with the bandage round his fingers, he added, "Am I to tell M. du
Tremblay that there was probably treachery at the bridge?"
L'Oiseleur turned his head away. "You can tell him . . . that it looked
like it," he answered after a moment.
When Clément was gone he sat down at the little table in the hut and
covered his face. He had chosen de Soulanges to carry that bitter but
unavoidable message because he was fond of him, and wanted to get him
out of the way before he took his pistol in his own hand, or before the
inevitable consequences of the disaster came on him from without. For,
safe as his remaining men might consider themselves in the Bois des
Fauvettes, Aymar knew better. In a day or two the Bonapartists at
Arbelles, hearing of the affair at the bridge, would certainly follow
up their comrades' success and clear out the relics of that nest of
hornets in the wood. And, if he himself had not blown out his brains
before that happened, he could then die sword in hand, which would be
preferable. So either he must disband his men in time, or make a last
stand.
Yet, now that he had heard fuller details, he knew that the affair had
not been so actually bloody as he had at first been given to
understand. The trap had been so well set that, after the first
discharge from the hidden foe--and in particular after M. de Fresne had
been seen to fall--the leaderless front ranks had been obliged to
surrender. But they comprised his best, his oldest followers; it was
the least devoted, the least trustworthy who, being in the rear, had
escaped, and these would be all the harder to get in hand again.
Moreover, worn out though he had been by the close of yesterday, it was
clear to Aymar that the ambitious hopes of the big Breton, Magloire Le
Bihan, which for some time he had suspected, had vastly grown during
his few days' absence, and were likely to swell still more, now that he
found himself virtually second-in-command. Aymar's very soul was sick
as he got up and went out to inspect his men's depleted equipment--so
sick that something whispered to him, "Why not tell them that it is
you, and you alone, who brought about the catastrophe?" But in that
case reorganization would be hopeless.
He did not sleep at all that night, and he knew that under the strain of
his paralyzing secret he was beginning to lose his faculty of decision.
Some of the men were slipping away already. On the other hand, there
was no sign of an attack on the wood. He knew that the Imperialists had
always credited him with more followers than he actually possessed. If
they were hesitating on that score he could still keep their
communications cut a little longer by stopping where he was. Magloire
supported this idea.
So all Sunday he did his best to reorganize the handful that was left to
him.
About nine o'clock a letter was brought to him. The handwriting was
Avoye's . . . and Avoye seemed now to have receded into another world,
and that hour in the orchard to belong to a life not this. Since his
return to the wood the thought that he had saved her (as presumably he
had) at the cost of other men's blood--men sent blindly to the
slaughter--was so terrible that he had not been able to face it. Now
here was a letter from her.
He went into the hut and opened it with unsteady hands. It was from
Sessignes, and dated April 28th--Friday. So she was safe--had returned
unharmed. But did he not know that by what had been paid for her
return? He read:
_"Oh, my dearest, to have missed you, and at such a time! And by so
little, as it were! I could have arrived last night, though late, had I
but known that you were at Sessignes. If only I had! For though I was
stopped at the 'Cheval Blanc' at six o'clock yesterday evening by a
body of Bonapartists, and detained there for a few hours (on account, I
believe, of the movement of troops) at ten o'clock I was told, very
civilly, that I could continue my journey if I wished."_
Aymar stopped reading, and leant dizzily against the wall of the hut.
Was he going crazy? She "would have arrived had she but known"! At ten
o'clock, when Vaubernier was still in the rose-garden at Sessignes, she
had been told "very civilly" that she was free to proceed--she who was
to have been shot in the morning! . . . He read on to the end, the
letters dancing before his eyes.
_"As it was, seeing that it was already late, and that I was tired, and
since I had Agathe with me, and was quite unmolested by the officers at
the inn (having in fact kept my room all evening) I decided,
unfortunately, to spend the night at the 'Cheval Blanc' and proceed
early next morning. But this morning I was told with equal civility,
but quite firmly, that I could not do so for the moment, and it was not
till about four in the afternoon that I was allowed to go on. (I
suppose that troops may have been on the march again, but what movement
I did hear was at daybreak.)"_
_"And then I got home, and heard that you had been here last night and
had gone again--gone suddenly, having received bad news. It seems as
though Fate were determined that we should not meet yesterday, and that
I should not tell you myself the news which (though I have prayed and
do pray for him, Aymar) I am not hypocrite enough to pretend was
anything of a grief to me. But I will not write any more about it; I
cannot. Shall I not see you soon?_
"_. . . That is, if all is well with you and your men? I do not like what
Grand'mère told me of your departure. It seems to me that my anxiety
for you weighs heavier--now. Send me a line to allay it! Oh, why could
we not have met yesterday! God keep you!"_
_Why could we not have met!_ Aymar staggered over to a chair. She had
never been within a hundred miles of danger--except perhaps through his
own action, which appeared to have caused her a further detention.
Vaubernier had then surrendered the letter without ever finding out
that the peril was non-existent. No question of driving a shabby
bargain with Colonel Richard; Colonel Richard had thoroughly outwitted
them both--he had evidently kept Avoye until he was sure that her price
had been paid. But there need never have been a price. . . . O God,
there need never have been a price at all! Some mistake . . . some
terrible misunderstanding--Vaubernier's--the young officer's . . . his
brain reeled . . . Vaubernier's, probably. Did it matter whose? It had
done its work. All the blood it had spilt was wasted; he had sent his
men to death and ruined himself to no purpose whatsoever.
The shock was such that it almost deprived Aymar of the power to think,
and he sat for hours at the table, the letter open before him, staring
at the lantern which lit its quiet and shattering phrases, as near to
madness as a healthy brain can be and yet not touch its border. When
daylight came he put the letter and a pistol in his breast, and went
out into the forest, so haggard that the men who saw him pass whispered
that L'Oiseleur was getting stranger and stranger, that he was
bewitched. . . . And this was May Day, too . . . when much magic was
abroad.
But perhaps it was the May morning which joined hands with Aymar's own
youth to pull him out of his pit of horror and despair. And he had a
strong will; for years now he had been obliged to keep a tight hold on
his emotions, only his hot temper sometimes escaping his control. He
lay on the shore of a lake of bluebells, and, though he lay face
downwards, their scent, their multitude and their incredible colour
flooded his brain like strong music. Out of this miraculous blue swamp
soared the old, steadfast trees, brilliant and tender with promise. And
there, after a while, Aymar resolved that this should not be the end.
At twenty-six, with his past, to die by his own hand or by a
self-sought death--it was a confession of complete guilt. Open
confession of his partial guilt was doubtless the easier way to deal
with the burden of his secret, but it could avail no one; it would
almost kill . . . two women. No, he must set his teeth, and though to
be with his men, suspicious, indeed, but not suspicious of him, was
little short of torment to a fastidious sense of honour, he must do it.
