaving the chimney as we have related. Her first words were a request to see General Dermoncourt. One of the gendarmes went to find him on the ground-floor, which he had not chosen to leave throughout the search.

XLI.

THREE BROKEN HEARTS.

As soon as the general's arrival was announced, Madame went hastily toward him.

"General," she said quickly, "I surrender to you; and I trust to your loyalty!"

"Madame," replied Dermoncourt, "your Royal Highness is under the safeguard of French honor!"

He led her to a chair, and as she seated herself she pressed his arm firmly and said:--

"General, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I have done my duty as a mother to recover my son's inheritance."

Her voice was clear and accentuated. Though pale, she was excited as if by fever. The general sent for a glass of water, in which she dipped her fingers; the refreshing coolness calmed her.

During this time the prefect and the commander of the National Guard were notified of what had happened. The prefect was the first to arrive. He entered the room in which Madame was sitting, with his hat on his head, ignoring that a woman was a prisoner there,--a woman whose rank and whose misfortunes deserved more respect than had ever been shown her.

He approached the duchess, looked at her, touched his hat cavalierly, and said:--

"Yes, that is really she."

Then he went out to give some orders.

"Who is that man?" asked the princess.

The question was a natural one, for the prefect had presented himself without any of the distinctive signs of his high administrative position.

"Madame can surely guess," said the general.

She looked at him with a slight laugh.

"I suppose it must be the prefect," she said.

"Madame could not have been more correct had she seen his license."

"Did that man serve under the Restoration?"

"No, Madame."

"I am glad for the Restoration."

The prefect now returned, entering without being announced, as before; and, as before, he did not remove his hat. Apparently, the prefect was hungry on that particular morning, for he brought with him, on a plate which he held in his hand, a slice of pâté. He put the plate on the table, asked for a knife and fork, and began to eat with his back to the princess.

Madame looked at him with an expression of mingled anger and contempt.

"General," she said, "do you know what I most regret in the station I once occupied?"

"No, Madame."

"Two ushers, to turn that man out."

When the prefect had finished his repast he turned round and asked the duchess for her papers.

Madame replied that he could look in her late hiding-place, where he would find a white portfolio she had left there.

The prefect went to fetch the portfolio and brought it back with him.

"Monsieur," said the duchess, opening it, "the papers in this portfolio are of very little consequence; but I wish to give them to you myself in order that I may explain their ownership."

So saying, she gave him one after the other the things that were in the portfolio.

"Does Madame know how much money she has here?" asked the prefect.

"Monsieur, there ought to be about thirty-six thousand francs; of which twelve thousand belong to persons whom I will designate."

The general here approached and said that if Madame felt better it was urgent that she should leave the house.

"To go where?" she said, looking at him fixedly.

"To the castle, Madame."

"Ah, yes, and from there to Blaye, no doubt?"

"General," said one of Madame's companions, "her Royal Highness cannot go on foot; it would not be proper."

"Monsieur," replied Dermoncourt, "a carriage would only encumber us. Madame can go on foot by throwing a mantle over her shoulders and wearing a hat."

On this the general's secretary and the prefect, who seemed to be suddenly pricked by gallantry, went down stairs and returned with three hats. The princess chose a black one, because, as she said, the color was analogous to the circumstances; after which she took the general's arm to leave the house. As she passed before the door of the garret she gave a glance at the chimney-back, which remained open.

"Ah, general!" she said, laughing, "if you had not treated me as they treated Saint Lawrence,--which by the bye is quite unworthy of your military generosity,--you wouldn't have me under your arm, now. Come, friends," she added, addressing her companions.

The princess went down the staircase on the general's arm. As she was about to cross the threshold into the street she heard a great noise among the crowd, who flocked behind the soldiers and formed a line ten times as deep as that of the military.

Madame may have thought that those cries and shouts were aimed at her; but she gave no sign of fear except that she pressed a little closer to the general's arm.

When the princess advanced between the double line of soldiers and National Guards, who made a lane from the house to the castle, the cries and mutterings she had heard became louder and more violent than before. The general cast his eyes in the direction from which the tumult chiefly came, and there he saw a young peasant-woman trying to force her way through the ranks of the soldiers who opposed her passage; and yet, being struck by her beauty and the despair that was visible on her face, were refraining from violence in repulsing her.

Dermoncourt recognized Bertha, and called the duchess's attention to her. The latter gave a cry.

"General," she said eagerly, "you have promised not to separate me from my friends; let that young girl come to me."

On a sign from the general the ranks opened, and Bertha reached the august prisoner.

"Pardon, Madame! pardon for an unhappy woman who might have saved you, and did not! Oh, I would I could die, cursing that fatal love which has made me the involuntary accomplice of the traitors who have sold your Royal Highness!"

"I don't know what you mean, Bertha!" interrupted the princess, raising the young girl and giving her the arm that was free. "What you are doing at this moment proves that whatever else has happened I cannot doubt a devotion the memory of which will never leave me. But I have to talk to you of other things, dear child. I have to ask your pardon for contributing to an error which may, perhaps, have made you most unhappy; I have to tell you that--"

"I know all, Madame," said Bertha, lifting her eyes, that were red with tears, to the princess.

"Poor child!" exclaimed the duchess, pressing the girl's hand. "Then, follow me, come with me; time and my affection will calm a sorrow that I comprehend, that I respect--"

"I beg your Highness to forgive me for not obeying her, but I have made a vow which I must fulfil. God alone is placed by duty above my princess."

