SHOWS THAT A MAN WITH FIFTY THOUSAND FRANCS
ABOUT HIM MAY BE MUCH EMBARRASSED.
As soon as Maître Courtin had crossed the bridge leading from the
castle he began to run like a madman; terror lent him wings. He did
not ask himself whither his steps led him; he fled to flee. If his
strength had equalled his fear he would have put the world between
himself and the threats of the Vendéan,--threats he continued to hear
resounding in his ears like a funeral knell.
But after he had done about a couple of miles across country in the
direction of Machecoul, exhausted, breathless, choked by the rapidity
of his flight, he fell rather than seated himself on the bank of a
ditch, where he came to his senses and began to reflect on what he had
better do. His first idea was to go at once to his own house; but that
idea he almost immediately abandoned. In the country, no matter what
effort the authorities might make to protect the mayor of La Logerie,
Jean Oullier--with his relations to the country-people and his perfect
knowledge of roads, forests, and gorse moors, seconded by the sympathy
that the whole community felt for him, and by the hatred they felt for
Courtin--was all-powerful, and the game would be wholly on his side.
In Nantes alone could the farmer find refuge,--Nantes, where an able
and numerous police would protect his life until such time as they
could arrest Jean Oullier,--a result Courtin hoped to reach very soon
by the information he was able to give as to the usual hiding-places
of the insurrectionists.
As he sat there thinking these things his hand went to his belt to
lift it; the weight of the mass of gold he carried hurt him, and had
contributed not a little to the breathless fatigue of his hard run.
That gesture decided his fate.
Surely he should find Monsieur Hyacinthe in Nantes. The thought of
receiving from his associate, if their plot had succeeded (and this he
did not doubt), an equal sum to that he carried, filled Courtin's
heart with a joy that put him far above the tribulations he had lately
undergone. He did not hesitate another moment, but turned at once in
the direction of the town.
He resolved on getting there as the crow flies, across country. On the
road he risked being watched; chance alone could put Jean Oullier on
his traces if he kept to the plain. But his imagination, heated by the
terrible vicissitudes of the night, was more powerful than his
common-sense. No matter how carefully he glided beside the hedges,
crouching in the shadows and stifling the sound of his steps, not
daring to enter any field until certain it was deserted, a panic fear
pursued him all the way.
In the trees with their pruned heads, which rose above the hedges, his
fancy saw assassins; in their knotty branches extending above him,
arms and hands with daggers ready to strike him. He stopped, chilled
with fear; his legs refused to carry him farther, as though they were
rooted to the ground; an icy sweat burst from his body; his teeth
chattered convulsively; his shaking fingers clutched his gold, and it
took him a long time to recover from his terror. He could not endure
to continue in the fields, and made for the high-road.
Besides, he reflected that he might meet a vehicle of some kind on its
way to Nantes and obtain a seat in it, which would shorten the way and
also protect him.
After taking about five hundred steps he came out upon the road which
follows for over a mile the shores of the lake of Grand-Lieu, to which
it serves as a species of dike.
Courtin stopped every few minutes to listen; and presently he fancied
he heard the trot of a horse's feet. He flung himself into the reeds
which bordered the road on the lakeside, and crouched there, again
enduring all the agonies of mind which we have just described.
But he now heard oars to his left dipping softly in the water. He
crept through the reeds to look in the direction of the sound, and
saw, in the shadow, a boat gliding slowly past the shore. It was, no
doubt, some fisherman, intending to gather in his nets before
daybreak.
The horse came nearer; the ring of his hoofs on the stones of the road
terrified Courtin; danger was there, there! and he must flee from it.
He whistled softly to attract the attention of the fisherman. The
latter stopped rowing.
"This way! this way!" cried Courtin.
He had scarcely said the words before a vigorous stroke of the oars
sent the boat within four feet of the fugitive.
"Can you put me across the lake and take me as far as
Port-Saint-Martin?" asked Courtin. "I'll pay you a franc for it."
The fisherman, who was wrapped in a sort of pea-jacket, with a hood
which concealed his face, answered only by a nod; but he did better
than reply. Using his boat-hook he drove the wherry in among the
reeds, which bent and quivered under its prow; and just as the horse
whose coming had so terrified Maître Courtin reached the point in the
road he had lately left, the latter, with two springs, gained the boat
and was safely in it.
