by Jules Vernes
But the striking of a large clock happily checked the adversaries at the moment when they seemed on the point of assaulting each other.
‘At last the hour has come!’ cried the burgomaster.
‘What hour?’ asked the counsellor.
‘The hour to go to the belfry tower. ‘
‘It is true, and whether it pleases you or not, I shall go, monsieur. ‘
‘And I too. ‘
‘Let us go!’
‘Let us go!’
It might have been supposed from these last words that a collision had occurred, and that the adversaries were proceeding to a duel; but it was not so. It had been agreed that the burgomaster and the counsellor, as the two principal dignitaries of the town, should repair to the Town Hall, and there show themselves on the high tower which overlooked Quiquendone; that they should examine the surrounding country, so as to make the best strategic plan for the advance of their troops.
Though they were in accord on this subject, they did not cease to quarrel bitterly as they went. Their loud voices were heard resounding in the streets; but all the passers-by were now accustomed to this; the exasperation of the dignitaries seemed quite natural, and no one took notice of it. Under the circumstances, a calm man would have been regarded as a monster.
The burgomaster and the counsellor, having reached the porch of the belfry, were in a paroxysm of fury. They were no longer red, but pale. This terrible discussion, though they had the same idea, had produced internal spasms, and every one knows that paleness shows that anger has reached its last limits.
At the foot of the narrow tower staircase there was a real explosion. Who should go up first? Who should first creep up the winding steps? Truth compels us to say that there was a tussle, and that the Counsellor Niklausse, forgetful of all that he owed to his superior, to the supreme magistrate of the town, pushed Van Tricasse violently back, and dashed up the staircase first.
Both ascended, denouncing and raging at each other at every step. It was to be feared that a terrible climax would occur on the summit of the tower, which rose 357 feet above the pavement.
The two enemies soon got out of breath, however, and in a little while, at the eightieth step, they began to move up heavily, breathing loud and short.
Then – was it because of their being out of breath? – their wrath subsided, or at least only betrayed itself by a succession of unseemly epithets. They became silent, and, strange to say, it seemed as if their excitement diminished as they ascended higher above the town. A sort of lull took place in their minds. Their brains became cooler, and simmered down like a coffee-pot when taken away from the fire. Why?
We cannot answer this ‘why’; but the truth is that, having reached a certain landing-stage, 266 feet above ground, the two adversaries sat down and, really more calm, looked at each other without any anger in their faces.
‘How high it is!’ said the burgomaster, passing his handkerchief over his rubicund face.
‘Very high!’ returned the counsellor, ‘Do you know that we have gone fourteen feet higher than the Church of Saint Michael at Hamburg?’
‘I know it,’ replied the Burgomaster, in a tone of vanity very pardonable in the chief magistrate of Quiquendone.
The two notabilities soon resumed their ascent, casting curious glances through the loopholes pierced in the tower walls. The burgomaster had taken the head of the procession, without any remark on the part of the counsellor. It even happened that at about the 304th step, Van Tricasse being completely tired out, Niklausse kindly pushed him from behind. The burgomaster offered no resistance to this, and, when he reached the platform of the tower, said graciously, —
Thanks, Niklausse; I will do the same for you one day. ‘
A little while before it had been two wild beasts, ready to tear each other to pieces, who had presented themselves at the foot of the tower; it was now two friends who reached its summit.
The weather was superb. It was the month of May. The sun had absorbed all the vapours. What a pure and limpid atmosphere! The most minute objects over a broad space might be discerned. The walls of Virgamen, glistening in their whiteness, – its red, pointed roofs, its belfries shining in the sunlight – appeared a few miles off. And this was the town that was foredoomed to all the horrors of fire and pillage!
The burgomaster and the counsellor sat down beside each other on a small stone bench, like two worthy people whose souls were in close sympathy. As they recovered breath, they looked around; then, after a brief silence, —
‘How fine this is!’ cried the burgomaster.