"Then go, dear child!" said Madame, comprehending the young girl's meaning. "Go, and may the God you seek be with you! When you pray to Him remember Petit-Pierre; the prayers of a broken heart ascend to Him."[3]

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[Footnote 3: Hers was a gallant soul. She was privately married to an Italian nobleman of distinguished name and fame, and a child was born to her during her imprisonment at Blaye. The Bourbons never forgave her; they treated her, and so did the French people, as if she had disgraced herself. Justice has never been done to her brave, generous, gallant heart,--a royal heart that felt for others. Her second marriage was a most happy one. She survived her husband several years, and died in 1873.--Tr.]

---------------

They had now reached the gates of the prison. The duchess raised her eyes to the blackened walls of the old castle; then she held out her hand to Bertha, who, kneeling down, laid a kiss upon it, murmuring once more the words, "Forgive me!" Then Madame, after an instant's hesitation, passed through the postern, giving a last smile in token of farewell to Bertha.

The general withdrew his arm from the duchess to allow her to pass in; then he turned hastily to Bertha and said in a low voice:--

"Where is your father?"

"He is at Nantes."

"Tell him to return to the château, and stay there quietly; he shall not be disturbed. I'll break my sword sooner than allow him to be arrested, my old enemy!"

"Thank you for him, general."

"And you, if you have any need of my services, command them, mademoiselle."

"I want a passport to Paris."

"When?"

"At once."

"Where shall I send it to you?"

"To the other side of the pont Rousseau; to the inn of the Point du Jour."

"In an hour you shall have it, mademoiselle."

With a sign of farewell the general turned and disappeared beneath the gloomy portal.

Bertha worked her way through the close-pressed ranks of the crowd until she reached the nearest church, which she entered. There she remained a long time kneeling on the cold stone pavement.

When she rose the stones were wet with tears.

Then she crossed the town and the pont Rousseau. Approaching the inn of the Point du Jour, she saw her father sitting at the threshold of the door. Within the last few hours the Marquis de Souday had aged ten years; his eye had lost the humorous, bantering look which gave it such expression; he carried his head low, like a man whose burden was too heavy for him.

Warned by the priest who had received the last confession of Maître Jacques, and who went to the forest of Touvois to tell the marquis what had happened, the old man started at once for Nantes. A mile from the pont Rousseau he met Bertha, whose horse had fallen, having broken a tendon in the furious pace to which she had urged him.

The girl confessed to her father what had happened. The old man did not reproach her, but he broke the stick he held in his hand against the stones of the road.

When they reached the pont Rousseau public rumor informed them, though it was only seven in the morning, of the arrest of the princess before that arrest was actually accomplished. Bertha, not daring to raise her eyes to her father, rushed toward Nantes; the old man seated himself on the bench before the inn, where we find him four hours later.

This sorrow was the only one against which his selfish and epicurean philosophy was impotent. He would have pardoned his daughter many faults; but he could not think without despair that she had covered his name with the crime and shame of lèze-chivalry, and that a Souday, the last of the name, should have helped to fling royalty into the gulf.

When Bertha approached him he silently held out to her a paper a gendarme had given him. It was her passport from the general.

"Father, will you not forgive me as she forgave me?" said the girl, in a gentle, humble tone which contrasted strangely with her self-assuming manner in other days.

The old gentleman sadly shook his head.

"Where shall I find my poor Jean Oullier?" he said. "Since God has preserved him to me I want to see him. I want him to go with me out of this country!"

"Will you leave Souday, father?"

"Yes."

"Where will you go?"

"Where I can hide my name."

"And Mary, poor Mary, who is innocent!"

"Mary will be the wife of the man who is the cause of this execrable crime. I will never see Mary again!"

"You will be alone."

"No; I shall have Jean Oullier."

Bertha bowed her head; she entered the inn, where she changed her peasant dress for mourning garments, which she had bought on her way through the town. When she came out the old man had gone. Looking about her she saw him, with his hands clasped behind his back, his head sunk on his breast, sadly walking in the direction of Saint-Philbert.

Bertha sobbed; then she cast a lingering look at the verdant plain of the Retz region, which can be seen in the distance from Nantes, backed by the dark-blue line of the forest of Machecoul.

"Farewell, all that I love in this world!" she cried.

Then she turned and re-entered the town of Nantes.

XLII.

GOD'S EXECUTIONER.

During the three hours that Courtin spent bound hand and foot, and lying on the earth in the ruins of Saint-Philbert, side by side with the corpse of Joseph Picaut, his heart passed through all the agony that can rend and torture a human being.

He felt the precious belt beneath him, for he had managed to lie upon it; but the gold it contained only added more pangs to his other pangs, more terror to the countless terrors which assailed his brain. That gold, which was more to him than life itself, was he doomed to lose it? Who was this unknown man whom he had heard Maître Jacques tell the widow to summon? What was this mysterious vengeance he had now to fear? He passed in review before him all the persons to whom, in the course of his life, he had done harm; the list was long, and their threatening faces peopled the darkness of the tower.

