Though it was next to impossible for the soldiers to discover Jean
Oullier in the hiding-place poor Trigaud's herculean strength had made
for him, nevertheless, now that Courte-Joie and his companion were
dead, Jean Oullier had only exchanged the prison into which the Blues
would have thrust him, had he fallen into their hands, for another
prison more terrible, a death more awful than any his captors could
inflict upon him. He was buried alive; and in this deserted region
there was little hope that any human being would hear his cries.
Toward the middle of the night which followed his parting from his two
associates, finding they did not return, he felt certain that some
fatal event had overtaken them; evidently, they were either dead or
prisoners. The mere idea of the position in which he himself was
placed was enough to freeze the blood in the veins of the bravest man;
but Jean Oullier had one of those strongly religious natures which
continue a struggle in faith when the bravest despair. He commended
his soul to God in a short but fervent prayer, and then set to work as
ardently as he had done in the burning ruins of La Pénissière.
Up to this time he had been crouching, bent double, with his chin on
his knees; it was the only position the cramped quarters of the
excavation allowed. He now endeavored to change it, and after many
efforts he succeeded in getting on his knees. Then bracing himself on
his hands and applying his shoulders to the heavy stone, he endeavored
to raise it. But that which was child's play to Trigaud was impossible
to any other man. Jean Oullier could not even shake the enormous mass
which the giant had placed between him and the heavens.
He felt the ground beneath him; it was not earth but rock,--rock to
right, rock to left, above and below him, rock only.
The slab of granite which Trigaud had laid like a monstrous cover on
the stone box, slanted forward and left an open space about four
inches wide between the bed of the rivulet and the imprisoned man,
through which the air could reach him.
It was on this side that Jean Oullier, after fully reconnoitring his
position, decided to apply his efforts.
He broke the point of his knife against the rock and made a chisel of
it. The butt-end of his pistol answered for a hammer, and he set to
work to widen the aperture. He spent twenty-four hours at this labor,
without other sustenance than that contained in his huntsman's
brandy-flask, from which he sipped from time to time some drops of the
strengthening liquor it contained. During those twenty-four hours his
courage and force of will did not desert him for a single instant.
At last, on the evening of the second day, he succeeded in passing his
head through the aperture he had cut in the base of his prison; before
long his shoulders could follow his head; and then, clasping the rock
and making a vigorous effort, he drew out the rest of his body.
It was indeed high time that he did so; his strength was exhausted. He
rose to his knees, then to his feet, and attempted to walk. But his
injured ankle had swelled to such a frightful extent during the
thirty-six hours he had spent in that horribly constrained position
that at the first step he took all the nerves of his body quivered as
if they were wrung. He uttered a cry and fell gasping on the heather,
mastered at last by the terrible pain.
Night was coming on. Listen as he might, Jean Oullier could hear no
sound. The thought came to him that this night, now beginning to wrap
the world in its shadows, would be his last. Again he commended his
soul to God, praying him to watch over the two children he had loved
so well, and who, but for him, would long ago have been orphaned
through their father's indifference. Then, determined to neglect no
chances, he dragged himself by his hands, or rather crept, in the
direction where the sun had set, which he knew to be that of the
nearest dwellings.
He had gone in this way nearly a mile when he reached a little hill,
whence he could see the lights in a few lonely houses scattered on the
moor. Each of them was to him a pharos, beckoning to life and safety;
but, in spite of all his courage, his strength now deserted him and he
could do no more. It was sixty hours since he had eaten anything. The
stumps of the brambles and the gorse, cut down in the haying season
and sharpened by the scythe, had torn his hands and chest, and loss of
blood from these wounds still further weakened him.
