STORM GATHERING
On my return I was, as I had expected, put to the question, with
lenience by Keller Bey, but with biting irony and something like
personal dislike by the Procureur Raoux. Then stood apparent all the
man's bitter nature, mordantly distilled from years of poverty and
hatred of the well-to-do.
The name of Dennis Deventer set his eyes ablaze, and the idea of his
family sitting down to a comfortable meal in spite of their isolation
from markets was to him gall and wormwood. He would hardly believe the
tale of the National Guards that they had seen me come down the steps of
the Chateau already blindfolded and under escort, and that I had so
continued till I was pushed out of the main entrance of the works by
Jack Jaikes.
How many guns had I seen? The little man shot out the question at me.
"Only those on the roof," I answered readily, "those which had been used
in January. They were hooded and protected from rain by waterproof
jackets."
"How did you know that?"
"Because I went up there to take the air after dinner, and I leaned my
back against one while I smoked."
"Was it a big gun? Three--four-pounder?"
I could not say exactly, but I should think four. I knew nothing about
any defensive works within the square of the factory. I had traversed
all that part blindfold.
The fierce little man grunted disbelievingly, but desisted when it was
obvious that he could make nothing more of me.
"Let Dennis Deventer take care," he snarled, "he speaks smooth words
now. Oh, the great things he will do for the workmen, but not for all
his promises does he stop that Jacques Jaikes from fortifying and
placing guns. Oh, I know more than you or Keller Bey are aware of. I do
not go about with my eyes blindfolded. What is the use of a tower of
Saint Crispin if a shoemaker may not climb it and spy out the works of
his enemy?"
"That will do, Raoux," said Keller Bey, somewhat impatiently. "I shall
send for you again when I need you."
He went out slowly, with a lingering, backward look, full of spite and
malice, his words and face distilling hatred like the poison-fangs of a
viper. I heard him mutter as he passed:
"You will send for me when you want me--take care I do not come when you
want me least!"
It was indeed time to get away--the Commune of Aramon stood on the verge
of a volcano which might blow us into the air any day.
Yet, how could I leave Keller Bey to his fate, and, if I did, how could
I face Linn and Alida?
* * * * *
The days passed heavily in Aramon, yet with a kind of feverish
excitement too--an undercurrent of danger which thrills a swimmer
cutting his way through smooth upper waters when he feels the swirl of
the undertow. The Commune of Aramon met daily for discussion, and
reports of its meetings are still to be found in the little red-covered,
tri-weekly sheet, _Le Flambeau du Midi_, of which I possess a set.
They appear to have discussed the most anodyne matters. They gabbled of
drainage and water supplies, the suspension of rents and pawnbrokers'
pledges for six months. They came to sharp words, almost to
blows--"Moderates" and "Mountain," as in the old days of 1793--while
outside the companies of the Avengers of Marat, the dark young men of
the wolf-like prowl, kept their watch and took their sullen counsel.
Provisions showed no visible stoppage. The country about Aramon was an
early one--the great market for _primeurs_ being Chateau Renard, only
ten miles away. Thither Pere Felix, learned in the arts of restaurant
supply, sent a little permanent guard to direct the provisioning of
Aramon city.
I think the only man outside Chateau Schneider who saw what was coming
upon the new Government was my Hugolatre of a station-master up at the
junction. I went to see him every day and he never ceased to urge me to
clear out of the town lest worse should befall me.
"They are arming," he said one day in early April, "they are coming
nearer. Put your eye to that telescope--no, don't alter it--tell me what
you see. A signal post on the railway--semaphore you call it! Yes, but
did you ever see such a semaphore on a railway? With us the stiff arm
drops and all is clear. It rises half-way--'_go slowly!_' It stands at
right angles to the post--'_stop_--_the way is barred!_' But what do you
see yonder? The stiff arms are moving this way and that. You who can
Morse out a message on the telegraph apparatus, why cannot you read
something infinitely more simple? That is on the other side of the river
and tells me that the Government engineers are creeping nearer. There is
no railway line where the semaphore is. They are signalling to their
comrades on this side. The storm is gathering--be very sure. For the
present there is no great hurry. Little Dictator Thiers has many irons
in the fire. He has no time to read Hugo like me, nor has he time to
give much thought to Aramon. But yonder are those who are preparing a
path for his feet, and for the feet of his little Breton Moblots when
the time comes."
It appeared to me that I ought to look into this myself, but in a way
that would not compromise my friend the station-master. So I made my way
boldly up into St. Crispin's tower and turned the long spyglass, old as
the first Napoleon, upon the semaphore ridge. It was wagging away
cheerfully, spelling out messages which I could not understand. I went
at once to Keller Bey.
"The Government of Versailles is not so far off as you think," I said,
"they are watching you from the other side of the river, and I believe
talking across the water to the commanders of troops on this side."
And with that I told him of the semaphore and of what I had seen from
the tower of St. Crispin. He sent instantly for someone who could read
semaphore messages, and within half an hour a deserter from the
engineers quartered at Avignon was brought to him--a small, brown,
snippet of a man whom I christened at sight "the runt," but whose real
name was Pichon--one of a clan mighty in all the southland of Languedoc.
Keller Bey came with us to witness the trial, and we had not reached the
summit when we heard behind us the wheezing, asthmatic breathing of the
Procureur Raoux sorely tried by the hasty ascent.
"Why, why, why?" he gasped, poking his head through the door--"who gave
you the liberty? Ah, Keller Bey--I beg your pardon. I was not aware of
your presence."
"This young man has brought us important information," said Keller Bey.
"He has discovered a semaphore signal newly erected on a spur among the
olive trees. The enemy have a post there, and are busily sending
messages to corresponding bodies making an advance southward upon this
side."