And yet, at times, a ray of hope traversed his gloomy mind; vague and undecided at first, it presently took on consistency. Could it be that a man possessing that glorious gold should die? If vengeance rose before him would not a handful of those coins silence it? His imagination counted and re-counted the sum belonging to him, which was really, really his own, which was bruising his flesh delightfully, pressing into his loins as if the gold itself were becoming a part of his very body. Then he reflected that if he could only escape he should add fifty thousand more francs to the fifty thousand now beneath him; and, helpless as he was, a victim doomed to death, awaiting the fall of the sword of Damocles above his head, which might at any instant cut the thread of his life, his heart melted into such joy that it took the character of intoxication. But soon his ideas again changed their course. He asked himself if his accomplice--in whom he felt only the confidence of an accomplice--would not profit by his absence to cheat him of the share that belonged to him; he saw that man escaping, weighed down by the weight of the enormous sum he was carrying, and refusing to divide it with him, who, after all, had done the whole betrayal. He mentally prepared for such occasion; he thought of words of entreaty to reach the heart of that Jew, threats to intimidate him, reproaches that might move him; but suddenly, when he reflected that if Monsieur Hyacinthe loved gold as he loved it,--which was probable, inasmuch as he was a Jew,--when he measured his associate by his own measure, when he sounded in his own soul the depths of the sacrifice he demanded, he said to himself that tears, prayers, threats, reproaches would all be useless, and he fell into paroxysms of rage; he vented roars which shook the old arches of the feudal edifice; he struggled in his bonds, he bit the ropes, he tried to tear them with his teeth; but those ropes, slender and loosely twisted as they were, seemed to take on life, to become living things under his efforts; he fancied he felt them struggling against him, increasing their tangled snarl; the knots he undid seemed to tie themselves again, not singly as before, but in double, treble, quadruple turns; and then, as if to punish his efforts, they buried themselves in his flesh, where they made a burning furrow. All dreams of hope, all thought of riches and happiness vanished like clouds before the breath of a tempest; the phantoms of those whom the farmer had persecuted rose terrible before him; all things lurking in the shadow, stones, beams, fragments of broken wood-work, fallen cornices, all took form, and each of those threatening shapes looked at him with eyes which shone in the darkness like thousands of sparks darting on the tissue of a black shroud. The mind of the wretched man began to wander. Mad with terror and despair he called to the corpse of Joseph Picaut, of which he could see the outline, stiff and stark, about four feet from him; he offered him a fourth, a third, a half of his gold if he would loose his bonds; but the echo of the arches alone replied in its funereal voice, and, exhausted by emotion, he fell back for a moment into dull insensibility.

He was in one of these moments of torpor when a noise without made him quiver. Some one was walking in the inner courtyard of the castle, and presently he heard the grinding of the rusty bolts of the old fruit-room. Courtin's heart beat as though it would burst his breast. He was breathless with fear, choking with anguish; he felt that the coming person was the avenger summoned by Maître Jacques.

The door opened. The flame of a torch lighted the rafters with its ruddy glare. Courtin had an instant of hope; it was the widow, bearing the torch, whom he first saw, and he thought she was alone; but she had scarcely made two steps into the tower before a man who was behind her appeared. The hair of the hapless farmer rose on his head; he dared not look at the man; he closed his eyes and was silent.

The man and the widow came nearer. Marianne gave the torch to her companion, pointing with her finger to Courtin; and then, as if indifferent to what was about to happen, she knelt down at the feet of Joseph Picaut's body and began to pray.

As for the man, he came close beside the farmer and, no doubt to convince himself that he was really the mayor of La Logerie, he cast the light of the torch across his face.

"Can he be asleep?" he said to himself, in a low voice. "No, he is too great a coward to sleep; no, his face is too pale--he's not sleeping."

Then he stuck his torch into a fissure in the wall, sat down on an enormous stone which had rolled from the top to the middle of the tower and, addressing Courtin, said to him:--

"Come, open your eyes, Monsieur le maire. We have something to say to each other, and I like to see the eyes of those who speak to me."

"Jean Oullier!" cried Courtin, turning livid, and making a desperate effort to burst his bonds and escape. "Jean Oullier living!"

"If it were only his ghost, Monsieur Courtin, it would be, I think, enough to terrify you; for you have a long account to settle with him."

"Oh, my God! my God!" exclaimed Courtin, letting himself drop back on the ground like a man who resigns himself to his fate.

"Our hatred dates far back, doesn't it?" continued Jean Oullier; "and its instincts have not misled us; they have embittered you against me, and to-day, exhausted and half dead as I am, they have brought me back to you."

"I have never hated you," said Courtin, who the moment he perceived that Jean Oullier was not about to kill him on the spot, felt a gleam of hope in his heart and foresaw the possibility of saving his life by discussion. "I have never hated you; on the contrary! and if my ball did strike you it was not because I meant it for you. I did not know you were in that bush."

"Oh, my grievances against you go farther back than that, Monsieur Courtin!"

"Farther back?" replied Courtin, who, little by little, was recovering some energy. "But I swear that before that accident, which I deplore, I never put you in any danger, I never did you any harm."

"Your memory is short, and your offences weigh most on the soul of the offended person, it appears; for I remember the wrongs you have done me."

"What wrongs? What can you remember against me? Speak, Monsieur Jean Oullier! Do you think it right to kill a man without hearing him, without allowing him to say one word in his defence?"

"Who told you I meant to kill you?" said Jean Oullier, with the icy calmness he had not quitted for an instant. "Your conscience, perhaps."

