"Bring the other forty over at once; we shall need every man here in a
minute."
The soldiers, startled by this night attack, clustered round their
general. Five or six flashes, at rather long distances apart, shone
from the crest of the ravine, and lit up momentarily the dark dome of
the sky. A grenadier fell dead; the horse of a chasseur reared and
fell over on his rider with a ball through his chest.
"Forward! a thousand thunders! forward!" cried the general, "and let's
see if those night-hawks will dare to wait for us."
Putting himself at the head of his men he began to climb the slope of
the ravine with such vigor that, in spite of the darkness which made
the ascension difficult, and in spite of the balls which met them and
brought down two more of his men, the little troop soon scaled the
height. The enemy's fire stopped instantly, and though a few shaking
furze-bushes still showed the recent presence of Chouans, it might be
thought that the earth had opened and swallowed them up.
"Sad war! sad war!" muttered the general. "And now, of course, our
whole expedition is a failure. No matter! better attempt it. Besides,
Souday is on the road to Machecoul, and we can't rest our men short of
Machecoul."
"But we want a guide, general," said the captain.
"Guide! Don't you see that light, a thousand feet off, over there?"
"A light?"
"Damn it, yes!--a light."
"No, I don't, general."
"Well, I see it. That light means a hut; a hut means a peasant; and
whether that peasant be man, woman, or child, he or she shall be made
to guide us through the forest."
Then, in a tone which augured ill for the inhabitant of the hut, the
general gave orders to resume the march, after carefully extending his
line of scouts and guards as far as he dared expose the individual
safety of his men.
The general, followed by his little column, had hardly passed out of
sight beyond the ridge before a man came out of the water, stopped an
instant behind a willow to listen attentively, and then glided from
bush to bush along the shore, with the evident intention of following
the path the troop had taken.
As he grasped a tuft of heather to begin the ascent he heard a
feeble moan at a little distance. Jean Oullier--for of course it was
he--turned instantly in the direction of the moans. The nearer he
approached them, the more distressing they became. The man stooped
down with his hands stretched out and felt them licked with a warm,
soft tongue.
"Pataud! my poor Pataud!" murmured the Vendéan.
It was, indeed, poor Pataud, who had spent the last of his strength in
dragging ashore the goatskin his master had sent him for, on which he
had now lain down to die.
Jean Oullier took the garment from under him, and called him by name.
Pataud gave one long moan, but did not move. Jean Oullier lifted him
in his arms to carry him; but the dog no longer stirred. The Vendéan
felt the hand with which he held him wet with a warm and viscous
fluid. He raised it to his face and smelt the fetid odor of blood. He
tried to open the jaws of the poor creature, but they were clenched.
Pataud had died in saving his master, whom chance had brought back to
him for a last caress.
Had the dog been wounded by a ball aimed by the soldiers at the
goatskin, or was he already wounded when he jumped into the water to
follow Jean Oullier?
The Vendéan leaned to the last opinion. Pataud's
halt beside the river, the feebleness with which he swam,--all induced
Jean Oullier to think that the poor animal had been previously
wounded.
"Well," he said sadly, "to-morrow I'll clear it up, and sorrow to him
who killed you, my poor dog!"
So saying, he laid Pataud's body beneath a shrubby bush, and springing
up the hillside was lost to sight among the gorse.