HOW GENERAL RATONEAU MET HIS MATCH
Within and without Les Chouettes the men all listened till those sounds
died away. Then Simon turned to the little group of gendarmes and said:
"Come along, fellows, make a rush for that window. If there are any
Chouan gentlemen here, we must not let them escape."
Then the oldest of the gendarmes, a man well accustomed to hunting this
sort of game, hung back and looked at him queerly.
"There are none--I'll answer for that," he said. "Certainly not Monsieur
Ange de la Marinière, or he would have been out long ago--and none of us
ever felt sure that he was mixed up in Chouannerie--"
"What are you talking about?" cried Simon. "Hold your tongue, and do
your duty. The General ordered us to break into the house and search it.
Why, you know yourself that it is the headquarters of this plot."
"If so, if I hear rightly, the master of it has paid for his Chouannerie
with his life," said the man gravely, still holding back, and watching
Simon with a dogged steadiness. "Our mates have caught the other
gentlemen--they could not fail--and as for me, Monsieur Simon, I don't
feel inclined to take any more orders from that General of yours. To me,
he seems like a madman. There's private malice behind all this. It is
not the sort of justice that suits me--to kill a gentleman and shoot his
servants and burn his house down. I tell you, fellows, I don't like
it--there are limits to what the police ought to do, and we shall find
ourselves in the wrong box, if we go further without the Prefect's
warrant."
"Obey your orders, or you'll pay for it!" shouted Simon. "Come on, men!"
and he ran towards the house.
"Be off, or we fire!" cried a voice from the window above.
"All right, Maître Joubard, don't fire; we know you are a loyal man,"
said the spokesman of the gendarmes. "I am going straight back to
Sonnay, to see what Monsieur le Préfet says to all this. Do you agree?"
he turned to his comrades, who had drawn up behind him, and who
answered, even the man who had been tied to the tree, by a quick murmur
of assent. "Come, Monsieur Simon, I advise you to cast in your lot with
us; you have had too much to do with that madman. Everybody hates him.
They sent him down here because they could not stand him in the army."
As Simon turned his back and walked sulkily away, the gendarme added:
"Come down, some of you, and look for your master. He may be still
alive."
The men in the room above looked at each other. They could not and did
not believe that Monsieur Joseph was dead. To his old servants, it was
one of those shocks too heavy for the brain to bear; the thought stunned
them. Large tears were rolling down old Joubard's cheeks, but his brain
and Martin's were active enough.
"What do you think?" he said to his son. "Are they safe at La
Marinière?"
"I'll wager my wooden leg they are," Martin said cheerfully. "They had a
good start, and that lumbering brute with his big horse would not know
the shortest path. And once with Monsieur Urbain--"
"Ah, poor man! Well, let us go down and look for him, the little uncle.
Ah, Martin, all the pretty girls in the world will take long to comfort
Monsieur Angelot--and as to Mademoiselle Henriette!"
"The gendarme said he might be still alive," said Martin. "See, they are
gone round to him."
"He is dead," said Joubard. "Come, Gigot, you and I must carry him in.
As to you, Tobie, just keep watch on this side with your gun--that
poisonous snake of a Simon is prowling about there. Don't shoot, of
course, but keep him off; don't let him get into the house."
Martin lingered a moment behind his father. "Tobie," he said, "that
Simon has been Monsieur Angelot's enemy all through. I thought I had
finished him with my stick, two or three hours ago, but--"
"I know--I have my master's orders," said Tobie. He smiled, and lifted
his gun to his shoulder.
The sun was rising when they found Monsieur Joseph on his bed of soft
grass and leaves, at the foot of his own old oak just bronzed by the sun
of August and September. Up above the squirrels were playing; they did
not disturb his sleep, though they scampered along the boughs and
squeaked and peeped down curiously. The birds cried and chirped about
him in the opening day; and one long ray of yellow sunshine pierced the
eastern screen of trees, creeping all along up the broad slope where the
autumn crocuses grew, till it laid itself softly and caressingly on the
smiling face turned to meet it once more. The sportsman had gone out for
the last time into his loved fields and woods; and perhaps he would have
chosen to die there, rather than in a curtained room with fresh air and
daylight shut out. No doubt the manner of his death had been terrible;
but the pain was momentary, and he had gone to meet it in his highest
mood, all one flame of indignation against evil, and ready, generous
self-sacrifice. He had died for Angelot, fighting his enemy; he had
carried out his little daughter's words, and the last drop of that good
heart's blood was for Angelot, though indeed his dear boy's enemy was
also the enemy of the cause he loved, to which his life had been given.