If she had never been in danger it was going to be much easier also to
keep from Avoye her central part in the tragedy . . . though Heaven
alone knew how that part had been fastened on her. And who of his own
party would believe a report of L'Oiseleur spread about by the enemy?
More than all, in intention he was absolutely innocent. Never had he
meant to sacrifice his men, even for Avoye. He was _not_ a traitor,
and, but for the most appalling ill-luck, he would not now be wearing
the semblance of one.
On his way back he met Magloire Le Bihan, who asked to speak to him
about the men's attitude. According to him, they were by this time
demented over the question of the ambush, and were searching for a
victim of their suspicions. And when Aymar observed that an ambush was
within the laws of war Magloire retorted,
"That depends which side is responsible for it. Come, now, Monsieur de
la Rocheterie, it is too late in the day to ignore the fact that there
was treachery over Friday's business!"
Aymar measured him. "It strikes me, Magloire," he said frigidly, "that
you are a little forgetting that you owe your present position to
accident, and that if you do not modify your tone you will find your
tenure of it exceedingly short."
A gleam of rage shot into the Breton's deep-set eyes. "Accident!
Pont-aux-Rochers was an accident, was it? How was it then, Monsieur le
Vicomte, that you knew of it beforehand, and rode to warn us?"
"That is my affair," returned his leader. "It is enough that I did ride
to warn you; you all know why I was too late. If that is all you wish
to say to me, you can go. Keep the pickets out in case of a sudden
attack!"
"If that happens, I dare say we shall find that someone knew of that
also beforehand," muttered Magloire darkly.
"Then you will remember that I warned you of that, too," retorted Aymar.
"I advise you to profit by the warning." And, turning on his heel, he
left him.
Once inside the hut again he felt very tired. Two nights without sleep,
three days of the most harassing remorse and strain, and now a passage
of arms with his only efficient subordinate! But that Magloire, in
spite of his words, had no suspicion of _him_ he was certain. It was
jealousy and wounded vanity which were driving him. He would have to
give him his congé directly it was possible. . . .
(7)
About two o'clock he was sitting at the rough table trying to work out a
map from memory (all his effects having been lost at the bridge) when
he heard something like an altercation at the door. The next moment it
opened to admit a man who shut it behind him and stood facing him
without a word--a lean, tallish man of about thirty-five, hard-featured
and blue-eyed, and bareheaded save for a bandage round his forehead.
Aymar stared at him, amazed almost beyond speech.
"Good God! De Fresne! Then you were not----"
"I escaped--a careless sentry. No, not killed, if that is what you mean.
Did you think I was?"
Aymar's head swam for a moment. He was unfeignedly glad, but with de
Fresne he would probably have to have the matter out. He sprang up,
holding out his hand.
"Need I say what I feel? But you are hurt!"
"Nothing much. I was stunned for a time." Then, glancing at his leader's
outstretched hand, the second-in-command looked him in the face. "I can
take your hand, La Rocheterie; can you take mine?"
The red ran over Aymar's features from chin to brow, and, ebbing, left
him very pale. He dropped his hand. "What have you heard?"
Still looking at him very hard de Fresne put a hand inside his coat. "I
have _seen_ something--something I would almost give my eyes not to
have seen--my own letter in the hands of the enemy! But since, in spite
of it, I find you here with the men, cannot I hope that there is some
mistake about it--that it was stolen . . . lost . . . mislaid, perhaps
. . . and that you did not deliberately send it to Colonel Richard as
he says you did?"
There was entreaty and pain in the harsh voice, and a loophole in what
it said. No!
"I would rather not lie to you, de Fresne," answered L'Oiseleur. "I
. . . did send your letter to Colonel Richard. I will tell you why."
"If you please," said the other stiffly. "You will pardon me if I sit
down." And he walked past him to the table.
"I am sorry I have no wine to offer you," said Aymar. "When did you last
have food?"
"I need nothing, thank you." He had spread out the letter on the table
and sat back, rather haggard under his bandage. Aymar came and sat down
opposite him.
"How did you get the letter back?" he asked quietly.
"Colonel Richard had me in when I was recovered, and asked me if I had
really written it, and if I thought you had really sent it. I said that
was inconceivable, till I . . . till I saw the deciphered passages and
recognized your writing. On that I said it must have been stolen from
you, and I asked for it, and Richard let me have it--was glad, I think,
to be rid of it, as if it soiled his fingers--and when I escaped . . .
For God's sake, La Rocheterie, be quick and explain the business!"
"It is quite simple," answered Aymar with dry lips. "I took a risk which
I see now that I ought never to have taken." And, after a moment's
preparation, he embarked on the story, leaving out all reference to Mme
de Villecresne, and making it appear that he had sent the letter purely
as part of a ruse--as he so nearly had done. To avow, with the blood
scarcely dry on the stones of Pont-aux-Rochers, that he had sent it to
save her was more than he could bring himself to do. It would be
dishonouring her. Yet he knew that the suppression was hazardous.
"And that is the explanation," said de Fresne slowly at the end. "That
is why I find my letter in the enemy's possession, and why there has
been this horrible disaster--merely because you were tempted to bring
off a coup? And that is all you have to tell me?"
"Yes, that is all," said Aymar with a slight shade of hauteur.
De Fresne suddenly pushed away his chair and rose, went to the little
unglazed window and looked out, then came back and flung himself down
again. Aymar watched him, sick at heart. He _knew_--or else he
disbelieved.
"But there is more," the elder man jerked out. "There is more--you know
it! Why do you keep back half, you whom I have never known to lie, when
I want so much to believe you? What about that bargain with Colonel
Richard?"
"I have not said anything about a bargain."
"Exactly. That is what I complain of. Because Colonel Richard did."
For the second time Aymar turned white. "What did he tell you?"
"Merely that--that you sent the letter as part of a bargain struck with
him. He did not specify what the compact was. But how could any compact
with the enemy be honourable? You tell me the whole thing was a ruse;
perhaps the bargain was part of the ruse then--a mere pretext to make
them swallow the bait? If so, of course . . ."
He looked at him questioningly. And L'Oiseleur sat silent, very pale,
staring at the knots in the rough table. Since, miracle of mercy,
Colonel Richard had held his tongue as to the nature of the bargain and
since, in the event (though not in intention) the bargain had proved a
farce, no bargain at all, how easy to say so? But he had enough on his
soul. He shook his head.
"You will not tell me what it is?" asked de Fresne.
"No. But there was nothing dishonourable in it. I got nothing----" But
here he stopped.