"Speak out, Monsieur Jean! tell me of what I am accused! Except for that luckless shot, I know I am as white as the driven snow. Yes, I can prove to you that no one has been a better friend than I to the worthy family at Souday; no one has respected them more, or been more glad of this marriage which is to unite the families of your master and mine."

"Monsieur Courtin," said Jean Oullier, who had left free course to this flux of words, "it is, as you say, only fair that an accused person should defend himself. Defend yourself, therefore, if you can. Listen to me; I begin--"

"Oh, go on! I am not afraid of your questions!" replied Courtin.

"We shall soon see that. Who betrayed me to the gendarmes at the fair of Montaigu, so as to lay hands more securely on my master's guests, whom you rightly supposed I was defending? Who, having done that, basely hid himself behind the hedge of the last garden in Montaigu, and after borrowing a gun of the owner of that garden, fired at my dog and killed my poor companion? Answer, Monsieur Courtin!"

"Who dares to say he saw me do that?" cried the farmer.

"Three persons; among them the man from whom you borrowed the gun."

"How should I know the dog was yours? No, Monsieur Jean, upon my honor, I was ignorant of it."

Jean made a contemptuous gesture.

"Who," he continued, in the same calm but accusing voice, "who, having slipped into Pascal Picaut's house, sold to the Blues the secret he discovered there,--the secret of a sacred hospitality?"

"I bear testimony to that," said the deep voice of Pascal's widow, issuing from her silence and immobility.

The farmer shuddered and dared not defend himself.

"Whom have I constantly found," resumed Jean Oullier, "during the last four months, busy with shameful schemes, laying his plots and sheltering them under the name of his young master, proclaiming devotion and fidelity to him, and soiling the very name of those virtues by contact with his criminal intentions? Whom did I hear, on the Bouaimé moor, discussing the price of blood? Whom did I see weighing the gold offered him for the basest and most odious of treacheries? Who, I say, was that man, if not you?"

"I swear to you by all there is most sacred among men!" said Courtin, who still believed that Jean Oullier's principal grievance was the shot that wounded him. "I swear to you that I did not know you were in that luckless bush!"

"But I tell you I don't blame you for that! I have not said a word, I have not opened my lips to you about it! The list of your crimes is long enough without adding that!"

"You speak of my crimes, Jean Oullier, and you forget that my young master, who will soon become yours, owes me his life; and that if I had been the traitor that you call me I should have delivered him up to the soldiers who passed and repassed my house every day while he was there. You forget all that, while, on the contrary, you rake up every trifling circumstance against me."

"If you did save your master," continued Jean Oullier, in the same inexorable tone, "it is because that sham devotion was useful to your plans. Better for him, better for those two poor girls, if you had let them end their days honorably, gloriously, than to have mixed them up in these shameless intrigues. That is what I have against you, Courtin; that thought alone doubles the hatred I feel to you."

"The proof that I don't hate you, Jean Oullier, is that if I had chosen you would long ago have been put out of this world."

"What do you mean?"

"On the day of that hunt when the father of Monsieur Michel was killed--murdered, Monsieur Jean, we won't blink the word--a beater was not ten paces from him; and the name of that beater was Courtin."

Jean Oullier rose to his full height.

"Yes," continued the farmer, "and this beater saw it was Jean Oullier's ball that brought the traitor down."

"Yes," said Jean Oullier; "but it was not a crime it was an expiation. I am proud to have been the man whom God selected to punish that criminal."

"God alone may punish, God alone may curse," said the mayor.

"No, I am not mistaken; it is He who has put into my heart this hatred of sin, this ineradicable recollection of treachery; it was the finger of God touching my heart when that heart quivered at the name of the traitor. When my shot struck that Judas I felt the breath of the divine Justice cross my face and cool it; and, from that moment to this I have found the peace and calmness I never had while that unpunished criminal prospered before my eyes. God was with me."

"God is never with a murderer."

"God is always with the executioner who lifts the sword of justice. Men have their laws, He has his. I was that day, as I am to-day, the sword of God."

"Do you mean to murder me as you murdered Baron Michel?"

"I mean to punish the man who sold Petit-Pierre as I punished him who sold Charette. I shall punish him without fear, without doubt, without remorse."

"Take care; remorse will come when your future master calls you to account for his father's death."

"That young man is just and loyal; if he is ever called upon to judge my conduct I shall tell him what I saw in the wood of La Chabotière, and he will judge me rightly."

"Who can testify that you tell the truth? One man alone, and that is I. Let me live, Jean, let me live! and, as that woman did just now, I will rise and say: 'I bear testimony to that.'"

"Fear makes you foolish, Courtin. Monsieur Michel will ask for no other testimony when Jean Oullier says, 'This is the truth;' when Jean Oullier, baring his breast, says, 'If you wish to avenge your father, strike!' when Jean Oullier kneels before him and prays to God to send the expiation if He himself judges that the deed should be expiated. No, no! and you are wrong, wrong to evoke in your terror those bloody memories before my mind. You, Maître Courtin, you have done worse things than Michel did; for the blood you sold is nobler still than that he trafficked in. I did not spare Michel, why should I spare you? Never, never!"

"Pity! mercy! Jean Oullier. Do not kill me!" sobbed the wretched man.

"Implore those stones, ask pity of them! They may answer you; but nothing can move my will, or shake my resolution. You shall die!"

