ADIEU
"How has he died?" asked Debrasques, avoiding those open, glaring orbs
that looked out glassily from the dead man's face, the body lying on
its side, the arms extended, the head turned up so that the eyes
stared down the passage. "How?"
Andrew looked round the small space into which the passage, or vault,
had widened at its end, lifted high his lantern with one hand above
his head, then pointed with his hat which he held in the other--almost
unknowingly, both had doffed their hats in the presence of that thing
at their feet--towards the opening whence the light came from without.
An opening many feet above his head, of about a foot in circumference,
through which the daylight streamed murky and dull.
Then, after a moment's thought, he said:
"There was an exit here--once. Observe, here was an opening, yet now
there is none. Yet, 'tis easy to comprehend. Look at what that light
streams over as it enters--heaps of earth with broken trunks of trees
mixed in them, also great stones. You see--understand?"
"A landslip from above, perhaps?" Debrasques answered, comprehending.
"Ay, 'tis that. Washed down, loosened by winter storm or spring
torrent--riven perhaps by lightning stroke--may be a month ago, may be
years. Who knows? But, of one thing be sure--he," and he glanced down
to his feet, "knew it not when he fled here. May not have visited
these vaults for years--may never have been here before, yet
was aware of this escape and thought to profit by it. Then died of
frenzy--perhaps starvation, too--after learning he was snared."
He advanced towards the immense mass of earth that blocked up the hole
through which the flight should have been made, and flashed his
lantern on it at about a man's--at about De Bois-Vallée's--height from
the ground, and called the other's attention to how the mould was
scored--as though with finger clutches! and scooped away and dug into.
Scratched at and scooped away until the trapped creature had given up
in despair; had, perhaps, fallen fainting at his task.
Next, he went back to where the body lay, and lifted up the hands, the
rings on them sparkling in the lantern's gleam, and showed Debrasques
the nails all earthy, and the top joints of the fingers clogged and
smeared with dirt.
"You see?" he whispered. "You see?"
"Yet, why not return?"
"You forget. The chain was broken. The way back was barred, therefore.
He had no rope as we have."
* * * * * *
The roads part outside Plombières, one going north, one south, one
west. Behind, to the east, is the way across the Vosges.
And here, by the spring which marks their divergence, Andrew Vause and
Valentin Debrasques clasped hands one bright winter morning, a few
days later, and bade farewell to each other for a time.
"God send you health and fair recovery," the former said, as he stood
by his horse's side; "make, too, my service to your mother. When next
I pass through Paris----"
"Our house will be yours. Your home. Remember," and he glanced up at
the other with a wistful look in his eyes, "we are sworn friends:
sworn long ago. You will not let aught that has passed break that?"
"Fear not," Andrew replied. "Even though France and England fly at
each other's throats in days to come--which Heaven forefend!--we must
remember that."
"And," went on Valentin, "you said a night or so ago that you had
failed in--in--what brought you here. Spoke with regret, it seemed, of
that failure. Andrew," and now he laid his hand pleadingly on the
other's arm, "you do not regret? Is the end not best as it is? He is
in his grave--not sent there by your hand--does it not suffice?"
"It must suffice," Andrew replied. "And--Valentin, I am not so
vengeful as to wish now that it could have been otherwise. Perhaps it
is better so. Far better to think in after years, if I live to be old,
that he died without my aid."
"I thank God that you can say so."
He gave his orders to his men who were to accompany him; slowly the
dragoons fell in and set out upon their march; once more they clasped
hands.
"Farewell, dear friend," he said.
"Farewell, my boy," Andrew replied, "yet courage, courage, we must
meet again. Turenne has driven back Montecuculi and all the German
brood; ere I reach him the war will be over. Then I, too, will come to
Paris. Also I will bring you news of Clemence, tell you if she is at
peace in her new home in the abbey. See, lad, your dragoons mount the
hill--after them and away. Adieu--till next we meet."
"Farewell, Andrew, my friend."
"Farewell. God bless and speed you."
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: It is an historical fact.]
THE END
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
PRINTERS