Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Actually frothing at the mouth, Sarre drove his spurs into his big horse and wheeled into the village. As he passed Philip he pointed at him and cried: “I put that man in your keeping, Captain Cartier, and you will answer for his body, dead or alive, with your own!” Then, cursing, he struck his horse savagely with his gauntlet and plunged into the Clamart road.

  It was nearly six o’clock in the morning before the battalion came in sight of the fort of Issy, which was commanded by Cluseret and had just been supplied with heavy artillery. Under the protection of the forts of the south, General Duval had massed his troops in two columns, one occupying the Clamart road, the other lying under the Moulineaux redoubt. It was the best disposition possible, — far better than the imbecile manœuvres of Bergeret’s army, — but still the centre was weak, being composed of possibly five battalions supported by two batteries. As Sarre, at the head of the 1st Turcos, marched under the Moulineaux redoubt, a staff-officer galloped down the hill to meet him.

  “Now what the devil does this peacock want?” sneered Sarre, but he drew bridle and returned the officer’s perfect salute with equal precision.

  “General Duval supposes that the arrival of your battalion confirms the report of General Bergeret’s disaster, brought in a few minutes ago by the Hussars of Death,” said the staff-officer whose name was Razoua, and who had served as chef de bataillon in the 103d until taken by Duval as aid. —

  “General Duval supposes correctly,” replied Sarre, and an ugly flush stained his forehead.

  “Good,” said Razoua, “General Duval’s compliments, and orders to deploy your battalion as skirmishers at Bas-Meudon woods. The attack begins at six; the signal a cannon-shot from the fort of Issy. It is almost six now.”

  “And there goes the cannon-shot!” cried Sarre, in great good-humor, as a ball of smoke shot from the fort and a sullen boom rolled through the woods above.

  Shrill hurrahs rent the air and Duval’s battalions poured out of the Issy crater, through the Moulineaux redoubt and started toward Meudon, cheering frantically. Before the deep reverberations of the first shot had died away, a sheet of flame wrapped the bastions of the Vanves fort and the thunder of the great mortars was echoed from the fort of Montrouge, while the Moulineaux redoubt flamed and pounded a deep accompaniment.

  The works held by the Versailles army replied at once. The batteries at Chatillon, Meudon, and Bas-Meudon raged and blazed; and now the petulant crackling of the mitrailleuses could be heard above Bas-Meudon, and the crash of platoon firing sounded in the direction of Clamart village.

  Almost before he knew it, Philip found himself in the woods of Bas-Meudon, flat on the ground, looking into the young growth beyond where a few large trees relieved the monotony of the saplings. Cartier, his captain, stood beside him watching every movement of his company, urging on the tardy, cautioning the laggards, restraining the feather-brained.

  As far as Philip could see, his squad was alone in the woods, but he heard the twigs snapping on either flank and he knew the rest of the battalion were worming their way through the undergrowth toward the heights above.

  With every sense alert to the danger in front, he yet watched his opportunity to escape. Captain Cartier perhaps divined what was passing in his mind, for he walked over to him and sat down on a log beside him.

  “Soldier,” he said, “you heard what the Colonel’s orders are?”

  “Yes, Captain Cartier.”

  “I shall carry them out,” said Cartier.

  Philip did not reply. The Captain eyed him curiously.

  “You are not a coward, — I see that,” he said.

  “No — not a coward. I do not wish to die,” replied Philip, quietly.

  “And you are frightened at the sound of the shells?”

  “Yes, they frighten me.”

  “Why did you not run this morning then?”

  “Because I didn’t have a chance,” replied Philip, innocently.

  “Ah — um — yes,” said Cartier, twisting his blonde moustache,—” er — you do not care for the Commune?”

  Philip laughed in his despair. “Care for it! I’m an American!”

  “Oh! Are you the same Landes that Rigault is after?”

  “I am.”

  “Oh!” Cartier was silent for a moment. Then he stood up and said pleasantly; “For my part I wish you were safe; I’m no hangman, but I have my orders.”

  “Thank you, Captain Cartier,” said Philip, as the officer hurried away.