"Then who did? There must be two parties to a bargain. Is there any one
in the world, La Rocheterie, for whom you ought to sacrifice four
hundred men--and your own honour?"
Aymar winced. "I have told you, de Fresne," he said rather hotly, "that
the last idea in my mind was the possibility of my men's being victims.
Have I shown myself so careless of them in the past?"
De Fresne shook his bandaged head. "It looks very bad. If you refuse to
say what the bargain was, it will certainly be thought to be a
dishonourable one."
"I cannot help what people think. And--pardon me for referring to it--I
have a certain reputation."
"Yes," agreed the older man. "Yes, that is the tragedy of it." He put
his hands up to his head and sighed. "Such an unheard-of thing--to send
a letter with vital information straight to the enemy. . . . You have
offered me an explanation which I do not doubt is true as far as it
goes, but which has the most important factor left out. How can you
expect it to satisfy me? My opinion, you will perhaps retort, is not of
much account, but you must recognize yourself, La Rocheterie, that you
are in a horrible position. This story will be all over Brittany in a
few days, for all Richard's officers know that you sent the letter."
"Well?"
"What steps are you going to take about it?"
"None," replied L'Oiseleur, leaning his head on his hand.
De Fresne stared at him, frowning. "I do not think that you are taking
this business seriously enough."
And at that Aymar raised his head and laughed. "Yes, if not having had
any sleep for two nights, if thinking about it every moment of the
twenty-four hours, and having only this morning finally made up my mind
not to blow my brains out is not taking it seriously, then I am not
doing so!"
"I'm sorry," said his lieutenant briefly. "Do you intend, then, just to
go on and disregard--what will be said?"
"I thought I would try that," replied Aymar, leaning back in his chair
and suddenly looking very young and tired. "I would rather tell the
men, but it could do no good, and I think I ought to pull the remnant
together and keep the enemy's communications cut a little longer.--You
see, after all, I am not entirely bought by the Imperialists!"
"I never said you were," retorted de Fresne gruffly. "But I think that
you will find yourself obliged to take some definite step.--May I say
what I think you ought to do?"
The young man nodded.
"Give up your command for the time, go to Sol de Grisolles, and ask for
a military enquiry, so that you can justify yourself."
"Give up my command--have myself put under arrest!" exclaimed
L'Oiseleur. "No, certainly not!" He looked at the giver of this
unwelcome advice a moment and added, "May I ask what you mean by
'ought'--that it would be to my advantage, or that you conceive it to
be my duty?"
"Both," answered de Fresne with brevity.
Aymar's eyes flashed dangerously. "Are you going to teach me----" he
began, and then, with a great effort, stopped himself. "Tell me, have
you communicated any of your knowledge to the men?"
"No, of course I have not. Except for some necessary converse with
them--in which I learnt that you were here--and for trying to assuage a
certain excitement that there was over my reappearance, I came straight
to you.--You are aware, no doubt, that they are out of hand?"
"Very well aware! And yet you suggest that I should vacate my command!"
"It would not, I admit, be a happy moment to succeed you, La Rocheterie,
even temporarily. But I will take the command--if you offer it me."
Aymar sprang to his feet. "Monsieur de Fresne! This is a little too
strong! I gave you leave to advise me, not to dictate to me!"
"Don't quarrel with me, La Rocheterie! believe me, I don't want to!" And
de Fresne's tone showed it. "Won't you do it?" he asked again after a
pause. "It is the only profitable step that you can take."
And for an instant or two, as well as his wearied brain would let him,
the young man did weigh the proposal. But he had just, with no small
effort, screwed himself up to quite another course. This course would
involve having the core of the business dragged out into the light of
day, the unveiling of Avoye's unconscious share in the disaster, the
bandying about of her name, her relations to him. . . .
"I am sure that you are advising me to the best of your ability, de
Fresne," he said more gently. "And I beg your pardon if I was rather
short with you just now, for, Heaven knows, it would be a thankless
task you would take up. But I cannot do what you ask."
Nicolas de Fresne sat for a moment without moving; then he got to his
feet with a sigh. "Very well," he said. He looked down at his left
side. "My sword is in the enemy's hands, so I am unable to ask you to
accept it, save figuratively."
Aymar stepped backwards as if he had been struck.
"I cannot do anything else," said de Fresne, looking at the hut wall
beyond him.
"You are resigning because I will not!"
"If you like to put it that way."
"Then you . . . you do think that ugly thing of me, de Fresne! Don't you
know me--don't you know my family history? You, who have fought with
me, and know what memories I carry, you think I _could_ betray my
dead!"
"I cannot reconcile it with my sense of honour," replied de Fresne,
standing up very stiff--the stiffer, no doubt, that he was moved by the
agony in the appeal, "that you refuse to take the obvious method of
clearing your name. I do not say that I think you a traitor, for, as
you say, I know you. . . . But, painful as it is, I must ask you to
excuse me from serving under you any longer."
Save for the sweep of a pine-branch over the roof the silence was then
absolute. In that silence Aymar put his left hand on his sword; and
very slowly his head went down on his breast.
When he lifted it his mouth was set, his eyes very bright. "I hope my
sense of honour is not less keen than yours, Monsieur de Fresne," he
said quietly. "I must beg to refuse your sword. . . . I will ask you,
instead, to accept mine." And, unfastening it, sheath and all, he laid
it on the table with the hilt towards his second-in-command.
(8)
". . . Does not that satisfy you?" asked Aymar after a moment. "I cannot
do more."
De Fresne woke from what seemed a stupor. "You have done too much. Take
it back--I never meant that! I have no right to demand your sword. Take
it and put it into the General's hands."
His leader gave a little smile. "I had just as soon surrender it to you;
and you have none yourself now.--But perhaps you would rather not wear
mine."
De Fresne looked from the sheathed blade on the table to its owner, and
abruptly held out his hand.
But Aymar shook his head. "No--not yet. Afterwards, if you like. . . .
And now, how are you going to account to the men for my departure?"
"You will have to say something yourself, I think, L'Oiseleur.--My God,
how I hate doing this!"
Aymar had sat down again. "Let me put you in possession of certain facts
before I leave you," he said composedly. "First, about du Tremblay. Of
course I--you--cannot support him now. I sent de Soulanges to him on
Saturday morning with the news, but you must know nevertheless what his
plans are. I believe I have not yet destroyed the cipher notes I made
at our interview." He searched in a pocket. "No, here they are; and I
can leave them with you as a memorandum. I put them into cipher because
secrecy as to his real intention is all important. You see that on
Friday next he proposes to move along the Aven in such a way as to
deceive the Bonapartists into thinking that he means to cross. But he
will not cross; his real objective is Chalais, which, having caused the
enemy to concentrate, as he hopes, on the wrong side of the river, he
calculates on carrying by a coup de main. Meanwhile--what's that?"
