The Devil’s Laughter

by Frank Yerby

  “You mean they’re turning me loose?” Jean breathed.

  “Not all of them. Just three guards who happen to come from Saint Jule. Said where we could hear ‘em, speaking extra loud: ‘If Marin’s good enough for my folks, he’s good enough for me!’ Swore that they didn’t know anybody any better at getting a point across without getting a body’s back up. . . . And Lampe was in on it too. Didn’t say a word to us, direct . . . just made things convenient-like. Cell door unlocked. Outside door, too. This sack and rope and this stick where we could find them. Padlock stuck through the hole cover bolts like it was locked, but it wasn’t.”

  “Bless them!” Jean said.

  “Bless yourself, Nez—you talked ‘em into it. Better get moving now. You’d best be a long ways from here by daylight. Don’t think they’re going to hunt for you—leastways not where they think they’ll find you.”

  “Thanks, boys,” Jean said. “You don’t know how much—”

  “Shut your trap, Nez, and get a move on! We don’t need thanks. Just put in a word for us when you get up to Paris.”

  They moved off in a group to the wall. Jean stopped there, and gripped each of their horny paws hard. Then they boosted him up, and passed the sack and the stout stick up to him. Jean let them fall to the ground outside the wall.

  “Au ‘voir, boys!” he whispered, and dropped after them.

  He crouched there, listening. He had no idea what time it was, and that was the one thing he needed to know. Like all the convicts, he had a rough idea of what times the guards made their rounds. On each of the other attempts he had made to escape he had calculated the intervals correctly, so that he had been far away from the bagne when they finally recaptured him. But his sojourn in the Hole had distorted his sense of time. He didn’t know where the guards were at the moment.

  The worst of it was, he was on the wrong side of the prison. He meant to make his way along the seashore towards Marseilles and Villa Marin. That was the shortest route, and under ordinary conditions the most dangerous. But, from what the forçats who had helped him escape had told him, conditions were now anything but ordinary.

  I’ll have to chance it, he decided, and moved off through the darkness. This business of having to circle the walls to get to the sea instead of striking out for the hills at once at least doubles the danger of running into the guards. And damn my eyes if there’s even a rock or a bush I can hide behind. I’ll have to run and pray God they miss.

  He walked very quietly, stepping on the balls of his feet like a cat. It was a nerve-racking thing. To move quietly he had to move slowly, and every instinct he had urged him to run. He was shaking, and the sound of his heart was like a drum-roll in the darkness.

  As it was, he had no time. The two guards came upon him suddenly from round a corner, so that he didn’t even have the advantage of being able to see the light of their lantern before they reached him. The muscles of his thighs tightened. He dropped his sack, dug in his heels hard— Then he stopped. To run was suicide. Here, on this flat stretch, the worst shot in the world could put a ball through his back before he had gone five yards. He stood there, waiting. When they were close, he spoke to them.

  “Bon soir, Messieurs,” he said very quietly.

  The muskets came level, pointing at his chest. One of them lifted a lantern so that it shone full into Jean’s face. He stood there, sweating.

  They didn’t say anything. One of them looked at the other. In the light of the lantern, Jean could see his slow grin.

  “Could have sworn I heard a noise,” he said loudly. “Didn’t you, Raoul?”

  The other guard looked at Jean. His left eye drooped into a wink.

  “Not me,” he said stoutly; “all this political talk has got you jumpy, Hébert. Come on—we’ve got our rounds to make. Some of those devils might think that tonight’s a good time—to escape.”

  Then they brought their muskets back up to their shoulders and walked round Jean Paul, leaving him standing there.

  He was, for a long moment, literally too weak to move. But when he did move, he struck out boldly in a fast, loping trot that ate up the distance between the bagne and the shore. Only when he was a good league away from the prison did he pause long enough to loose his laughter.