  Foot by foot the skirmish lines wriggled forward, their bodies scraping and rustling among the dead leaves like snakes in the underbrush. From time to time a soldier would clap his rifle to his shoulder and aim at the heights, but the Captain was omnipresent, and always kicked up the rifle with a stern admonition. At last a soldier lying next to Philip whipped his piece to his cheek and fired. Philip saw a vanishing spot of scarlet far up among the saplings, and the Captain saw it too.

  The 1st Turcos had struck the Versailles pickets. When the echoes of the single shot died away, a silence that was almost mournful fell among the troops. Perhaps they began to realize that they were fighting their own fellow-countrymen and that it was civil war which had begun. Cartier, sad-eyed and stern, drew his revolver and sent his sword ringing into the scabbard. A Turco near Philip tucked up his sleeves and made one or two preliminary passes with his sabre bayonet at a young beech tree. Minute after minute passed in silence; the long line slowly crept onward and upward.

  Philip was beginning to feel hot and thirsty and had already started toward a rivulet which trickled between the stones of an old watercourse, when a movement in the woods above arrested his attention. He turned his head. A soldier, wearing the scarlet cap and trousers of the loyal army, was deliberately aiming at him, and before he could realize it the rifle cracked and a bullet sang past his ears. Instinctively he recoiled, but another bullet struck his tin cup, and another whirled up the dead leaves beside him. Crack! crack! crack — crackle — crackle! The rifles were spurting tiny jets of flame from every thicket, and now, as he peered from the shelter of an oak tree, he saw the red-legged skirmishers dodging about the woods above, crouching, leaping, stealing forward, always advancing, until the report of their rifles sounded clear and sharp, and he could almost distinguish faces. The Turcos were returning shot for shot, and the firing rippled along the line until it blended in the distant tumult of the forts.

  Philip did not fire. He had made up his mind not to except in case a shot alone would save his life. He intended to desert at the first opportunity. Once in the hands of the Versailles troops, he would explain, if they gave him time before shooting him, and if they did, he intended to take his revenge, rifle in hand, on Sarre and his ruffians. Even the thought of his duty to those in Paris, — to Jeanne above all, could not overcome his fierce longing to requite with bullets the insults which had been heaped upon him. Sarre, he saw, was no coward. He would give him his chance, but Weser he would have shot down, if he could, like a weasel or a skunk. Yes, he would give Sarre a fair chance, — not that he deserved it, murderer and thief that he was, but he at least was courageous. Weser should be simply removed like other vermin — in any convenient way. As he stood clutching his rifle and thinking of his just vengeance, a bullet, flying from a new angle across the woods, struck his water bottle, showering him with diluted brandy. At the same instant a howling storm of canister tore through the branches, covering the Turcos with twigs and bark. Gust after gust of screaming lead whirled over them; fiercer and fiercer shrieked the hail, until the tempest rose to a whistling blizzard of flame and shell, tearing the trees to slivers, cutting the underbrush like scythes, ripping, splintering, scorching all before it. Far up in the wooded slopes the flashes of the guns danced and twinkled like will o’ the wisps, and the rifles of the Turcos made no sound in the crash of the cannon and the mitrailleuses. Cartier, cool and unscathed, leaned against a sapling pointing out the Versailles skirmishers, directing a shot here, an advance
there, earnestly cautioning his men to hug the ground and fire slowly. Twice Sarre and his staff, dismounted, hurried along the line, scanning anxiously the heights where the batteries crouched. The second time they passed, the Major was struck by a canister-shot, and they bore him to the shelter of a tree.

  “Curse the luck! it’s all over with Gloanec,” said Sarre, brutally; and a few seconds later the unobtrusive Breton died, with perhaps even less emotion than he had displayed in living.

  Weser’s company, the fifth, had been driven in with trifling losses, but except for that, the 1st Turcos held their ground well. Their timidity at encountering regular troops had fled, and now they lay firing and cheering, and crept on, inch by inch, until the red-trousered Versaillists found the pace too hot, and their skirmishers began to fall back.