"Ah, my God! my God!" cried Courtin, "is there no one to help me? Widow Picaut! widow Picaut! here! here! will you let him cut my throat? Here! help me! protect me! If you want gold, I'll give it! I have gold, gold! No, what am I saying? My mind is wandering; I have no gold!" said the poor wretch, fearing to spur on the murder he saw glittering in the eyes of his enemy if he offered such hopes. "No, I have no gold, but I have property, estates. I'll give you all; I'll make you rich--both of you! Oh, mercy, Jean Oullier! Widow Picaut, defend me!"

The widow did not stir; except for the movement of her lips she might have been taken, as she knelt there in her mourning garments, pale as marble, mute and motionless beside the corpse, for one of those kneeling statues we often see at the foot of some ancient monument.

"What!" continued Courtin, "will you really kill me? kill me without a fight, without danger, when I cannot lift a foot to escape or a hand to defend myself? Will you cut my throat in my bonds like a beast that they drag to a slaughter-house? Oh, Jean Oullier, that's not the work of a soldier; you are a butcher!"

"Who told you I would do it thus? No, no, no, Maître Courtin. Look, the wound you gave me has not healed; it still bleeds. I am weak, tottering, feeble; I am proscribed, a price is on my head!--well, in spite of all that, I am so certain of the justice of my cause that I do not hesitate to appeal to the judgment of God. Courtin, you are free!"

"Free?"

"Yes, I set you at liberty. Oh, you need not thank me; what I do, I do for myself, not you,--that it may never be said Jean Oullier struck a fallen man, an unarmed man. But don't mistake; the life I give you now, I will take some day."

"Oh, God!"

"Maître Courtin, you will go from here unbound and free; but, I warn you, beware! As soon as you have passed the threshold of these ruins I shall be upon your traces; and those traces I will never abandon until I have struck you down and made your body a corpse. Beware, Maître Courtin, beware!"

So saying, Jean Oullier took his knife and cut the cords that bound the farmer hand and foot. Courtin made a bound of almost frantic joy; but he instantly controlled it. In springing up he felt the belt; it seemed as though it called to him. Jean Oullier had given him life, but what was life without his gold?

He flung himself down upon it as quickly as he had risen.

Jean Oullier had seen, rapid as Courtin's movement was, the swollen leather of the belt, and he guessed what was passing in the farmer's mind.

"Why don't you go?" he said. "What are you waiting for? Yes, I understand; you are afraid that, seeing you free as myself and stronger than I, my wrath may revive; you are afraid I may throw you another knife like my own and say to you: 'Defend yourself, Maître Courtin, we are equal now!' No, Jean Oullier has but one word, and that he has given you. Make haste! depart! fly! If God is with you, He will protect you against me; if He condemns you, what care I for the start I give you? Take your cursèd gold, and begone!"

Maître Courtin did not answer. He rose, stumbling like a drunken man; he tried to fasten the belt around his waist, but could not; his fingers trembled as though they were shaken by an ague. Before departing he kept himself turned in terror toward Jean Oullier. The traitor feared treachery; he could not believe that the generosity of his enemy did not hide some trap.

Jean Oullier pointed with his finger to the door. Courtin rushed into the court; but before he reached the postern-gate he heard the voice of the Vendéan, sonorous as the clarion of battle, calling to him:--

"Beware, Courtin! beware!"

Maître Courtin, free as he was, shuddered; and in that moment of agitation he struck his foot against a stone, tripped, and fell forward. He uttered a cry of agony, fancying that the Vendéan was upon him; he thought he felt the cold steel of a knife piercing between his shoulders.

It was only an omen. Courtin rose, and a minute later, having passed the postern, he darted, a free man, into the open country he had not expected to see again.

When he had disappeared the widow went up to Jean Oullier and offered him her hand.

"Jean," she said, "as I listened to you, I thought how right my Pascal was when he told me there were brave, strong souls under every flag."

Jean Oullier wrung the hand the worthy woman who had saved his life held out to him.

"How do you feel now?" she asked.

"Better; we are always stronger for a struggle."

"And where are you going?"

"To Nantes. After what your mother told us, I think Bertha may not have gone there; and I fear some disaster from the delay."

"Well, at any rate, take a boat; that will spare your legs the fatigue of half the distance."

"I will," replied Jean Oullier.

And he followed the widow to the place on the lakeside where the boats of the fishermen were drawn up on the sand.

XLIII.

SHOWS THAT A MAN WITH FIFTY THOUSAND FRANCS ABOUT HIM MAY BE MUCH EMBARRASSED.

As soon as Maître Courtin had crossed the bridge leading from the castle he began to run like a madman; terror lent him wings. He did not ask himself whither his steps led him; he fled to flee. If his strength had equalled his fear he would have put the world between himself and the threats of the Vendéan,--threats he continued to hear resounding in his ears like a funeral knell.

But after he had done about a couple of miles across country in the direction of Machecoul, exhausted, breathless, choked by the rapidity of his flight, he fell rather than seated himself on the bank of a ditch, where he came to his senses and began to reflect on what he had better do. His first idea was to go at once to his own house; but that idea he almost immediately abandoned. In the country, no matter what effort the authorities might make to protect the mayor of La Logerie, Jean Oullier--with his relations to the country-people and his perfect knowledge of roads, forests, and gorse moors, seconded by the sympathy that the whole community felt for him, and by the hatred they felt for Courtin--was all-powerful, and the game would be wholly on his side.

