He began to worry the creased bit of paper again, stealthy eyes on the floor.
“The revolt is as certain as death itself,” he said. “The Society of the Internationale honeycombs Europe — your police archives show you that — and I tell you that, of the two hundred thousand soldiers of the national guard in Paris to-day, ninety per cent. are ours — ours, soul and body. You don’t believe it? Wait!
“Yet, for a moment, suppose I am right? Where are the government forces? Who can stop us from working our will? Not the fragments of beaten and exhausted armies! Not the thousands of prisoners which you will see sent into captivity across the Rhine! What has the government to lean on — a government discredited, impotent, beaten! What in the world can prevent a change, an uprising, a revolution? Why, even if there were no such thing as the Internationale and its secret Central Committee — to which I have the honor to belong” — and here his sneer was frightful— “I tell you that before a conquering German army had recrossed the Rhine this land of chattering apes would be tearing one another for very want of a universal scape-goat.
“But that is exactly where we come into the affair. We find the popular scape-goat and point him out — the government, my friend. And all we have to do is to let the mob loose, stand back, and count profits.”
He leaned forward in his chair, idly twisting his crumpled bit of paper in one hand.
“I am not fool enough to believe that our reign will last,” he said. “It may last a month, two months, perhaps three. Then we leaders will be at one another’s throats — and the game is up! It’s always so — mob rule can’t last — it never has lasted and never will. But the prudent man will make hay before the brief sunshine is ended; I expect to economize a little, and set aside enough — well, enough to make it pay, you see.”
He looked up at me quietly.
“I am perfectly willing to tell you this, even if you used your approaching liberty to alarm the entire country, from the Emperor to the most obscure scullion in the Tuileries. Nothing can stop us now, nothing in the world can prevent our brief reign. Because these things are certain, the armies of France will be beaten — they are already beaten. Paris will hold out; Paris will fall; and with Paris down goes France! And as sure as the sun shall rise on a conquered people, so sure shall rise that red spectre we call the Internationale.”
The man astonished me. He put into words a prophecy which had haunted me from the day that war was declared — a prophetic fear which had haunted men higher up in the service of the Empire — thinking men who knew what war meant to a country whose government was as rotten as its army was unprepared, whose political chiefs were as vain, incompetent, ignorant, and weak as were the chiefs of its brave army — an army riddled with politics, weakened by intrigue and neglect — an army used ignobly, perverted, cheated, lied to, betrayed, abandoned.
That, for once, Buckhurst spoke the truth as he foresaw it, I did not question. That he was right in his infernal calculations, I was fearsomely persuaded. And now the game had advanced, and I must display what cards I had, or pretended to have.
“Are you trying to bribe me?” I blurted out, weakly.
“Bribe you,” he repeated, in contempt. “No. If the prospect does not please you, I have only to say a word to the provost marshal.”
“Wouldn’t that injure your prospects with the Countess?” I said, with fat-brained cunning. “You cannot betray me and hope for her friendship.”
He glanced up at me, measured my mental capacity, then nodded.
“I can’t force you that way,” he admitted.
“He’s bound to get to Paradise. Why?” I wondered, and said, aloud:
“What do you want of me?” 118
“I want immunity from the secret police, Mr. Scarlett.”
“Where?”
“Wherever I may be.”
“In Morbihan?”
“Yes.”
“In Paradise?”
“Yes.”
I was silent for a moment, then, looking him in the eye, “What do I gain?”
Ah, the cat was out now. Buckhurst did not move, but I saw the muscles of his face relax, and he drew a deep, noiseless breath.
“Well,” he said, coolly, “you may keep those diamonds, for one thing.”
Presently I said, “And for the next thing?”
“You are high-priced, Mr. Scarlett,” he observed.
“Oh, very,” I said, with that offensive, swaggering menace in my voice which is peculiar to the weak criminal the world over.
So I asserted myself and scowled at him and told him I was no fool and taunted him with my importance to his schemes and said I was not born yesterday, and that if Paris was to be divided I knew what part I wanted and meant to stand no nonsense from him or anybody.
All of which justified the opinion he had already formed of me, and justified something else, too — his faith in his own eloquence, logic, and powers of persuasion. Not that I meant to make his mistake and undervalue him; he was an intelligent, capable, remarkable criminal — with the one failing — an overconfident contempt of all men.
“There is one thing I want to ask you,” said I. “Why do you desire to go to Paradise?”
He did not answer me at once, and I studied his passionless profile as he gazed out of the window. 119
“Well,” he said, slowly, “I shall not tell you.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“ — But I’ll say this,” he continued. “I want you to come to Paradise with me and that fool of a woman. I want you to report to your government that you are watching the house in Paradise, and that you are hoping to catch me there.”
“How can I do that?” I asked. “As soon as the government catches the Countess de Vassart she will be sent across the frontier.”
“Not if you inform your government that you desire to use her and the others as a bait to draw me to Paradise.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” I asked, thoughtfully.
“Yes,” said Buckhurst, “that’s it.”
“And you do not desire to inform me why you are going to stay in Paradise?”