  Early in the morning, he sat on the seashore eating a crust of bread. Five days’ walking, he thought, perhaps six. And I haven’t a sou to pay my passage on a diligence or a Turgotine. Even if I had some money—I’m dressed like this, I’d have to go by carrosse, and damn my eyes if I couldn’t get there faster walking. . . . If I were to by-pass Marseilles, I could get to Château Gravereau in another two or three days.

  He brought his hand up and felt his thick, black beard. Slowly he shook his head. That—no. Bearded, goat-smelling, looking like a fiend out of hell—no. This face of mine is hard enough to endure clean-shaven, above a good suit and a clean cravat. Before, Nicole was caught up in a romantic dream. No dream can last this long. The shock would be too much for her.

  He got up slowly and started walking, pacing himself, going neither too fast nor too slowly so that he could last the whole day. By noon he was no longer alone. The road was choked with vagabonds, men, women and children, all of them as dirty and ill-favoured as he. Before the end of the day the supply of bread and cheese that was to have lasted him the whole journey was gone. He hadn’t been able to stand the hunger in the children’s eyes.

  The second day he left the road and struck out across country. If, he thought bitterly, I have no more food to give them, at least I don’t have to watch them starve.

  But he became aware, as the day wore on, that he was in some danger of starving himself. Walking through woodlands and over deserted arpents of land, left fallow by their owners because at best they couldn’t grow enough upon them to pay the taxes, burned up his energy. If he could have rested, remained still, his hunger and thirst would have been less. But he was a man possessed, fury-driven.

  He had to get back, take up the broken threads of his life. He had to find Nicole again, and afterwards to take his place in the reshaping of the nation. He had the feeling of coming into life again, of being resurrected out of death.

  So he drove himself, walking faster, faster, while his empty belly growled its protest and his tongue thickened from lack of water.

  Thirst did not trouble him long. There were streams to cross, so he was able to drink. But by nightfall the gnawing in his middle had become too fierce to deny. It pushed him on, although he was drunken with fatigue.

  He was about to give up, to lie down and forget his hunger in sleep, when he saw the first dim lights of a village. He came first to the château of the lord whose domain the village was, but he knew better than to try to beg food there. At best, the Seigneur’s guards would have driven him from the door with staves; at worst, they might even turn him over to the gendarmerie under the law against vagrancy. And I, he grinned to himself wryly, have had my fill of jails. . . .

  He was beginning to pass other houses now. From the way they were built, he guessed that this was one of those regions that had a well-off peasantry—or for some reason even possessed a bourgeoisie. A high-road, perhaps, over which goods could be shipped; or a canal that would account for a mercantile class.

  But the houses were of stone, tight and well built, and from the amount of light that poured from the windows, the inhabitants could afford to be lavish with their candles.

  Still, he hesitated before knocking at any of the doors. He was painfully aware of the effect his appearance might have upon a startled householder.

  If, he mused, a bearded, broken-faced fiend, clad in filthy rags, were to knock at my door, I’d go for a pistol before he had a chance to state his errand. . . . Better keep moving—look for a place a little more isolated, so that if they make an outcry I’ll at least have a chance to run.

  He found what he was looking for, after another few minutes: a house, set well back from the road, larger and more imposing than the
rest. He started up the path to the door. He had almost reached it when it flew open and three men burst out. They were running as soon as their feet touched the path, but they ran clumsily because they were burdened with many objects.

  He moved forward at once, lifting his stout stick as he came.

  Luck! he grinned; I’ll have a meal from this work and money too—or I miss my guess. . . . They’ll be grateful enough for almost anything when I return the goods these brigands have taken.

  Then he was upon them, swinging the cudgel up, smashing it down, hearing the sick, wooden sound it made as it struck their thick skulls.

  “Gendarmes!” one of them yelped; “run for it, boys!”

  He fell back and let them go, for he had accomplished all he had set out to do. They had dropped their burdens in their flight, throwing them away as they ran.

  Jean stopped and picked up several of the articles. Among them was a money-bag. It was pleasantly heavy. He took it and as many of the other things as he could carry and went up to the door. There was no answer to his knocking.

