Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Wait for me,” said Jack. She drew his head down to hers.

  They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and found Tricasse, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad ridge.

  A road ran under the overhanging bank.

  “I didn’t know we were so near a road,” said Jack, startled. Tricasse laid his finger on his lips.

  “It is the high-road to Saint-Lys. We have settled more than one Uhlan dog on that curve there by the oak-tree. Look! Here comes one of our men. See! He’s got something, too.”

  Sure enough, around the bend in the road slunk a franc-tireur, loaded down with what appeared to be mail-sacks. Cautiously he reconnoitred the bank, the road, the forest on the other side, whistled softly, and, at Tricasse’s answering whistle, came puffing and blowing up the slope, and flung a mail-bag, a rifle, a Bavarian helmet, and a German knapsack to the ground.

  “The big police officer?” inquired Tricasse, eagerly.

  “Yes, the big one with the red beard. He died hard. I used the bayonet only,” said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the dried blood on his hairy fists. “I got a Bavarian sentry, too; there’s the proof.”

  Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with his long clasp-knife. “They stole our mail; they will not steal it again,” observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling them like cards.

  One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.

  “There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going to be read by the Prussian police officials,” he said, holding the letters out. “What do you think of our new system of mail delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur Marche?”

  “Give me the letters,” said Jack, quietly.

  He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.

  “Put out the fire, too,” called Tricasse, softly. “I begin to smell it.”

  When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Tricasse, folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the flat steel box was.

  “Letters from Paris,” he said. “The Uhlans have appeared in the Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege.”

  “Paris!” blurted out Tricasse, aghast.

  Jack nodded, silently.

  After a moment he resumed: “The Emperor is said to be with the army near Mézières on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do.”

  Tricasse stared at him, incapable of speech.

  “Very well,” said Jack, gently, “think it over. Tell me, at least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this evening.”

  He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a careless footstep might perhaps be heard by passing Uhlans. In a few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow, where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.

  Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat down on the blankets beside her.

  “The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now,” he said. “In it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you must not go — it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with a free heart.”

  She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.

  “Hush,” she said; “I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we tread it together, always together, Jack.” He struggled to speak; she held him close, and laid her head against his breast, contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of France reconquered, of noble deeds and sacrifices, of the great bells of churches thundering God’s praise to a humble, thankful nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the sleeping echoes of the cave — the scuffling and thrashing of a shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.

  Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they hurried from the cave another franc-tireur came up, leading a riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his rifle, the butt dripping with blood.

  “Silence,” he motioned to them, pointing to the wooded ridge beyond. Jack looked intently at the cavalry horse. The schabraque was blue, edged with yellow; the saddle-cloth bore the number “11.”

  “Uhlan?” He formed the word with his lips.

  The franc-tireur nodded with a ghastly smile and glanced down at his dripping gunstock.

  Lorraine’s hand closed on Jack’s arm.

  “Come to the hill,” she said; “I cannot stand that.”

  On the crest of the wooded ridge crouched Tricasse, bared sabre stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts, their sinewy fingers played continually with the rifle-hammers.

  Jack hesitated, his arm around Lorraine’s body, his eyes fixed nervously on the bend in the road.

  Something was coming; there were cries, the trample of horses, the shuffle of footsteps. Suddenly an Uhlan rode cautiously around the bend, glanced right and left, looked back, signalled, and started on. Behind him crowded a dozen more Uhlans, lances glancing, pennants streaming in the wind.

  “They’ve got a woman!” whispered Lorraine.

  They had a man, too — a powerful, bearded peasant, with a great livid welt across his bloodless face. A rope hung around his neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle-bow of an Uhlan. But what made Jack’s heart fairly leap into his mouth was to see Siurd von Steyr suddenly wheel in his saddle and lash the woman across the face with his doubled bridle.

  She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his stirrup.

  “Get out, damn you!” roared Von Steyr. “Here — I’ll settle this now. Shoot that French dog!”

  “My husband, O God!” screamed the woman, struggling in the dust. In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt, another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan’s face, deeper, deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.

  “Fire!” shrieked Tricasse— “the woman’s dead!”

  Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering, sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure passed like a flash through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the franc-
tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were torn from their frantic horses until only one remained — Von Steyr — drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head. They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated the rabid thing that ran among them.

  But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the franc-tireurs were surrounded.

  Then Tricasse raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the road:

  “‘Ça ira! Ça ira!’”

  It was the horrible song of the Terror.

  “‘Que faut-il au Républicain?

  Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!

  “‘Du fer pour travailler,

  Du plomb pour nous venger,

  Et du pain pour nos frères!’”

  And the fierce voices sang:

  “‘Dansons la Carmagnole!

  Dansons la Carmagnole!

  Ça ira! Ça ira!

  Tous les cochons à la lanterne!

  Ça ira! Ça ira!

  Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!’”

  The road trembled under the advancing cavalry; they surged around the bend, a chaos of rearing horses and levelled lances; a ring of fire around the little group of franc-tireurs, a cry from the whirl of flame and smoke:

  “France!”