‘Yes, it is admirable!’ replied the counsellor. ‘Does it not seem to you. my good Van Tricasse, that humanity is destined to dwell rather at such heights, than to crawl about on the surface of our globe?’
‘I agree with you, honest Niklausse,’ returned the burgomaster, ‘I agree with you. You seize sentiment better when you get clear of nature. You breathe it in every sense! It is at such heights that philosophers should be formed, and that sages should live, above the miseries of this world!’
‘Shall we go around the platform?’ asked the counsellor.
‘Let us go around the platform,’ replied the burgomaster.
And the two friends, arm in arm, and putting, as formerly, long pauses between their questions and answers, examined every point of the horizon.
‘It is at least seventeen years since I have ascended the belfry tower,’ said Van Tricasse.
‘I do not think I ever came up before,’ replied Niklausse; ‘and I regret it, for the view from this height is sublime! Do you see, my friend, the pretty stream of the Vaar, as it winds among the trees?’
‘And, beyond, the heights of Saint Hermandad! How gracefully they shut in the horizon! Observe that border of green trees, which Nature has so picturesquely arranged! Ah, Nature, Nature, Niklausse! Could the hand of man ever hope to rival her?’
‘It is enchanting, my excellent friend,’ replied the counsellor. ‘See the flocks and herds lying in the verdant pastures, – the oxen, the cows, the sheep!’
‘And the labourers going to the fields! You would say they were Arcadian shepherds; they only want a bagpipe!’
‘And over all this fertile country the beautiful blue sky, which no vapour dims! Ah, Niklausse, one might become a poet here! I do not understand why Saint Simeon Stylites was not one of the greatest poets of the world. ‘
‘It was because, perhaps, his column was not high enough,’ replied the counsellor, with a gentle smile.
At this moment the chimes of Quiquendone rang out. The clear bells played one of their most melodious airs. The two friends listened in ecstasy.
Then in his calm voice, Van Tricasse said, —
‘But what, friend Niklausse, did we come to the top of this tower to do?’
‘In fact,’ replied the counsellor, ‘we have permitted ourselves to be carried away by our reveries -’
‘What did we come here to do?’ repeated the burgomaster.
‘We came,’ said Niklausse, ‘to breathe this pure air, which human weaknesses have not corrupted. ‘
‘Well, shall we descend, friend Niklausse?’
‘Let us descend, friend Van Tricasse. ‘
They gave a parting glance at the splendid panorama which was spread before their eyes; then the burgomaster passed down first, and began to descend with a slow and measured pace. The counsellor followed a few steps behind. They reached the landing-stage at which they had stopped on ascending. Already their cheeks began to redden. They tarried a moment, then resumed their descent.
In a few moments Van Tricasse begged Niklausse to go more slowly, as he felt him on his heels, and it ‘worried him’. It even did more than worry him; for twenty steps lower down he ordered the counsellor to stop, that he might get on some distance ahead.
The counsellor replied that he did not wish to remain with his leg in the air to await the good pleasure of the burgomaster, and kept on.
Van Tric
asse retorted with a rude expression.
The counsellor responded by an insulting allusion to the burgomaster’s age, destined as he was, by his family traditions, to marry a second time.
The burgomaster went down twenty steps more, and warned Niklausse that this should not pass thus.
Niklausse replied that, at all events, he would pass down first; and, the space being very narrow, the two dignitaries came into collision, and found themselves in utter darkness. The words ‘blockhead’ and ‘booby’ were the mildest which they now applied to each other.
‘We shall see, stupid beast!’ cried the burgomaster, – ‘we shall see what figure you will make in this war, and in what rank you will march!’
‘In the rank that precedes yours, you silly old fool!’ replied Niklausse.
Then there were other cries, and it seemed as if bodies were rolling over each other. What was going on? Why were these dispositions so quickly changed? Why were the gentle sheep of the tower’s summit metamorphosed into tigers 200 feet below it?