He sprang up, thrusting the paper back into his pocket, for there had
come a sudden rush of feet and of excited voices outside, and--an
unprecedented thing--the hut door was abruptly flung wide, revealing
two or three of the Eperviers. For a second L'Oiseleur stood amazed;
the next, he strode forward.
"What is the meaning of this? Who told you to come here?"
A confused babel from outside answered him. All his remaining men
appeared to be there, and among them, of course, the towering form of
Magloire Le Bihan. But he seemed to be trying to keep the crowd back.
"If you have a spokesman I will hear you," said Aymar, frowning.
"Otherwise, leave my quarters at once!"
One of the foremost invaders, advancing a little over the threshold,
thereupon threw out a hand towards de Fresne, and said meaningly,
"Perhaps _he_ can explain what happened at Pont-aux-Rochers!" And
instantly other voices took him up. "He knows who the traitor was!"
"L'Oiseleur, make him tell us!"
A swift glance passed between Aymar and his subordinate. It was seen and
misunderstood. A roar went up.
"Comrades, it was M. de Fresne himself! And L'Oiseleur knows it!"
More Chouans began to crowd in, threateningly; the narrow doorway was
blocked. Very angry, Aymar advanced on the invaders.
"Leave my quarters at once, men!" he said imperiously. "No, M. de Fresne
is no traitor--far from it! There has been no treachery in this
business, only a mistake."
The Eperviers retreated a little from before him, but the hut was not
cleared. "Mistake . . . mistake!" the word was flung about. "A mistake
that needs atoning for!" "M. de Fresne's then!" "Let M. de Fresne
explain why he led us into an ambush!" "Aye, and let him explain why he
moved us out of the wood here while L'Oiseleur was away!"
"M. de Fresne has nothing to account for," cried his leader hotly. "And
if he had, he accounts for it to me, and not to you!"
"L'Oiseleur knows that it is M. de Fresne," repeated the originator of
this idea stubbornly. "That was why he came riding all that way to warn
us. Let M. de Fresne come out and answer for himself!"
They were horribly tenacious when once they had got an idea into their
heads; Aymar knew that well. And this most fallacious notion must be
dispelled at all costs. A little behind him, his arms folded, de Fresne
was now facing the intruders with a slightly ironical expression. The
men pushed forward once more.
"Give us up M. de Fresne, Monsieur de la Rocheterie! Let him come out
and explain to us!" And all at once a perfect howl went up. "What is
that paper he is putting into his coat?"
For the elder man, suddenly remembering the incriminating letter lying
on the table behind him, had turned his back, and was now thrusting it
into his breast.
"Go out of this place!" exclaimed L'Oiseleur. He laid a hand on his
pistol. "I will shoot the first man who stirs another step. Go outside,
all of you!"
They surged back a little.
"May I speak to you, sir?" enquired Magloire from his place in the rear.
Aymar could not but motion him to come forward. After all, he was an
officer, and had certainly not been inciting the rest . . . at this
moment, anyhow.
The giant came, saluting. "I told you, Monsieur le Vicomte," he said in
a low voice, "that they were crazy about this idea of treachery, and
now, if there is going to be a mystery, there will be no holding them.
Why is M. de Fresne hiding that paper? There'll be violence if you
can't explain!"
Yes, de Fresne was hiding a paper--to save him! It was _his_ doing that
his lieutenant was in this utterly false position. What must he be
thinking? Intolerably nettled, Aymar acted on the first impulse that
came to him--a thing he was always too prone to do when the risk was
his alone.
"You are right," he replied, "and there shall be no mystery. I will show
you myself what is in that paper, and then you will know that M. de
Fresne is perfectly innocent in the matter of Pont-aux-Rochers.
Monsieur de Fresne, give me that letter! You shall have it back."
De Fresne turned round, appalled. "La Rocheterie, don't do it!" he
whispered. "They will not touch me. Don't show it them, for God's
sake!"
His words, for all that he had dropped his voice, were audible in the
stillness which had now descended. And they produced, not unnaturally,
a tenfold stronger impression of his own guilt than before. Something
like an ugly rush would have taken place towards him but that the
doorway was so narrow and that L'Oiseleur, springing between him and
the assailants, drew a pistol and cocked it. The wave in consequence
swayed back again.
"Give me the letter, de Fresne!" he repeated over his shoulder.
"No, no--it's too dangerous!"
"Dangerous! At least, then, it shall be dangerous to the right person!
Give me the letter!"
And, the pistol in his right hand directed at his followers, Aymar held
out his left.
"God forgive me!" said de Fresne. The letter changed hands. Aymar
replaced the pistol and advanced to the door, and, seeing that he was
really coming outside, the men huddled hastily into the sunshine. Aymar
followed them.
"Which of you can read?" he asked, looking round.
"You, Goulven, and you, Hervé Le Bihan? Come here, then. You see this
letter, which is from M. de Fresne himself--there is his name at the
end--and that it is to tell me, as was his duty, of the move he was
going to make over the bridge. You can read that, eh? Well, that is
all--that is the paper which you foolishly think he was trying to
hide."
He kept the letter in his own hands, while, bending over it on either
side, with grunts and efforts, the two men laboriously went through its
contents, repeating the words aloud, unperturbed by the deciphered
passage. And Aymar looked over their heads at the rest and wondered
what was going to happen next. To hold them in rein now needed a tight
grip, and he was very tired, and more than heartsick. . . .
"Well, are you satisfied?" he asked patiently.
"Yes," said Goulven slowly, "that is what M. de Fresne did--he took us
to this place, the bridge of Pont-aux-Rochers. But why did he write it
down so that the Blues knew it?"
"I tell you," said the young man, not patiently this time, "that he
wrote it to me, while I was away, so that I should know it." And as
they bent their heads once more, and tried to peer at the address on
the other side, he added, "You can see for yourselves that it was sent
to me at Sessignes," and turned over the letter.
As he did so de Fresne, behind him, made, unseen, a gesture of
desperation--and Aymar himself turned cold as he saw, on the top
left-hand corner of the reverse, a bold endorsement in another hand
than de Fresne's . . . "Sent to me by the Vicomte de la Rocheterie,
called 'L'Oiseleur', on the night of April 27th, 1815.--A. RICHARD."
He shifted his hold of the paper like lightning, so that his left hand
covered that corner instead of the lower; but even so the signature was
visible. Perhaps the slow minds of his followers would not grasp its
meaning. . . .
"There, Hervé," he said carelessly, managing to master the swift impulse
to snatch the whole thing quickly away, "you see this was really sent
to me." And he was on the point of folding up the letter when a hand
fell on his left wrist. It was Magloire's. He had been looking over the
shoulder of his cousin Hervé.
