The Isle of Unrest

by Henry Seton Merriman

  CHAPTER XXII.

  IN THE MACQUIS

  “Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.”

  The Abbé Susini had no money, but he was a charitable man in a hastyand impulsive way. Even the very poor may be charitable: they can thinkkindly of the rich. It was not the rich of whom the abbé had a friendlythought, but the foolish and the stubborn. For this fiery littlepriest knew more of the unwritten history of the macquis than any inCorsica--infinitely more than those whose business it was.

  It is the custom at Ajaccio, and in a smaller way at Bastia, to ignorethe darker side of Corsican politics, and the French officials arecontent with the endeavour to get through their term of office with awhole skin. It is not, as in other islands of the Mediterranean, thegospel of “mañana” which holds good here, but rather the gospel of “So Ifound it--it will last my time.” So, from the préfet to the humblestgendarme, they come, they serve, and they go back rejoicing to France.They strike when absolutely forced to do so, but they commit the mostfatal of all administrative errors--they strike gently.

  The faults are not all on one side; for the islanders are at onceturbulent and sullen. There are many who “keep the country,” as the localsaying is, and wander year after year in the mountain fastnesses, farabove road or pathway, beyond the feeble reach of the law, rather thanpay a trifling fine or bend their pride to face a week’s imprisonment.

  In the macquis, as in better society, there are grades of evil. Someare hiding from their own pride, others are evading a lifelong sentence,while many know that if the gendarme sees them he will shoot atsight--running, standing, sleeping, as a keeper kills vermin. Only a fewmonths ago, on a road over which many tourists must have travelled, ayoung man of twenty-three was “destroyed” (the official term) by thegendarmes who wanted him for eleven murders. It is commonly asserted thatthese bandits are not dangerous, that they have no grievance againsttravellers. A starving man has a grievance against the whole world, and acondemned fratricide is not likely to pick and choose his next victim iftempted by a little money and the chance of escape therewith from theisland.

  It is, moreover, usual for a man to take to the macquis the moment thathe finds himself involved in some trouble, or, it may be, merely undersuspicion. From his retreat in the mountains he enters into negotiationswith his lawyer, with the local magistrate, with his witnesses, even withthe police. He distrusts justice itself, and only gives himself up orfaces the tribunal when he has made sure of acquittal or such a sentenceas his pride may swallow. Which details of justice as understood in aprovince of France at the beginning of the century may be read at theAssize terms in those great newspapers, _Le Petit Bastiais_ or _Le PaoliPascal_, by any who have a halfpenny to spend on literature.

  It would appear easy enough to exterminate the bandits as one wouldexterminate wolves or other large game; but in such a country as Corsica,almost devoid of roads, thinly populated, heavily wooded, the expensewould be greater than the administration is prepared to incur. It wouldmean putting an army into the field, prepared and equipped for a longcampaign which might ultimately reach the dignity of a civil war. Thebandits are not worth it. The whole country is not worth exploiting.Corsica is a small open wound on the great back of France, carefullyconcealed and only tended spasmodically from time to time at such periodsas the health of the whole frame is sufficiently good to permit ofserious attention being given to so small a sore. And such times, as thewondering world knows, are few and far between in the history of France.

  The law-abiding natives, or such natives as the law has not found out,regard the denizens of the macquis with a tender pity not unmixed withrespect. As often as not the bandit is a man with a real grievance, andthe poor have a soft place in their hearts for a man with a grievance.And all Corsicans are poor. So all are for the bandits, and every man’shand is secretly or openly against the gendarme. Even in enmity, there isa certain sense of honour among these naïve people. A man will shoot hisfoe in the back, but he will not betray him to the gendarme. Among aprimitive people a man commands respect who has had the courage to takethe law into his own hands. Amidst a subject population, he who rebels isnot without honour.

  It was among these and such as these that the Abbé Susini sought fromtime to time his lost sheep. He took a certain pleasure in donning thepeasant clothes that his father had worn, and in going to the mountainsas his forefathers had doubtless done before him. For every man worthy ofthe name has lurking in his being a remnant of the barbarian which makeshim revolt occasionally against the life of the city and the crowdedstruggle of the streets, which sends him out to the waste places of theworld where God’s air is at all events untainted, where he may return tothe primitive way of living, to kill and gather with his own hands thatwhich must satisfy his own hunger.