“Don’t you think you’ll be clever enough to find out?” he asked, with a sneer.
I did think so; more than that, I let him see that I thought so, and he was contented with my conceit.
“One thing more,” I said, blustering a little, “I want to know whether you mean any harm to that innocent girl?”
“Who? The Countess? What do you mean? Harm her? Do you think I waste my thoughts on that little fool? She is not a factor in anything — except that just now I’m using her and mean to use her house in Paradise.”
“Haven’t you stripped her of every cent she has?” I asked. “What do you want of her now?” And I added something about respect due to women.
“Oh yes, of course,” he said, with a vague glance at the street below. “You need not worry; nobody’s going to hurt her—” He suddenly shifted his eyes to me. “You haven’t taken a fancy to her, have you?” he asked, in faint disgust.
I saw that he thought me weak enough for any sentiment, even a noble one.
“If you think it pays,” he muttered, “marry her and beat her, for all I care; but don’t play loose with me, my friend; as a plain matter of business it won’t pay you.”
“Is that a threat?” I asked, in the bullying tone of a born coward.
“No, not a threat, a plain matter of profit and loss, a simple business proposition. For, suppose you betray me — and, by a miracle, live to boast of it? What is your reward? A colonelcy in the Military Police with a few thousand francs salary, and, in your old age, a pension which might permit you to eat meat twice a week. Against that, balance what I offer — free play in a helpless city, and no one to hinder you from salting away as many millions as you can carry off!”
Presently I said, weakly, “And what, once more, is the service you ask of me?”
“I ask you to notify the government that you are
watching Paradise, that you do not arrest the Countess and Dr. Delmont because you desire to use them as a bait to catch me.”
“Is that all?”
“That is all. We will start for Paris together; I shall leave you before we get there. But I’ll see you later in Paradise.”
“You refuse to tell me why you wish to stay at the house in Paradise?”
“Yes,... I refuse. And, by-the-way, the Countess is to think that I have presented myself in Paris and that the government has pardoned me.”
“You are willing to believe that I will not have you arrested?” 121
“I don’t ask you to promise. If you are fool enough to try it — try it! But I’m not going to give you the chance in Paris — only in Paradise.”
“You don’t require my word of honor?”
“Word of — what? Well — no;... it’s a form I can dispense with.”
“But how can you protect yourself?”
“If all the protection I had was a ‘word of honor,’ I’d be in a different business, my friend.”
“And you are willing to risk me, and you are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself?”
“I think so,” he said, quietly.
“Trusting to my common-sense as a business man not to be fool enough to cut my own throat by cutting yours?” I persisted.
“Exactly, and trusting to a few other circumstances, the details of which I beg permission to keep to myself,” he said, with a faint sneer.
He rose and walked to the window; at the same moment I heard the sound of wheels below.
“I believe that is our carriage,” he said. “Are you ready to start, Mr. Scarlett?”
“Now?” I exclaimed.
“Why not? I’m not in the habit of dawdling over anything. Come, sir, there is nothing very serious the matter with you, is there?”
I said nothing; he knew, of course, the exact state of the wound I had received, that the superficial injury was of no account, that the shock had left me sound as a silver franc though a trifle weak in the hips and knees.
“Is the Countess de Vassart to go with us?” I asked, trying to find a reason for these events which were succeeding one another too quickly to suit me.
He gave me an absent-minded nod; a moment later the Countess entered. She had mended her black crêpe gown where I tore it when I hung in the shadow of death under the battlements of La Trappe. She wore black gloves, a trifle shabby, and carried a worn satchel in her hands.
Buckhurst aided me to rise, the Countess threw my hussar jacket over my shoulders and buttoned it; I felt the touch of her cool, little fingers on my hot, unshaved throat.
“I congratulate you on your convalescence,” she said, in a low voice. “Lean on me, monsieur.”
My head swam; hips and knees were without strength; she aided me down the stairway and out into the pale sunshine, where stood the same mud-splashed, rusty vehicle which had brought us hither from La Trappe.
The Countess had only a satchel and a valise; Buckhurst’s luggage comprised a long, flat, steel-bound box, a satchel, and a parcel. I had nothing. My baggage, which I had left in Morsbronn, had without doubt been confiscated long since; my field-glasses, sabre, and revolver were gone; I had only what clothes I was wearing — a dirty, ragged, gray-blue flannel shirt, my muddy jacket, scarlet riding-breeches, and officer’s boots. But in one of the hip-pockets of my breeches I carried a fortune in diamonds.
As I stood beside the carriage, wondering how I was going to get in, I felt an arm slip under my neck and another slide gently under my knees, and Buckhurst lifted me. Beneath the loose, gray coat-sleeves his bent arms were rigid as steel; his supple frame straightened; he moved a step forward and laid me on the shabby cushions.
The Countess looked at me, turned and glanced up at her smoke-blackened house, where a dozen Prussian soldiers leaned from the lower windows smoking their long porcelain pipes and the provost marshal stood in the doorway, helmeted, spurred, immaculate from golden cheek-guard to the glittering tip of his silver scabbard. An Uhlan, dismounted, stood on guard below the steps, his lance at a “present,” the black-and-white swallow-tailed pennon drooping from the steel point.
