Sitting in Alencon Barre’s room an hour later, Shorland told him in
substance the result of his conference with Gabrielle, and begged his
consideration for Luke if the worst should happen. Alencon Barre gave
his word as a man of honour that the matter should be sacred to him.
As they sat there, a messenger came from the commandant to say that
the detachment was to start that afternoon for Bompari. Then a note
was handed to Shorland from Governor Rapont offering him a horse and a
native servant if he chose to go with the troops. This was what Shorland
had come for--news and adventure. He did not hesitate, though the shadow
of the twenty-fifth was hanging over him. He felt his helplessness in
the matter, but determined to try to be back in Noumea on that date. Not
that he expected anything definite, but because he had a feeling that
where Gabrielle was on that day he ought to be.
For two days they travelled, the friendship between them growing hourly
closer. It was the swift amalgamation of two kindred natures in the
flame of a perfect sincerity, for even with the dramatic element so
strongly developed in him, the Englishman was downright and true. His
friendship was as tenacious as his head was cool.
On the evening of the third day Shorland noticed that the strap of
his spur was frayed. He told his native servant to attend to it. Next
morning as they were starting he saw that the strap had not been mended
or replaced. His language on the occasion was pointed and confident. The
fact is, he was angry with himself for trusting anything to a servant.
He was not used to such a luxury, and he made up his mind to live for
the rest of the campaign without a servant, as he had done all his life
long.
The two friends rode side by side for miles through the jungle of fern
and palm, and then began to enter a more open but scrubby country. The
scouts could be seen half a mile ahead. Not a sign of natives had been
discovered on the march. More than once Barre had expressed his anxiety
at this. He knew it pointed to concentrated trouble ahead, and, just
as they neared the edge of the free country, he rose in his saddle
and looked around carefully. Shorland imitated his action, and, as he
resumed his seat, he felt his spur-strap break. He leaned back, and drew
up the foot to take off the spur. As he did so, he felt a sudden twitch
at his side, and Barre swayed in his saddle with a spear in the groin.
Shorland caught him and prevented him falling to the ground. A wild cry
rose from the jungle behind and from the clearing ahead, and in a moment
the infuriated French soldiers were in the thick of a hand-to-hand fray
under a rain of spears and clubs. The spear that had struck Barre would
have struck Shorland had he not bent backward when he did. As it was the
weapon had torn a piece of cloth from his coat.
A moment, and the wounded man was lifted to the ground. The surgeon
shook his head in sad negation. Death already blanched the young
officer’s face. Shorland looked into the misty eyes with a sadness
only known to those who can gauge the regard of men who suffer for each
other. Four days ago this gallant young officer had taken risk for him,
had saved him from injury, perhaps death; to-day the spear meant for
him had stricken down this same young officer, never to rise again. The
vicarious sacrifice seemed none the less noble to the Englishman because
it was involuntary and an accident. The only point clear in his mind
was that had he not leant back, Barre would be the whole man and he the
wounded one.
“How goes it, my friend?” said Shorland, bending over him.
Alencon Barre looked up, agony twitching his nostrils and a dry white
line on his lips. “Ah, mon camarade,” he answered huskily, “it is in
action--that is much; it is for France, that is more to me--everything.
They would not let me serve France in Paris, but I die for her in New
Caledonia. I have lived six-and-twenty years. I have loved the world.
Many men have been kind, and once there was a woman--and I shall see her
soon, quite soon. It is strange. The eyes will become blind, and then
they will open, and--ah!” His fingers closed convulsively on those of
Blake Shorland. When the ghastly tremor, the deadly corrosions of the
poisoned spear passed he said: “So--so! It is the end. C’est bien, c’est
bien!”
All round them the fight raged, and French soldiers were repeating
English bravery in the Soudan.
“It is not against a great enemy, but it is good,” said the wounded man
as he heard the conquering cries of a handful of soldiers punishing ten
times their numbers. “You remember Prince Eugene and the assegais?”
“I remember.”
“Our Houses were enemies, but we were friends, he and I. And so, and so,
you see, it is the same for both.”
Again the teeth of the devouring poison fastened on him, and, when it
left him, a grey pallor had settled upon the face.
Blake Shorland said to him gently: “How do you feel about it all?”
As if in gentle protest the head moved slightly. “All’s well, all’s
well,” the low voice said.
A pause, in which the cries of the wounded came through the smoke, and
then the dying man, feeling the approach of another convulsion, said: “A
cigarette, mon ami.”
Blake Shorland put a cigarette between his lips and lighted it.
“And now a little wine,” the fallen soldier added. The surgeon, who had
come again for a moment, nodded and said: “It may help.”
Barre’s native servant brought a bottle of champagne intended to be
drunk after the expected victory, but not in this fashion!
Shorland understood. This brave young soldier of a dispossessed family
wished to show no fear of pain, no lack of outward and physical courage
in the approaching and final shock. He must do something that was
conventional, natural, habitual, that would take his mind from the thing
itself. At heart he was right. The rest was a question of living like a
strong-nerved soldier to the last. The tobacco-smoke curled feebly
from his lips, and was swallowed up in the clouds of powder-smoke
that circled round them. With his head on his native servant’s knee he
watched Shorland uncork the bottle and pour the wine into the surgeon’s
medicine-glass. It was put in his fingers; he sipped it once and then
drank it all. “Again,” he said.
Again it was filled. The cigarette was smoked nearly to the end.
Shorland must unburden his mind of one thought, and he said: “You took
what was meant for me, my friend.”
“Ah, no, no! It was the fortune, we will say the good fortune. C’est
bien!” Then, “The wine, the wine,” he said, and his fingers again
clasped those of Shorland tremblingly. He took the glass in his right
hand and lifted it. “God guard all at home, God keep France!” he said.
