It was the standing regulation, laid down by the German staff, that
every Frenchman, not belonging to the regular army, taken with arms
in his hands, should be shot. Even the _compagnies franches_ were not
recognised as belligerents. It was the intention of the Germans, in
making such terrible examples of the peasants who attempted to defend
their firesides, to prevent a rising _en masse_, which they greatly
dreaded.
The officer, a tall, spare man about fifty years old, subjected
Dominique to a brief examination. Although he spoke French fluently,
he was unmistakably Prussian in the stiffness of his manner.
“You are a native of this country?”
“No, I am a Belgian.”
“Why did you take up arms? These are matters with which you have no
concern.”
Dominique made no reply. At this moment the officer caught sight of
Françoise where she stood listening, very pale; her slight wound had
marked her white forehead with a streak of red. He looked from one to
the other of the young people and appeared to understand the situation;
he merely added:
“You do not deny having fired on my men?”
“I fired as long as I was able to do so,” Dominique quietly replied.
The admission was scarcely necessary, for he was black with powder, wet
with sweat, and the blood from the wound in his shoulder had trickled
down and stained his clothing.
“Very well,” the officer repeated. “You will be shot two hours hence.”
Françoise uttered no cry. She clasped her hands and raised them above
her head in a gesture of mute despair. Her action was not lost upon the
officer. Two soldiers had led Dominique away to an adjacent room, where
their orders were to guard him and not lose sight of him. The girl
had sunk upon a chair; her strength had failed her, her legs refused
to support her; she was denied the relief of tears, it seemed as if
her emotion was strangling her. The officer continued to examine her
attentively, and finally addressed her:
“Is that young man your brother?” he inquired.
She shook her head in negation. He was as rigid and unbending as ever,
without the suspicion of a smile on his face. Then, after an interval
of silence, he spoke again:
“Has he been living in the neighbourhood long?”
She answered yes, by another motion of the head.
“Then he must be well acquainted with the woods about here?”
This time she made a verbal answer. “Yes, sir,” she said, looking at
him with some astonishment.
He said nothing more, but turned on his heel, requesting that the mayor
of the village should be brought before him. But Françoise had risen
from her chair, a faint tinge of colour on her cheeks, believing that
she had caught the significance of his questions, and with renewed hope
she ran off to look for her father.
As soon as the firing had ceased Father Merlier had hurriedly descended
by the wooden gallery to have a look at his wheel. He adored his
daughter and had a strong feeling of affection for Dominique, his
son-in-law who was to be; but his wheel also occupied a large space in
his heart. Now that the two little ones, as he called them, had come
safe and sound out of the fray, he thought of his other love, which
must have suffered sorely, poor thing, and bending over the great
wooden skeleton he was scrutinising its wounds with a heart-broken air.
Five of the buckets were reduced to splinters, the central framework
was honeycombed. He was thrusting his fingers into the cavities that
the bullets had made to see how deep they were, and reflecting how he
was ever to repair all that damage. When Françoise found him he was
already plugging up the crevices with moss and such débris as he could
lay hands on.
“They are asking for you, father,” said she.
And at last she wept as she told him what she had just heard. Father
Merlier shook his head. It was not customary to shoot people like that.
He would have to look into the matter. And he re-entered the mill
with his usual placid, silent air. When the officer made his demand
for supplies for his men, he answered that the people of Rocreuse
were not accustomed to be ridden roughshod, and that nothing would
be obtained from them through violence; he was willing to assume all
the responsibility, but only on condition that he was allowed to act
independently. The officer at first appeared to take umbrage at this
easy way of viewing matters, but finally gave way before the old man’s
brief and distinct representations. As the latter was leaving the room
the other recalled him to ask:
“Those woods there, opposite, what do you call them?”
“The woods of Sauval.”
“And how far do they extend?”
The miller looked him straight in the face. “I do not know,” he replied.
And he withdrew. An hour later the subvention in money and provisions
that the officer had demanded was in the courtyard of the mill. Night
was closing in; Françoise followed every movement of the soldiers with
an anxious eye. She never once left the vicinity of the room in which
Dominique was imprisoned. About seven o’clock she had a harrowing
emotion; she saw the officer enter the prisoner’s apartment, and for
a quarter of an hour heard their voices raised in violent discussion.
The officer came to the door for a moment and gave an order in German
which she did not understand, but when twelve men came and formed in
the courtyard with shouldered muskets, she was seized with a fit of
trembling and felt as if she should die. It was all over, then; the
execution was about to take place. The twelve men remained there ten
minutes; Dominique’s voice kept rising higher and higher in a tone of
vehement denial. Finally the officer came out, closing the door behind
him with a vicious bang and saying:
“Very well; think it over. I give you until to-morrow morning.”
And he ordered the twelve men to break ranks by a motion of his hand.
Françoise was stupefied. Father Merlier, who had continued to puff away
at his pipe while watching the platoon with a simple, curious air, came
and took her by the arm with fatherly gentleness. He led her to her
chamber.
