Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Will the girl live?” asked Landes.

  “She is dead,” replied de Carette.

  “Then Heaven only knows how we can find out anything about this accursed business. — Hark! What’s that?”

  “It’s the explosion of a mitrailleuse! They are fighting on Montmartre!” exclaimed the artillery officer. At the same moment a bugle sounded in the square below, the hussars mounted and trotted toward the Boulevard. De Carette unslung his field glasses.

  “Look there! Look at the Line soldiers running!” said Philip, anxiously.

  The Boulevard which formed the northern side of the square, was suddenly filled with red-legged infantry in the wildest disorder. A lieutenant of hussars rode into their midst shouting and gesticulating, his sword in one hand, his revolver in the other.

  “Is it possible that they are running away?” observed de Carette, in disgust.

  At a signal from the lieutenant, the hussars formed in two lines across the Boulevard; the panic-stricken fantassins darted between their horses and began rallying behind the cavalry. Close on their heels followed another demoralized mob of infantry in dark blue and green.

  “The Rifles are running too! What’s got into them?” muttered the Captain. “See there! Look! Here comes a general and his staff! It can’t be General Lecomte! It can’t be! What in h — l are they running away for?”

  The clear song of the bugles floated up from the Boulevard below, and through the tumult and cries, a calm, steady voice rang out:

  “Draw sabres! trot! gallop! charge!!”

  The hussars were off like the wind, and in a moment came the crash of the collision.

  “They’ve struck the mob,” said Captain de Carette, briskly, “I’m going! Good-bye, my friend.”

  “I’m going with you!” said Landes, following him down the stairs two at a time.

  “Vinoy is my chief. I’ve got to join him, but if I were you I wouldn’t get into that mob, Monsieur Landes,” said the Captain as they reached the street and started across the square.

  “Oh, do you see? Do you see?” groaned Philip; “the hussars have been cut to pieces! Here comes what’s left of them!”

  There was little left of them. The remains of the squadron came tearing back, horses foam-covered and bloody, troopers in tatters and reeling in their saddles. They wheeled past the fountain and bore down on Landes and de Carette. The lieutenant was there with a crimson gash across his face, and one arm dangling helplessly in his sky-blue jacket. He pulled up with his uninjured hand as he came abreast of de Carette and burst into a laugh.

  “Hell has just been let loose,” he said, “and is coming this way.”

  “What’s the trouble, Jacques?” asked the Captain, quietly.

  “The Line troops have gone over to the National Guard! d — n them! Their treachery has lost us the cannon. Just fix this arm, will you?” He leaned from his saddle, and de Carette took his handkerchief and passed it under the shattered arm.

  “Then the Line has betrayed us?” he said huskily.

  “Yes, the 88th. They are fighting like devils, shoulder to shoulder with the canaille! We just struck them! Thanks, that’s all right, until I can get to a surgeon. You’d better mount behind me and get out of this.” —

  “Where is the general?”

  “Running to keep warm. Look over there. There they come, the d — d treacherous blackguards!”

  At that instant the Boulevard across the square was swept by the mob. National Guards, renegade Line soldiers, and the fine fleur of that hotbed of anarchy, Montmartre, passed like a seething tempest through the street, howling, shrieking, rolling along in one turbulent, irresistible torrent. The few loyal Line soldiers and the remnants of the Rifle battalion went down beneath it. Landes saw a little group of police and foot gendarmes stem the tide for a second or two, then break and run toward the fountain followed by a swarm of National Guards.

  “Miserable ragamuffins!” cried the lieutenant of hussars, “I’ve a mind to tickle their rouflaquettes again!”

  “Ride off, Jacques! Spare your men! It’s no use!” said de Carette, drawing his revolver. “Come! Give this gentleman one stirrup and me the other. We’ve got to go now or not at all! Gallop!”

  The lieutenant appeared not to hear him. His eyes sparkled, and he began to curse softly to himself. Suddenly with a furious gesture he wheeled his horse.

