CHILDREN IN DARKNESS.
The trap door closed on the two children, leaving them in total
darkness. Lasvene had not thought of that.
The boy hesitated. His mother had bidden him save Francinette--here was
safety, even if there were also darkness. He kissed his little sister
tenderly.
"Can you walk, dear?" he said.
"No--I am afraid!"
Jacques remembered that he was ten, and that Francinette, who was only
six, had a right to be afraid.
"Afraid!" he repeated, "what is there to fear? I am not afraid!"
He was not speaking the truth, but he had a vague idea that it was not
wrong to tell a falsehood on this occasion. He placed Francinette on the
ground, and she clung to his legs. He passed his hand over the wall, and
they slowly crept on. The ground was slippery and the air foul. Suddenly
Jacques tripped and fell. The little girl began to cry. Her brother had
lost his hold on the wall, and when he gathered himself up, he missed
the touch of those little hands.
"Cinette! Cinette!" he cried.
She replied with sobs, and he suddenly realized that these sobs were
becoming fainter and fainter. Where was she?
"Cinette! stand still."
The voice replied:
"Jacques! Oh! mamma! I want mamma!"
It was plain that the child was lost, and that several paths ran from
the point where he stood. He called to his sister again--no reply. He
began to run, and came up against the wall. He started again, then
stopped. He saw a red light at the end of a long gallery. This light
came from the funeral pyre of Francoise and the old man.
The boy smiled--he fancied that aid was coming. He called: "Mamma!
Mamma!" Suddenly his hurrying feet encountered an obstacle, and he fell
from a height. His head struck a rock, and he felt the blood stream over
his face. Then he fainted.
How long he lay there he never knew. After a while he struggled to his
feet, and then hurried on, always away from the red light, not toward
it. Suddenly he felt the air strike his face, and he saw the sunshine.
The subterranean passage ended. He emerged upon a plain. An old chateau
stood on the brow of a hill opposite.
"If I go there," he said to himself, "I can find people who will look
for Francinette with me."
He tried to run; his foot slipped. He looked down and beheld a pool of
blood. A dead body lay near, and then another, and another--death and
slaughter everywhere!
These were French soldiers who had been surprised and shot. Three guns
were fastened together, holding a pot over a fire not yet entirely gone
out.
Jacques was now wild with terror; he wished he were back in the darkness
of the subterranean passage, but still he struggled on for his little
sister's sake. Suddenly he started. Around the neck of a soldier he saw
a cord to which hung a bugle. Jacques made his way to the body. He
extended his arm, then pulled it back, but impelled by the hope of
safety, he at last succeeded in reaching the bugle without touching the
body, but he could not take it away because of the cord. Then Jacques
closed his eyes, and supporting himself on one hand, he placed his lips
to the mouth of the bugle. His face was very near that of the dead
soldier. He remembered the lessons he had received from Simon.
"Tarara! Tarara!"
The sound came rich and full, but the exertion had been too great.
Jacques fainted, and his pale face lay on the stiff, outstretched arm of
the dead soldier.