“Don’t fret,” he said to her; “try to get some sleep. To-morrow it will
be light and we shall see more clearly.”
He locked the door behind him as he left the room. It was a fixed
principle with him that women are good for nothing, and that they spoil
everything whenever they meddle in important matters. Françoise did
not lie down, however; she remained a long time seated on her bed,
listening to the various noises in the house. The German soldiers
quartered in the courtyard were singing and laughing; they must have
kept up their eating and drinking until eleven o’clock, for the riot
never ceased for an instant. Heavy footsteps resounded from time to
time through the mill itself, doubtless the tramp of the guards as they
were relieved. What had most interest for her was the sounds that she
could catch in the room that lay directly under her own; several times
she threw herself prone upon the floor and applied her ear to the
boards. That room was the one in which they had locked up Dominique.
He must have been pacing the apartment, for she could hear for a long
time his regular, cadenced tread passing from the wall to the window
and back again; then there was a deep silence; doubtless he had seated
himself. The other sounds ceased too; everything was still. When it
seemed to her that the house was sunk in slumber she raised her window
as noiselessly as possible and leaned out.
Without, the night was serene and balmy. The slender crescent of the
moon, which was just setting behind Sauval wood, cast a dim radiance
over the landscape. The lengthening shadows of the great trees
stretched far athwart the fields in bands of blackness, while in such
spots as were unobscured the grass appeared of a tender green, soft as
velvet. But Françoise did not stop to consider the mysterious charm of
night. She was scrutinising the country and looking to see where the
Germans had posted their sentinels. She could clearly distinguish their
dark forms outlined along the course of the Morelle. There was only one
stationed opposite the mill, on the far bank of the stream, by a willow
whose branches dipped in the water--Françoise had an excellent view
of him; he was a tall young man, standing quite motionless with face
upturned toward the sky, with the meditative air of a shepherd.
When she had completed her careful inspection of localities she
returned and took her former seat upon the bed. She remained there an
hour, absorbed in deep thought. Then she listened again; there was
not a breath to be heard in the house. She went again to the window
and took another look outside, but one of the moon’s horns was still
hanging above the edge of the forest, and this circumstance doubtless
appeared to her unpropitious, for she resumed her waiting. At last
the moment seemed to have arrived; the night was now quite dark; she
could no longer discern the sentinel opposite her, the landscape lay
before her black as a sea of ink. She listened intently for a moment,
then formed her resolve. Close beside her window was an iron ladder
made of bars set in the wall, which ascended from the mill-wheel to the
granary at the top of the building, and had formerly served the miller
as a means of inspecting certain portions of the gearing, but a change
having been made in the machinery the ladder had long since become lost
to sight beneath the thick ivy that covered all that side of the mill.
Françoise bravely climbed over the balustrade of the little balcony in
front of her window, grasped one of the iron bars and found herself
suspended in space. She commenced the descent; her skirts were a great
hindrance to her. Suddenly a stone became loosened from the wall, and
fell into the Morelle with a loud splash. She stopped, benumbed with
fear, but reflection quickly told her that the waterfall, with its
continuous roar, was sufficient to deaden any noise that she could
make, and then she descended more boldly, putting aside the ivy with
her foot, testing each round of her ladder. When she was on a level
with the room that had been converted into a prison for her lover she
stopped. An unforeseen difficulty came near depriving her of all her
courage; the window of the room beneath was not situated directly under
the window of her bedroom; there was a wide space between it and the
ladder, and when she extended her hand it only encountered the naked
wall.
Would she have to go back the way she came and leave her project
unaccomplished? Her arms were growing very tired; the murmuring of
the Morelle, far down below, was beginning to make her dizzy. Then
she broke off bits of plaster from the wall and threw them against
Dominique’s window. He did not hear; perhaps he was asleep. Again she
crumbled fragments from the wall, until the skin was peeled from her
fingers. Her strength was exhausted; she felt that she was about to
fall backward into the stream, when at last Dominique softly raised
his sash.
“It is I,” she murmured. “Take me quick; I am about to fall.” Leaning
from the window he grasped her and drew her into the room, where she
had a paroxysm of weeping, stifling her sobs in order that she might
not be heard. Then, by a supreme effort of the will she overcame her
emotion.
“Are you guarded?” she asked in a low voice.
Dominique, not yet recovered from his stupefaction at seeing her there,
made answer by simply pointing toward his door. There was a sound of
snoring audible on the outside; it was evident that the sentinel had
been overpowered by sleep and had thrown himself upon the floor close
against the door in such a way that it could not be opened without
arousing him.
“You must fly,” she continued earnestly. “I came here to bid you fly
and say farewell.”
But he seemed not to hear her. He kept repeating:
“What, is it you, is it you? Oh, what a fright you gave me! You might
have killed yourself.” He took her hands, he kissed them again and
again. “How I love you, Françoise! You are as courageous as you are
good. The only thing I feared was that I might die without seeing you
again; but you are here, and now they may shoot me when they will. Let
me but have a quarter of an hour with you and I am ready.”
