Next morning, by daylight, the whole region was aroused. Count Delorme
had been found dead, robbed and murdered, in the park of the Château
Bernard. The police appeared in swarms. No one had seen him at the
château, and old Madame Bernard had fainted when told of the murdered
man being found in the park, and had taken to her bed very ill, so she
could not be disturbed. Delorme's identity was easily established, and
it was surmised that he was on his way to the château when he had met
his fate.
Toni listened, with a blanched face, to all the excited talk and
colloquy that went on among the villagers as well as the circus people
about the strange murder. Suspicion at once fell on the circus people,
but Pierre and Nicolas were old hands at the business and knew how to
manage such little affairs. They had promptly proceeded, the first
thing next morning, to try for an advance of money from the manager of
the circus, and being refused, they had tried to borrow money from
several of their fellow employees to disguise the fact that their
pockets were well-lined at that very moment with Delorme's money. Toni
had never thought of this subterfuge, and did not attempt to borrow
a franc. He spent the day in one long spasm of terror, and in the
evening, when the performance was over and he was going back to his
lodging, his two friends joined him.
"Toni," said Nicolas, with a laughing devil in his eye as he spoke,
"you must be very careful, for suspicion might fall on you for the part
you took in our little escapade. You struck the blow, you know."
Toni stopped, stared, and threw his arms up above his head in a wild
passion of despair.
"I did not--I did not--I did not," he cried.
Then Nicolas, slipping his hand in Toni's pocket, drew out a
twenty-franc gold piece, a coin which Toni had seldom in his life owned.
"This was what you took out of the man's pocket," said Pierre. It was
too much for Toni. They were walking along the highway toward the
village, in the soft May evening. Toni, quite unsteady on his legs,
sat down by the roadside. He was so stunned and dazed that he
could neither move nor think nor speak. Pierre and Nicolas walked off
laughing, Pierre, meanwhile having put the twenty-franc piece in Toni's
pocket. When Toni felt this, he threw the money after them frantically,
and it fell in the road behind them, but they did not see it. Toni,
without knowing this at the time, thereby accomplished a stroke of
justice to these wretches.
[Illustration: "'This is what you took out of the man's pocket.'"]
He sat there a long time after his two friends had left him. Presently
the power of thought returned to him, and he said to himself:
"Toni, here is another terrible secret for you to carry--heavier than
any yet that you have carried--too heavy for you to carry alone. Toni,
you are a coward. If you were not, you would have got away from Nicolas
and Pierre a long time ago. Now see what they have led you into. Toni,
you must go to Paul Verney and make a clean breast of it, otherwise,
you will live to be guillotined."
He had no friend to whom he could go for counsel, unless he could find
Paul Verney. He took Jacques out of his pocket, and Jacques looked at
him in a friendly way and agreed with him as he always did, saying:
"Toni, unless you take some steps you will certainly be guillotined or
sent to prison for life; so make up your mind to find Paul Verney and
tell him all about it."
Toni took this resolution, but the courage which inspired him to make
it did not inspire him, at once, to carry it into effect. He meant
to do it the first thing next day, but when the next morning came he
put it off until the afternoon, and when the afternoon came he again
delayed. A secret like that is frightful to keep and more frightful to
tell. And then suddenly their week was up at Beaupré.
After leaving Beaupré, they gave performances in the small towns round
about. Interest in the murder of Delorme had by no means died out,
but rather increased as time passed on and no clue to the murderer
was discovered. Toni had an instinctive feeling that the police were
watching the circus people. He felt that every one of them was under
suspicion, but he had no tangible proof of this. It made him long,
however, to get away from the circus. He knew that he was of an age
when his army service might begin at any moment, as his twentieth
birthday was close at hand. He had, in fact, already been served with
notice. He could have got off, being the only son of a widowed mother,
but it had occurred to him that by serving his time in the army he
might get rid, for a while, of his two friends, Nicolas and Pierre.
A dream came to him that after his service he would get a place as
teacher in a riding-school. Then he would still have horses for his
friends and companions, but there would be nothing of Nicolas and
Pierre in his life. The dream grew brighter the more he dwelt on it.
He would go back to Bienville and ask his mother's pardon, which he
had done in every letter that he had written her, and then she would
forgive him. And he would make her ask for the hand of Denise for his
wife.
Oh, how happy he could be if only he had not this terrible secret about
Count Delorme to carry, which stayed with him day and night. If he
could get away from the circus, he thought this secret might then be
less terrible to bear. The first step toward this was soon accomplished
by the strong arm of the law, because Toni found himself, one June
morning, drawn in the conscription. He had no thought of getting off,
because he was his mother's only son, and presently he found, to his
immense joy, that he was to be one of the number of recruits who were
to report at the cavalry depot at Beaupré.