No more conspiracies now for the little Royalist gentleman.
They all came and stood about him, Joubard, Martin, Gigot, and the party
of gendarmes. At first they hardly liked to touch him; he lay so
peacefully asleep under the tree, his thin right hand pressed over his
heart, where the sword had wounded him, such a look of perfect content
on the face that death had marked for its own. His sword lay on the
grass beside him, where it had fallen from his dying hand. Martin picked
it up, saying in a low voice, "This will be for Monsieur Angelot."
Sturdy Gigot, choking with sobs, turned upon him fiercely.
"It belongs to mademoiselle."
They lifted Monsieur Joseph--old Joubard at his head, Gigot at his
feet--and carried their light burden down to his house, in at his own
bedroom window. They laid him on his bed in the alcove, and then were
afraid to touch him any more. All the group of strong men stood and
looked at him, Gigot weeping loudly, Joubard silently; even the eyes of
the gendarmes were wet.
"We must have women here," said Joubard.
Turning round, he saw Monsieur Joseph's letter to his brother lying on
the table; he took it up and gave it to Gigot.
"Take this letter to La Marinière," he said, "and tell Monsieur Urbain
what has happened. And you," to the gendarmes, "be off to Sonnay, and
make your report at once to Monsieur le Préfet. I doubt if he will
justify all that is done in his name."
"We will do as you say, Maître Joubard," said the gendarme.
A few minutes later the only one of the General's party left at Les
Chouettes was Simon. He skulked round behind the buildings, but could
not persuade himself to go away. It seemed to him that there was a good
deal of danger in escaping on foot; that the country people, enraged by
Monsieur Joseph's death, delighted, as they probably would be, by
Monsieur Angelot's marriage, would all be his enemies. He was half
terrified by General Ratoneau's desperation. Suppose he had overtaken
Angelot's young bride and her companions! suppose he had swung her up on
his horse and carried her away, forgetting that he was not campaigning
in a foreign country, but living peaceably in France, where the law
protected people from such violent doings. It might be very
inconvenient, in such a case, to appear at Sonnay as a friend and
follower of General Ratoneau. Any credit he still had with the Prefect,
for instance, would be lost for ever. And yet, if he deserted the
General entirely, washed his hands, as far as possible, of him and his
doings, what chance was there of receiving the large sums of money so
grudgingly promised him!
"A hard master, the devil!" Simon muttered to himself.
He peeped cautiously round the corner of the kitchen wall, where the
silver birches had scattered their golden leaves in the wind of the
night. He watched the little band of gendarmes as they started down the
road towards Sonnay. It struck him that his best plan would be to slip
away across the _landes_ towards the Étang des Morts, and to put himself
right with the authorities by helping to capture a few Chouan gentlemen
and conveying them to prison.
But first--how still all the place was! The men were busy, he supposed,
with their dead master. Surely those windows were not so firmly fastened
but that he could make his way in, and perhaps find some evidence to
prove Monsieur Joseph's complicity in the plots of the moment. He walked
lightly across the sand. A dog barked in the house, and Martin Joubard
looked out from an upper window.
All the evil passions of his nature rose in Simon then. That was the man
who knew he had arrested Angelot; that was the man who had knocked him
down in the park and lost him half an hour of valuable time. As Angelot
himself, in some mysterious way, was out of reach, here was this man on
whom he might revenge himself. Both for his own sake and the General's,
this man would be better out of the way; Simon raised his loaded carbine
and fired.
Martin stepped back at the instant, and he missed him. The shot grazed
Tobie's cheek as he knelt inside the room, resting his long gun-barrel
on the low window-sill.
"Ah, Chouan-catcher, your time is come!" muttered Tobie, and his gun
went off almost of itself.
Simon flung up his arms in the air, and dropped upon the sand.