The fisherman, as though he had shared his passenger's apprehensions,
turned the boat toward the middle of the lake, while Courtin gave a
sigh of relief. At the end of ten minutes the road and the trees that
bordered it seemed merely a line upon the horizon.
Courtin could scarcely contain himself for joy. The boat, which some
fortunate chance had brought to that spot, would enable him to crown
his hopes and fulfil all wishes. Once at Port-Saint-Martin, he had
only a three-mile walk to Nantes over a road frequented at every hour
of the day or night; and once in Nantes he was safe.
Courtin's joy was so great that, in spite of himself, and as an effect
of the reaction of his terror, he felt impelled to some outward
manifestation of it. Sitting in the stern of the boat, he looked
excitedly at the fisherman, as the latter bent to his oars and put at
every stroke a stretch of water between him and danger. Those strokes,
he counted them aloud; then he laughed a hollow laugh, fingered his
belt, and made the gold slip forward and back inside it. This was not
mere joy--it was intoxication.
Presently, however, he began to think the fisherman had gone far
enough from the shore, and that it was high time to turn the boat's
head to Port-Saint-Martin, which they were now leaving behind them on
their right. He waited a few minutes, thinking it might be a
man[oe]uvre of the fisherman's to catch some current of which he would
take advantage. But still the fisherman rowed on and on towards the
middle of the lake.
"Hey, _gars_," cried the farmer at last, "you can't have heard me
rightly; you are making for Port-Saint-Père, and I told you
Port-Saint-Martin. Go the way I told you, and you'll earn your money
sooner!"
The fisherman was silent.
"Did you hear me? What are you about?" cried Courtin, impatiently.
"Port-Saint-Martin, I say! Go to your right! It is very well not to
keep too near the shore, out of reach of balls in these queer times;
but I wish you to go in that direction if you please."
The boatman appeared not to hear him.
"Ah, _ça!_ are you deaf?" exclaimed the farmer, beginning to get
angry.
The fisherman replied only by a vigorous stroke of his oars, which
sent the boat flying several paces farther out on the surface of the
lake.
Courtin, beside himself, sprang to the bow, knocked off the hood which
in the darkness concealed the fisherman's head, put his own face close
to the man's face, and then, with a stifled cry, fell on his knees at
the bottom of the boat.
The man let go his oars, but did not rise.
"God has spoken, Maître Courtin," he said; "His judgment is against
you! I was not seeking you, but He sends you to me; I had forgotten
you for a time, and He puts you in my way. God wills that you shall
die, Maître Courtin."
"No, no, no! you won't kill me, Jean Oullier!" cried the wretched man,
falling back into all his terrors.
"I will kill you as surely as those stars which are in the sky were
placed there by God's hand. Therefore, if you have a soul, think of
it; repent, and pray that your doom may not be too severe."
"Oh, you cannot do it, you will not do it, Jean Oullier! Think that
you are killing a child of the good God, whose name you speak! Oh, not
to tread the earth again, which is so beautiful in the sunlight! to
sleep in an icy bed away forever from those I love! Oh, no, no, no! it
is impossible!"
"If you were a father, if you had wife, mother, or sister expecting
your return, your words might touch me; but no! useless among men, you
have lived only to use them, and to return them evil for good. You
blaspheme even now in lying, for you love no one. No one has ever
loved you on this earth, and my knife will wound no heart but your own
in killing you. Maître Courtin, you are now to appear before your
Judge; once more, I say, commend your soul to Him."
"Can a few short moments suffice for that? A guilty man like me needs
time, needs years of repentance to equal his crimes. You who are so
pious, Jean Oullier, you will surely leave me time to sorrow for my
sins."
"No; life would only enable you to commit others. Death is expiation;
you fear it. Put your fears and your anguish at the feet of the Lord,
and He will receive you in His mercy. Maître Courtin, time is passing,
and as true as God is there above those stars, in ten minutes you will
be before Him!"
"Ten minutes, my God! ten minutes! Oh, pity! pity! mercy!"
"The time you employ in useless prayers is lost to your soul; think of
that, Maître Courtin, think of that!"
Courtin did not answer; his hand had touched an oar, and a gleam of
hope came into his mind. He gently seized it; then rising abruptly, he
aimed a blow at the head of the Vendéan. The latter threw himself to
the right and evaded it; the oar fell on the forward gunwale and was
shivered into a thousand bits, leaving but a fragment in the farmer's
hand.