He allowed himself to roll into a ditch by the wayside; determined to
go no farther, but to die there. Intense thirst possessed him, and he
drank a little water which was stagnant in the ditch. He was so weak
that his hand could scarcely reach his mouth; his head seemed
absolutely empty. From time to time he fancied he heard in his brain a
dull, lugubrious roar, like that of the sea making a breach over a
ship and about to engulf it; a sort of veil seemed to spread before
his eyes, and behind that veil coursed myriads of sparks, which died
away and sparkled again like phosphorescent gleams.
The unfortunate man felt that this was death. He tried to shout, not
caring whether enemies or friends came to his relief; but his voice
died away in his throat, and he scarcely heard himself the hoarse cry
which he managed to emit.
Thus he remained for over an hour, in a dying condition. Then, little
by little, the veil before his eyes thickened and took prismatic
tints; the humming in his brain had strange modulations, and for a
time he lost consciousness of all about him.
But his powerful being could not be annihilated without a further
struggle; the lethargic stillness in which he remained for some time
allowed the heart to regulate its pulses, the blood to circulate less
feverishly. The torpor in which he now lay did not lessen the
acuteness of his senses. Presently he heard a sound which his
huntsman's ear did not mistake for a single instant. A step was coming
across the heather, and that step he knew to be a woman's.
That woman could save him! Torpid as he was, Jean Oullier understood
it. But when he tried to call or make a movement to attract her
attention he was like a man in a trance, who sees the preparations for
his funeral and is unable to arrest them; he perceived with terror
that nothing remained of him but his intelligence, and that his body,
completely paralyzed, refused to obey him. As the hapless being nailed
in his coffin makes frantic efforts to burst the iron barrier which
parts him from the world, so Jean Oullier strained at every spring
which Nature puts at the service of man's will to conquer matter. In
vain.
And yet, the steps were coming nearer; each minute, each second made
them more distinct, more unmistakable to his ear. He fancied that
every pebble they displaced rolled to his heart; his agony from the
multiplicity of his abortive efforts grew intense; his hair rose on
his head; an icy sweat stood on his brow. It was worse and more cruel
than death itself, for death feels nothing.
The woman passed.
Jean Oullier heard the thorns on the briers catch and scrape her dress
as if even they wished to stop her; he saw her shadow lying dark upon
the bushes; then she passed away, and the sound of her steps was lost
in the sighing of the wind among the reeds.
The unfortunate man believed he was doomed; and the moment hope
abandoned him the awful struggle he had fought against himself came to
an end. He recovered calmness and mentally prayed to God, commending
his soul to Him.
This prayer so absorbed him that it was not until he heard the noisy
breathing of a dog, which passed its head through the bushes scenting
an emanation, that he noticed the coming of an animal. He turned, with
an effort, not his head, that was impossible, but his eyes in the
direction of the creature, and there saw a cur gazing at him with
frightened but intelligent eyes.
Catching Jean Oullier's gaze the animal retreated to a little distance
and began to bark. At this instant Jean Oullier fancied that he heard
the woman calling to her dog; but the creature did not choose to leave
its post, continuing to bark. It was a last hope,--a hope that was not
balked.
Tired of calling to her dog, and curious to know what excited it, the
woman retraced her steps. Chance, or Providence, willed that this
woman should be the widow of Pascal Picaut. As she neared the bushes
she saw a man; stooping over him she recognized Jean Oullier.
At first she thought him dead; then she saw his eyes, unnaturally wide
open, fixed upon her. She laid her hand upon the huntsman's heart and
felt it beating; she lifted him to a sitting posture, threw a little
water on his face, and poured a few drops through his clenched teeth.
Then--as if through contact with a living being he recovered contact
with life itself--Jean Oullier felt the enormous weight which lay upon
him lightening; warmth returned to his torpid limbs; he felt its glow
steal softly to each extremity; tears of gratitude welled from his
eyelids and rolled down his sunken cheeks; he caught the woman's hand
and carried it to his lips, wetting it with tears.
She, on her side, was greatly moved. Philippist as she was, the good
woman highly esteemed the old Chouan.
