At seven o'clock that morning the men in the circus camp awoke,
worried, fatigued, vaguely resentful, unusually profane. Horan was
openly mutinous, and announced his instant departure.
By eight o'clock a miraculous change had taken place; the camp was
alive with scurrying people, galvanized into hopeful activity by my
possibly unwarranted optimism and a few judiciously veiled threats.
Clothed with temporary authority by Byram, I took the bit between my
teeth and ordered the instant erection of the main tents, the
construction of the ring, barriers, and benches, and the immediate
renovating of the portable tank in which poor little Miss Claridge had
met her doom.
I detailed Kelly Eyre to Quimperlé with orders for ten thousand
crimson hand-bills; I sent McCadger, with Dawley, the bass-drummer,
and Irwin, the cornettist, to plaster our posters from Pont Aven to
Belle Isle, and I gave them three days to get back, and promised them
a hundred dollars apiece if they succeeded in sticking our bills on
the fortifications of Lorient and Quimper, with or without
permission.
I sent Grigg and three exempt Bretons to beat up the country from
Gestel and Rosporden to Pontivy, clear across to Quiberon, and as far
east as St. Gildas Point.
By the standing-stones of Carnac, I swore that I'd have all Finistère
in that tent. "Governor," said I, "we are going to feature
Jacqueline all over Brittany, and, if the ladies object, it can't be
helped! By-the-way, _do_ they object?"
The ladies did object, otherwise they would not have been human
ladies; but the battle was sharp and decisive, for I was desperate.
"It simply amounts to this," I said: "Jacqueline pulls us through or
the governor and I land in jail. As for you, Heaven knows what will
happen to you! Penal settlement, probably."
And I called Speed and pointed at Jacqueline, sitting on her satchel,
watching the proceedings with amiable curiosity.
"Speed, take that child and rehearse her. Begin as soon as the tent
is stretched and you can rig the flying trapeze. Use the net, of
course. Horan rehearsed Miss Claridge; he'll stand by. Miss Crystal,
your good-will and advice I depend upon. Will you help me?"
"With all my heart," said Miss Crystal.
That impulsive reply broke the sullen deadlock.
Pretty little Mrs. Grigg went over and shook the child's hand very
cordially and talked broken French to her; Miss Delany volunteered to
give her some "Christian clothes"; Mrs. Horan burst into tears,
complaining that everybody was conspiring to injure her and her
husband, but a few moments later she brought Jacqueline some toast,
tea, and fried eggs, an attention shyly appreciated by the puzzled
child, who never before had made such a stir in the world.
"Don't stuff her," said Speed, as Mrs. Horan enthusiastically trotted
past bearing more toast. "Here, Scarlett, the ladies are spoiling
her. Can I take her for the first lesson?"
Byram, who had shambled up, nodded. I was glad to see him reassert his
authority. Speed took the child by the hand, and together they entered
the big white tent, which now loomed up like a mammoth mushroom
against the blue sky.
"Governor," I said, "we're all a bit demoralized; a few of us are
mutinous. For Heaven's sake, let the men see you are game. This child
has got to win out for us. Don't worry, don't object; back me up and
let me put this thing through."
The old man shoved his hands into his trousers-pockets and looked at
me with heavy, hopeless eyes.
"Now here's the sketch for the hand-bill," I said, cheerfully, taking
a pencilled memorandum from my pocket. And I read:
"THE PATRIOTIC ANTI-PRUSSIAN REPUBLICAN CIRCUS,
MORE STUPENDOUS, MORE GIGANTIC, MORE
OVERPOWERING THAN EVER!
GLITTERING, MARVELLOUS, SOUL-COMPELLING!"
"What's 'soul-compelling'?" asked Byram.
"Anything you please, governor," I said, and read on rapidly until I
came to the paragraph concerning Jacqueline:
"THE WONDER OF EARTH AND HEAVEN!
THE UNUTTERABLY BEAUTIFUL FLYING
MERMAID! CAUGHT ON THE
COAST OF BRITTANY!