* * * * *
While these things were happening at Les Chouettes, Angelot was hurrying
back from his mission to the Étang des Morts. He was full of wild
happiness, a joy that could not be believed in, till he saw and touched
Hélène again. His heart was as light as the air of that glorious
morning, so keen, clear, and still on the high moorlands as he crossed
them.
He had done all and more than the little uncle expected of him. In the
darkness before dawn, as he rode through the deep lanes beyond La
Joubardière, he had met a friendly peasant who warned him that a party
of police and gendarmes was watching the country a little farther south,
towards the Étang des Morts. He therefore left his horse in a shed, took
to the fields and woods, and intercepted César d'Ombré on his way to the
rendezvous. Explanations were not altogether easy, for César cared
little for the private affairs of young La Marinière. He had never
expected much from the son of Urbain. He took his warning, and gave up
his companionship easily enough. Striking off across country, avoiding
all roads likely to be patrolled by the police, he made his way alone to
Brittany and the coast, while Angelot returned by the way he had come.
For the sake of taking the very shortest cut across the _landes_, he
brought his horse up to La Joubardière and left him there. For no horse
could carry him through the lanes, rocky as they were, at the pace that
he could run and walk across country, and it was only because Uncle
Joseph insisted on it that he had taken a horse at all.
The golden light of sunrise spread over the moor as he ran. He took long
leaps through the heather, and coveys of birds scuttled out of his way;
but their lives were safe that morning, though his eyes followed them
eagerly. Far beyond the purple _landes_, the woods of Lancilly lay
heaped against the western sky, a billowy dark green sea of velvet
touched with the bright gold of autumn and of sunrise; and the château
itself shone out broad in its glittering whiteness. The guests were all
gone now; the music was still; and for Angelot the place was empty, a
mere shell, a pile of stones. Other roofs covered the joy of his life
now.
This shortest cut from La Joubardière did not bring him to Les
Chouettes by the usual road, but by a sharp slope of moorland, all
stones and bushes and no path at all, and then across one or two small
fields into a narrow lane, a bridle-path between high straggling hedges,
one way from Les Chouettes to La Marinière. The poplars by the manor
gate, a shining row, lifted their tall heads, always softly rustling, a
quarter of a mile farther on.
Angelot ran across the fields, jumped a ditch, reached the lane at a
sharp corner, and was turning to the right towards Les Chouettes,
thinking in his joyful gladness that he would be back before even Hélène
expected him, when something struck his ear and brought him to a sudden
stand. It was a woman's scream.
"Help, help!" a voice cried; and then again there was a piteous shriek
of pain or extreme terror.
For one moment Angelot hesitated. Who or what could this be? Some one
was in trouble, some woman, and probably a woman he knew. Or could it be
a child, hurt by some animal? One of the bulls at La Marinière was very
fierce; there had been trouble with him before now. Ah! he must turn his
back on Hélène and see what it meant, this cursed interruption. What
were they doing to let that beast roam about alone? And even as he
turned the shriek tore the air again, and now he could hear a man's
voice, rough and furious, a confusion of voices, the stamping of a
horse, the creaking of harness. No! Bellot the bull was not the
aggressor here.
Angelot loosened his hunting knife as he ran along the lane. It turned
sharply once or twice between its banks, dipping into the hollow, then
climbing again to La Marinière. At its lowest point it touched the elbow
of a stream, winding away under willows to join the river near Lancilly,
and overflowing the lane in winter and stormy weather. Now, however, the
passage was dry, and at that very point a group of figures was
struggling. Angelot had the eyes of a hawk, and at that distance knew
them all.
General Ratoneau was on horseback; his gold lace flashed in the
sunlight. Before him on the horse's neck lay a girl's white figure,
flung across the front of the saddle, struggling, shrieking, held down
by his bridle hand which also clutched her dress, while with the
butt-end of a pistol he threatened Marie Gigot, who screamed for help as
she hung to the horse's head. He, good creature, not being one of the
General's own chargers, but a harmless beast borrowed without leave from
the Lancilly stables, backed from Marie instead of pushing and trampling
her down in obedience to his desperate rider. Little Henriette did her
best by clinging tightly to the white folds of her cousin's gown as they
fell over the horse's shoulder, and was in great danger of being either
pushed down or kicked away by Ratoneau, as soon as he should have
disposed of Marie.
