THE CHAUMIÈRE.
It was not until some minutes had elapsed that I became fully
conscious the fierce struggle was over, and that Jacqueline was
avenged; but there lay on the floor the pistols, the knife, and the
blood of him whose body was now whirling along the chasms and amid
the eddies of that subterranean stream whose source and outlet are
alike unknown.
Tossing a stool upon the fire to feed the sinking flame, and heedless
of the danger of being found in what was doubtless the haunt, the
abode of an outlaw and robber, perhaps the rendezvous of his partners
in crime, I sank upon the floor, to reflect and to rest. It was only
then that I felt how weak, how weary I was in body, how sick and ill
at heart.
I was trembling from head to foot, and bathed in a cold perspiration;
so much had I undergone within the last four-and-twenty hours that a
kind of stupor came upon me.
And Jacqueline--my soul was full of her! Her voice seemed ever in my
ear--her name upon my tongue--her image before me. The contour of
her head, with every soft feature and familiar expression of eye;
glances that were filled with affection and susceptibility; her
smiling lip. Ah, the pale mask which lay at the foot of yonder tree
in the forest--could it be the face of her I loved so well?
If I am to live, thought I, oh for the whirl and excitement of war--a
storm, siege, wreck, battle, anything that will lure me from myself
and from thoughts that are maddening. To have loved her and have
lost her thus! Every pulsation was a pang, for I endured all the
keen misery of knowing that I had been loved tenderly, truly, and
deeply in return, and yet had lost her.
The images I drew of her endurance and death, they indeed were too
much to think of long, so happily crushed by my own reflections,
overcome by toil, and lulled by the ceaseless murmur of the
subterranean stream that poured beneath the chaumière I fell asleep
at last on the hard floor where I lay.
I must have lain thus for some hours when voices roused me, and I
started up to find that day had broken and several men were about me.
I had a "splitting headache" (as Charters used to say), a burning
thirst, and bloodshot eyes, the result of all I had undergone; but on
staggering up, I recognised the Chevalier de Boisguiller, Urbain the
gardener, and Bertrand, with several others, who followed the track I
had pursued, and who thus succeeded in discovering the wretched
chaumière which had formed the lair of Hautois, whom they clamorously
inquired if I had seen.
"Yes," said I; "and moreover I have seen the last of him."
"How--what has happened?" they asked together, while the chevalier
added--
"These pistols and this knife lying here--the blood on the floor, and
the broken stool, bear evidence of a conflict. What has taken place?"
I briefly related all, and Boisguiller on lifting the trap-door,
gazed with a shrinking aspect on the black torrent that rushed far
down below; and it would appear that for dark purposes the
_chaumière_ certainly had been built immediately over one of the few
open chasms in the rocks, through which this torrent of water
traverses the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier.
"Your vengeance has indeed been ample--only perhaps too sudden," said
he, after a pause; "and now let us return, but first, Urbain, we
shall set fire to this den, lest it find an occupant similar to the
last. Then, monsieur, what are we to do with you?"
"It matters little," said I, wearily, and sick at heart.
"You are probably unaware that the British have landed again, and set
fire to Cherbourg?"
"Indeed, chevalier!" I exclaimed, interested in spite of myself, and
remembering that the blaze I had seen in the sky to the north-west
was now accounted for.
"Yes; a strong force, we know not how many, have disembarked at Bay
des Maries."
"Under the Duke of Marlborough?"
"No; the commander is a general named Bligh."
"_Pardi! cet officier est un homme d'expédition!_" muttered the old
grenadier, Bertrand; "he has already fired all the coast."
"Yes, and he is a man of courage and daring, too," added the
chevalier. "_Peste!_ he shall not stay long in France, for all that.
But we have no time to lose; our sorrowful chase has come to an end,
and I must rejoin my troop, as all our forces are closing towards
Cherbourg to succour the Comte de Raymond. I repeat but the words of
my friend Madame de Bourgneuf, when I say, monsieur, that I wish you
every success in life, now when bidding you, it may be, farewell for
ever. But horses are here, and Bertrand the porter, who has been an
old soldier, shall accompany you within sight of your outposts at
Cherbourg; so let us at once be gone."
Perceiving that I was so faint that I could scarcely reply, the
chevalier kindly said that if I wished to rejoin my countrymen it was
necessary to repair my strength, so he insisted upon me imbibing the
contents of his flask, which were pure cognac, and Urbain gave me
from his pouch a _galette_ or pancake, made of buckwheat and butter.
We separated soon after, and on looking back from the road that led
to Avranches, old Bertrand and I saw a column of smoke ascending into
the clear blue sky from the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier. It was
from the burning hut wherein I had passed a night so terrible.
Riding at a quick pace we travelled together the whole day,
frequently passing for miles through dense forests and
apple-orchards; but after leaving Coutances behind, old Bertrand
began to gnaw his wiry moustache, to make grimaces and mutter "_Sacré
Dieu!_" "_Morbleu!_" and so forth; for now the roads became covered
by people hastening inland with their children and valuables, and by
waggons laden with furniture, sick and aged; the panic being great in
that corner of Normandy; where the strength, object, and ultimate end
of the new British expedition were quite unknown.
At last, after the sun had set, and the moon arisen in splendour, we
saw from the heights, about seven miles off, the town and
fortifications of Cherbourg, with the stately fleet of Commodore Howe
riding quietly at anchor in the bay, which shone like a vast but
rippling sheet of silver, from Fort Querqueville on the west, to the
Isle Pelee on the east.
The way was clear before me now. I bade a kind farewell to Bertrand,
dismounted, and handing to him the bridle of the chevalier's horse,
walked hastily in one direction, while he rode off in the other.
Scarcely had we separated, when a mounted patrol of ten dragoons in
scarlet cloaks, riding slowly, each with carbine on thigh, came past.
"Who goes there?" challenged the leader, in English.
"A friend!" I replied, mechanically.
"English, by Jove!" exclaimed the officer in command, as the whole
patrol simultaneously checked their horses to listen; "who or what
are you, my man?"
"One of the Light Troop of the Scots Greys, left wounded in the rear,
after the army abandoned Paramé," said I, stepping forward and
saluting.
"Zounds! and you have been in France all this time?"
"Yes, sir, since the beginning of June."
"All right," replied the officer, shortening his reins; "remain with
us. We are a party of the 11th Light Dragoons, and shall pass you on
to headquarters."