WHAT IS SHE?
FISH? BIRD? HUMAN? DIVINE?
WHO KNOWS?
THE SCIENTISTS OF FRANCE DO NOT KNOW!!
THE SCIENTISTS OF THE WORLD
ARE CONFOUNDED!
IS SHE
A LOST SOUL
FROM THE SUNKEN CITY OF KER-YS?
50,000 FRANCS REWARD FOR THE BRETON WHO CAN
PROVE THAT SHE DID NOT COME STRAIGHT FROM
PARADISE!!!"
"That's a damn good bill," said Byram, suddenly.
He was so seldom profane that I stared at him, worried lest his
misfortunes had unbalanced him. But a faint, healthy color was already
replacing the pallor in his loose cheeks, a glint of animation came
into his sunken eyes. He lifted his battered silk hat, replaced it at
an angle almost defiant, and scowled at Horan, who passed us sullenly,
driving the camel tentwards with awful profanity.
"Don't talk such langwidge in my presence, Mr. Horan," he said,
sharply; "a camuel is a camuel, but remember: 'kind hearts is more
than cornets,' an' it's easier for that there camuel to pass through
the eye of a needle than for a cussin' cuss to cuss his way into
Kingdom Come!"
Horan, who had betrayed unmistakable symptoms of insubordination that
morning, quailed under the flowing rebuke. He was a man of muscular
strength and meagre intellect; words hit him like trip-hammers.
"Certainly, governor," he stammered, and spoke to the camel politely,
guiding that enraged and squealing quadruped to his manger with a
forced smile.
With mallet, hammer, saw, and screw-driver I worked until noon,
maturing my plans all the while. These plans would take the last penny
in the treasury and leave us in debt several thousand francs. But it
was win or go to smash now, and personally I have always preferred a
tremendous smash to a slow and oozy fizzle.
A big pot of fragrant soup was served to the company at luncheon; and
it amused me to see Jacqueline troop into the tent with the others and
sit down with her bit of bread and her bowl of broth.
She was flushed and excited, and she talked to her instructor, Speed,
all the while, chattering like a linnet between mouthfuls of bread and
broth.
"How is she getting on?" I called across to Speed.
"The child is simply startling," he said, in English. "She is not
afraid of anything. She and Miss Crystal have been doing that
hair-raising 'flying swing' _without rehearsal!_"
Jacqueline, hearing us talking in English, turned and stared at me,
then smiled and looked up sweetly at Speed.
"You seem to be popular with your pupil," I said, laughing.
"She's a fine girl--a fine, fearless, straight-up-and-down girl," he
said, with enthusiasm.
Everybody appeared to like her, though how much that liking might be
modified if prosperity returned I was unable to judge.
Now all our fortunes depended on her. She was not a ballon d'essai;
she was literally the whole show; and if she duplicated the
sensational success of poor little Miss Claridge, we had nothing to
fear. But her troubles would then begin. At present, however, we were
waiting for her to pull us out of the hole before we fell upon her and
rent her professionally. And I use that "we" not only professionally,
but with an attempt at chivalry.
Byram's buoyancy had returned in a measure. He sat in his
shirt-sleeves at the head of the table, vigorously sopping his tartine
in his soup, and, mouth full, leaned forward, chewing and listening to
the conversation around him.
Everybody knew it was life or death now, that each one must drop petty
jealousies and work for the common salvation. An artificial and almost
feverish animation reigned, which I adroitly fed with alarming
allusions to the rigor of the French law toward foreigners and other
malefactors who ran into debt to French subjects on the sacred soil of
France. And, having lived so long in France and in the French
possessions, I was regarded as an oracle of authority by these
ambulant professional people who were already deadly homesick, and
who, in eighteen months of Europe, had amassed scarcely a dozen French
phrases among them all.
"I'll say one thing," observed Byram, with dignity; "if ever I git
out of this darn continong with my circus, I'll recooperate in the
undulatin' medders an' j'yful vales of the United States. Hereafter
that country will continue to remain good enough for me."
