ON THE ROAD.
He stood once more upon French ground--then fell half fainting on the
wet, shining shingle, struggling to get his breath back, panting and
gasping painfully.
Then came toward him a figure terrible to behold, a creature in the
garb of a woman, a knife at her girdle, her pockets, which were
outside her dress, bulging, and from their openings pieces of gold
lace, a silver-hilted pistol, and other things protruding. But besides
her and the dead bodies lying further inland upon the beach nothing
else was to be seen. The thirty thousand men--some, and most of them,
those rapparees whom Louis had thought good enough to send against
England--some forming part of the regiments of Picardy, Verdelin, Le
Calvados, and others, were not visible, although he could see on the
roofs and turrets of the forts that they were still there and lined
the coast for many miles. Also he saw with dimmed eyes that the
English fleet was moving. It had done its work!
The creature prowling about came nearer, and St. Georges sprang to his
feet and drew from the wet scabbard which had remained by his side
during his swim ashore, his sword.
"Wretch," he said, "put down that knife and come no nearer, or I will
run you through, woman though you seem to be! Begone, vulture!"
The robber of the dead and wounded paused and stared at him; then she
assumed a whining tone, and exclaimed in her northern accent:
"Oh, good gentleman, you mistake. I am no slayer of injured men, but a
comforter thereof. Will you not take a sup of good Nantz to ease you?"
"No, begone! Away. Yet stay. Where is the nearest village where I can
procure food? Answer me, quickly."
"A mile off, good gentleman; there is an auberge there. It is very
good. _I_ keep it."
"You!"
"Yes, I. Yes, an excellent inn. But," with a suspicious glance at him,
"why not go to the fort, good gentleman? The marshal is there and that
king who has been ruined by his own subjects to-day."
"I do not wish to go to the fort. I am not a soldier, but a
sailor--saved from one of the transports. Direct me."
"Ha!" she said, with a grunt. "You are not the first. There are many
like you who do not want to go to the fort. A many poltroons who are
deserting from the army, now defeat has come to France. Are you
deserting too, friend?"
"No. But I have nothing to do with the forts nor the army. Direct me,
I say."
"There is the road," the hag said, pointing to the north across the
sandhills. "Follow that a mile and you will come to my house. But,"
and she came a step nearer, "give me some money, or you will, perhaps,
be followed. The others have given me some. Give me a piece, and I
will be silent."
"Away, wretch!" St. Georges said. "If the soldiers come forth again
you will flee from them, not wait a moment. I do not fear you," and
pushing past her he made toward the road she had indicated, while she
stood there muttering curses after him. Then she returned to her work
of prowling among the dead and dying, and rifling their pockets.
He made his way among those dead and dying, most of whom were wounded
French seamen who had managed to get ashore only to fall down and
expire where they fell, and a few of whom were soldiers on land who
had been struck by the projectiles from the French vessels while
standing gazing at the sea fight. In all, there were lying about the
dunes some hundred men, who were in different states of approaching
death. One thing he noticed as he went on--several wore the colours of
the Picardy Regiment, which he knew well, from having once been
quartered with it. Therefore, he understood why De Roquemaure had been
on board the transport. They had doubtless been shipped ready for the
projected invasion, and these wretched soldiers had been more
fortunate than he in one way--they had at least escaped ashore to die,
instead of being blown to pieces in the explosions of the transports.
He made his way through the sand, stopping once or twice to endeavour
to help some dying wretch whom he came across, and then going on again
when he found his efforts useless; and so he came at last to what he
supposed must be the auberge spoken of by the woman, a miserable
wooden structure with a seat and a bench outside the door.
Two horsemen were drawn up in front of this, and were speaking to some
stragglers standing before them, all of whom St. Georges noticed stood
cap in hand. One, a tall thin man with a hatchet face, dressed in
gray, was questioning them; the other, who sat his horse by his side,
was an elderly man of dark, swarthy features, who was, however,
deathly pale. His eye--a wandering one--lighted on St. Georges's the
instant he approached the front of the inn, and turning away from his
companion he addressed him in good French, which, however, St. Georges
noticed had a strong accent.
"What uniform is yours, sir?" he asked. "I do not know it. And you
seem to have been in the water. Are you one of his Majesty's naval
officers?"
"I am," St. Georges replied, recognising at once the danger he was in.
"And the uniform is that of a transport officer."
"A transport officer!" the other exclaimed, turning round suddenly at
the words--"a transport officer! Have any escaped?"
"I have, at any rate," St. Georges replied.
"You can then give us some information," the first said. "How many
others are there who have also escaped?"
"Very few, I imagine. I myself did so only by swimming ashore. And
even then the transport was blown up ere I had quitted it very long."
"And," asked the second, "have the--English--made many prisoners?"
"A great number, I should suppose."
"God help me!" the dark, pale man exclaimed.
"Louis will do no more. This is our last chance, Melfort."
As he spoke St. Georges knew in whose presence he was--the presence of
the unhappy James. Then, because he knew also that this place was full
of danger to him--some naval officers of the French fleet might by
chance have got ashore as he had done, and might also come here at any
moment--he saluted James, and said he must make his way onward as fast
as possible.
"Where are you going to, sir?" the late King of England asked. "You
will be better in the forts. They will not refuse you succour."
"Doubtless. Yet I must go on. I have to----"
As he spoke his eyes fell on the doorway of the inn, and, brave man
though he was, what he saw there appalled him.
Leaning against the doorpost, regarding him fixedly, were two French
sailors whom he had last seen on board the transport--two sailors who,
as he had leaped on board followed by his own men, had disputed his
entrance, had then been driven back to the larboard side of the ship,
and had hurled themselves into the shoalwater and so escaped.
