"In five minutes we are going to start," said I, cheerfully, and
stood waiting, twisting the gilt hilt-tassels of my sabre with nervous
fingers.
After a silence she said, very seriously, "Monsieur, would you dare
use violence toward me?"
"Oh, I shall not be very violent," I replied, laughing. I held the
opened watch in my hand so that she could see the dial if she chose.
"It is one o'clock," I said, closing the hunting-case with a snap.
She looked me steadily in the eyes.
"Will you come with me to La Trappe?"
She did not stir.
I stepped toward her; she gave me a breathless, defiant stare; then in
an instant I caught her up and swung her high into my saddle, before
either she or I knew exactly what had happened.
Fury flashed up in her eyes and was gone, leaving them almost blank
blue. As for me, amazed at what I had done, I stood at her stirrup,
breathing very fast, with jaws set and chin squared.
She was clever enough not to try to dismount, woman enough not to make
an awkward struggle or do anything ungraceful. In her face I read an
immense astonishment; fascination seemed to rivet her eyes on me,
following my every movement as I shortened one stirrup for her,
tightened the girths, and laid the bridle in her half-opened hand.
Then, in silence, I led the horse forward through the open gate out
into the wet meadow.
Wading knee-deep through soaking foliage, I piloted my horse with its
mute burden across the fields; and, after a few minutes a violent
desire to laugh seized me and persisted, but I bit my lip and called
up a few remaining sentiments of decency.
As for my turkey-girl, she sat stiffly in the saddle, with a firmness
and determination that proved her to be a stranger to horses. I
scarcely dared look at her, so fearful was I of laughing.
As we emerged from the meadow I heard the cannon sounding again at a
great distance, and this perhaps sobered me, for presently all desire
of laughter left me, and I turned into the road which led through the
birch thicket, anxious to accomplish my mission and have done with it
as soon as might be.
"Are we near La Trappe?" I asked, respectfully.
Had she pouted, or sulked, or burst into reproaches, I should have
cared little--in fact, an outburst might have relieved me.
But she answered me so sweetly, and, too, with such composure, that my
heart smote me for what I had done to her and what I was still to do.
"Would you rather walk?" I asked, looking up at her.
"No, thank you," she said, serenely.
So we went on. The spectacle of a cavalryman in full uniform leading a
cavalry horse on which was seated an Alsatian girl in bright peasant
costume appeared to astonish the few people we passed. One of these
foot-farers, a priest who was travelling in our direction, raised his
pallid visage to meet my eyes. Then he stole a glance at the girl in
the saddle, and I saw a tint of faded color settle under his
transparent skin.
The turkey-girl saluted the priest with a bright smile.
"Fortune of war, father," she said, gayly. "Behold! Alsace in
chains."
"Is she a prisoner?" said the priest, turning directly on me. Of all
the masks called faces, never had I set eyes on such a deathly one,
nor on such pale eyes, all silvery surface without depth enough for a
spark of light to make them seem alive.
"What do you mean by a prisoner, father?" I asked.
"I mean a prisoner," he said, doggedly.
"When the church cross-examines the government, the towers of Notre
Dame shake," I said, pleasantly. "I mean no discourtesy, father; it
is a proverb in Paris."
"There is another proverb," observed the turkey-girl, placidly.
"Once a little inhabitant of hell stole the key to paradise. His
punishment was dreadful. They locked him in."
I looked up at her, perplexed and irritated, conscious that she was
ridiculing me, but unable to comprehend just how. And my irritation
increased when the priest said, calmly, "Can I aid you, my child?"
She shook her head with a cool smile.
"I am quite safe under the escort of an officer of the Imperial--"
"Wait!" I said, hastily, but she continued, "of the Imperial
Military Police."
Above all things I had not wanted it known that the Imperial Police
were moving in this affair at La Trappe, and now this little fool had
babbled to a strange priest--of all people in the world!
"What have the police to do with this harmless child?" demanded the
priest, turning on me so suddenly that I involuntarily took a step
backward.
"Is this the confessional, father?" I replied, sharply. "Go your way
in peace, and leave to the police what alone concerns the police."
"Render unto Cæsar," said the girl, quietly. "Good-bye, father."
Turning to look again at the priest, I was amazed to find him close to
me, too close for a man with such eyes in his head, for a man who
moved so swiftly and softly, and, in spite of me, a nervous movement
of my hand left me with my fingers on the butt of my pistol.
"What the devil is all this?" I blurted out. "Stand aside, father.
Do you think the Holy Inquisition is back in France? Stand aside then!
I salute your cloth!"
And I passed on ahead, one hand on the horse's neck, the other
touching the visor of my scarlet forage-cap. Once I looked back. The
priest was standing where I had passed him.
We met a dozen people in all, I think, some of them peasants, one or
two of the better class--a country doctor and a notary among them.
None appeared to know my turkey-girl, nor did she even glance at them;
moreover, all answered my inquiries civilly enough, directing me to La
Trappe, and professing ignorance as to its inhabitants.
"Why do all the people I meet carry bundles?" I demanded of the
notary.
"Mon Dieu, monsieur, they are too near the frontier to take risks,"
he replied, blinking through his silver-rimmed spectacles at my
turkey-girl.
"You mean to say they are running away from their village of
Trois-Feuilles?" I asked.
"Exactly," he said. "War is a rude guest for poor folk."
Disgusted with the cowardice of the hamlet of Trois-Feuilles, I passed
on without noticing the man's sneer. In a moment, however, he repassed
me swiftly, going in the same direction as were we, toward La Trappe.
"Wait a bit!" I called out. "What is your business in that
direction, monsieur the notary?"
He looked around, muttered indistinctly about having forgotten
something, and started on ahead of us, but at a sharp "Stop!" from me
he halted quickly enough.
"Your road lies the other way," I observed, and, as he began to
protest, I cut him short.
"You change your direction too quickly to suit me," I said. "Come,
my friend the weather-cock, turn your nose east and follow it or I may
ask you some questions that might frighten you."
And so I left him also staring after us, and I had half a mind to go
back and examine his portfolio to see what a snipe-faced notary might
be carrying about with him.
When I looked up at my turkey-girl, she was sitting more easily in the
saddle, head bent thoughtfully.
"You see, mademoiselle, I take no chances of not finding my friends
at home," I said.
"What friends, monsieur?"
"My friends at La Trappe."
"Oh! And ... you think that the notary we passed might have desired
to prepare them for your visit, monsieur?"
"Possibly. The notary of Trois-Feuilles and the Château de la Trappe
may not be unknown to each other. Perhaps even mademoiselle the
turkey-girl may number the learned Trappists among her friends."
"Perhaps," she said.
Walking on along the muddy road beside her, arm resting on my horse's
neck, I thought over again of the chances of catching Buckhurst, and
they seemed slim, especially as after my visit the house at La Trappe
would be vacant and the colony scattered, or at least out of French
jurisdiction, and probably settled across the Belgian frontier.
Of course, if the government ordered the expulsion of these people,
the people must go; but I for one found the order a foolish one,
because it removed a bait that might attract Buckhurst back where we
stood a chance of trapping him.
But in a foreign country he could visit his friends freely, and
whatever movement he might ultimately contemplate against the French
government could easily be directed from that paradise of anarchists,
Belgium, without the necessity of his exposing himself to any
considerable danger.