"Let go, woman!" he shouted, with frightful oaths. "Let go, or I'll kill
you! Do you see this pistol? A moment more, and I'll dash your brains
out--send you after your master, do you hear?--Ah, bah! keep still,
beauty!" as Hélène almost struggled away from him. "I don't want to hurt
you, but I will have what is my own. Get away, child, we don't want you.
Morbleau! what's that?"
It was a sound of quick running, and Riette's keen ears had heard it
already. It had, indeed, saved Ratoneau from being shot dead on the
spot, for the child had let go her hold on her cousin's dress with one
hand and had clutched the tiny, beautiful pistol with which her father
had trusted her, and which she had hidden inside her frock. True, she
was shaking with the terrible excitement of the moment, she was nearly
dragged off her feet by the horse's plunging backwards, and a correct
aim seemed almost impossible--but her father had told her to defend
Angelot's wife, and Riette was very sure that this wicked man should not
carry away Hélène, as long as she had life and a weapon to prevent it.
And if she could have understood those words to Marie,--"send you after
your master"--there would have been no hesitation at all.
At the same moment, she and the General turned their heads and looked up
the lane. Something wild and lithe, bright and splendid, came flying
straight down from the east, from the heart of the sunrise. The
swiftness with which Angelot darted upon them was almost supernatural.
He might have been a young god of the Greeks, flashing from heaven to
rescue his earthly love from an earthly ravisher.
Ratoneau was not prepared for such a sudden and fiery onslaught. It was
easy, the work he expected--to tear Hélène from the company of a woman
and child, to carry her off to Sonnay. He considered her his own
property, given to him by the Emperor, stolen from him by her father and
Angelot. It would be easy, he told himself, to have the absurd midnight
ceremony declared illegal; or if not, he would soon find means to put
Angelot out of his way. By fair means or by foul, he meant to have the
girl and to marry her. If his method was that of the ancient
Gauls--well, she would forgive him in time! Women love a hero, however
roughly he may treat them. He thought he had learnt that from
experience; and if Hélène de Sainfoy thought herself too good for him,
she must find her level. The man swore to himself that he loved her, and
would be good to her, when once she was his own. As he lifted her on the
horse he knew he loved her with all the violent instincts of a coarse
and unrestrained nature.
And now came vengeance, darting upon him like a bolt from the shining
sky. Before his slower senses even knew what was happening, before,
encumbered with his prey, he could fire a pistol or draw his sword,
Hélène had been snatched from him into Angelot's arms. No leave asked of
Ratoneau; a spring and a clutch; it might have been a tiger leaping at
the horse's neck and carrying off its victim. The girl screamed again
and again, as Angelot set her on the ground, and trembled so that she
could not stand alone. As her lover supported her for an instant, saying
to Marie Gigot, who ran forward from the horse's head, "Take her--take
her home!" Ratoneau fired his pistol straight at the two young heads so
near together. The bullet passed actually between them, touching
Hélène's curls. Then the sturdy peasant woman threw a strong arm round
her, and dragged her away towards La Marinière.
Angelot, with a flushed face and blazing eyes, turned to the General,
who sat and glared in speechless fury. Then the young fellow smiled,
lifted his hat, and set it jauntily on again. He had not drawn his
hunting knife, and stood empty-handed, though this and a pair of pistols
were in his belt.
"And now, Monsieur le Général!" he said, a little breathlessly.
Ratoneau stared at him, struck, even at that moment, by his
extraordinary likeness to his uncle. There was the same easy grace, the
same light gaiety, the same joy in battle and fearless confidence, with
more outward dash and daring. Ah, well! as the other insolent life had
ended, so in a few minutes this should end. It would be easy--a slip of
a boy--it was fortunate indeed, that it happened so.
"Mille tonnerres! you can be buried together!" said Ratoneau.
"Merci, monsieur, I hope so--a hundred years hence," Angelot answered
with a laugh.
"You are mistaken--I am not talking of your wife," growled Ratoneau.
"She will be a widow in ten minutes, and married to me in a month. I
mean that you and your precious uncle can be buried together."
"Indeed! Is my uncle going to die?" Angelot said carelessly; but he
looked at the madman a little more steadily, with the sudden idea that
he was really and literally mad.