However this might be, the guardian of the tower, hearing the noise, opened the door, just at the moment when the two adversaries, bruised, and with protruding eyes, were in the act of tearing each other’s hair, – fortunately they wore wigs.
‘You shall give me satisfaction for this!’ cried the burgomaster, shaking his fist under his adversary’s nose.
‘Whenever you please!’ growled the Counsellor Niklausse, attempting to respond with a vigorous kick.
The guardian, who was himself in a passion, – I cannot say why, – thought the scene a very natural one. I know not what excitement urged him to take part in it, but he controlled himself, and went off to announce throughout the neighbourhood that a hostile meeting was about to take place between the Burgomaster Van Tricasse and the Counsellor Niklausse.
14
In which matters go so far that the inhabitants of Quiquendone, the reader, and even the author, demand an immediate dénouement
The last incident proves to what a pitch of excitement the Quiquendonians had been wrought. The two oldest friends in the town, and the most gentle – before the advent of the epidemic, to reach this degree of violence! And that, too, only a few minutes after their old mutual sympathy, their amiable instincts, their contemplative habit, had been restored at the summit of the tower!
On learning what was going on, Doctor Ox could not contain his joy. He resisted the arguments which Ygène, who saw what a serious turn affairs were taking, addressed to him. Besides, both of them were infected by the general fury. They were not less excited than the rest of the population, and they ended by quarrelling as violently as the burgomaster and the counsellor.
Besides, one question eclipsed all others, and the intended duels were postponed to the issue of the Virgamenian difficulty. No man had the right to shed his blood uselessly, when it belonged, to the last drop, to his country in danger. The affair was, in short, a grave one, and there was no withdrawing from it.
The Burgomaster Van Tricasse, despite the warlike ardour with which he was filled, had not thought it best to throw himself upon the enemy without warning him. He had, therefore, through the medium of the rural policeman, Hottering, sent to demand reparation of the Virgamenians for the offence committed, in 1195, on the Quiquendonian territory.
The authorities of Virgamen could not at first imagine of what the envoy spoke, and the latter, despite his official character, was conducted back to the frontier very cavalierly.
Van Tricasse then sent one of the aides-de-camp of the confectioner-general, citizen Hildevert Shuman, a manufacturer of barley-sugar, a very firm and energetic man, who carried to the authorities of Virgamen the original minute of the indictment drawn up in 1195 by order of the Burgomaster Natalis Van Tricasse.
The authorities of Virgamen burst out laughing, and served the aide-de-camp in the same manner as the rural policeman.
The burgomaster then assembled the dignitaries of the town.
A letter, remarkably and vigorously drawn up, was written as an ultimatum; the cause of quarrel was plainly stated, and a delay of twenty-four hours was accorded to the guilty city in which to repair the outrage done to Quiquendone.
The letter was sent off, and returned a few hours afterwards, torn to bits, which made so many fresh insults. The Virgamenians knew of old the forbearance and equanimity of the Quiquendonians, and madesport of them and their demand, of their casus belli and their ultimatum.
There was only one thing left to do, – to have recourse to arms, to invoke the God of battles, and, after the Prussian fashion, to hurl themselves upon the Virgamenians before the latter could be prepared.
This decision was made by the council in solemn conclave, in which cries, objurgations, and menacing gestures were mingled with unexampled violence. An assembly of idiots, a congress of madmen, a club of maniacs, would not have been more tumultuous.