In Nantes alone could the farmer find refuge,--Nantes, where an able and numerous police would protect his life until such time as they could arrest Jean Oullier,--a result Courtin hoped to reach very soon by the information he was able to give as to the usual hiding-places of the insurrectionists.

As he sat there thinking these things his hand went to his belt to lift it; the weight of the mass of gold he carried hurt him, and had contributed not a little to the breathless fatigue of his hard run. That gesture decided his fate.

Surely he should find Monsieur Hyacinthe in Nantes. The thought of receiving from his associate, if their plot had succeeded (and this he did not doubt), an equal sum to that he carried, filled Courtin's heart with a joy that put him far above the tribulations he had lately undergone. He did not hesitate another moment, but turned at once in the direction of the town.

He resolved on getting there as the crow flies, across country. On the road he risked being watched; chance alone could put Jean Oullier on his traces if he kept to the plain. But his imagination, heated by the terrible vicissitudes of the night, was more powerful than his common-sense. No matter how carefully he glided beside the hedges, crouching in the shadows and stifling the sound of his steps, not daring to enter any field until certain it was deserted, a panic fear pursued him all the way.

In the trees with their pruned heads, which rose above the hedges, his fancy saw assassins; in their knotty branches extending above him, arms and hands with daggers ready to strike him. He stopped, chilled with fear; his legs refused to carry him farther, as though they were rooted to the ground; an icy sweat burst from his body; his teeth chattered convulsively; his shaking fingers clutched his gold, and it took him a long time to recover from his terror. He could not endure to continue in the fields, and made for the high-road.

Besides, he reflected that he might meet a vehicle of some kind on its way to Nantes and obtain a seat in it, which would shorten the way and also protect him.

After taking about five hundred steps he came out upon the road which follows for over a mile the shores of the lake of Grand-Lieu, to which it serves as a species of dike.

Courtin stopped every few minutes to listen; and presently he fancied he heard the trot of a horse's feet. He flung himself into the reeds which bordered the road on the lakeside, and crouched there, again enduring all the agonies of mind which we have just described.

But he now heard oars to his left dipping softly in the water. He crept through the reeds to look in the direction of the sound, and saw, in the shadow, a boat gliding slowly past the shore. It was, no doubt, some fisherman, intending to gather in his nets before daybreak.

The horse came nearer; the ring of his hoofs on the stones of the road terrified Courtin; danger was there, there! and he must flee from it. He whistled softly to attract the attention of the fisherman. The latter stopped rowing.

"This way! this way!" cried Courtin.

He had scarcely said the words before a vigorous stroke of the oars sent the boat within four feet of the fugitive.

"Can you put me across the lake and take me as far as Port-Saint-Martin?" asked Courtin. "I'll pay you a franc for it."

The fisherman, who was wrapped in a sort of pea-jacket, with a hood which concealed his face, answered only by a nod; but he did better than reply. Using his boat-hook he drove the wherry in among the reeds, which bent and quivered under its prow; and just as the horse whose coming had so terrified Maître Courtin reached the point in the road he had lately left, the latter, with two springs, gained the boat and was safely in it.

The fisherman, as though he had shared his passenger's apprehensions, turned the boat toward the middle of the lake, while Courtin gave a sigh of relief. At the end of ten minutes the road and the trees that bordered it seemed merely a line upon the horizon.

Courtin could scarcely contain himself for joy. The boat, which some fortunate chance had brought to that spot, would enable him to crown his hopes and fulfil all wishes. Once at Port-Saint-Martin, he had only a three-mile walk to Nantes over a road frequented at every hour of the day or night; and once in Nantes he was safe.

Courtin's joy was so great that, in spite of himself, and as an effect of the reaction of his terror, he felt impelled to some outward manifestation of it. Sitting in the stern of the boat, he looked excitedly at the fisherman, as the latter bent to his oars and put at every stroke a stretch of water between him and danger. Those strokes, he counted them aloud; then he laughed a hollow laugh, fingered his belt, and made the gold slip forward and back inside it. This was not mere joy--it was intoxication.

Presently, however, he began to think the fisherman had gone far enough from the shore, and that it was high time to turn the boat's head to Port-Saint-Martin, which they were now leaving behind them on their right. He waited a few minutes, thinking it might be a man[oe]uvre of the fisherman's to catch some current of which he would take advantage. But still the fisherman rowed on and on towards the middle of the lake.

"Hey, gars," cried the farmer at last, "you can't have heard me rightly; you are making for Port-Saint-Père, and I told you Port-Saint-Martin. Go the way I told you, and you'll earn your money sooner!"

The fisherman was silent.

"Did you hear me? What are you about?" cried Courtin, impatiently. "Port-Saint-Martin, I say! Go to your right! It is very well not to keep too near the shore, out of reach of balls in these queer times; but I wish you to go in that direction if you please."

The boatman appeared not to hear him.

"Ah, ça! are you deaf?" exclaimed the farmer, beginning to get angry.

The fisherman replied only by a vigorous stroke of his oars, which sent the boat flying several paces farther out on the surface of the lake.

Courtin, beside himself, sprang to the bow, knocked off the hood which in the darkness concealed the fisherman's head, put his own face close to the man's face, and then, with a stifled cry, fell on his knees at the bottom of the boat.