Quick as lightning Jean Oullier sprang at Courtin's throat. Again the
hapless man fell on his knees. Paralyzed by fear he rolled to the
bottom of the boat; his choking voice could scarcely murmur the cry
for "Mercy! mercy!"
"Ha, the fear of death did awaken a spark of courage in you!" cried
Jean Oullier. "Ha, you found a weapon! Well, so much the better,--so
much the better! Defend yourself, Courtin; and if the weapon you hold
in your hand doesn't suit you, take mine!" continued the old keeper,
flinging his knife at the other's feet.
But Courtin was incapable of seizing it; all movement had become
impossible to him. He stammered a few incoherent words; his whole body
trembled as though he was shaken by an ague; his ears hummed and all
his senses seemed to leave him in his awful dread of death.
"My God!" cried Jean Oullier, pushing the inert mass before him with
his foot, "my God! I cannot put my knife into that dead body."
He looked about him as if in search of something.
Nature was calm; the night silent; the breeze scarcely ruffled the
surface of the lake; the undulation of the water rippled softly
against the sides of the boat; nothing was heard but the cry of the
water-fowl flying eastward, their wings dotting with black the crimson
lines of the dawn as it slowly ascended heavenward.
Jean Oullier turned abruptly to Courtin and shook him by the arm.
"Maître Courtin, I will not kill you without taking my share of the
danger," he said. "Maître Courtin, I will force you to defend
yourself; if not against me, at least against death. Death is coming,
it is here; defend yourself!"
The farmer answered only by a moan. He rolled his haggard eyes about
him, but it was plain he could not distinguish the objects that
surrounded him. Death, terrible, hideous, menacing, effaced all else.
At the same instant Jean Oullier gave a vigorous stamp with his heel
on the bottom of the boat. The rotten planks gave way and the water
entered, boiling and foaming, into the boat.
Courtin was roused by the coldness of the flood as it reached him; he
gave an awful cry,--a cry in which there was nothing human.
"I am lost!" he screamed.
"It is God's judgment!" said Jean Oullier, stretching his arm to
heaven. "Once I did not strike you because you were bound; this time,
my hand spares you again, Maître Courtin. If your good angel wants
you, let him save you; I have not stained my hands with your blood."
Courtin had risen while Jean Oullier said these words, and he moved
hither and thither in the boat, making the water plash about him. Jean
Oullier, calm, impassible, knelt in the bow and prayed.
The water came higher and higher.
"Oh, who will save me? who will save me?" cried Courtin, now livid,
and contemplating with terror the six inches of wood which alone
remained above the surface of the lake.
"God, if it pleases Him! Your life, like mine, is in His hands; let
Him take one or the other--or save, or condemn us both. We are in His
hands; once more, Maître Courtin, I say to you, accept His will."
As Jean Oullier spoke the boat gave a lurch; the water had reached the
level of the gunwale, the skiff whirled once round, sustained itself
for a second on the surface, and then slowly sank beneath the feet of
the two men and buried itself in the depths of the lake with dismal
mutterings.
Courtin was dragged down by the suction of the boat; but he came to
the surface of the water, and his fingers seized the second oar, which
floated near him. This slender bit of light dry wood supported him on
the water long enough for him to make another appeal to Jean Oullier.
The latter did not answer; he was swimming gently in the direction of
the dawn.
"Help! help!" cried the miserable Courtin. "Help me to get ashore,
Jean Oullier, and I will give you all the gold I have upon me!"
"Throw that ill-gotten gold to the bottom of the lake!" said the
Vendéan, seeing the farmer buoyed upon the oar. "That is your one
chance of saving your life; and this advice is the only help I will
give you!"
Courtin put his hand to the belt; but drew it back as though his
fingers were burned by the contact, or as if the Vendéan had commanded
him to rip open his bowels and sacrifice his flesh and blood.
"No, no!" he murmured, "I can save it, and myself too."
He began to swim; but he had neither the skill nor the practice of
Jean Oullier in that exercise. Moreover, the weight of the gold upon
him was too great; at every stroke he went beneath the water, which,
in spite of him, got into his throat. Again he called to Jean, but
Jean Oullier was now a hundred yards away.
In one of these immersions, which lasted longer than the others, he
was seized with a sort of vertigo, and suddenly, with a rapid
movement, he detached the belt. But, before letting his precious gold
drop into the gulf, he resolved to handle it, to feel it for the last
time; he did clasp it, he did feel it with his trembling fingers.