  So they died.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE BRACONNIER

  Lorraine had turned ghastly white; Jack’s shocked face was colourless as he drew her away from the ridge with him into the forest. The appalling horror had stunned her; her knees gave way, she stumbled, but Jack held her up by main force, pushing the undergrowth aside and plunging straight on towards the thickest depths of the woods. He had not the faintest idea where he was; he only knew that for the moment it was absolutely necessary for them to get as far away as possible from the Uhlans and their butcher’s work. Lorraine knew it, too; she tried to recover her coolness and her strength.

  “Here is another road,” she said, faintly; “Jack — I — I am not strong — I am — a — little — faint—” Tears were running over her cheeks.

  Jack peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road. Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.

  “Who are you?” came the summons again in French. Jack did not answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip, stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of the slope.

  “Hallo!” he called, softly.

  Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly and puzzled smile.

  “What do you want?” asked Jack, suspiciously.

  “Parbleu! what do you want yourself?” asked the peasant, and showed his teeth in a frank laugh.

  Jack was silent.

  The peasant’s eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her blanched face half hidden under the masses of her hair. “Oho!” he said— “a woman!”

  Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and close up to Jack.

  “Thought you might be one of those German spies,” he said. “Is the lady ill? Cœur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has happened? I am Brocard — Jean Brocard; they know me here in the forest—”

  “Eh!” broke in Jack— “you say you are Brocard the poacher?”

  “Hey! That’s it — Brocard, braconnier — at your service. And you are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the little châtelaine De Nesville! [Co]eur Dieu! Have the Prussians brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche — I know you and I know the little châtelaine — oh, I know! — I, who have watched you at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must live! Yes, I am Brocard — I do not lie. I have taken enough game from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?”

  He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told him the exact truth, word by word, slowly and without bitterness, his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.

  “Cœur Dieu!” muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine; “I’ve half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in the hides of these Prussian swine!”

  He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.

  “I have a guest,” he said; “you need not fear him. Come!”

  In a dozen steps they entered the low doorway, Brocard leading, Lorraine leaning heavily on Jack’s shoulder.

  “Pst! There is a thick-headed Englishman in the next room; let him sleep in peace,” murmured Brocard.

  He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the little flames began to rustle and snap.

  Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms; Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from Lorraine to Brocard.

  The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes fixed on the reviving fire.

  “Morteyn! Morteyn!” he repeated; “it exists no longer. There are many dead there — dead in the garden, in the court, on the lawn — dead floating in the pond, the river — dead rotting in the thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them — I, Brocard the poacher.”

  After a moment he resumed:

  “There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges; I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game — boars, deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds — I really cannot tell.”

  He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the next moment, and he continued: “I heard the fusillade on the Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when God permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Tricasse at last. Zut! C’est embêtant! And poor old Passerat, too — and Brun, and all the rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I — but, no — no! I am doing very well — I, Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way.”

  An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth — that was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably already sent more than one Prussian to his account.

  “That’s all very well,” he said, slowly — he had little sympathy with guerilla assassination— “but I’d rather hear how you are going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian lines.”

  “You take much for granted,” laughed the poacher. “Now, did I offer to do any such thing?”

  “But you will,” said Jack, “for the honour of the Province and the vicomte, whose game, it appears, has afforded you both pleasure and profit.”

  “Cœur Dieu!” cried Brocard, laughing until his bright eyes gr
ew moist. “You have spoken the truth, Monsieur Marche. But you have not added what I place first of all; it is for the gracious châtelaine of the Château de Nesville that I, Jean Brocard, play at hazard with the Prussians, the stakes being my skin. I will bring you through the lines; leave it to me.”

  Before Jack could speak again the door of the next room opened, and a man appeared, dressed in tweeds, booted and spurred, and carrying a travelling-satchel. There was a moment’s astonished silence.

  “Marche!” cried Archibald Grahame; “what the deuce are you doing here?” They shook hands, looking questioningly at each other.

  “Times have changed since we breakfasted by candle-light at Morteyn,” said Jack, trying to regain his coolness.

  “I know — I know,” said Grahame, sympathetically. “It’s devilish rough on you all — on Madame de Morteyn. I can never forget her charming welcome. Dear me, but this war is disgusting; isn’t it now? And what the devil are you doing here? Heavens, man, you’re a sight!”

  Lorraine sat up on the bed at the sound of the voices. When Grahame saw her, saw her plight — the worn shoes, the torn, stained bodice and skirt, the pale face and sad eyes — he was too much affected to speak. Jack told him their situation in a dozen words; the sight of Lorraine’s face told the rest.

  “Now we’ll arrange that,” cried Grahame. “Don’t worry, Marche. Pray do not alarm yourself, Mademoiselle de Nesville, for I have a species of post-chaise at the door and a pair of alleged horses, and the whole outfit is at your disposal; indeed it is, and so am I. Come now! — and so am I.” He hesitated, and then continued: “I have passes and papers, and enough to get you through a dozen lines. Now, where do you wish to go?”

  “When are you to start?” replied Jack, gratefully.

  “Say in half an hour. Can Mademoiselle de Nesville stand it?”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Lorraine, with a tired, quaint politeness that made them smile.

  “Then we wish to get as near to the French Army as we can,” said Jack. “I have a mission of importance. If you could drive us to the Luxembourg frontier we would be all right — if we had any money.”