"Wait a moment, L'Oiseleur," he said coolly. "What is Colonel Richard's
name doing on the outside of this letter, then?"
Aymar's blood leapt up at the presumption of the grasp and the tone. He
looked at Magloire with such fire that the giant, muttering, "I beg
your pardon," recoiled. And Aymar, clutching at the first excuse that
came into his head, said haughtily, as he folded up the letter, "M. de
Fresne has been a prisoner; it is quite natural that Colonel Richard
should have examined his papers."
As acting his composed demeanour was excellent, but the excuse he had
given was, as he instantly recognized, not so happy. It was admitting
that de Fresne had had the letter in his possession again. And as a
result the man Goulven, evidently bewildered, remarked, "But that
letter could not have been among his papers, Monsieur le Vicomte. He
sent it to you; you said so. You had not sent it to him!"
"No, not to _him!_" broke in Magloire significantly. And, thrusting
aside the man between them, he faced his young leader. "There was
something else written in the corner, L'Oiseleur. Your hand was over
it. Let us see that!"
He had thrown aside the scabbard. It was war. But before Aymar could say
anything de Fresne, pushing forward, exclaimed quickly, "What Colonel
Richard wrote on my papers only concerns me. Give me my letter back,
please, La Rocheterie!"
Instantly the dull and tenacious suspicions of that crowd were
rekindled. "No, no, M. de Fresne wants to hide it!" was shouted, and
the words "ambush," "treachery" began once more to fly about.
But Magloire Le Bihan was unmoved by them, and simply repeated his
request a little more threateningly. "Will you let us see what is
written on that letter, Monsieur le Vicomte, or must we take it from
you?"
"Take it from me!" exclaimed Aymar, at boiling pitch. "_Take_ it!" Then
he suddenly stopped.
There was a tense pause. Under the wide-brimmed hats with the pendent
ribbons the eyes of all those eager, saturnine faces were fixed on him.
Should he tear the letter up? No--they would seize the fragments, and
the very action would be a confession of guilt. He stood on the edge of
an unimagined precipice; better to leap in than be pushed.
"Very well," he said contemptuously, "you can see it . . . and make what
you can of it!" He held out the letter to Magloire, half turned his
back on him, and folded his arms. Almost instantly Magloire smote the
letter and burst into a hoarse laugh.
"Listen, _les gars_, what is written on this letter--what L'Oiseleur was
trying to hide!" And slowly, clearly, he read out the endorsement, read
it twice, "Sent to me by the Vicomte de la Rocheterie, called
'L'Oiseleur', on the night of April 27th, 1815.--A. RICHARD."
But his hearers were so puzzled that they merely gaped in silence.
"You must be fools if you don't understand!" shouted Magloire,
brandishing the letter. "It is not M. de Fresne at all--it is
L'Oiseleur himself who has betrayed us--L'Oiseleur who sent this with
his own hands to the Blues to tell them that we should be at
Pont-aux-Rochers last Friday morning . . . and took care not to be
there himself!"
Aymar leapt forward. "How _dare_ you----" he began; but his words were
drowned in uproar. "It's not true, Magloire, he came to warn us!
L'Oiseleur, say it's not true!" That brief monosyllable was hurtling
about like a missile, as he braced himself to meet the crucial moment
with the knowledge that his hold was slipping, slipping. . . . But
there was no hesitation in the way he faced the questioners.
"It is quite true, men," he said steadily, "that I sent the letter to
Colonel Richard, but the doing so was part of a plan for----"
He got no further, for the simple reason that he could not make himself
heard above Magloire's triumphant bellowing.--There was nothing for it
but to shoot him out of hand. He drew his pistol, cocked it, and
shouting, "I will give you three seconds to stop that noise!" levelled
it at the mutineer. Almost immediately his pistol arm was seized.
Furious, and as surprised as furious, Aymar turned on his assailant to
find that it was Hervé, Magloire's cousin. "Let go my arm instantly!"
he cried. He almost succeeded in freeing it, but in the struggle he
lost his pistol; at the moment it was dragged from his hold the hammer
fell and a man near clapped his hand to his arm with a scream. Next
second Magloire himself had seized his leader's other arm and laid a
powerful hand on his shoulder. "He will shoot us all if we are not
careful!" he shouted.
For an instant longer Aymar threw every ounce of his strength into the
endeavour to throw off the double grasp. But Magloire only laughed;
even L'Oiseleur, no weakling, was but a child in his hold. Aymar ceased
struggling. If it was useless, it was a mistake.
But Le Bihan was going too fast for the majority. Out of the clamour
came cries, almost terrified cries, of "Don't touch him! Let him go,
Magloire--it will be the worse for you! He has the _jartier_! The
_jartier_, Magloire! Let him go!"
And the rebel was obviously taken aback for a moment; he had forgotten
to reckon with a superstition which he did not share. For one instant
hope flared up in his captive's brain--and died as quickly. Deliverance
would never come on that score!
"_Has_ he got it?" yelled Magloire, his eyes on the young man's face.
"Has he got it? The luck would never stay with a traitor!"
A quiver went through L'Oiseleur from head to foot.
"No, he must have it!" cried the bewildered voices. "He always wears it.
Show it us, L'Oiseleur!"
Aymar, white to the lips, retorted, "I shall show you nothing of the
sort till Magloire Le Bihan is shot for insubordination!"
"We need not wait for any conditions of that kind!" sneered Magloire.
"_I_ will show you, since L'Oiseleur is so reluctant." And before Aymar
guessed what he was about he had drawn his hunting knife and inserted
it under his left sleeve.
Less because of what that action must inevitably bring to light, than
because it was so intolerable to him to be held as he was and subjected
to search, Aymar did once more try violently for a second or two to
withdraw his arm from the iron grip. It was scarcely, therefore, Le
Bihan's fault that the two-edged hunting knife cut rather more than it
was intended to do. An instant later Magloire's powerful hands had made
short work of the seams of coat and shirt alike; these were ripped
asunder to the shoulder, and he was gazing delightedly at the bare arm
he held captive.
He laughed. To him, as to L'Oiseleur himself, the amulet was a farce to
overawe children, but the life of him who once wore it might be
hanging, for all that, on the absence of that frail circlet of rushes.
Aymar had never given the _jartier_ a thought since it had broken in
that blossomladen place which had witnessed alike his brief moments of
happiness and the beginning of this black hour, but now . . . Was that
going to undo him in the end--the foolish, half-fraudulent charm he had
thought he need wear no longer?