As soon as the declaration of war was known, General Jean Orbideck assembled his troops, perhaps 2,393 combatants from a population of 2,393 souls. The women, the children, the old men, were joined with the able-bodied males. The guns of the town had been put under requisition. Five had been found, two of which were without cocks, and these had been distributed to the advance-guard. The artillery was composed of the old culverin of the château, taken in 1339 at the attack on Quesnoy, one of the first occasions of the use of cannon in history, and which had not been fired off for five centuries. Happily for those who were appointed to take it in charge there were no projectiles with which to load it; but such as it was, this engine might well impose on the enemy. As for side-arms, they had been taken from the museum of antiquities, – flint hatchets, helmets, Frankish battle-axes, javelins, halberds, rapiers, and so on; and also from those domestic arsenals commonly known as ‘cupboards’ and ‘kitchens’. But courage, the right, hatred of the foreigner, the yearning for vengeance, were to take the place of more perfect engines, and to replace – at least it was hoped so – the modern mitrailleuses and breech-loaders.
The troops were passed in review. Not a citizen failed at the roll-call. General Orbideck, whose seat on horseback was far from firm, and whose steed was a vicious beast, was thrown three times in front of the army; but he got up again without injury, and this was regarded as a favourable omen. The burgomaster, the counsellor, the civil commissary, the chief justice, the schoolteacher, the banker, the rector, – in short, all the notabilities of the town, – marched at the head. There were no tears shed, either by mothers, sisters, or daughters. They urged on their husbands, fathers, brothers, to the combat, and even followed them and formed the rear-guard, under the orders of the courageous Madame Van Tricasse.
The crier, Jean Mistrol, blew his trumpet; the army moved off, and directed itself, with ferocious cries, towards the Oudenarde gate.
At the moment when the head of the column was about to pass the walls of the town, a man threw himself before it.
‘Stop! stop! Fools that you are!’ he cried. ‘Suspend your blows! Let me shut the valve! You are not changed in nature! You are good citizens, quiet and peaceable! If you are so excited, it is my master, Doctor Ox’s, fault! It is an experiment! Under the pretext of lighting your streets with oxyhydric gas, he has saturated -’
The assistant was beside himself; but he could not finish. At the instant that the doctor’s secret was about to escape his lips, Doctor Ox himself pounced upon the unhappy Ygène in an indescribable rage, and shut his mouth by blows with his fist.
It was a battle. The burgomaster, the counsellor, the dignitaries, who had stopped short on Ygène’s sudden appearance, carried away in turn by their exasperation, rushed upon the two strangers, without waiting to hear either the one or the other.
Doctor Ox and his assistant, beaten and lashed, were about to be dragged, by order of Van Tricasse, to the round-house, when, –
15
In which the dénouement takes place
When a formidable explosion resounded. All the atmos
phere which enveloped Quiquendone seemed on fire. A flame of an intensity and vividness quite unwonted shot up into the heavens like a meteor. Had it been night, this flame would have been visible for ten leagues around.
The whole army of Quiquendone fell to the earth, like an army of monks. Happily there were no victims; a few scratches and slight hurts were the only result. The confectioner, who, as chance would have it, had not fallen from his horse this time, had his plume singed, and escaped without any further injury.
What had happened?
Something very simple, as was soon learned: the gasworks had just blown up. During the absence of the doctor and his assistant, some careless mistake had no doubt been made. It is not known how or why a communication had been established between the reservoir which contained the oxygen and that which enclosed the hydrogen. An explosive mixture had resulted from the union of these two gases, to which fire had accidentally been applied.
This changed everything; but when the army got upon its feet again, Doctor Ox and his assistant Ygène had disappeared.
16
In which the intelligent reader sees that he has guessed correctly, despite all the author’s precautions
After the explosion, Quiquendone immediately became the peaceable, phlegmatic, and Flemish town it formerly was.
After the explosion, which indeed did not cause a very lively sensation, each one, without knowing why, mechanically took his way home, the burgomaster leaning on the counsellor’s arm, the advocate Schut going arm in arm with Custos the doctor, Frantz Niklausse walking with equal familiarity with Simon Collaert, each going tranquilly, noiselessly, without even being conscious of what had happened, and having already forgotten Virgamen and their revenge. The general returned to his confections, and his aide-de-camp to the barley-sugar.