  “Forward! Forward! 39th Hussars!” he shouted, to the broken fragment of his squadron, “trot! gallop! charge!” Away plunged the handful of troopers, charging madly into the tumult, and Landes heard the lieutenant’s voice above the terrible din: “Down with the canaille! Now, my children, all together! for France!”

  The shock checked the rush for an instant. The sabres of the little troop rose and fell like flashes of lightning; then the masses closed in on them. De Carette seized Landes by the wrist, and dragged him through the open door of the Hôtel Perret, into the courtyard and to the street beyond.

  The street was deserted, and they walked along for some distance without speaking. The Captain returned his revolver to its place and unaffectedly wiped away the tears which had sprung to his eyes.

  “Jacques was crazy!” he said at last. “A brave man, but a bad soldier. That charge was criminal! We need all the loyal men we have left.”

  “Of course he’s dead,” said Landes.

  “And all his troop. It was criminal, criminal!” Coming again to the outer Boulevard they stopped short. The sidewalks were crowded with people and with soldiers of the National Guard, marching along in groups singing the Marseillaise, but no disorder was visible. Philip followed de Carette across the street to a long line of wooden huts which had been put up as temporary shelter for the troops during the siege. The Captain stepped behind one of them, and turning to his companion said:

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I am going with you,” answered Philip, “that is, if I may.”

  “Certainly not,” said de Carette, sharply.

  Landes drew back.

  “I mean,” said the other quickly, “on account of my uniform. It is a little — only a little, you know—”

  “Unsafe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unsafe for you? You are in danger?”

  The Captain shrugged his shoulders. Looking Philip pleasantly in the eyes, he said: “Come, please leave me before you get into hot water. People are watching us, don’t you see?” Landes glanced around and saw that several savage-looking men had crossed over and were standing near them, talking in whispers and casting sullen glances towards de Carette’s uniform.

  “Good-bye,” murmured the Frenchman,— “and don’t shake hands. I am going to find Vinoy’s staff if I can.” He turned on his heel without a salute and started down the wooden line of huts. Landes overtook him in two strides, laid one hand on his shoulder and held out the other.

  “What do you take me for, Captain de Carette?”

  “For a very rash young man,” rejoined the other, irritably,— “and a true comrade,” he added with warm feeling, “whose head,” he continued with a shrug, “I should not like to see broken—”

  “What’s this?” interrupted Philip.

  They had been walking toward the lower end of the wooden shelter. A middle-aged gentleman was standing quietly before one of the huts there. A man had approached him and was saying:

  “I think, Monsieur, that you are General Clément Thomas?”

  “I am,” replied the gentleman, drily.

  Several passers-by hearing the name of Clément Thomas stopped and gazed curiously at him. A lieutenant of the National Guard was among them, a very young lieutenant, whose commission was evidently of recent date, for he had sewed galons on the sleeves of his overcoat, and he made an unnecessary racket with his sword.

  “Ah,” he cried insolently, “so you are Clément Thomas?”

  Already a group of curious people had formed around the General.

  “What could have induce
d him to come to Montmartre?” whispered de Carette in Landes’ ear.

  The lieutenant rattled his sword and looked fiercely at Thomas. “Had the General come to put himself at the head of the movement?”

  “No, mes enfants,” said Clément Thomas, looking around on the group eyeing him, “I am getting old.

  I have sent in my resignation.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” cried the lieutenant, in a menacing tone.

  “A spy,” muttered the people, edging nearer. A soldier of the National Guard, grey-headed and sunburnt, his rifle en bandouliere, came up and asked what was the matter.

  “We are looking at Clément Thomas,” said a bystander, with careless impudence.

  “Clément Thomas here?”

  “Le voila,” said the man, jerking his thumb toward the group where Thomas stood, quiet and selfpossessed, but a little pale. The Federal drew himself up.

  “Then we must shoot him!” he said with quiet ferocity.

  General Thomas heard and turned white. The Federal’s eyes met his. More people ran up. The name of Clément Thomas passed from lip to lip.