That last contact with the metal he loved decided his fate; he could
not resolve to release his hold of it; he pressed it to his breast,
and made a strong movement with his feet to tread the water; but the
weight of the upper part of his body burdened with the coin threw him
off his balance; he sank. After a few seconds passed under water, he
rose half suffocated, flung a curse to the heaven he saw for the last
time, and then, dragged down by his gold as by a demon, he went to the
bottom.
Jean Oullier, turning at that moment, saw rings upon the surface of
the water,--the last sign given by the mayor of La Logerie of his
existence; the last movement ever made around him in the land of the
living.
The Vendéan raised his eyes to heaven and worshipped God for the
justice of his decrees.
Jean Oullier swam well; but his recent wound and the fatigues and
emotions of this terrible night had exhausted him. When he was only a
hundred strokes from the shore he felt that his strength betrayed his
courage; nevertheless, calm and resolute in this crucial moment as he
had been all his life, he resolved to struggle to the last. On he
swam.
Soon he felt a sort of faintness; his limbs grew numb; he fancied a
thousand pins were pricking and tearing his flesh; his muscles grew
painful; the blood mounted violently to his brain, and a dull,
confused humming, like the roaring of the sea against the rocks,
clamored in his ears; black clouds filled with phosphorescent sparks
danced before his eyes; he thought he was about to die, and yet his
limbs, obedient in their impotence, continued the motion his will
imposed upon them. He still swam.
His eyes closed in spite of himself; his limbs now stiffened entirely;
he gave a last thought to those with whom he had crossed the sea of
life,--to the children, to the wife, to the old man who had brightened
his youth; to the two young girls who had taken the places of those he
loved; he desired that his last prayer, like his last thought, should
be of them.
But at that instant, and in spite of himself, an idea suddenly crossed
his brain. A phantom passed before his eyes; he saw the elder Michel
bathed in his blood, dying on the mossy ground of the forest. Raising
his arm from the water aloft to heaven he cried out:--
"God! if I was mistaken, if it was a crime, forgive me! not in this
world but the next!"
Then, as if that solemn invocation had exhausted its last powers, the
soul seemed to leave the body, which floated inert upon the current at
the moment when the sun, rising above the mountains on the horizon,
gilded with its earliest fires the waters of the lake,--the same
moment when Courtin, sinking to the bottom, rendered his last breath;
the same moment when Petit-Pierre, in Nantes, was driven from her
hiding-place and arrested.
Michel, in charge of the soldiers, was making his way to Nantes.
After marching half an hour along the high-road, the lieutenant who
commanded the little troop came up to his prisoner.
"Monsieur," he said, "you look like a gentleman; I have the honor to
be one myself. It pains me to see you handcuffed. Will you give me
your word of honor not to escape if I release you?"
"Gladly," said Michel; "and I thank you, monsieur, swearing to you
that no matter from what direction succor may come to me, I will not
leave your side without your permission."
After this they continued their way, arm in arm; so that any one who
met them would little have suspected that one was a prisoner.
The night was fine, the sunrise splendid; all the flowers, moist with
dew, sparkled like diamonds; the air was full of sweetest fragrance;
the birds were singing in the branches. This march to Nantes was
really a delightful promenade.
When they reached the extremity of the lake of Grand-Lieu the
lieutenant stopped his prisoner, with whom he had advanced fully half
a mile beyond the escort, and pointing to a black mass, which was
floating on the surface of the water, about fifty feet from the shore,
he asked him what he thought it was.
"It looks like the body of a man," answered Michel.
"Can you swim?"
"A little."
"Ah, if I knew how to swim I'd be in the water now," said the officer,
sighing, and turning as if to call up his men.
Michel waited for nothing more; he ran to the bank, threw off his
clothes, and jumped into the lake. A few instants later he brought to
shore a body he had already recognized as that of Jean Oullier.
During this time the soldiers had come up, and they at once set to
work to revive the drowning man. One of them took out his flask, and
prying open the Vendéan's teeth poured a few drops of brandy into his
mouth.
This revived him. His first glance fell on Michel, who was holding his
head, and such an expression of anguish came upon his face that the
lieutenant noticed and mistook it.
"This is the man who saved you, my friend," he said, pointing to
Michel.
"Saved me! he! his son!" exclaimed Jean Oullier. "Ah! I thank thee,
God, who art wonderful in thy mercy as thou art terrible in thy
justice!"