All applauded--all except Jacqueline, who looked around in
astonishment at the proceedings, and only smiled when Speed explained
in French.
"Ask maddermoselle if she'll go home with us?" prompted Byram. "Tell
her there's millions in it."
Speed put the question; Jacqueline listened gravely, hesitated, then
whispered to Speed, who reddened a trifle and laughed.
Everybody waited for a moment. "What does she say?" inquired Byram.
"Oh, nothing; she talked nonsense."
But Jacqueline's dignity and serene face certainly contradicted
Speed's words.
Presently Byram arose, flourishing his napkin. "Time's up!" he said,
with decision, and we all trooped off to our appointed labors.
Now that I had stirred up this beehive and set it swarming again, I
had no inclination to turn drone. Yet I remembered my note to the
Countess de Vassart and her reply. So about four o'clock I made the
best toilet I could in my only other suit of clothes, and walked out
of the bustling camp into the square, where the mossy fountain
splashed under the oaks and the children of Paradise were playing.
Hands joined, they danced in a ring, singing:
"_Barzig ha barzig a Goneri
Ari e mab roue gand daou pe dri_"--
"Little minstrel-bard of Conéri
The son of the King has come with two or three--
Nay, with a whole bright flock of paroquets,
Crimson, silver, and violet."
And the children, in their white coiffes and tiny wooden shoes, moved
round and round the circle, in the middle of which a little lad and a
little lass of Paradise stood motionless, hand clasping hand.
The couplet ended, the two children in the middle sprang forward and
dragged a third child out of the circle. Then the song began again,
the reduced circle dancing around the three children in the middle.
"--The son of the King has come with two or three--
Nay, with a whole bright flock of paroquets,
Crimson, silver, and violet."
It was something like a game I had played long ago--in the age of
fable--and I lingered, touched with homesickness.
The three children in the middle took a fourth comrade from the
circle, crying, "Will you go to the moon or will you go to the
stars?"
"The moon," lisped the little maid, and she was led over to the
fountain.
"The stars," said the first prisoner, and was conducted to the stone
bridge.
Soon a small company was clustered on the bridge, another band at the
fountain. Then, as there were no more to dance in a circle, the lad
and lassie who had stood in the middle to choose candidates for the
moon and stars clasped hands and danced gayly across the square to the
group of expectant children at the fountain, crying:
"Baradoz! Baradoz!"
(Paradise! Paradise!)
and the whole band charged on the little group on the bridge, shouting
and laughing, while the unfortunate tenants of the supposed infernal
regions fled in every direction, screaming:
"Pater noster
Dibi doub!
Dibi doub!
Dibi doub!"
Their shouts and laughter still came faintly from the tree-shaded
square as I crossed the bridge and walked out into the moorland toward
the sea, where I could see the sun gilding the headland and the
spouting-rocks of Point Paradise.
Over the turning tide cormorants were flying, now wheeling like hawks,
now beating seaward in a duck-like flight. I passed little, lonely
pools on the moor, from which snipe rose with a startling squak!
squak! and darted away inland as though tempest blown.
Presently a blue-gray mass in mid-ocean caught my eye. It was the
island of Groix, and between it and Point Paradise lay an ugly, naked,
black shape, motionless, oozing smoke from two stubby funnels--the
cruiser _Fer-de-Lance_! So solidly inert lay the iron-clad that it did
not seem as if she had ever moved or ever could move; she looked like
an imbedded ledge cropping up out of the sea.
Far across the hilly moorland the white semaphore glistened like a
gull's wing--too far for me to see the balls and cones hoisted or the
bright signals glimmering along the halyards as I followed a trodden
path winding south through the gorse. Then a dip in the moorland hid
the semaphore and at the same moment brought a house into full
view--a large, solid structure of dark stone, heavily Romanesque,
walled in by an ancient buttressed barrier, above which I could see
the tree-tops of a fruit-garden.