"He is dead already. I have killed him," said Ratoneau.
Angelot turned pale, and stepped back a pace, watching him cautiously.
"When? Where? I don't believe it," he said.
"We had a disagreement," said Ratoneau. "It was about you that we
quarrelled, a worthless cause. He chose to take your part, and to insult
me. I ran him through the body."
Saying this, he slowly dismounted and drew his sword. Angelot stood
motionless, looking at him. The words had stunned him; his heart and
brain seemed to be gripped by icy hands, crushing out all sensation.
Henriette, who had not followed the others, came up and stood beside
him, her great dark eyes, full of horror, fixed upon General Ratoneau.
She was motionless and dumb; under the folds of her frock, her fingers
gripped the little pistol. As long as she remained silent, neither of
the men saw that she was there.
"Look!" said Ratoneau. He held out his sword, red and still wet, as he
had thrust it back into the scabbard after killing Monsieur Joseph.
"Give up the girl to me or you follow your uncle," he said, after a
moment's frightful pause.
Henriette came a step nearer, came quite close and looked at the sword.
Every drop of her own blood had forsaken her small face, always delicate
and pale. Suddenly she stretched out her hand and touched the sword,
saying in a low voice, "That was why he did not come back!"
"Oh, good God! Go away, child!" cried Angelot, suddenly waking from his
trance of horror, and pushing her violently back.
Then he drew his knife and sprang furiously upon the General.
"Villain! murderer!" he shouted as he closed with him; for this was no
formal fight with swords.
"Keep off, little devil, or I'll tear you to pieces!" shrieked Ratoneau.
"What! You will have it? Come on then, plague upon you, cursed wild
cat!"
It was an unequal struggle; for Angelot, though strong, was slender and
small, and Ratoneau had height and width of chest, besides great
muscular power. And he hated Angelot with all the intensity of his
violent nature. It was a case in which strength told, and Angelot had
been unwise in trusting to his own. A duel with pistols, as he had no
sword, would have been better for him. Still, at first, his furious
attack brought him some advantage. He wrenched Ratoneau's sword from his
hand and flung it into the stream. Twice he wounded him slightly with
his knife, but Ratoneau, hugging him like a bear, made it difficult to
strike, and the fight became a tremendous wrestling match, in which the
two men struggled and panted and slipped and lurched from side to side,
from the grassy bank to the willows by the water, each vainly trying to
throw the other.
The issue of such a combat could not long be doubtful. Courage and
energy being equal, the taller and heavier man was sure to have the
better of it. Several times Angelot tried to trip his enemy up, but
failed, for his wrestling skill, as well as his strength, was not equal
to Ratoneau's. The General was more successful. A twist of his leg, and
both men were dashed violently down upon the stones, Angelot underneath.
His knife had already dropped from his hand. Ratoneau snatched it up,
and knelt over him, one knee on his chest, one hand on his throat, the
knife in the other. Looking up into the dark, furious eyes bent upon
him, watching the evil smile that broadened round the handsome, cruel
mouth, Angelot felt that his last moment was come. That face leaning
over him was the face of death itself. The little uncle would not be
long alone in the unknown country to which this same hand had sent him.
"How about your pretty wife now, Monsieur Angelot?" the snarling voice
said, and the sharp knife trembled and flashed in the sunshine.
Angelot set his teeth, and closed his eyes that he might not see it.
Ratoneau went on saying something, but he did not hear, for in those few
moments he dreamed a dream. Hélène's face was bending over his, her soft
hair falling upon him, her lips touching his. Was death already over,
and was this Paradise?
He came back to life with a violent start, at the discharge of a pistol
close by; and then the weight on his chest became suddenly unbearable,
and the knife dropped from his enemy's hand, and the cruel face fell
aside, changing into something still more dreadful. In another minute he
had dragged himself out from under Ratoneau's dead body, and staring
wildly round, saw Riette holding a pistol.
"Ah! do not look at me so!" she cried, as she met her cousin's horrified
eyes. "I had to save you! Papa will not be angry."
"He is avenged. You are a heroine, Riette!" he said, and held out his
arms to her; but the child flung away her little weapon which had done
so great a deed, and threw herself upon the ground in a passionate agony
of tears.