By this time I had the glass into position, and was moving gingerly out
of the way to let in the ex-engineer of Avignon, when the little cobbler
fairly rushed at the vacant seat, catching a foot on one of the legs of
the tripod and, of course, entirely losing the semaphore on the opposite
bank of the Rhone.
"I can see nothing--there is nothing to see!" he cried, gesticulating
fiercely with fingers like claws, "it is the lies of the English. I know
them. They have always lied to us. Dennis Deventer lies. There is no
message--no semaphore. There is no regiment nearer than Lyons or
Marseilles, and there I warrant Gaston Cremieux, Procureur-General like
myself, is giving them as much as they can think about."
With extreme difficulty Keller persuaded the acrid little man to allow
me to try.
"I will send him to the Central Prison if he has been bringing us false
news--and of course he has. What a blessing! I have a committal form
with me."
I did not shrink from the test, and while Keller Bey maintained the
cobbler-magistrate in some degree of quiet on the other side of the
platform, the expert deserter quickly got his eye on the signalling
apparatus.
"I have it," he cried, his brow glued to the eyepiece and his hand
signalling for stillness. "Oh, do be quiet!"
Raoux's dancing feet were shaking the crazy platform.
"The devil is in the fellow's legs," said Keller Bey. "Will you be
quiet, Raoux, or shall I drop you over to the glory of your patron
saint?"
He held him for a moment asprawl over the edge with a drop of two
hundred feet clear upon the packed causeway stones. Something of
helplessness in the grip of Keller Bey for a moment took the madness out
of Raoux.
He kept fairly still when Keller placed him again on the floor of the
platform, and with a pair of huge hands, one on each shoulder, held him
in place. Without taking his eyes from the spyglass the engineer
searched and found a dirty note-book to which was attached by a string a
stump of pencil. Presently he began to spell out a message from one side
of the river to the other. I could see his fingers shaking with
excitement as he jotted down the letters.
"Why," he exclaimed at the first pause, "it's our fellows from Avignon,
and they are not even troubling to code the message--shows what they
think of us."
"Tell us what they say," said Keller Bey.
"One moment--they are beginning again," and the pencil stub began to
travel.
"_Gun platform can be laid out on spur mountain, 250 feet above present
shelter trenches. Will command bridge-head of Aramon--possibly also
rebel headquarters._"
I saw Keller Bey turn pale to the lips. He understood well enough. He
had campaigned against those same invisible, tireless French engineers
for many desperate African years, and he knew that in the long run they
always made out to do the task set for them.
But Raoux the cobbler-procureur was quite unmoved.
"They are playing with levels and angle-machines as they used to do when
I was at Avignon. They went out every day clean and came back dirty. The
colonel could find nothing better for them to do. To-morrow we shall
send half a column of ours and shoot a few. Then the rest will keep
further up the river where they belong."
"As you will," said Keller Bey, "but you had better send a battalion at
least with provisions for three days."
"Provisions for three days--absurd nonsense!" foamed the little man, for
this was touching his tenderest spot, "our citizen soldiers are the
National Guard of Aramon, and will not consent to sleep away from their
houses, not for all the wig-wagging engineers and railway signalling in
France! We are not slaves but freemen. No, no, a day's excursion to
brush away these impudent land surveyors with a volley from our
patriotic rifles--and then back again before dark with victory on our
untarnished banners--that is what you can expect from the lion hearts of
our young men. We defend the Commune. We do not make war outside it. And
why should we when the chief strength of the enemy remains unassaulted
and untaken within our walls?"
Keller Bey called off the ex-engineer. With such a war method as that
which was evidently popular in Aramon, it was no use wasting time
reading semaphore messages.
The Chief and I returned very mournfully to the Mairie. I could see that
his reflections were bitter.
"They do not understand the Commune or what it means--they do not know
the spirit of the Internationale here. They care nothing except for
their little municipal quarrels. They cherish wild, vague hopes about
the works, and would attack the man upon whose charity they are living.
But of the fact that France will one day speak to them with a voice of
authority--nay, is now speaking in warning--to that they will pay no
heed. At the Commune meeting to-day a whole day was wasted arguing for
or against an extra duty on potatoes when brought across the bridge from
the Protestant department of the Deux Rives. Protestant potatoes,
Catholic and Roman potatoes! What irony, when the dusky signal-men are
crawling from hill to hill ever nearer, and any day may bring our doom
upon us!"
I let it sink well in, for I could see that Keller Bey was at last
conscious of the mistake he had made.
"You must go," he said, "I cannot fairly keep you longer. Go to your
friends and advise the good women of them to accept a safe conduct
across the river. I have still enough authority for that, if I promise
an ultimatum and an assault on the works to follow. It would make me
happy to think of these kind folk who welcomed Alida and Linn so warmly,
safely lodged under your father's roof as in a city of refuge."
He paused and looked pensively out on the uniformed groups of National
Guard lounging and smoking in the white courtyard of Fontveille stone.
"As for me," he said, "there is no room for any going back. The
Government would accept no resignation or belated repentance. I have
dreamed my dream. I thought (as thought Carl Marx) that these working
men were ready for an ideal reform, for government over themselves. I
saw other cities joining themselves to us, the good seed sown over the
country from department to department, till all should work for all and
no man only for himself. Now I see that the nature of man cannot be
changed by a theory or a form of government. Go, young man, to your
friends. I, Keller Bey, bid you! Be kind to Linn and to Alida, my
master's daughter. Perhaps all this has come because I disobeyed him for
the first time when he sent the prince of the house of Ali to bring home
his daughter. I may be justly punished, yet, nevertheless, the will of
Alida is nearer to my heart than that of the Emir Abd-el-Kader in his
house at Brousse!"