He was for a moment barely conscious that Magloire was holding his naked
arm upwards at full stretch so that all could see the talisman was
gone. Moreover, down that arm was now running a thread of crimson
--blood like any other man's. L'Oiseleur, of the charmed life, was no
longer invulnerable . . . and naturally, since he no longer wore the
charm.
The effect of the double revelation on those superstitious minds was
paralyzing. The Eperviers began to huddle away in silence from the
leader who had been so lucky because he wore the amulet--and who, by
the same reasoning, was a definite source of ill-luck because he wore
it no longer. The _jartier_ had left him; therefore anything was
possible. And it was May Day . . . when much magic was abroad. . . .
Magloire read all this in the fierce, frightened faces; he nodded
across to Hervé, made a sign, and his own immediate partisans closed
round, so that the giant was able to let another man take his place,
and be free to direct the course of what he had at last accomplished.
Aymar suffered the change of guardianship without protest. What was the
use of fighting the situation any longer? If his men, his own men,
could turn against him like this. . . . Yet Eveno would have been dead
at his feet before a finger could have been laid on his leader . . .
but he himself had sent Eveno to death. . . . Out of the bad dream that
it had all become now he heard only de Fresne's voice, hot and
incisive:
"M. de la Rocheterie is my prisoner, men! He has already given up his
sword to me, and he will answer for any mistake that he has made
to----"
"No!" broke in Magloire still more incisively, "he is ours! And he will
answer to _us_, Monsieur de Fresne! Take him down to the clearing,
_gars_; we can go into this matter better there."
(9)
They took Aymar down the little slope from the woodcutter's hut. He went
unresisting; he was in the snare, the snare of his own devising--he,
the Fowler . . . and now he began to be sure that there was only one
way out of it, and this wood was to see that way taken.
The clearing was some hundred yards long and thirty wide; the beech
trees in all their new glory stood round it, dazzlingly green against
the more reluctant oaks. There were windflowers scattered under them
like snowflakes, in one place, half seen, a pond of bluebells, and at
the farther end a May tree, robed as a bride.
Magloire had preceded the little procession, and was now standing near a
large solitary beech at the nearer end of the glade. When they came up
he pointed to it in silence.
The Vicomte de la Rocheterie, descendant of Crusaders, flushed deeply.
"I give you my word of honour not to stir from this spot," he said in a
low voice.
The Chouan shook his head. "You might be tempted," he replied curtly.
"And if, later on . . . Hi, Eloi, fetch a rope!"
And Aymar set his teeth hard as his guards, after a second or two's
hesitation, pressed him back against the smooth grey trunk, rocklike in
its solidity. Even before the rope was brought someone produced a piece
of rough cord, not very thick, and, extending his arms behind him part
of the way round the great tree, they fastened the cord to either
wrist. By that device alone he was effectually a prisoner. The biting
shame of it surged over him in a tide of wrath and defiance.
"Guilen--Coatsaliou--Le Merzerr--Gloannec!" he called out suddenly, "are
you going to stand by and see this done?"
A huge hand came across his mouth, forcing his head back against the
tree trunk. "We are all going to see justice done, Monsieur le
Vicomte," said Magloire, the hand's owner. "If it has to be done on
you, so much the worse for you! But done it will be." And as he removed
his hand from the disgusted lips the rope, which had meanwhile arrived,
was passed across L'Oiseleur's shoulders and tightened. And when it was
knotted firmly across his shoulders, across the middle of his body, and
just above his knees he could not stir a quarter of an inch.
"That will do," said Magloire. "Now Monsieur de la Rocheterie can answer
our questions."
Aymar's lip curled. "Do you imagine for a moment that I shall do so,
after this?" he demanded.
"You would be wise," said Hervé Le Bihan sombrely. "We have a right to
ask." He came closer. "Monsieur de la Rocheterie, why did you send M.
de Fresne's letter to Colonel Richard?"
Aymar took no notice of Hervé, but, turning his head, the only part of
his body which remained now at his own disposal, he looked steadily at
the arch-rebel who had broken his dominion, subjected him to an
undreamt-of humiliation, and was no doubt contemplating the last
supreme outrage, and said, as coldly as if he were judge, not victim,
"My reason was given to M. de Fresne; when it was offered to you, you
refused to hear it. It is a farce to ask me for it now, and you know
it!"
At that, as though it were an appeal to him, de Fresne sprang up from
the log at some distance on which he had been sitting, his head in his
hands, during the carrying out of the indignity which he was powerless
to prevent. "L'Oiseleur is right!" he cried, coming into the centre of
the clearing. "He has given me his reason; he is ready to give it to a
court of enquiry, the only tribunal which has the right to demand it."
Magloire shook his head. "We want no courts of enquiry. We are judges
here! Let us have the reason!"
De Fresne looked appealingly at the beech tree.
"You can tell them if you like," said its captive indifferently.
And de Fresne had to bring out, as the only hope of saving his leader,
the justification of the latter's conduct which had been so far from
satisfying him a short time ago. He did his best with it.
When he had finished there was silence for a moment. Aymar, in a
curiously detached way, was trying to consider what he should say if he
heard that explanation for the first time. He was also becoming aware
of the extreme discomfort, not to say pain, caused by the position of
his strained arm and shoulder. The discomfort was not likely to grow
less.
"Now, Monsieur de Fresne," said Magloire, "tell us honestly, as you are
a gentleman, what you thought of that explanation of M. de la
Rocheterie's?"
De Fresne had not expected this, evidently. After a second or two's
unhappy pause he said, looking on the ground, "Everybody is liable to
make mistakes of judgment. I----"
"Give us a direct answer, please!" interposed Magloire.
"Tell the truth, de Fresne!" said Aymar suddenly. "It is always best."
The elder man glanced at the sardonic and defiant face, with the lock of
rust-coloured hair, disordered in the struggle, fallen across the brow,
and looked away. "I . . . I did not think it altogether satisfactory,"
he said unwillingly, "and so I advised M. de la Rocheterie to give up
his sword--which you see he has done--and to submit himself to a court
of war."
A growl broke out. "They do not like that term, my friend," observed
Aymar. "They prefer private murder."
"It was not murder then, when you sent five hundred men to the death you
had prepared for them?" asked the president of this tribunal, and Aymar
did not answer him. For the last time, possibly, the vain and scorching
tide of regret rose up about him, to the very throat. . . . But he was
paying now--he could hardly pay more bitterly if they did proceed to
murder him. . . . Murder him? No, surely, surely it could not be that
he, Aymar de la Rocheterie, L'Oiseleur, was going to end like this,
here and now. . . it was unthinkable. . . .
He came back to hear de Fresne saying, "What I believe is that M. de la
Rocheterie had some other reason for his action which he did not see
fit to reveal to me. And it must have been a good reason, worthy of
L'Oiseleur, of the leader who held the Moulin Brûlé." Then his
agitation got the better of him, "Oh, for God's sake untie him! you
can't realize what you are doing--you, his own men!"