"Well, well," she said, "don't take on so, my Jean Oullier! It is all
natural, what I am doing! I'd do as much for any Christian; and all
the more for you, who are a man after God's own heart!"
"That doesn't prevent--" said Jean Oullier.
He could say no more, his breath failed him.
"Doesn't prevent what?" asked the widow.
Oullier made an effort.
"Doesn't prevent--that I owe you my life," he said.
"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Marianne.
"It is as I say. Without you, I should have died."
"Without my dog, Jean. You see it isn't me, but the good God you have
to thank." Then noticing with horror that he was covered with blood,
"Why, you are wounded!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, no, nothing but scratches. My worst trouble is that I have
dislocated my ankle; and besides, I haven't eaten anything for nearly
three days. It is chiefly weakness that is killing me."
"Good gracious! but see here, I was just carrying dinner to some men
who are getting litter for me on the moor. You shall have their soup."
So saying, the widow put down the basket she was carrying, untied the
four corners of a cloth in which were several porringers full of soup
and bouilli smoking hot. She gave several spoonfuls to Jean Oullier,
who felt his strength returning as every mouthful of the warm and
succulent broth got down into his stomach.
"Ah!" he said; and he breathed noisily.
A smile of satisfaction crossed the grave, sad face of the widow.
"Now," she said, sitting down opposite to him, "what are you going to
do? Of course you know the red-breeches are after you?"
"Alas!" said Jean Oullier; "I have lost all power with my poor leg. It
will be months before I can roam the woods as I must to escape a
prison. What I had better do," he added with a sigh, "is to get to
Maître Jacques; he will give me a corner in some of his burrows, where
I can stay till my leg is well."
"But your master?--and his daughters?"
"The marquis won't go back yet awhile to Souday; and he is right."
"What will he do, then?"
"Probably cross the channel with the young ladies."
"That's a pretty idea of yours, Jean Oullier, to go and live among
that crew of bandits who follow Maître Jacques! Fine care they'll take
of you!"
"They are the only ones who can take me in without being compromised."
"How about me? You forget me, and that isn't nice of you, Jean."
"You?"
"Yes, me!"
"But you forget the ordinance."
"What ordinance?"
"About the penalties incurred by those who harbor Chouans."
"Pooh! my Jean; such orders are not issued for honest folk, but for
scoundrels!"
"Besides, you hate Chouans."
"No; it is only brigands I hate, whichever side they are. They were
brigands who killed my poor Pascal, and on those brigands I'll avenge
his death if I can. But you, Jean Oullier, your cockade, be it white
or tricolor, is that of an honest man, and I'll save you."
"But I can't walk a step."
"That's no matter. Even if you could walk, Jean, I'd be afraid to take
you to my house by daylight,--not that I fear for myself; but ever
since the death of that young man I fear treachery. Get back under
those bushes; hide as best you can; wait till dark, and I'll come
back with a cart and fetch you. Then, to-morrow, I'll go for the
bone-setter at Machecoul; he'll rub his hand over the nerves of your
foot, and in three days you'll run like a rabbit."
"Hang it! I know that would be best, but--"
"Wouldn't you do as much for me?"
"You know, Marianne, I'd go through fire and water for you."
"Then don't say another word. I shall be back after dark."
"Thank you; I accept your offer. You may be very sure you are not
helping an ungrateful man."
"It is not to get your gratitude I am doing it, Jean Oullier; but to
fulfil my duty as an honest woman."
She looked about her.
"What are you looking for?" asked Jean.
"I was thinking if you tried to get farther back among the bushes you
would be safer than in this ditch."
"I think it is impossible," said Oullier, showing his ankle, now
swelled to the size of a man's head, and his torn hands and face.
"Besides, I am not badly off here; you passed close by these bushes
and did not suspect they hid a man."
"Yes, but a dog might pass and smell you out, just as mine did.
Remember, my Jean, the war is over, and the days of denunciation and
vengeance will begin, if they have not already begun."