He had gradually drawn her to him; her head was resting on his
shoulder. The peril that was so near at hand brought them closer to
each other, and they forgot everything in that long embrace.
“Ah, Françoise!” Dominique went on in low, caressing tones, “to-day is
the fête of Saint Louis, our wedding-day, that we have been waiting
for so long. Nothing has been able to keep us apart, for we are both
here, faithful to our appointment, are we not? It is now our wedding
morning.”
“Yes, yes,” she repeated after him, “our wedding morning.”
They shuddered as they exchanged a kiss. But suddenly she tore herself
from his arms; the terrible reality arose before her eyes.
“You must fly, you must fly,” she murmured breathlessly. “There is not
a moment to lose.” And as he stretched out his arms in the darkness to
draw her to him again, she went on in tender, beseeching tones: “Oh!
listen to me, I entreat you. If you die, I shall die. In an hour it
will be daylight. Go, go at once; I command you to go.”
Then she rapidly explained her plan to him. The iron ladder extended
downward to the wheel; once he had got so far he could climb down by
means of the buckets and get into the boat, which was hidden in a
recess. Then it would be an easy matter for him to reach the other bank
of the stream and make his escape.
“But are there no sentinels?” said he.
“Only one, directly opposite here, at the foot of the first willow.”
“And if he sees me, if he gives the alarm?”
Françoise shuddered. She placed in his hand a knife that she had
brought down with her. They were silent.
“And your father--and you?” Dominique continued. “But no, it is not to
be thought of; I must not fly. When I am no longer here those soldiers
are capable of murdering you. You do not know them. They offered to
spare my life if I would guide them into Sauval forest. When they
discover that I have escaped, their fury will be such that they will be
ready for every atrocity.”
The girl did not stop to argue the question. To all the considerations
that he adduced her one simple answer was: “Fly. For the love of me,
fly. If you love me, Dominique, do not linger here a single moment
longer.”
She promised that she would return to her bedroom; no one should know
that she had helped him. She concluded by folding him in her arms and
smothering him with kisses, in an extravagant outburst of passion. He
was vanquished. He put only one more question to her:
“Will you swear to me that your father knows what you are doing, and
that he counsels my flight?”
“It was my father who sent me to you,” Françoise unhesitatingly replied.
She told a falsehood. At that moment she had but one great,
overmastering longing, to know that he was in safety, to escape from
the horrible thought that the morning’s sun was to be the signal for
his death. When he should be far away, then calamity and evil might
burst upon her head; whatever fate might be in store for her would seem
endurable, so that only his life might be spared. Before and above all
other considerations, the selfishness of her love demanded that he
should be saved.
“It is well,” said Dominique; “I will do as you desire.”
No further word was spoken. Dominique went to the window to raise it
again. But suddenly there was a noise that chilled them with affright.
The door was shaken violently; they thought that some one was about
to open it; it was evidently a party going the rounds who had heard
their voices. They stood by the window, close locked in each other’s
arms, awaiting the event with anguish unspeakable. Again there came
the rattling at the door, but it did not open. Each of them drew a
deep sigh of relief; they saw how it was. The soldier lying across the
threshold had turned over in his sleep. Silence was restored indeed,
and presently the snoring began again.
Dominique insisted that Françoise should return to her room first of
all. He took her in his arms, he bade her a silent farewell, then
helped her to grasp the ladder, and himself climbed out on it in turn.
He refused to descend a single step, however, until he knew that she
was in her chamber. When she was safe in her room she let fall, in a
voice scarce louder than a whisper, the words:
“_Au revoir._ I love you!”
She kneeled at the window, resting her elbows on the sill, straining
her eyes to follow Dominique. The night was still very dark. She looked
for the sentinel, but could see nothing of him; the willow alone was
dimly visible, a pale spot upon the surrounding blackness. For a moment
she heard the rustling of the ivy as Dominique descended, then the
wheel creaked, and there was a faint plash which told that the young
man had found the boat. This was confirmed when, a minute later, she
descried the shadowy outline of the skiff on the grey bosom of the
Morelle. Then a horrible feeling of dread seemed to clutch her by the
throat. Every moment she thought she heard the sentry give the alarm;
every faintest sound among the dusky shadows seemed to her overwrought
imagination to be the hurrying tread of soldiers, the clash of steel,
the click of musket-locks. The seconds slipped by, however, the
landscape still preserved its solemn peace. Dominique must have landed
safely on the other bank. Françoise no longer had eyes for anything.
The silence was oppressive. And she heard the sound of trampling feet,
a hoarse cry, the dull thud of a heavy body falling. This was followed
by another silence, even deeper than that which had gone before. Then,
as if conscious that Death had passed that way, she became very cold in
presence of the impenetrable night.