The Château de Trécourt was a fine example of the so called
"fortified farm"; it had its moat, too, and crumbling wing-walls,
pierced by loop-holes and over-hung with miniature battlements. A
walled and loop-holed passageway connected the house with another
stone enclosure in which stood stable, granary, cattle-house, and
sheepfold, all of stone, though the roofs of these buildings were
either turfed or thatched. And over them the weather-vane, a golden
Dorado, swam in the sunshine.
One thing I noticed as I crossed the unused moat on a permanent
bridge: the youthful Countess no longer denied herself the services of
servants, for I saw a cloaked shepherd and his two wolf-like and
tailless sheep-dogs watching the flock scattered over the downs; and
there were at least half a dozen farm servants pottering about from
stable to granary, and a toothless porter to answer the gate-bell and
pilot me past the tiny loop-holed lodge-turret to the house. There was
also a man, lying belly down in the bracken, watching me; and as I
walked into the court I tried to remember where I had seen his face
before.
The entire front of the house was covered with those splendid
orange-tinted tea-roses that I had noticed in Paradise; thicket on
thicket of clove-scented pinks choked the flower-beds; and a broad mat
of deep-tinted pansies lay on the lawn, spread out for all the world
like a glorious Eastern rug.
There was a soft whirring in the air like the sound of a humming-bird
close by; it came from a spinning-wheel, and grew louder as a servant
admitted me into the house and guided me to a sunny room facing the
fruit garden.
The spinner at the wheel was singing in an undertone--singing a Breton
"gwerz," centuries old, retained in memory from generation to
generation:
"Woe to the Maids of Paradise,
Yvonne!
Twice have the Saxons landed; twice!
Yvonne!
Yet must Paradise see them thrice!
Yvonne! Yvonne! Marivonik."
Old as were the words, the melody was older--so old and quaint and
sweet that it seemed a berceuse fashioned to soothe the drowsing
centuries, lest the memories of ancient wrongs awake and rouse the
very dead from their Gothic tombs.
All the sad history of the Breton race was written in every minor
note; all the mystery, the gentleness, the faith of the lost people of
Armorica.
And now the singer was intoning the "Gwerz Ar Baradoz"--the
"Complaint of Paradise"--a slow, thrilling miséréré, scarcely
dominating the velvet whir of the spinning-wheel.
Suddenly the melody ceased, and a young Bretonne girl appeared in the
doorway, courtesying to me and saying in perfect English: "How do you
do, Mr. Scarlett; and how do you like my spinning songs, if you
please?"
The girl was Mademoiselle Sylvia Elven, the marvellously clever
actress from the Odéon, the same young woman who had played the
Alsacienne at La Trappe, as perfectly in voice and costume as she now
played the Bretonne.
"You need not be astonished at all," she said, calmly, "if you will
only reflect that my name is Elven, which is also the name of a Breton
town. Naturally, I am a Bretonne from Elven, and my own name is
Duhamel--Sylvenne Duhamel. I thought I ought to tell you, so that you
would not think me too clever and try to carry me off on your horse
again."
I laughed uncertainly; clever women who talk cleverly always disturb
me. Besides, somehow, I felt she was not speaking the truth, yet I
could not imagine why she should lie to me.
"You were more fluent to the helpless turkey-girl," she suggested,
maliciously.
I had absolutely nothing to say, which appeared to gratify her, for
she dimpled and smiled under her snowy-winged coiffe, from which a
thick gold strand of hair curled on her forehead--a sad bit of
coquetry in a Bretonne from Elven, if she told the truth.
"I only came to renew an old and deeply valued friendship," she said,
with mock sentimentality; "I am going back to my flax now."
However, she did not move.
"And, by-the-way," she said, languidly, "is there in your
intellectual circus company a young gentleman whose name is Eyre?"
"Kelly Eyre? Yes," I said, sulkily.
"Ah."
She strolled out of the room, hesitated, then turned in the doorway
with a charming smile.
"The Countess will return from her gallop at five."
She waited as though expecting an answer, but I only bowed.
"Would you take a message to Mistaire Kelly Eyre for me?" she asked,
sweetly.