"Our leader, L'Oiseleur, exists no longer," said Magloire Le Bihan. "If
M. de la Rocheterie has any further explanation, as you suggest, he had
better give it to us at once."
"May I speak to him?" asked de Fresne suddenly.
"If you promise not to touch the ropes," answered Magloire.
"I promise," said de Fresne.
He came up to the tree, whiter than Aymar himself. "La Rocheterie,
aren't you going to try to save yourself? The bargain--what was it? You
must reveal it now!"
Aymar looked at him gravely. "Mon ami, I cannot."
De Fresne smote his empty hands together. "Tell them something! I cannot
do anything more. It rests with you alone now."
L'Oiseleur shook his head. "What I should tell them would do me no good
in their eyes--though it was not dishonourable. And even if it would
save me, I would not tell them--now. . . . No, leave me to my fate, de
Fresne . . . but try to get them to be quick about it!"
"You should never have shown them the letter!" said his lieutenant,
tears in his eyes. "I would rather have let them think that I was to
blame. If only I had not come back . . . if only I had not brought the
letter! Oh, my God, to see you there like that . . . it is too
dreadful!"
"No, you are not to blame," replied Aymar steadily, though de Fresne's
words made the ropes seem tighter. "You acted as an honest man in
coming back to me with the letter . . . I can't shake hands with you
now . . . I would like you to keep my sword if you will?"
De Fresne looked hard at him, nodded, dashed the back of his hand over
his eyes, and, turning away without another word, carried his agitation
and, evidently, his arguments, into the midst of the discussion which
was going forward, with obvious differences of opinion and with
frequent glances towards the beech tree.
Aymar suddenly felt that he had been there a long time. The sun was hot;
his head was aching, and he would have given anything, almost, in the
world--though everything was ceasing to have value for him now--if he
could have had his arms unbound.
And now Hervé and one or two others were coming to him again, Magloire
remaining at a distance. "Monsieur le Vicomte," said the former, "you
have heard what M. de Fresne has said. He has acknowledged that he did
not find your explanation of your conduct satisfactory"--de Fresne
suddenly looked round, anguish on his face--"he says that you gave up
your sword and were going before a court of war. But we--what is left
of us after the trap you arranged for us at Pont-aux-Rochers--consider
that we have a better right to try you than a lot of gentry of whom we
have never heard. Do you still refuse to say anything in your own
defence?"
"I do, most emphatically," returned Aymar. "I acknowledge no right of
the kind. You have defied my authority, you have outraged my person,
and even if you intend to kill me in cold blood I shall not plead to
you. You need not therefore waste time!"
So they went away--rather hesitatingly, it was true--and seemed to enter
into fresh discussions from which de Fresne's voice emerged from time
to time; he appeared to be threatening them. Aymar had an impression
that they were drawing lots, but on the whole he felt curiously little
interest in their deliberations. He found the delicate little
windflowers at his feet more interesting; what a pity that they had
been so trampled! More and more the peculiar effect of strain and lack
of sleep was beginning to make itself felt--that sensation of having a
hollow in one's brain, of being maimed of one's faculties. But it did
not matter now . . . though it _had_ mattered up there by the hut,
before his control of the mutineers had slipped from him. Yes, he had
made a mess of that; he ought to have shot Magloire at once. . . . "But
I did not seem able to make up my mind," he murmured, as if he were
speaking to someone near. "And besides, everything was my fault." The
windflowers looked up at him then with their shy compassion.
He lifted his head and gazed down the clearing at the shifting groups in
their gay embroidered jackets, blue and yellow and white. They seemed a
little blurred; did this strange feeling which was growing on him
betoken faintness? Whatever they did to him it would be intolerable to
faint first; they would think he was afraid. . . . Could he bring
himself, rather than risk that, to ask to have his arms--only his arms
untied? Not yet . . . Oh, how slow they were!
Suddenly, out of nowhere, came a vision of Avoye, waiting for an answer
to her letter . . . the answer that, now, she would never receive . . .
that he would never write--walking perhaps on the terrace under his
window, with the dog Sarrasin beside her, thinking of those long years
of patience, and how they had ended at last. . . . _How they had
ended!_ And they were ending like this!
For a second or two the young man was hard put to it to keep his
composure. He threw his head back against the great pillar behind him,
the heart in him beating with fury and longing and shame. Still, under
his tight-shut lids, he could see her--grave, but with a little smile
round her beautiful mouth--while he, who, holding her tenderly, should,
only four nights ago, have bent to kiss it, had his arms stretched out
behind him and was fastened himself immovably to a tree, in the sight
of all his men. . . . Another wave of faintness crept towards
him. . . .
--And then the dullness in his ears was suddenly rent. Two men, shouting
and gesticulating, were running through the undergrowth towards the
central group, and, as he heard what they were crying out, Aymar
understood in a moment what had happened. They were his outposts, and
the Bonapartists were advancing on the Bois des Fauvettes.
The news fell like a bombshell into the unprepared Chouans. A few ran
bewildered among the trees, seeking cover; the majority were snatching
up their muskets, but with panic in every movement. De Fresne and
Magloire, however, had not lost their heads; the former was obviously
trying to marshal the men into some kind of order to get them away. The
tension held Aymar more painfully than his bonds. For there was . . .
surely there was . . . a chance that he might be forgotten in the
confusion! De Fresne had never once looked in his direction; with a
drawn sword in his hand--which must be _his_--he was shepherding the
men hastily out of the clearing, pointing the way, shouting
encouragements; and Magloire, still farther away, was doing the same.
And the men were obeying--they _were_ filing out. It was not going to
end like this, after all!
Was it true, indeed, or a dream, that de Fresne had actually turned
back, and was running stealthily up the side of the clearing under the
trees, the bare blade in his hand? He could soon free him with that! O
God, if only nobody turned and saw!
Vain hope! De Fresne was only a few yards off when Magloire came running
into the clearing again. "No, no--that will not do!" he shouted,
dropped to one knee in the middle and took a quick, steady aim at the
beech tree's target.
There was a flash, a report, and a violent blow as if someone had struck
him in the left shoulder. Aymar gasped a moment with the shock; then he
saw de Fresne standing with the sword half lifted.
"Oh, for God's sake put it through me and finish this!" he called out to
him with entreaty in his voice, and set his teeth. But the elder man,
with an oath, sprang for the side of the tree. Before he got there
Magloire, still kneeling, fired his second barrel, but this time the
bullet missed by an inch, whizzing by Aymar's ear into the trunk beside
him. "Go back--you'll be hit!" shouted L'Oiseleur; but de Fresne had
already been seized by two Eperviers who had hurled themselves on him,
and Aymar saw that, farther down the clearing, another man had his
musket at the level.