  Probably tied them up, he decided. Then he shouldered open the door, and moved into the house. The candles were still burning, but the house seemed empty. Jean Paul moved through it; but he didn’t find them until he came to the dining-room. The householder, a stout bourgeois, lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. One of the thieves had dashed out his brains with an andiron. His wife lay not far from him. She had died very quickly and cleanly from a single knife thrust. There wasn’t even much blood.

  It came to Jean Paul then how much his stay in prison had changed him. Before, he thought calmly, I would have been sick to my guts at the sight of this. And now . . . now I have work to do.

  First, food. The bourgeois’ larder was plentifully supplied. Jean sat in the kitchen, a few yards from the bodies of the murdered couple, and washed down cold fowl and bread and petit pois with good wine. Then he went back outside and gathered up the stolen articles. There were clothes among them. Jean tried on the dead man’s coat. It fitted him well, because the bourgeois had been a stout man, but the sleeves were inches too short.

  The only fire still burning was in the dining-room with the bodies. It would take too long to make another. So he hung a kettle over it, stripping off his filthy rags while he waited. When the water was hot enough, he washed himself thoroughly, and made good use of the dead man’s razor.

  When he left the house, having accomplished all these things in the space of an hour, he had vastly bettered his chances. He was well dressed, if one did not notice that his sleeves were too short and his pantaloons both too wide and too short. Fortunately, the dead man’s feet had been even larger than his own, so his good boots were quite comfortable. In his pocket was enough gold to pay his passage on the fastest diligence, and for food and lodging on the journey. The dead man’s hat was a little too small for him, but he perched it rakishly over one ear, knowing that to travel hatless would attract too much attention. He had taken no more of the money than he needed to reach home again.

  Afterwards, he mused, I’ll make discreet inquiries and return tin se things to the survivors, if any . . . for, whatever my sins, they haven’t so far included thievery.

  The food and the wine had refreshed him, so he walked all night, striking back towards the main highway he had left. He came, just before dawn, to a large town on the highway itself.

  He stopped outside of it, and wrapping himself in the murdered man’s great-cloak, lay down in a field and slept until after the sun was up. Even after he had awakened, he waited for two more hours, so that he could walk into the town at a reasonable time, and make his inquiries.

  His changed luck held. By noon he was riding in great comfort on a fast diligence. A day and a half later, he was in Marseilles. He hired a horse and rode out to the Villa Marin, reaching it two hours after nightfall.

  The villa was dark. He lifted the bronze knocker and brought it down hard. Again. But it took five minutes of thunderous knocking to arouse the household.

  The servant who held up the candle quaked with fright at the sight of his face.

  “Go get your master,” Jean commanded. “Say to M. Henri Marin that a friend is here to see him

  “But—M’sieur—” the servant quavered; “M’sieur Marin has been dead these past two years, God rest his soul.”

  “Amen,” Jean whispered; and a tight knot formed itself at the base of his throat. He had loved his noisy, bustling father, despite all the differences between them.

  “M’sieur Bertrand, then?” he murmured.

  The servant appeared reassured by his knowledge of the family’s first names.

  When Bertrand came at last, in his night-dress and cap, Jean was shocked. His brother looked tired, old.

  He stared at his visitor with blank unrecognition.

  “Who the devil are you?” he growled.

  “Why, Bertie,” Jean laughed; “is this any way to greet a brother?”

  It was the sound of that laughter that brought the light of recognition into Bertrand’s eyes.

  “Jean!” he breathed. “My God! What have they done to your face?”

  “Enough,” Jean said dryly. “But you might ask me in, Bertie.”

  “Oh, come in, come in by all means,” Bertrand said nervously. “I—we had given you up . . . we tried hard to have you released, but . . .”

  “I know,” Jean said gravely; “the powers that be cannot be troubled with such trifles.”

  Then he walked past his brother into the hall, lighted now, since the old servant had been busy with the chandelier while they talked.