  “Remember 1848!” cried an old man, shaking his fist at the General.

  “So there you are, assassin of the people!” growled the menacing voices.

  “General Thomas, do you remember the Faubourg St. Antoine?” called a renegade marine. The clamor increased.

  “Did you shoot enough people in the rue Marguerite, General Thomas?” some one bawled.

  An old man pushed into the circle and faced the General.

  “Canaille! You sat on your horse in the rue Saint-Avoie and laughed as you cried: ‘String me all those ragamuffins together on a bayonet!’ Cursed butcher!”

  “Remember Montretout!” howled a wretched-looking Mobile, and lunged at Clément Thomas with his bayonet. De Carette was too quick for him. With a stroke of his sabre he severed the Mobile’s hand at the wrist. The man dropped in a dead faint, but the crowd fell upon de Carette. Landes struck two or three of them in the face, and then they turned on him too.

  “Death! Death! Down with the spies!” they yelled.

  Clément Thomas, de Carette, and Landes were now crushed together in the centre of a throng, which pressed so closely upon them that the bayonet thrusts and sword cuts delivered at them passed over their heads and the mob wounded each other.

  “Assez, nom de Dieu!” shouted an officer of the National Guard, warding off the bayonets with difficulty.

  “Arrest them! Arrest them!” cried the Federais. “We can shoot them later.”

  “Death to them!” thundered the mob.

  A man galloped up on a strong grey horse and pushed his way right into the middle of the crowd. It was Dardelles, commandant of the Cavaliers of the Republic, an insurgent company of ill repute. He laid about him with the flat of his sabre, and forcing a path to General Thomas, seized him by the collar.

  “Who are you?” he cried.

  The old man stammered something unintelligible, but his voice was lost in the roar from the crowd:

  “Clément Thomas! Clément Thomas!”

  “Then I arrest you in the name of the Republic!” cried Dardelles, and, clearing a way for himself at the point of his terrible sabre, marched into the street with his prisoner. Six Federals followed dragging Landes, and six more escorted de Carette, who walked with head erect and uniform in tatters.

  “If anyone attempts to kill the prisoners before they are judged, I’ll pass my sword through his body,” snarled Dardelles. A thousand voices replied in one mighty shout: “Death!” An insurgent, one Captain Ras, placed himself beside Dardelles with drawn revolver.

  “We are not butchers,” he said to the mob, “let them be judged by a tribunal.”

  “You dare not use your pistol,” sneered a franctireur, and aimed a blow at Landes with the butt of his rifle.

  Captain Ras seized the uplifted gun with one hand.

  “You ass!” he said, and blew out his brains.

  “Thank you,” said de Carette to Ras, but was sternly bidden to hold his tongue and move faster.

  Notwithstanding this swift example, blows were constantly aimed at the prisoners from the savage mob surrounding them.

  Dardelles slashed a man over the mouth with his sword and laughed at his awful cry.

  “Now you have a beautiful mouth. Grin, my friend,” he sneered. At the same moment, Clément Thomas received a bayonet thrust in the forearm, and Captain Ras struck the would-be murderer a blow with the hilt of his sword which tore one eye from its socket and crushed in his face like an eggshell.

  “Will you learn that I keep my word?” he cried to the mob, which answered with a bellow.

  At that instant a battalion of the National Guard arrived and surrounded the prisoners with a hedge of bayonets. Landes and de Carette now marched side by side, and could exchange a word or two without being threatened by their guards.

  “Where are they taking us?” murmured Philip, wiping the bloody foam from his lips.

  “My poor friend, to the Central Committee. It is sitting in the Château Rouge, rue Clignancourt, they say.”

  At the intersection of the Boulevard Magenta and the old exterior Boulevard, the crowd was greatly increased and the air was filled with the cry of “Death! Death!”

  When they arrived at the Château Rouge, the prisoners were thrust into a room filled with National Guards. They were not allowed to converse together, and the Federals passed the time in heaping insults on Clément Thomas, who sat as if stunned, his head drooping on his breast. An old captain, wearing the medal of July, turned his attention to Landes, and assured him with unction that he had assisted at every revolution for forty years, and that Philip’s affair would soon be regulated in front of a dead wall.