He was about to place the glass to his lips, when a tremor seized him,
and the glass fell from his hand. He fell back, his breath quick and
vanishing, his eyes closing, and a faint smile upon his lips. “It is
always the same with France,” he said; “always the same.” And he was
gone.
V
The French had bought their victory dear with the death of Alencon
Barre, their favourite officer. When they turned their backs upon a
quelled insurrection, there was a gap that not even French buoyancy
could fill. On the morning of the twenty-fifth they neared Noumea.
Shorland thought of all that day meant to Luke and Clare. He was
helpless to alter the course of events, to stay a terrible possibility.
“You can never trust a woman of Gabrielle’s stamp,” he said to himself,
as they rode along through valleys of ferns, grenadillas, and limes.
“They have no baseline of duty; they either rend themselves or rend
others, but rend they must, hearts and not garments. Henri Durien knows,
and she knows, and Alencon Barre knew, poor boy! But what Barre knew
is buried with him back there under the palms. Luke and Clare are to be
married to-morrow-God help them! And I can see them in their home, he
standing by the fireplace in his old way--it’s winter there--and looking
down at Clare; and on the other side of the fireplace sits the sister of
the Woman in the Morgue, waiting for the happiest moment in the lives of
these two before her. And when it comes, as she did with the portrait,
as she did with him before, she will set her foot upon his face and
then on Clare’s; only neither Luke nor Clare will live again after that
crucifixion.” Then aloud: “Hello! what’s that?--a messenger riding hard
to meet us! Smoke in the direction of Noumea and sound of firing! What’s
that, doctor? Convicts revolted, made a break at the prison and on the
way to the quarries at the same moment! Of course--seized the time when
the post was weakest, helped by ticket-of-leave-men and led by Henri
Durien, Gaspard, and Gabrielle Rouget. Gabrielle Rouget, eh! And this is
the twenty-fifth! Yes, I will take Barre’s horse, captain, thank you; it
is fresher than mine. Away we go! Egad, they’re at it, doctor! Hear
the rifles!” Answering to the leader’s cry of “Forward, forward!” the
detachment dashed into the streets of this little Paris, which, after
the fashion of its far-away mother, was dipping its hands in Revolution.
Outcast and criminal France were arrayed against military France once
more. A handful of guards in the prison at Ile Nou were bravely holding
in check a ruthless mob of convicts; and a crowd of convicts in
the street keeping back a determined military force. Part of the
newly-arrived reinforcements proceeded to Ile Nou, part moved towards
the barricade. Shorland went to the barricade.
The convicts had the Cafe Voisin in their rear. As the reinforcements
joined the besieging party a cheer arose, and a sally was made upon the
barricade. It was a hail of fire meeting a slighter rain of fire--a cry
of coming victory cutting through a sullen roar of despair. The square
in which the convicts were massed was a trench of blood and bodies;
but they fought on. There was but one hope--to break out, to meet the
soldiers hand to hand and fight for passage to the friendly jungle and
to the sea, where they might trust to that Providence who appears to
help even the wicked sometimes. As Shorland looked upon the scene he
thought of Alencon Barre’s words: “It is always the same with France,
always the same.”
The fight grew fiercer, the soldiers pressed nearer. And now one clear
voice was heard above the din, “Forward, forward, my children!” and some
one sprang upon the outer barricade. It was the plotter of the revolt,
the leader, the manager of the “Underground Railway,” the beloved of the
convicts--Gabrielle Rouget.
The sunlight glorified her flying hair and vivid dress-vivid with the
blood of the fallen. Her arms, her shoulders, her feet were bare; all
that she could spare from her body had gone to bind the wounds of her
desperate comrades. In her hands she held a carbine. As she stood for an
instant unmoving, the firing, as if by magic, ceased. She raised a hand.
“We will have the guillotine in Paris,” she said; “but not the hell of
exile here.”
Then Henri Durien, the convict, sprang up beside her; the man for whom
she had made a life’s sacrifice--for whom she had come to this! His head
was bandaged and clotted with blood; his eyes shone with the fierceness
of an animal at bay. Close after him crowded the handful of his frenzied
compatriots in crime.
Then a rifle-crack was heard, and Henri Durieu fell at the feet of
Gabrielle. The wave on the barricade quivered, and then Gabrielle’s
voice was heard crying, “Avenge him! Free yourselves, my children! Death
is better than prison!”
The wave fell in red turmoil on the breakers. And still Gabrielle stood
alone above the body of Henri Durien; but the carbine was fallen from
her hands. She stood as one awaiting death, her eyes upon the unmoving
form at her feet. The soldiers watched her, but no one fired. Her face
was white; but in the eyes there was a wild triumph. She wanted death
now; but these French soldiers had not the heart to kill her.
When she saw that, she leaned and thrust a hand into the bleeding bosom
of Henri Durien, and holding it aloft cried: “For this blood men must
die.” Stooping again she seized the carbine and levelled it at the
officer in command. Before she could pull the trigger some one fired,
and she fell across the body of her lover. A moment afterwards Shorland
stood beside her. She was shot through the lungs.
He stooped over her. “Gabrielle, Gabrielle!” he said. “Yes, yes,
I know--I saw you. This is the twenty-fifth. He will be married
to-morrow-Luke. I owed it to him to die; I owed it to Henri to die this
way.” She drew the scarred portrait of Luke Freeman from her bosom and
gave it over.
“His eyes made me,” she said. “They haunted me.
“Well, it is all done. I am sorry, ah! Never tell him of this. I go
away--away--with Henri.”
She closed her eyes and was still for a moment; so still that he thought
her dead. But she looked up at him again and said with her last breath:
“I am--the Woman in the Morgue--always--now!”