  “Mon Dieu!” Bertrand breathed, “how you’ve changed . . .”

  “I know,” Jean said. “Tell me about Father.”

  “He—he failed rapidly after you were taken,” Bertrand said sadly. “I think he loved you more than he would admit even to himself. More, perhaps, than he did any of the rest of us. He kept saying how much you were like Mother . . . He spent a fortune in his efforts to get you freed. They took his money, and made excuses. Then, with Thérèse gone, and all his efforts coming to naught, he lost heart. At the last, he even neglected the business. . . .”

  Bertrand stared at his brother, and his little eyes were bleak and fierce.

  “Damn your soul, Jean,” he burst out passionately; “I wonder if you’re worth it! Because whatever Latin nonsense those fools of doctors labelled it, ‘twas a broken heart that Father died of.”

  Jean looked at Bertrand, and his eyes were very steady.

  “You might have spared me that, Bertie,” he said at last.

  “Sorry,” Bertrand whispered. “It’s just that we’ve been through so much. . . . But then, you must have been too. You must be starving. I’ll ask Marie to . . .”

  “No, thank you,” Jean whispered; “I have no taste for food now. Tomorrow, perhaps. All I need at the moment is a bed, though I doubt that I’ll sleep.”

  Bertrand beckoned to the old servant.

  “Show M’sieur Jean to his old room,” he said. Then to Jean: “You’ll find it unchanged. Father insisted upon that.”

  It was then that he saw the tears, bright and sudden, in Jean’s eyes.

  Mon Dieu! he thought; he has a heart, after all!

  But it was more than a week before Jean could begin his journey to the Château Gravereau. He was held back by the simple fact that not one of his old suits fitted him. His shoulders had broadened so that he could not get into the coats. And the work-built muscles of his arms and legs made his sleeves and pantaloons tight to the point of bursting. And no amount of driving could hasten the tailor in his work. The old man was a craftsman to the core, and refused to be hurried.

  During that week of waiting, Jean Paul was exceedingly busy. He was closeted day and night with Pierre du Pain and other representatives of the villagers. These sessions of the dressing-gown, as he laughingly called them, were complicated by the great necessity of constantly doing the most difficult of all w
riting processes: condensing. The complaints submitted by the people of Saint Jule were so numerous they would have filled a shelf of folio volumes. Fortunately, they were quite repetitious, though often they were so worded that it could only be discovered by prolonged study that they dealt with the same things. But Jean was well fitted for this task. He was even more eloquent with his pen than with his tongue, and a natural sense of form enabled him to reduce the cahier of Saint Jule into a useful document, which, nevertheless, approached real brilliance in its style.

  He soon saw, however, that it would be the work of weeks, perhaps even months to bring the document to completion. The King had not yet announced the date of the first meeting of the States-General, so Jean hoped that he would have enough time.

  But not even the pressure of political affairs could hold him in check when his garments were at last done. He got up early in the morning and dressed himself with some care. He put on a rich brown frock-coat with tassels, and pantaloons of the same colour. Smart English jockey boots of dark leather came halfway up the calves of his legs. He wound and knotted his cravat of white silk, but his hair required the attention of a valet. Powder had gone completely out of fashion during his stay in prison; besides, Jean had always hated it. His own black hair, done up in Cadogan fashion, served well enough.

  And, since it was quite cold, he put on an English redingote, a kind of greatcoat, decorated with four or five short capes over the shoulders and the back. His gloves, and his Pennsylvania hat, a low-crowned, flat-topped hat with a broad circular brim, made popular in France by the American Ambassador, Doctor Benjamin Franklin, completed his costume.

  He surveyed himself in the mirror and found the results good. His dress was both quiet and rich. It even softened the effect of his broken face. Actually, he was dimly aware that it did more. In rags, above his matted, filthy beard, his scars had merely made him look villainous. But in contrast to his rich, gentlemanly attire, under his carefully clubbed hair, his strange face became interesting, even provocative.