"Bah!" said Jean Oullier, "we must leave something for the good God to
do."
The widow was no less of a believer than the old Chouan. She gave him
a piece of bread, cut an armful of ferns with which she made him a
bed, and then, after carefully raising the branches of the briers and
brambles about him, and satisfying herself that the eye of no passer
would detect him, she departed, exhorting him to patience.
Jean Oullier settled himself as comfortably as he could, offered a
fervent thanksgiving to the Lord, munched his bread, and presently
went to sleep in that heavy sleep which follows great prostration.
He must have been lying there several hours when the sound of voices
woke him. In the species of somnolence which followed the state of
torpor he had been in, he fancied he heard the name of his young
mistresses; suspicious as all men of his stamp are in the matter of
their affections, he fancied some danger must be threatening either
Bertha or Mary, and the thought was like a lever, which lifted in a
second the torpor of his mind. He rose on his elbow, gently moved the
brambles which made a thick rampart before him, and looked through
them into the road.
It was dark, but not dark enough to prevent him from seeing the
outline of two men who were sitting on a fallen tree on the other side
of the road.
"Why didn't you continue to follow her, as you recognized her?" said
one of them whom, from his strong German accent, Jean Oullier judged
to be a stranger in these regions.
"Ha! damn it!" said the other. "She-wolf as she is, I never thought
her so wily; but she gave me the slip, fool that I was."
"You might have been certain that the one we were after was in that
group of peasant-women, and that Mary de Souday only stayed behind to
meet and detain you."
"As for that, you are right enough; for when I asked that same group
of women where the young girl was they said that she and her companion
had lagged behind and left them on the road."
"What did you do then?"
"Hang it! I put up the pony at an inn, and hid myself at the farther
end of Pirmile and waited for them."
"In vain, I suppose."
"In vain,--for more than two hours."
"They must have taken a cross-road and entered Nantes by the other
bridge."
"Probably."
"It is very unfortunate. Who knows if such a piece of luck will ever
happen to you again? Perhaps you may never find her now."
"Oh, yes. I shall. Let me alone for that."
"How will you do it?"
"Oh!--as my neighbor the Marquis de Souday, or my friend Jean Oullier
would say--'God wants her soul;' and I have at home just the
bloodhound we need for the hunt."
"Bloodhound?"
"Yes, a regular bloodhound. There is something the matter with one of
his front paws, but as soon as that is well I'll put a chain round his
neck and he'll take us straight in the direction we want to go,
without any trouble to us, except taking care he does not pull too
hard on the chain and break it in his hurry to get there."
"Come, stop joking; these are serious matters."
"Joking! what do you take me for? Do you suppose I joke in presence of
the fifty thousand francs you have promised me?--for you really did
say fifty thousand, didn't you?"
"You ought to be sure of it, for you have made me tell you a score of
times."
"I know that; but I am never tired of hearing it, any more than I
shall be tired of fingering the louis when I get them."
"Deliver us the person we want, and you shall have them."
"Bless me! I hear those yellow-boys chinking in my ears,--dzing!
dzing!"
"Meantime, tell me what you mean by a bloodhound."
"Oh! I'd tell you willingly, but--"
"But what?"
"Give and take, you know."
"What do you mean by 'give and take'?"
"Well, as I told you the other day, I wish to oblige the government,
partly because I respect it, and partly because I like to harass the
nobles and all that belong to them--for I hate 'em all. But, all the
same, while obliging the government of my choice, I should be glad to
see the color of its money,--for, don't you see, thus far I have given
it much more than I receive. Besides, how do I know that if the
government lays hold of that person for whom they offer her weight in
gold, how do I know, I say, that they will pay what they promised me,
or rather promised you?"
"You are a fool."
"I should be a fool if I did not say what I am saying to you now. I
like to make myself secure; and if I must speak frankly, I don't see
much security in this affair."