  The abbé had never known a very highly refined state of civilization. Thebarbarian was not buried very deep. To him the voice of the wind throughthe trees, the roar of the river, the fine, free air of the mountains hada charm which he could not put into words. He hungered for them as theexile hungers for the sight of his own home. The air of houses chokedhim, as sooner or later it seems to choke sailors and wanderers who haveknown what it is to be in the open all night, sleeping or waking beneaththe stars, not by accident as an adventure, but by habit. Then the abbéwould disappear for days together from Olmeta, and vanish into thatmystic, silent, prowling world of the macquis. The sights he saw there,the men he met there, were among those things which the villagers saidthe abbé knew, but of which he never spoke.

  During the stirring events of August and September the priest at Olmeta,and Colonel Gilbert at Bastia, watched each, in his individual way, theeffect of the news upon a very sensitive populace. The abbé stood on thehigh-road one night within a stone’s throw of Perucca, and, looking downinto the great valley, watched the flickering flames consume all thatremained of the old Château de Vasselot. Colonel Gilbert, in his littlerooms in the bastion at Bastia, knew almost as soon that the château wasburning, and only evinced his usual easy-going surprise. The colonelalways seemed to be wondering that any should have the energy to doactive wrong; for virtue is more often passive, and therefore lesstrouble.

  The abbé was puzzled.

  “An empty house,” he muttered, “does not set itself on fire. Who has donethis? and why?”

  For he knew every drift and current of feeling amid his turbulent flock,and the burning of the château of Vasselot seemed to serve no purpose,and to satisfy no revenge. There was some influence at work which theAbbé Susini did not understand.

  He understood well enough that a hundred grievances--a hundredunsatisfied vengeances--had suddenly been awakened by the events of thelast months. The grip of France was for a moment relaxed, and all Corsicaarose from its sullen sleep, not in organized revolt, but in the desireto satisfy personal quarrels--to break in one way or another the lawwhich had made itself so dreaded. The burning of the Château de Vasselotmight be the result of some such feeling; but the abbé thought otherwise.

  He went to Perucca, where all seemed quiet, though he did not actuallyring the great bell and speak to the widow Andrei.

  A few hours later, after nightfall, he set off on foot by the road thatleads to the Lancone Defile. But he did not turn to the left at thecross-roads. He went straight on instead, by the track which ultimatelyleads to Corte, in the middle of the island, and amidst the highmountains. This is one of the loneliest spots in all the lonely island,where men may wander for days and never see a human being. The macquis isthin here, and not considered a desirable residence. In fact, the mildestmalefactor may have a whole mountain to himself without any demonstrationof violence whatever.

  This was not the abbé’s destination. He was going farther, where theordinary traveller would fare worse, and hurried along without looking tothe left or right. A half-moon was peeping through an occasional rift inthose heavy clouds which precede the autumn rains in these latitudes, andgather with such astonishing slow
ness and deliberation. It was not a darknight, and the air was still. The abbé had mounted considerably sinceleaving the cross-roads. His path now entered a valley between twomountains. On either side rose a sharp slope, broken, and renderedsomewhat inaccessible by boulders, which had at one time been spilleddown the mountain-side by some great upheaval, and now seemed poised inpatient expectance of the next disturbance.

  Suddenly the priest stopped, and stood rooted. A faint sound, inaudibleto a townsman’s ear, made him turn sharply to the right, and face thebroken ground. A stone no bigger than a hazel nut had been dislodgedsomewhere above him, and now rolled down to his feet. The dead silence ofthe mountains closed over him again. There was, of course, no one insight.

  “It is Susini of Olmeta,” he said, speaking quietly, as if he were in aroom.

  There was a moment’s pause, and then a man rose from behind a rock, andcame silently on bare feet down to the pathway. His approach was heraldedby a scent which would have roused any sporting dog to frenzy. This manwas within measurable distance of the beasts of the forests. As he cameinto the moonlight it was perceivable that he was hatless, and that histangled hair and beard were streaked with white. His face was apparentlyblack, and so were his hands. He had obviously not washed himself foryears.

  “You here,” said the abbé, recognizing one who had for years and yearsbeen spoken of as a sort of phantom, living in the summits--the life ofan animal--alone.

  The other nodded.

  “Then you have heard that the gendarmes are being drafted into the army,and sent to France?”