  It was a little after ten o’clock in the morning, and sunlight flooded the shabby room. A pigeon flew down from an opposite roof and strutted cooing to and fro along the window ledge outside, until a soldier tried to catch it by the legs and it flew away.

  For an hour they sat there, a butt for the soldiers, who proudly proclaimed that they were a Belleville battalion. De Carette raised his eyebrows ironically at this, and nearly paid for it with his life, for a soldier fired at him point-blank. Then a quarrel arose among the soldiers as to what should be done with the prisoners. The Central Committee was not, after all, it appeared, during this altercation, in the Château Rouge. Some wanted to push the prisoners into the garden, and get the thing over with. Others insisted upon their being led upstairs to wait for the Central Committee. At last, after a bitter wrangle, the three prisoners were seized and dragged upstairs to the first floor. There they were received by a captain of the 79th battalion, who invited them to enter, very courteously, and immediately slammed the door in the faces of their Belleville captors, to the latter’s unfeigned astonishment.

  General Thomas dropped into a seat, bewildered and exhausted, and apparently did not hear the kindly questions which the captain of the 79th addressed to him, but de Carette replied with equal courtesy and the two officers exchanged names. The captain of the 79th was one Mayer, a journalist. He told Landes that he had a son, a prisoner in Germany. He also said that General Lecomte had been taken prisoner, and was under guard in the next room.

  “I have served on his staff,” said de Carette, sadly. “Will they shoot him?”

  “I trust they will shoot no one,” said the Federal officer, earnestly; but de Carette smiled and walked to a window opening on the garden.

  “That wall is too convenient,” he said, with a dry laugh.

  As he spoke, the door opened and an officer entered, guarded by two soldiers of the National Guard. It was Captain Frank, of the 18th Chasseurs-à-pied de marche, who so valiantly defended General Lecomte when the crowd fell upon him. He bowed gaily to de Carette, but was led to a further room and locked in. And now other prisoners began to arrive: Monsieur de Pousarges of the 18th Foot Chasseurs, an officer of the 89th de marche, two captains
of the 115th of the Line who had been abandoned by their men in the Gare du Nord, and a captain of the 84th in mufti, who had just returned from captivity in Germany, and had been arrested as he got out of the train that morning on the ridiculous charge of being a spy.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and still the mysterious Central Committee had not appeared. De Carette linked his arm in Philip’s, and walked to the window for the hundredth time.

  “Hallo,” he said, glancing into the garden, “this looks ominous.”

  A file of National Guards were fixing their bayonets to the barrels of their rifles and forming along the garden path.

  “Looks as if we were going to take another journey, doesn’t it?” he said.

  Landes stared at the soldiers without replying.

  “Courage,” whispered de Carette.

  “I could stand it, I think,” said Philip, “to die decently, but I am afraid of the mob. If we are to be led through the streets again, I’d rather end now, down there in the garden. My God! I can’t go through the mob again,” he murmured, trembling from head to foot.

  “Courage, my dear comrade,” said Alain. His voice was affectionately caressing.

  “Gentlemen,” said Captain Mayer, “an escort is waiting to take you to the Central Committee. Word has been received that they expect you at the Buttes-Montmartre. Have the goodness to descend to the garden.”

  De Carette passed his arm through Philip’s again and felt it shaking.

  “I won’t shame you,” said Landes, as they went down the stairs, “only I can’t help feeling sick. This sort of thing is new to me,” he added, trying to laugh.

  “You would never have known it if you had been less faithful to me, comrade,” said Alain.

  When they entered the garden, they saw General Lecomte for the first time. He stood alone, heavily guarded. The prisoners all saluted him, even the Federal officers bowed to the brave old General, who punctiliously returned each salute, but the National Guard cursed him and the prisoners, and promised them the fate of General Brea and his aide-de-camp.