The man let go his oars, but did not rise.

"God has spoken, Maître Courtin," he said; "His judgment is against you! I was not seeking you, but He sends you to me; I had forgotten you for a time, and He puts you in my way. God wills that you shall die, Maître Courtin."

"No, no, no! you won't kill me, Jean Oullier!" cried the wretched man, falling back into all his terrors.

"I will kill you as surely as those stars which are in the sky were placed there by God's hand. Therefore, if you have a soul, think of it; repent, and pray that your doom may not be too severe."

"Oh, you cannot do it, you will not do it, Jean Oullier! Think that you are killing a child of the good God, whose name you speak! Oh, not to tread the earth again, which is so beautiful in the sunlight! to sleep in an icy bed away forever from those I love! Oh, no, no, no! it is impossible!"

"If you were a father, if you had wife, mother, or sister expecting your return, your words might touch me; but no! useless among men, you have lived only to use them, and to return them evil for good. You blaspheme even now in lying, for you love no one. No one has ever loved you on this earth, and my knife will wound no heart but your own in killing you. Maître Courtin, you are now to appear before your Judge; once more, I say, commend your soul to Him."

"Can a few short moments suffice for that? A guilty man like me needs time, needs years of repentance to equal his crimes. You who are so pious, Jean Oullier, you will surely leave me time to sorrow for my sins."

"No; life would only enable you to commit others. Death is expiation; you fear it. Put your fears and your anguish at the feet of the Lord, and He will receive you in His mercy. Maître Courtin, time is passing, and as true as God is there above those stars, in ten minutes you will be before Him!"

"Ten minutes, my God! ten minutes! Oh, pity! pity! mercy!"

"The time you employ in useless prayers is lost to your soul; think of that, Maître Courtin, think of that!"

Courtin did not answer; his hand had touched an oar, and a gleam of hope came into his mind. He gently seized it; then rising abruptly, he aimed a blow at the head of the Vendéan. The latter threw himself to the right and evaded it; the oar fell on the forward gunwale and was shivered into a thousand bits, leaving but a fragment in the farmer's hand.

Quick as lightning Jean Oullier sprang at Courtin's throat. Again the hapless man fell on his knees. Paralyzed by fear he rolled to the bottom of the boat; his choking voice could scarcely murmur the cry for "Mercy! mercy!"

"Ha, the fear of death did awaken a spark of courage in you!" cried Jean Oullier. "Ha, you found a weapon! Well, so much the better,--so much the better! Defend yourself, Courtin; and if the weapon you hold in your hand doesn't suit you, take mine!" continued the old keeper, flinging his knife at the other's feet.

But Courtin was incapable of seizing it; all movement had become impossible to him. He stammered a few incoherent words; his whole body trembled as though he was shaken by an ague; his ears hummed and all his senses seemed to leave him in his awful dread of death.

"My God!" cried Jean Oullier, pushing the inert mass before him with his foot, "my God! I cannot put my knife into that dead body."

He looked about him as if in search of something.

Nature was calm; the night silent; the breeze scarcely ruffled the surface of the lake; the undulation of the water rippled softly against the sides of the boat; nothing was heard but the cry of the water-fowl flying eastward, their wings dotting with black the crimson lines of the dawn as it slowly ascended heavenward.

Jean Oullier turned abruptly to Courtin and shook him by the arm.

"Maître Courtin, I will not kill you without taking my share of the danger," he said. "Maître Courtin, I will force you to defend yourself; if not against me, at least against death. Death is coming, it is here; defend yourself!"

The farmer answered only by a moan. He rolled his haggard eyes about him, but it was plain he could not distinguish the objects that surrounded him. Death, terrible, hideous, menacing, effaced all else.

At the same instant Jean Oullier gave a vigorous stamp with his heel on the bottom of the boat. The rotten planks gave way and the water entered, boiling and foaming, into the boat.

Courtin was roused by the coldness of the flood as it reached him; he gave an awful cry,--a cry in which there was nothing human.

"I am lost!" he screamed.

"It is God's judgment!" said Jean Oullier, stretching his arm to heaven. "Once I did not strike you because you were bound; this time, my hand spares you again, Maître Courtin. If your good angel wants you, let him save you; I have not stained my hands with your blood."

Courtin had risen while Jean Oullier said these words, and he moved hither and thither in the boat, making the water plash about him. Jean Oullier, calm, impassible, knelt in the bow and prayed.

The water came higher and higher.

"Oh, who will save me? who will save me?" cried Courtin, now livid, and contemplating with terror the six inches of wood which alone remained above the surface of the lake.

"God, if it pleases Him! Your life, like mine, is in His hands; let Him take one or the other--or save, or condemn us both. We are in His hands; once more, Maître Courtin, I say to you, accept His will."

As Jean Oullier spoke the boat gave a lurch; the water had reached the level of the gunwale, the skiff whirled once round, sustained itself for a second on the surface, and then slowly sank beneath the feet of the two men and buried itself in the depths of the lake with dismal mutterings.

Courtin was dragged down by the suction of the boat; but he came to the surface of the water, and his fingers seized the second oar, which floated near him. This slender bit of light dry wood supported him on the water long enough for him to make another appeal to Jean Oullier. The latter did not answer; he was swimming gently in the direction of the dawn.