  The man nodded again. He had done so long without speech that he had nodoubt come to recognize its uselessness in the majority of humanhappenings. The abbé felt in his pocket, and gave the man a packet oftobacco. The Corsicans, unlike nearly all other races of theMediterranean, are smokers of wooden pipes.

  “Thanks,” said the man, in an odd, soft voice, speaking for the firsttime.

  “I am going up into the mountains,” said the abbé, slowly, knowing nodoubt that men who have lived long with Nature are slow to understandwords, “to seek an old man who has recently gone there. He is travellingwith a man called Jean, who has the evil eye.”

  “The Count de Vasselot,” said the outlaw, quietly. He touched hisforehead with one finger and made a vague wandering gesture of the hand.“I have seen him. You go the wrong way. He is down there, near theentrance to the Lancone Defile with others.”

  He paused and looked round him with the slow and distant glance which anymay perceive in the eyes of a caged wild beast.

  “They are all down from the mountains,” he said.

  Even the Abbé Susini glanced uneasily over his shoulder. These still,stony valleys were peopled by the noiseless, predatory Ishmaels of themacquis. They were, it is true, not numerous at this time, but those whohad escaped the clutch of the imperial law were necessarily the mostcunning and desperate.

  “Buon,” he said, turning to retrace his steps. “I shall go down to theLancone Defile. God be with you, my friend.”

  The man gave a queer laugh. He evidently thought that the abbé expectedtoo much.

  The abbé walked until midnight, and then being tired he found a quietspot between two great rocks, and lying down slept there until morning.In the leather saddle-bag which formed his pillow he had bread and somemeat, which he ate as he walked on towards the Lancone Defile. Once, soonafter daylight, he paused to listen, and the sound that had faintlyreached him was repeated. It was the warning whistle of the steamer, theold _Persévérance_, entering Bastia harbour ten miles away. He was stillin the shade of the great heights that lay between him and the Easterncoast, and hurried while the day was cool. Then the sun leapt up behindthe hazy summits above Biguglia. The abbé looked at his huge silverwatch. It was nearly eight o’clock. When he was near to the entrance ofthe defile he stood in the middle of the road and gave, in his high clearvoice, the cry of the goat-herd calling his flock. He gave it twice, andthen repeated it. If there were any in the macquis within a mile of himthey could not fail to see him as he stood on the dusty road in thesunlight.

  He was not disappointed. In a few minutes the closely-set arbutus bushesabove the road were pushed aside and a boy came out--an evil-faced youthwith a loose mouth.

  “It is Jean of the Evil Eye who has sent me,” he said glibly, with an eyeon the abbé’s hands in case there should be a knife. “He is up there witha broken leg. He has with him the old man.”

  “The old man?” repeated the abbé, interrogatively.

  “Yes, he who is foolish.”

  “Show me the way,” said Susini. “You need not look at my hands; I havenothing in them.”

  They climbed the steep slope that overhung the road, forcing their waythrough the thick brushwood, stumbling over the chaos of stones. Quitesuddenly they came upon a group of men sitting round a smouldering firewhere a tin coffee-pot stood amid the ashes. One man had his leg roughlytied up in sticks. It was Jean of the Evil Eye, who looked hard at theAbbé Susini, and then turning, indicated with a nod the Count de Vasselotwho sat leaning against a tree. The count recognized Susini and noddedvaguely. His face, once bleached by long confinement, was burnt to a deepred; his eyes were quite irresponsible.

  “He is worse,” said Jean, without lowering his voice. “Sometimes I canonly keep him here by force. He thinks the whole island is looking forhim--he never sleeps.”

  Jean was interrupted by the evil-faced boy, who had risen, and waspeering down towards the gates of the defile.

  “There is a carriage on the road,” he said.

  They all listened. There were three other men whom the abbé knew by sightand reputation. One by one they rose to their feet and slowly cockedtheir old-fashioned single-barrelled guns.

  “It is the carriage from Olmeta--must be going to Perucca,” reported theboy.

  And at the word Perucca, the count scrambled to his feet, only to bedragged back by Jean. The old man’s eyes were alight with fear andhatred. He was grasping Jean’s gun. The abbé rose and peered down throughthe bushes. Then he turned sharply and wrenched Jean’s firearm from thecount’s hands.

  “They are friends of mine,” he said. “The man who shoots will be shot byme.”

  All turned and looked at him. They knew the abbé and the gun. And whilethey looked, Denise and Mademoiselle Brun drove past in safety.