The Countess bent her pretty head under its small black hat; the provost’s white-gloved hand flew to his helmet peak.
“Fear nothing, madame,” he said, pompously. “Your house and its contents are safe until you return. This village is now German soil.”
The Countess looked at him steadily, gravely.
“I thank you, monsieur, but frontiers are not changed in a day.”
But she was mistaken. Alsace henceforth must be written Elsass, and the devastated province called Lothringen was never again to be written Lorraine.
The Countess stepped into the carriage and took her place beside me; Buckhurst followed, seating himself opposite us, and the Alsatian driver mounted to the box.
“Your safe-conduct carries you to the French outposts at Saverne,” said the provost, dryly. “If there are no longer French outposts at Saverne, you may demand a visé for your pass and continue south to Strasbourg.”
Buckhurst half turned towards the driver. “Allez,” he said, quietly, and the two gaunt horses moved on.
There was a chill in the white sunshine — the first touch of autumn. Not a trace of the summer’s balm remained in the air; every tree on the mountain outlines stood out sharp-cut in the crystalline light; the swift little streams that followed the road ran clear above autumn-brown pebbles and golden sands.
Distant beachwoods were turning yellow; yellow gorse lay like patches of sunshine on the foot-hills; oceans of yellow grain belted the terraced vineyards. Here and there long, velvety, black strips cut the green and gold, the trail of fire which had scarred the grain belts; here and there pillars of smoke floated, dominating blue woodlands, where the flames of exploding shells had set the forest afire.
Already from the plateau I could see a streak of silver reflecting the intense blue sky — the Rhine, upon whose westward cliffs France had mounted guard but yesterday.
And now the Rhine was lost, and the vast granite bastions of the Vosges looked out upon a sea of German forests. Above the Col du Pigeonnier the semaphore still glistened, but its signals now travelled eastward, and strange flags fluttered on its invisible halliards. And every bridge was guarded by helmeted men who halted us, and every tunnel was barred by mounted Uhlans who crossed their lances to the ominous shout: “Wer da? On ne basse bas!” The Vosges were literally crawling with armed men!
Driving slowly along the base of the hills, I had glimpses of rocky defiles which pierced the mountain wall; and through every defile poured infantry and artillery in unbroken columns, and over every mountain pass streamed endless files of horsemen. Railroad tunnels were choked with slowly moving trains piled high with artillery; viaducts glistened with helmets all moving westward; every hillock, every crag, every height had its group of tiny dark dots or its solitary Uhlan.
Very far away I heard cannon — so far away that the hum of the cannonade was no louder than the panting of our horses on the white hill-road, and I could hear it only when the carriage stopped at intervals.
“Do we take the railroad at Saverne?” I asked at last. “Is there a railroad there?”
“EVERY BRIDGE WAS GUARDED”
Buckhurst looked up at me. “It is rather strange that a French officer should not know the railroads in his own country,” he said.
I was silent. I was not the only officer whose shame was his ignorance of the country he had sworn to defend. Long before the war broke out, every German regimental officer, commissioned and non-commissioned, carried a better map of France than could be found in France itself. And the French government had issued to us a few wretched charts of Germany, badly printed, full of gross errors, one or two maps to a regiment, and a few scattered about among the corps headquarters — among officers who did not even know the general topography of their own side of the Rhine.
�
��Is there a railroad at Saverne?” I repeated, sullenly.
“You will take a train at Strasbourg,” replied Buckhurst.
“And then?”
“And then you go to Avricourt,” he said. “I suppose at least you know where that is?”
“It is on the route to Paris,” said I, keeping my temper. “Are we going direct to Paris?”
“Madame de Vassart desires to go there,” he said, glancing at her with a sort of sneaking deference which he now assumed in her presence.
“It is true,” said the Countess, turning to me. “I wish to rest for a little while before I go to Point Paradise. I am curiously tired of poverty, Monsieur Scarlett,” she added, and held out her shabby gloves with a gesture of despair; “I am reduced to very little — I have scarcely anything left,... and I am weak enough to long for the scent of the winter violets on the boulevards.”
With a faint smile she touched the bright hair above her brow, where the wind had flung a gleaming tendril over her black veil. 126
As I looked at her, I marvelled that she had found it possible to forsake all that was fair and lovely in life, to dare ignore caste, to deliberately face ridicule and insult and the scornful anger of her own kind, for the sake of the filthy scum festering in the sinkholes of the world.
There are brave priests who go among lepers, there are brave missionaries who dispute with the devil over the souls of half-apes in the Dark Continent. Under the Cross they do the duty they were bred to.
But she was bred to other things. Her lungs were never made to breathe the polluted atmosphere of the proletariat, yelping and slavering in their kennels; her strait young soul was never born for communion with the crooked souls of social pariahs, with the stunted and warped intelligence of fanatics, with the crippled but fierce minds which dominated the Internationale.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 177