  Captain Cartier had been watching Philip for some time, and finally he came over to him and laid his hand on his shoulder. “You have not fired a shot to-day,” he said.

  Philip was silent.

  “It won’t do, — it won’t do,” continued the Captain; “your example is bad for the rest. You must fire, — you need not aim too closely.”

  Philip replied by levelling his rifle at a stump and deliberately knocking the chips from it with his first shot.

  “A sharpshooter too, — well, I’m sorry, — I am very sorry you are not with us.” Cartier stood a moment, thoughtfully twirling his revolver, then, stepping into the middle of his company, he called the names of seven men and a sergeant. They responded instantly, and Cartier, motioning Philip to fall in with them, pointed to a slope which rose to the left, divided from their covert by a gully. “You’re to climb to the top of that slope,” said the Captain, “and see why Captain Weser’s men are allowing the enemy’s skirmishers to nip us with their cross-fire. If Captain Weser needs help, send a man to me; if he is holding his own, stay and drive out the enemy’s sharpshooters. I suspect they are over there near that group of sycamore trees.”

  The sergeant saluted, and the little squad toiled across the gully and slowly began to mount the opposite incline. The slope was steep and densely wooded, but they arrived at the top in a few minutes and found Weser’s men popping away with no thought of aim, but with the one desire to make as much smoke and racket as possible. Weser himself was sitting down behind a tree in the rear — very much in the rear. The only reason why he was not lying down was his fear of Sarre. He could have stood the ridicule.

  Weser’s men were nervous and dispirited. This was not war according to their ideas. Where was the white-plumed leader on his charger, dashing up to the cannon’s mouth amid waving flags and acres of bayonets? Where was he? Well, in this case he was sitting behind a tree in the rear, and the white plume had shrivelled into a very small white feather. The truth was, Weser’s bowels were water, and the fright of the battle sounds had actually made him sick at his stomach. Murder, robbery, forgery, he could easily understand. He was not afraid to slip a knife into a man, — when the man was looking another way, but this zip! zip! z-z-tzing! of the bullets was another matter, and for his part he cursed Sarre, the Commune, and all its works, and wished he was in Paris and safe in bed.

  Five men had been killed in Weser’s company, two of them by the same bullet, and Philip saw their stiffening corpses half supported by the tree behind which a cross-fire volley had caught them. The sergeant, a tall, good-humored Alsatian, was posting his men to pick off the sharpshooters, who had gained the sycamore covert and were now able to fire into the centre of Weser’s men. Philip found himself, in company with McBarron, behind a lichen-covered rock. On the ground under a neighboring tree Con Daily squatted, his eyes blazing with the fire of battle.

  The cannonade, which a moment before had redoubled in violence, now suddenly subsided; the enemy’s rifles were silent, and there only remained dropping shots from the Turcos. Philip caught a glimpse of a Versaillist sharpshooter slinking away through the sycamore thicket, and McBarron saw him at the same moment, but before he could pull trigger a deafening cheer rolled from the trees in front, “Vive la Patrie! Vive la France! A la baïonnette!” and out of the thickets on every side burst swarms of fierce scarlet Zouaves, whirling their terrible sabre-bayonets.

  Weser’s men gave them one astonished stare — and fled, but the Zouaves turned on Cartier’s company, snarling like tigers. Philip and McBarron crawled to the edge of the slope and looked over. Everywhere the scarlet of the Zouaves was mixed with the blue of the Turcos, everywhere the stocks of heavy rifles rose and fell, and the sharp sabre-bayonets were crimsoned to the hilt. It was over before Philip could catch his breath, and, as there was no quarter (a humane inspiration of Thiers), there were no prisoners. Captain Cartier lay across a log over which his brains were dripping; beside him a Zouave stood, cleaning the butt of his rifle with a handful of dried leaves. All who had not run away were dead or dying. Philip saw the coup-de-grâce given, and his heart came into his throat.

  “That,” said McBarron, calmly, “is the difference between real Zouaves and counterfeit Turcos.”

  “Horrible — horrible!” murmured Philip, in English.