"Help! help!" cried the miserable Courtin. "Help me to get ashore, Jean Oullier, and I will give you all the gold I have upon me!"

"Throw that ill-gotten gold to the bottom of the lake!" said the Vendéan, seeing the farmer buoyed upon the oar. "That is your one chance of saving your life; and this advice is the only help I will give you!"

Courtin put his hand to the belt; but drew it back as though his fingers were burned by the contact, or as if the Vendéan had commanded him to rip open his bowels and sacrifice his flesh and blood.

"No, no!" he murmured, "I can save it, and myself too."

He began to swim; but he had neither the skill nor the practice of Jean Oullier in that exercise. Moreover, the weight of the gold upon him was too great; at every stroke he went beneath the water, which, in spite of him, got into his throat. Again he called to Jean, but Jean Oullier was now a hundred yards away.

In one of these immersions, which lasted longer than the others, he was seized with a sort of vertigo, and suddenly, with a rapid movement, he detached the belt. But, before letting his precious gold drop into the gulf, he resolved to handle it, to feel it for the last time; he did clasp it, he did feel it with his trembling fingers.

That last contact with the metal he loved decided his fate; he could not resolve to release his hold of it; he pressed it to his breast, and made a strong movement with his feet to tread the water; but the weight of the upper part of his body burdened with the coin threw him off his balance; he sank. After a few seconds passed under water, he rose half suffocated, flung a curse to the heaven he saw for the last time, and then, dragged down by his gold as by a demon, he went to the bottom.

Jean Oullier, turning at that moment, saw rings upon the surface of the water,--the last sign given by the mayor of La Logerie of his existence; the last movement ever made around him in the land of the living.

The Vendéan raised his eyes to heaven and worshipped God for the justice of his decrees.

Jean Oullier swam well; but his recent wound and the fatigues and emotions of this terrible night had exhausted him. When he was only a hundred strokes from the shore he felt that his strength betrayed his courage; nevertheless, calm and resolute in this crucial moment as he had been all his life, he resolved to struggle to the last. On he swam.

Soon he felt a sort of faintness; his limbs grew numb; he fancied a thousand pins were pricking and tearing his flesh; his muscles grew painful; the blood mounted violently to his brain, and a dull, confused humming, like the roaring of the sea against the rocks, clamored in his ears; black clouds filled with phosphorescent sparks danced before his eyes; he thought he was about to die, and yet his limbs, obedient in their impotence, continued the motion his will imposed upon them. He still swam.

His eyes closed in spite of himself; his limbs now stiffened entirely; he gave a last thought to those with whom he had crossed the sea of life,--to the children, to the wife, to the old man who had brightened his youth; to the two young girls who had taken the places of those he loved; he desired that his last prayer, like his last thought, should be of them.

But at that instant, and in spite of himself, an idea suddenly crossed his brain. A phantom passed before his eyes; he saw the elder Michel bathed in his blood, dying on the mossy ground of the forest. Raising his arm from the water aloft to heaven he cried out:--

"God! if I was mistaken, if it was a crime, forgive me! not in this world but the next!"

Then, as if that solemn invocation had exhausted its last powers, the soul seemed to leave the body, which floated inert upon the current at the moment when the sun, rising above the mountains on the horizon, gilded with its earliest fires the waters of the lake,--the same moment when Courtin, sinking to the bottom, rendered his last breath; the same moment when Petit-Pierre, in Nantes, was driven from her hiding-place and arrested.

Michel, in charge of the soldiers, was making his way to Nantes.

After marching half an hour along the high-road, the lieutenant who commanded the little troop came up to his prisoner.

"Monsieur," he said, "you look like a gentleman; I have the honor to be one myself. It pains me to see you handcuffed. Will you give me your word of honor not to escape if I release you?"

"Gladly," said Michel; "and I thank you, monsieur, swearing to you that no matter from what direction succor may come to me, I will not leave your side without your permission."

After this they continued their way, arm in arm; so that any one who met them would little have suspected that one was a prisoner.

The night was fine, the sunrise splendid; all the flowers, moist with dew, sparkled like diamonds; the air was full of sweetest fragrance; the birds were singing in the branches. This march to Nantes was really a delightful promenade.

When they reached the extremity of the lake of Grand-Lieu the lieutenant stopped his prisoner, with whom he had advanced fully half a mile beyond the escort, and pointing to a black mass, which was floating on the surface of the water, about fifty feet from the shore, he asked him what he thought it was.

"It looks like the body of a man," answered Michel.

"Can you swim?"

"A little."

"Ah, if I knew how to swim I'd be in the water now," said the officer, sighing, and turning as if to call up his men.

Michel waited for nothing more; he ran to the bank, threw off his clothes, and jumped into the lake. A few instants later he brought to shore a body he had already recognized as that of Jean Oullier.

During this time the soldiers had come up, and they at once set to work to revive the drowning man. One of them took out his flask, and prying open the Vendéan's teeth poured a few drops of brandy into his mouth.

This revived him. His first glance fell on Michel, who was holding his head, and such an expression of anguish came upon his face that the lieutenant noticed and mistook it.

"This is the man who saved you, my friend," he said, pointing to Michel.

"Saved me! he! his son!" exclaimed Jean Oullier. "Ah! I thank thee, God, who art wonderful in thy mercy as thou art terrible in thy justice!"

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