If only it might be through the heart this time, and this purgatory be
ended! But with the report came a hot and searing sensation in the
right side, and the young man, biting his lips, writhed mutely for a
second. The next, the whole scene began to swim away from him; yet he
heard, or thought he heard, a sort of long breath of horror or
satisfied vengeance run about the place, and a voice that might have
been Magloire's cry something about Pont-aux-Rochers. . . . His head
fell forward on his breast.
So he never saw how de Fresne, cursing wildly, freed himself from his
assailants, and turned to the urgent business of leadership, since the
tragedy was now played out. But the two men who had seized him, as they
left the wood, turned and fired at the motionless figure against the
tree. One shot sped over the bowed head into the trunk of the beech,
the other ploughed straight across L'Oiseleur's breast, cutting the
ribbon of his Cross of St. Louis as neatly as though it had been done
on purpose, and sending the cross itself spinning to his feet. But he
never moved.
And after a little the clearing, recently so clamorous with emotion, was
quiet again, and a bird, hopping cautiously out on a twig of the beech
tree, looked down with one round, bright eye on the strange fruitage it
bore. Probably it had never before seen a man stand so still.
(10)
The bird had flown away when Aymar came out of that vague place of
forgetfulness to realities. As he lifted his head he wondered dizzily
why he could not move; then why someone was pressing a knife across his
breast. . . . The rest was coming back; that he could not remember. He
looked down, and saw that a furrow had been cut clean across his
uniform, just below the rope--and not of his uniform only. And his
Cross of St. Louis lay among the trampled windflowers. It all came back
. . . too clearly . . .
They had left him here, to die, alone, in pain, in ignominy, in the
uttermost shame that could befall a soldier--his own men. And here,
lashed immovably to this hateful tree, sick with the constraint of his
position as much as with the pain of his wounds, and bleeding fast from
all of them, but unable to lift a finger to staunch them--here, on his
feet, looking down the clearing at the drift of hawthorn blossom, he
would remain till he died.
--No! not while there was his scarcely broken strength still in him! The
determination to be free suddenly possessed him like fire, and now that
only the tall trees watched him he began to struggle like a trapped
animal. But, even with the most furious efforts, he could hardly move
his body at all, for, as he soon found, he was too tightly pinned above
the knees. And, even had the ropes not held him so relentlessly he
could not, try as he would, get his arms free of the separate cord
which held them back, almost agonizingly by this time, against the
great trunk behind him. Each of his efforts only tightened its grip on
his lacerated wrists--for they were raw and bleeding before he desisted
from tugging. And all the while a cuckoo mocked him with its monotonous
and mechanical cry, which held no hint now of the meanings of spring,
but only a horrible mirth. "You are fast, you are fast, you can't get
away!" . . . Yes, this was going to be the end, _his_ end, after all!
Nor was it, plainly, very far off. The only effect of Aymar's struggles
had been greatly to increase the haemorrhage; the warm stream coursing
down his body from his side had not only soaked by this time through
his uniform, but was appearing as a spreading stain on his white
buckskin breeches. He looked down at it--and at the other stains, too.
It was hard to believe that he, young and strong as he was--or had
been, half an hour ago--was about to die merely from that, the ebb
which any charitable hand could have arrested, which his own might
possibly have staunched if they had not been so simply but effectually
fettered. . . . Yet that was what was going to happen--unless someone
came in time.
But who could come, except the Bonapartists? And to be found by them
would be intolerable, for his situation admitted of one explanation
only. All the countryside knew of his defeat. It would be almost better
to die than that . . . even by this death, lonely and dishonoured as it
was, the death without alleviation of any kind, which for Avoye's sake
he had brought upon himself--and in vain.
For the first time a groan broke from him--only to be swallowed up in
the chorus of birdsong with which the green, deserted wood was now
ringing. He made a last effort to wrench himself free. Useless . . .
useless! But--if only he might have seen Avoye to explain before he
died. What would she hear . . . afterwards? She would have all the rest
of her life for the evidences of his guilt to penetrate the unbelief
with which he knew quite well she would meet them at first. Gradually,
as the truth leaked out, she would be forced to believe him guilty in
that sense in which he never had been guilty, since he had suffered a
disgraceful penalty for an act of rashness to which that merciful term
would never be applied now. . . . Oh, if only he had carried out his
intention of this morning, and made an end of himself before the wild
hyacinths became a blur of pain to the sight, and the trees in their
spring bravery merely so many stakes to be tied to! He could have lain
dead with less disgrace, hidden by the bluebells till they died.
Aymar was growing much weaker; he knew it. The sunlight no longer seemed
warm, and his head was beginning to swim. Only one conscious desire was
left soon--to be loosed, to be able to lie down on the beech leaves at
his feet, for the pain in his mangled wrists seemed worse than any of
his wounds, and his position was, nakedly, torture. And he was so
desperately thirsty. . . . But oblivion was advancing with faster
strides now, for the anemones, the laughing May tree, the bright
beeches at which he was staring were beginning to vanish and reappear
again, and every breath was becoming more difficult to draw. . . .
Then pain went, and he began to have the oddest fancies. He was part of
the beech tree from which he could not stir--he _was_ the beech tree.
He had never been anything else. Once there had been a young man named
Aymar de la Rocheterie, who had run and ridden and fought and moved
about freely; but _he_ had stood here always, year in, year out, bare
in the frosts of winter, clothed with green as now in spring--a
splendid and vigorous tree. . . . But if that were so, how was it that
Aymar de la Rocheterie was gasping so for breath--as he could hear--and
that his head swam so violently . . . and that from the blue sky which
showed through the brilliant leaves above him strange whirling specks
like black snow were falling? How odd that was in spring . . . but was
it spring when it felt so bitter cold?
As his failing senses suggested the question the spreading bough above
him seemed suddenly to swoop down on him . . . then the great tree
which would not let him go began itself to sink with him into a cold,
suffocating darkness. . . . Aymar gave a couple of deep gasps, and his
head fell forward for the second time--not to be lifted again. He had
looked his last on the Bois des Fauvettes.
It was thus that the Bonapartists found him some three quarters of an
hour later--save that, with the oncoming of such profound
unconsciousness, the deadly haemorrhage had ceased. Only curiosity, no
thought that, from his appearance, there was a glimmer of life left in
him, led them to cut him down. But of their surprise, their
gratification when, on searching him, they found from his papers who he
was, their discovery of the cipher notes, their rough attempts at
surgery and his subsequent odyssey in the cart, Aymar knew nothing
whatever. Fate showed him some scrap of mercy after all.