Beaupré was like Bienville in one way, having a small garrison and
being a cavalry depot, but it was new and modern, unlike Bienville.
Although quite as bright, the barracks and stables were all new and
shining with fresh paint. And oh, what joy was Toni's when he recalled
that Paul Verney was stationed there! It seemed to him as if what is
called the good God, who had neglected and forgotten him for seven
whole years, had at last relented and was directing his destiny and
showing him the path to peace.
It was almost two months after Toni's little adventure in the park
of the Château Bernard that, one morning, Sergeant Duval, the father
of Denise, heaved a heavy sigh as he paced the tan-bark in the
riding-school at Beaupré and mournfully surveyed the group of recruits
who were to take their first lesson in _voltige_ or circus riding.
There were about fifty of them. They all came from Paris, and recruits
from Paris are notoriously hard to break in. They feel a profound
contempt for the "rurals," a term which they apply to everybody outside
of Paris. The sergeant, running his eye over them, had no difficulty
in sorting them out, so to speak, according to their different
degrees of incapacity. About half were clerks, waiters, and artisans'
apprentices, town-bred and certain never to get over their fear and
respect for horses. The other half were porters and laborers and the
like, who could be taught to stick on a horse's back, but would never
acquire any style in riding.
Among them was a stupid-looking young fellow, rather short but
well-made, with very black eyes and a closely-cropped black poll, whom
Sergeant Duval did not recognize in the least as his old friend Toni,
the unknown aspirant for the hand of Denise. Toni's apparent fear and
dread in the company of the horses had kept the troopers in a roar of
laughter ever since he had joined. His awkwardness in the simple riding
lesson of the day before showed what a hand he would make of it in the
more difficult _voltige_, and his companions had hustled him to the
first place in the line, so they could see the fun.
Just then Sublieutenant Verney walked into the riding-hall. He was the
same Paul Verney, only he was twenty-two years old, and was known and
loved by every man and by every horse in the regiment. This triumph
was something to be laid at the feet of Lucie Bernard, whom he had
loved ever since that August afternoon in the park at Bienville, when
she had taken his book away from him and his heart went with the book.
Sublieutenant Verney was always present at the riding-drill, whether
it was his turn or not, and he dreamed dreams in which he saw himself
as another Murat or Kellerman, leading vast masses of heavy cavalry to
overwhelm infantry--for he held to the French idea that men on horses
can ride over men on foot. His dog, Powder, a smart little fox terrier,
was at his heels.
Now Paul Verney was an especial favorite with Sergeant Duval, who had
known him as boy and man, who had seen sublieutenants come and go, and
knew the breed well. He looked gloomily at Paul as he came up and ran
his eye casually over the recruits.
"Pretty bad lot, eh, Sergeant?" said Paul.
"Dreadful, sir. It would have broken your heart to have seen them in
the riding-school yesterday. Not one of them has any more notion of
riding than a bale of hay has."
"Ah! Well, you can lick them into shape, if anybody can," was Paul's
reply to this pessimistic remark.
The specially-trained horse on which greenhorns learned was then
brought in. He was an intelligent old charger, and when he stood
stock-still, with a trooper holding up his forefoot, his small, bright
eye traveled over the recruits. Then, suddenly dropping his head, he
gave forth a long, low whinny of disgust, which was almost human in its
significance.
"Old Caporal even laughs at them!" cried the sergeant. "Now, come here,
you bandy-legged son of a sailor, and get on that horse's back, and do
it with a single spring."
This was addressed to Toni, who lurched forward so clumsily that it was
seen there was little hope for him.
The waiting greenhorns watched with a sympathetic grin Toni's timid
and awkward preparations to spring on Caporal's back. He moved back
at least ten yards, and, lunging forward with the energy of despair,
succeeded in landing on the horse's crupper, from which he slid to the
ground, and lay groaning as he rubbed his shins. A shout of laughter,
in which every man joined except the sergeant, followed this. Even
Powder gave two short, sharp yaps of amusement. The sergeant, though,
was in no laughing mood.
"Now, then," he cried, "are you going to keep us here all day? Get up
and try again!--and this time, be sure and land between the horse's
ears."
Thus adjured, Toni, still rubbing his shins, got up, and going still
farther off, made another clumsy rush. This time, by scrambling with
both hands and feet, he managed to get on Caporal's back, and then,
working forward, he perched himself almost astride the horse's neck,
and said with a foolish smile:
"I can't get any farther forward, sir."
"Get off!" roared the sergeant.
Toni worked backward as he had worked forward, and slid down behind.
