It was three o’clock. The heavens were piled high with great black
clouds, the tail-end of a storm that had been raging somewhere in
the vicinity. Beneath the coppery sky and ragged scud the valley of
Rocreuse, so bright and smiling in the sunlight, became a grim chasm,
full of sinister shadows. The Prussian officer had done nothing with
Dominique beyond placing him in confinement, giving no indication of
his ultimate purpose in regard to him. Françoise, since noon, had been
suffering unendurable agony; notwithstanding her father’s entreaties,
she would not leave the courtyard. She was waiting for the French
troops to appear, but the hours slipped by, night was approaching, and
she suffered all the more since it appeared as if the time thus gained
would have no effect on the final result.
About three o’clock, however, the Prussians began to make their
preparations for departure. The officer had gone to Dominique’s room
and remained closeted with him for some minutes, as he had done the day
before. Françoise knew that the young man’s life was hanging in the
balance; she clasped her hands and put up fervent prayers. Beside her
sat Father Merlier, rigid and silent, declining, like the true peasant
he was, to attempt any interference with accomplished facts.
“Oh! my God! my God!” Françoise exclaimed, “they are going to kill him!”
The miller drew her to him, and took her on his lap as if she had been
a little child. At this juncture the officer came from the room,
followed by two men conducting Dominique between them.
“Never, never!” the latter exclaimed. “I am ready to die.”
“You had better think the matter over,” the officer replied. “I shall
have no trouble in finding some one else to render us the service which
you refuse. I am generous with you; I offer you your life. It is simply
a matter of guiding us across the forest to Montredon; there must be
paths.”
Dominique made no answer.
“Then you persist in your obstinacy?”
“Shoot me, and let’s have done with it,” he replied.
Françoise, in the distance, entreated her lover with clasped hands;
she was forgetful of all considerations save one--she would have had
him commit a treason. But Father Merlier seized her hands, that the
Prussians might not see the wild gestures of a woman whose mind was
disordered by her distress.
“He is right,” he murmured, “it is best for him to die.”
The firing-party was in readiness. The officer still had hopes of
bringing Dominique over, and was waiting to see him exhibit some signs
of weakness. Deep silence prevailed. Heavy peals of thunder were
heard in the distance, the fields and woods lay lifeless beneath the
sweltering heat. And it was in the midst of this oppressive silence
that suddenly the cry arose:
“The French! the French!”
It was a fact; they were coming. The line of red trousers could be seen
advancing along the Sauval road, at the edge of the forest. In the mill
the confusion was extreme; the Prussian soldiers ran to and fro, giving
vent to guttural cries. Not a shot had been fired as yet.
“The French! the French!” cried Françoise, clapping her hands for joy.
She was like a woman possessed. She had escaped from her father’s
embrace and was laughing boisterously, her arms raised high in the air.
They had come at last, then, and had come in time, since Dominique was
still there, alive!
A crash of musketry that rang in her ears like a thunderclap caused her
to suddenly turn her head. The officer had muttered, “We will finish
this business first,” and with his own hands pushing Dominique up
against the wall of a shed, had given the command to the squad to fire.
When Françoise turned, Dominique was lying on the ground, pierced by a
dozen bullets.
She did not shed a tear; she stood there like one suddenly rendered
senseless. Her eyes were fixed and staring, and she went and seated
herself beneath the shed, a few steps from the lifeless body. She
looked at it wistfully; now and then she would make a movement with
her hand in an aimless, childish way. The Prussians had seized Father
Merlier as a hostage.
It was a pretty fight. The officer, perceiving that he could not
retreat without being cut to pieces, rapidly made the best disposition
possible of his men; it was as well to sell their lives dearly. The
Prussians were now the defenders of the mill and the French were the
attacking party. The musketry fire began with unparalleled fury; for
half an hour there was no lull in the storm. Then a deep report was
heard, and a ball carried away a main branch of the old elm. The French
had artillery; a battery, in position just beyond the ditch where
Dominique had concealed himself, commanded the main street of Rocreuse.
The conflict could not last long after that.
Ah! the poor old mill! The cannon-balls raked it from wall to wall.
Half the roof was carried away; two of the walls fell in. But it was on
the side toward the Morelle that the damage was most lamentable. The
ivy, torn from the tottering walls, hung in tatters, débris of every
description floated away upon the bosom of the stream, and through a
great breach Françoise’s chamber was visible, with its little bed, the
snow-white curtains of which were carefully drawn. Two balls struck
the old wheel in quick succession, and it gave one parting groan; the
buckets were carried away down stream, the frame was crushed into a
shapeless mass. It was the soul of the stout old mill parting from the
body.
Then the French came forward to carry the place by storm. There was
a mad hand-to-hand conflict with the bayonet. Under the dull sky the
pretty valley became a huge slaughter-pen; the broad meadows looked on
in horror, with their great isolated trees and their rows of poplars,
dotting them with shade, while to right and left the forest was like
the walls of a tilting-ground enclosing the combatants, and in Nature’s
universal panic the gentle murmur of the springs and watercourses
sounded like sobs and wails.
Françoise had not stirred from the shed where she remained hanging
over Dominique’s body. Father Merlier had met his death from a stray
bullet. Then the French captain, the Prussians being exterminated and
the mill on fire, entered the courtyard at the head of his men. It was
the first success that he had gained since the breaking out of the war,
so, all inflamed with enthusiasm, drawing himself up to the full height
of his lofty stature, he laughed pleasantly, as a handsome cavalier
like him might laugh. Then, perceiving poor idiotic Françoise where she
crouched between the corpses of her father and her intended, among the
smoking ruins of the mill, he saluted her gallantly with his sword, and
shouted:
“Victory! Victory!”