"You run the same risks that I do. I have received from an eminent
person the promise of one hundred thousand francs if I succeed."
"One hundred thousand francs! That's very little to have come so far
to get. Come, own that it is two hundred thousand, and that you give
me a quarter of it; because I am on the spot and don't have to travel
for the money as you do. Two hundred thousand francs! You are pretty
lucky! A good round sum and rings well. So be it, I'll have confidence
in the government; but, let me ask, why should I have it in you? How
can I be sure you won't slip off with the money when the government
pays it? And if you should, where's the court or the judge before whom
I could sue you, I'd like to know?"
"My good sir, political associates must trust each other; faith signs
their contract."
"Is that why they are so wonderfully well kept? Frankly, I'd prefer
another signature."
"Whose?"
"Yours, or that of the minister with whom you are dealing."
"Well, we'll try to satisfy you."
"Hush!"
"What?"
"Don't you hear something?"
"Yes; some one is coming this way. I think I hear the wheels of a
cart."
The two men rose at once, and by the light of the moon, which was then
shining, Jean Oullier, who had not lost a single word of the
conversation, saw their faces. One of the men was a stranger to him;
the other proved to be Courtin,--a fact he knew already by the tones
of the farmer's voice and the mention he had made of Michel and the
"she-wolves."
"Let us go," said the stranger.
"No," replied Courtin; "I've a number of things to say to you. Let us
hide in this bush till the cart has gone by, and then we can finish
our business."
They walked toward the ditch. Jean knew he was lost; but, unwilling to
be caught like a hare on its form, he rose to his knees, and pulled
his knife from his belt. It was blunt, to be sure, but in a hand to
hand struggle could still be of use. He had no other weapon and
supposed the two men to be unarmed. But Courtin, who had seen a man's
form rise in the bush and heard the rustle of the reeds and brambles,
made three steps backward, seized his gun hidden behind the fallen
tree, cocked one barrel, lifted the weapon to his shoulder, and fired.
A stifled cry followed the explosion.
"What have you done?" cried the stranger, who seemed to think
Courtin's action rather too expeditious.
"See! see!" replied Courtin, trembling and very pale; "a man was
watching us."
The stranger went to the bushes and parted the branches.
"Take care! take care!" said Courtin; "if it is a Chouan and he is not
quite dead, he'll attack you."
So saying, Courtin, with his other barrel cocked, held himself ready
to fire at a safe distance.
"It is a peasant," said the stranger, "but I think he is dead."
So saying, he took Jean Oullier by the arm and dragged him out of the
ditch. Courtin, seeing that the man was motionless and apparently
dead, ventured to approach.
"Jean Oullier!" he cried out, recognizing the Vendéan, "Jean Oullier!
My faith! I never expected to kill a man, but since it was to be, it
is a grand thing it was he instead of another. That, I can truly say,
deserves to be called a lucky shot."
"Meantime," said the stranger, "here comes the cart."
"Yes, it is at the top of the hill, for the horse is trotting. Come,
there's no time to lose; we had better be off. Is he really dead?"
"He seems so."
"Very good; forward then."
The stranger dropped Jean Oullier's arm, and the head fell back upon
the ground with the heavy thud of a deadweight.
"Yes, yes, he's dead, sure enough!" said Courtin. Then, not daring to
go nearer, he pointed his finger at the body. "There," said he, "that
secures us our pay better than any signature; that dead body is worth
two hundred thousand francs to us."
"How so?"
"He was the only man who could get that bloodhound I told you about
away from me. I thought he was dead. I was mistaken. Now that I know
it with my own eyes, we are safe. Forward! forward!"
"Yes, for here comes the cart."
The vehicle was now not a hundred steps from the body. The two men
sprang into the bushes and disappeared in the darkness, while the
widow Picaut, who was coming for Jean Oullier, alarmed by the shot,
ran forward to the place where she had left him.