Old Caporal, at this, made a disdainful motion with his hind leg, and
Toni, with a scream, bolted off, yelling: "Take care! take care! he's
beginning to kick."
The recruits had something else to think of now in their own efforts
to vault on Caporal's back. Some of them were awkward enough, but all
did better than Toni. Then came the mounting and dismounting while the
horse was galloping round in a circle, the sergeant standing in the
middle with a long whip to keep him going.
Toni, meanwhile, had stood with his heart in his mouth, watching Paul
Verney. There was not, on Paul's part, the slightest recognition of his
old friend. Toni's shock of black hair, which was as much a part of him
as his black eyes and Jacques in his pocket, had been closely-cropped,
and he had grown a black mustache, which quite changed the character
of his face, and he looked away from Paul Verney, not wishing for
recognition at that time and place.
Toni was also the first man to attempt the mounting and dismounting. He
ran around the circle twice before he seemed to screw up enough courage
to try to mount, and could not then until the sergeant's long whip had
tickled his legs sharply. In vain he clutched at the horse's mane, and
made ineffectual struggles. Once he fell under Caporal's feet, and only
by the horse's intelligence escaped being trodden on.
"If the horse were as great a fool as you are,"--roared the sergeant.
Crack went the sergeant's whip as Toni got on his legs. Timidity and
stupidity have to be got out of any man who has to serve in a dragoon
regiment, and the sergeant proceeded to take them out of Toni.
"Look here, my man," he said, "you have got to learn to do that trick
now and here--do you understand?"
"But, Sergeant," moaned Toni, "I am afraid of the horse, I swear I am--"
The sergeant's reply to this was to run toward Toni with uplifted
whip. Old Caporal, supposing the whip was meant for him, suddenly
broke into a furious gallop. Toni darted toward him, lighted like a
bird with both feet on the horse's back, folded his arms, stuck his
right leg out as Caporal sped around the circle, changed to his left,
turned a somersault, stood on his head on the horse's back for a whole
minute, and then with a "Houp-la!" flung himself backward to the
ground, and, approaching the sergeant, stood calmly at attention. The
roof of the riding-hall echoed with thunders of laughter and applause,
Sublieutenant Verney leading off, capering in his delight, and pinching
Powder to make him join his yelping to the uproar. The sergeant stood
grinning with satisfaction. He was one of the few sergeants who wanted
a man to ride well and cared very little what share of praise or blame
accrued to himself in the doing of it.
"So you were in the circus?" he asked.
"Yes, Sergeant--ever since I was thirteen," answered Toni, who had
thrown off his stupid expression like a mask and stood up alert,
cool, with a glint of a smile in his eye. Then he stopped. He had not
forgotten those magnanimous offers made by the sergeant to his mother
to marry her for the purpose of thrashing him. His old cowardice
returned to him and he trembled at the idea of the coming recognition
by the sergeant. He certainly would not consider a circus rider a match
for Denise, who, by this time, must be a young lady.
The seven years which had changed Toni and Paul from boys into men, had
apparently passed over the sergeant without leaving the smallest sign
on him, but they had marked Toni so that Sergeant Duval so far had no
idea that he was the Toni whom he had yearned to thrash.
A light had been breaking upon Paul Verney's mind. There had been
something strangely familiar in the awkward recruit. A thrill of
remembrance swept over Paul Verney, but Bienville and Toni were far
from his mind then, and besides, Toni, as a dirty, shock-headed boy,
had been the personification of boyish grace, while this fellow had
been the embodiment of awkwardness in walking as well as riding. But
now things began to grow clearer. As for Toni, the old joy and love of
Paul came over him with a rush. He straightened himself up, stood at
attention, and turned his gaze full on the young lieutenant.
Paul came up close to him.
"Isn't this--isn't this Toni?" he asked.
For answer, Toni saluted and said, "Yes, sir." He had learned enough,
during his short enlistment, to say that. And then, surreptitiously
opening his hand, Paul caught a glimpse of the old battered Jacques
in Toni's palm. He covered it up quickly again. Paul Verney could not
trust himself with all the recruits standing by, and the riding lesson
in progress, to say more than:
"Come to my quarters at twelve o'clock,"--and turned away.
Sergeant Duval then recognized Toni, and with severe disapproval.
"So you have turned up at last!" he said sternly, "while your poor
mother has been breaking her heart in Bienville these seven years about
you. Well, I will talk with you later. I don't suppose you learned any
good in the circus except how to ride."
But this could not crush Toni. He had felt all his perplexities and
miseries dwindle since he had spoken to Paul Verney. Paul always
had such a sensible, level head, and knew well that plain, straight
path out of difficulties--telling the truth and standing by the
consequences.