What was there for him to do? In another moment it was
possible--certain--that they would denounce him, that he would be
seized by the half dozen soldiers standing or sitting about.
He had to make his plans quickly ere these men could speak--already he
could perceive they were about to do so; one touched the other with
his finger and called his attention to him, and looked with an
inquiring glance into his companion's eyes, as though asking if by any
possibility he could be mistaken? He had to act at once. But how?
Then in a moment an inspiration came.
With a cry he wrenched his sword from his sheath and rushed at them,
uttering exclamations that at least he hoped might confuse the others
round and also drown any words of those two men.
"Villains! _Laches!_ Deserters!" he cried, as he flew at them,
striking one with the flat of his sword and, with his elbows and body,
forcing the other into the passage behind. "Villains! You would desert
in the hour of need! Fly the ship, would you!" and other exclamations
in as harsh and loud a tone as possible.
And the ruse succeeded beyond even what he dared to hope. The two
sailors affrighted, perhaps not hearing his words, and only thinking
that the terrible English officer meant to slay them on land, as he
had almost succeeded in doing on their own deck, fled down the passage
roaring; while to add to the hubbub two large dogs, sitting by the
fire of a room opening out of that passage, dashed out barking and
yelping. A woman too came from the kitchen and screamed for help, and
meanwhile the soldiers who had been lounging about rushed in at the
front door. As for James and Melfort, they shrugged their shoulders
and turned their horses away. Such a scene as this, which they but
half understood, had little enough interest for them. An officer
punishing two deserters, as they assumed to be the case, was a trifle
in comparison to the ruin which had fallen forever on their cause that
day.
The sailors fled down the passage yelling "_Au secours! au secours!_"
and "_Sauvez-nous!_" and after them rushed St. Georges, making as much
noise as he could, and so they reached first a yard behind, and then
the _potager_, or herb garden. One man dashed into an outhouse full
of billets of wood and kindlings, and yelled for mercy. "The fight is
over!" he screamed; "spare me, spare me!" and in a moment St. Georges
had shut the door and turned the key--fortunately it was outside--on
him; then he rushed after the other down the sandy path of the garden.
His object was to drive the man on as far as possible away from the
inn, and then desist from the chase and escape himself. Behind the
garden there ran another path that passed up to a copse of stunted,
miserable, wind-blown trees; if he could get into that, he might
succeed in avoiding any pursuit.
So he let the sailor gain on him as he neared this copse, and then
another chance arose before him--an unhoped, undreamed-of chance!
Tethered at the end of the garden, by the reins to the paling, was a
horse belonging possibly to some _bourgeois_ who had ridden in to the
inn from a village inland and had left his horse at the back. A chance
sent by Heaven in its mercy!
Still the sailor ran on swiftly, until, no longer hearing his pursuer
behind him, he dared to look over his shoulder, thinking the chase was
over; what he saw when he so looked caused him to renew his speed,
even to yell with fresh terror.
St. Georges was mounted now, he was urging the horse to its greatest
pace, he would be behind him in a moment. And then it would be death,
dealt from the sword wielded by the terrible Englishman--almost the
man could feel that sword through his back as he ran and the hoofs
clattered behind him!
He stumbled and nearly fell in the white sandy dust, got up again with
a shriek, and then, in a last, frenzied hope, plunged into the copse
which he had now reached. And the awful horseman passed on--could
that dust, the poor wretch wondered, have hidden him from his view?--a
moment or two more and he knew that he was safe. The clatter of the
hoofs on the road grew fainter and fainter; when at last he dared to
peer from the edge of the little wood, the Englishman had disappeared.
For a couple of hours St. Georges urged the poor roadster to its best
speed, then slackened rein as the wayside track reached the bay of
Charenton. He was safe now from any recognition--or rather
exposure--the army of Bellefonds and all who might by chance have got
ashore from the destroyed fleet were far behind.
Yet he had been exposed to risks, too, on that ride. Once, near the
auberge he had fled from, a farmer riding along called to him to stop,
yelling at him to know why he was riding Dubois's horse; but his
presence of mind did not fail him, and he called back: "Ride on and
see! The French are defeated, the English have burned Barfleur and
destroyed La Hogue!" and ere the man, whose terror-stricken face he
long remembered, could speak again, he was far away from him.
Also he more than once passed deserters from the army--men who no
sooner saw another in a uniform riding as though for life, than they
fled away into woods and copses or over fields, imagining that he was
in pursuit of them. And, once, he again come in contact with two
together whose faces he thought he remembered as he leaped on board a
French man-of-war the evening before--men who looked up at him with
startled faces and oaths upon their lips--did they recognise him as he
dashed by them?
But at last he had outdistanced all who might have escaped from La
Hogue; his way lay along a sandy sea-blown road, at the sides of which
were fields of millet, sanfoin, and sometimes, though not often,
wheat. And ahead of him, against the bright May sky, he saw the tower
and two high spire steeples of the ancient cathedral of Sainte Marie
at Bayeux.
He eased his horse at a pool of fresh water, descended from it and
removed the coarse saddle, and, while it drank eagerly, rubbed its
sides and back.
"Good horse!" he said.--"good horse! I have been a hard taskmaster and
a stranger to you to-day. Heaven knows I would not have urged you thus
but for my necessity. And you have served me bravely, all rough bred
as you are. Well, we will not part now, and some day, may be, I can
find out your owner--that Dubois the farmer spoke of--and repay him
for the friend I stole from him."
And he sat down by the animal's side for half an hour, and then,
walking with the reins in his hand and carrying the saddle to ease it,
he followed the road toward Bayeux.
It was the road, too, to Troyes and Aurelie de Roquemaure, the woman
who had to answer to him for the theft of his child, and also for her
duplicity when they had met in Paris!