  Daily, who, in company with the other six men, had come up to the edge of the slope, turned to Philip with a friendly gesture.

  “It’s glad I am ye ‘re no frog-ater—”

  “We’d better be going,” interrupted McBarron; “come on, Con Daily — and you, there, whoever you are, — we must get out of this.”

  “Where?” said Philip.

  “Now how should he know, me cherub b’y?” said Daily. “Come on; come on, the divil do I know where—”

  “But we’ve got to git,” concluded McBarron, as a bullet whizzed by them and a dozen Zouaves started into the gully at the foot of the slope.

  “Give them a volley! huroo! whurro!” sang out Daily, banging away with his piece until McBarron grabbed him by the neck and started after the others who were legging it for safety. They caught up with Philip, who had suddenly decided that the Versaillist army was not exactly the harbor of refuge he had been seeking, and they ran on through woods, keeping the sergeant and the five others in sight. Once they passed a dead horse across which lay a Hussar of Death. His lips were stretched tightly over his yellow teeth, and his sunken eyes set in their sockets like ivory balls. One or two brilliant flies buzzed about his head.

  CHAPTER XVIII. TCHERKA HAS AN IDEA.

  WHEN Mont-Valérien opened its iron throat and withered General Bergeret’s column at a breath, the majority of the inhabitants of Paris were still sleeping. There were probably exceptions; there certainly was one — Tcherka.

  She had slipped out of the studio, unnoticed, the night before and made straight for the rose bush, which unfortunate shrub she had marked for ruin. When Joseph came to lock the door, Tcherka hid behind the lilacs until he had disappeared with his lantern. Then she knew that the night was hers. A night on the garden walls all alone! She had never been allowed to roam at night, but she often longed for the revelry of the moonlit roof tops when she heard other cats burst into impassioned argument or scuttle over the tiles. Instinct told Tcherka that the cats who gambolled and chanted among the chimney-pots when the spring moonlight flooded roof and wall, were not good cats. Tcherka herself was a good cat. She knew this because Jeanne often told her so. Being a good cat she desired to play with bad cats; and this was her opportunity.

  Tcherka was not in a hurry to mount the wall and explore the delicious unknown in the next garden.

  Coquette by nature, she even coquetted with herself, and now she was pretending to herself that she hadn’t the slightest interest in whatever lay over the wall. She walked about, frisking occasionally with a tempting dry leaf or a particularly enticing pebble, then she polished her beautiful claws on the cherry tree, leaped softly to the edge of the fountain, and sat down. Liberty was sweet to Tcherka, very sweet, and a delightful sense of danger thrilled her, for she was a maiden cat, and this shadowy moonlit world was new and strange.

  She
had sat there perhaps ten minutes, and was beginning to eye the wall again, when a swift shadow fell across the gravel, and the ghost-like silhouette of a strange cat appeared on the very wall she was looking at. Tcherka slowly stiffened into a living statue. It was a gentleman cat.

  On his part it was love at first sight. Perhaps the novelty of Tcherka’s gaudy scarlet tail may have settled him; but, however it was, he was smitten — deeply smitten, and he wasted no time. His courtship song was weird and wonderful. He reached through octaves possibly never before traversed by any voice; his deep chest notes ended in masterly gurgles; his crescendos were crescendos of a virtuoso.

  Jeanne de Brassac was lying awake in her bed. All through the long night she tossed and turned, thinking of Philip, pressing her throbbing head deep into the pillows. Marguerite had sunk into a heavy sleep of exhaustion, and the starlight, falling on her face, trembled in points of light under her wet lashes.

  Jeanne could not sleep, but it was nearly morning before she crept from her couch and went to the window. A cat was sitting on the wall underneath, making melody as he understood it, but, as Jeanne leaned from the window, he darted into the shadows, and a moment later Tcherka sprang to the wall, and, looking up at Jeanne, hoisted her tail with a little mew of recognition. Jeanne looked at the cat indifferently at first, although she knew Tcherka was transgressing all rules, but after a while she tried to occupy her mind with the creature, and attempted to coax her in. Of course Tcherka refused.