How long I had been sleeping there I do not know. But suddenly a
curious, though well-known sensation drew me from my slumber--the
sense of a strange presence near me, and of a gaze fixed upon me.
I was lying on one side, with my forehead resting on my bent arm.
Evidently then I could not see; but the emanation of that presence and
the weight of that gaze impressed me at one and the same time, as a
veritable blow striking me on the back of the head. The experience was
not new to me. Often in a sound sleep have I thus divined the approach
of a living being--though never with such intensity as this. I had
the consciousness that the person who was thus powerfully exerting
his influence upon me could be like no other human being I had ever
seen. And I, who at that time--how unutterably distant in the past
it seems!--was a young, a vigorous, a courageous man, instead of
sitting up at once, and facing my visitant, lay there as I was, for
some moments, with my forehead resting on my arm, pretending not to be
awake, and listening, listening.
Through my half-opened eyelids, I could see perhaps a square foot of
earth and moss in the area encircled by my arm. That earth and that
moss were lighted by a pale, trembling, yellowish glow. I understood
that someone was waving a light above my head.
At last I did sit up and with a start, as though I had just awakened.
And I rose to my feet, drawing back a step in bewilderment.
A man was standing before me, a very very aged man; as I remarked from
the long, broad, glistening, snow-white beard that covered his chest
and abdomen. That much I could see in spite of the glare from a dark
lantern which he was holding with the spotlight up-turned into my face.
However, his voice had no huskiness when he addressed me. It was deep
and solemn, but without a sign of trembling or of faintness--on the
contrary, it seemed resonant with virility and vigor. I was somewhat
taken aback, besides, with the curt abruptness with which he questioned
me:
“What are you doing here, Monsieur?”
That was not the greeting I had been expecting; and in view of the
obvious plight I was in, I found it quite discourteous. But the man was
at least three times my age, I judged, and I answered as politely as I
could:
“As you see, Sir, I am off the road and quite lost, I fear.”
He kept the spotlight playing on my features, and I observed that his
two piercing, extraordinarily luminous eyes were studying me critically.
“Lost, eh? And here! How did you get here, Sir? And where were you
going?”
I was now frankly irritated at these irrelevancies; so much so,
indeed, that I failed to note the incongruity of such formal and
correct language in the mouth of what must apparently have been a
charcoal-burner of the mountains.
Drily I exclaimed:
“I came from Toulon by way of Solliès-Pont headed for the battery on
the Grand Cap. I missed the trail somewhere near the Col de la Mort de
Gauthier. There my horse fell and broke his leg; and I got lost trying
to reach the paths up the Cap, cross-country.”
This version of my experiences seemed moderately to satisfy the old
man. He took the light away from my eyes and swept the bushes and rocks
about us with it. It was, in truth, an appallingly wild locality. In my
mad race through the darkness I had reached a jumbled region of rocks
and ravines where my presence might well astonish anybody. But I had
just as good a right to wonder. How should he happen to be there, too?
“And you, Sir, what were you doing away off here?”
He shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the top of an escarpment that
towered on my left.
“I saw you from up there!” he said.
And he fell silent, as did I.
No longer pestered with the glare in my eyes, I could examine my
strange companion at more advantage. He was an old man, no doubt of
that, an extremely old man, as his snow-white beard, his wrinkled,
withered skin, his lean, tenuous hands attested. But he was a
marvellously robust and wiry old fellow. There was no droop to his
shoulders. He held his head erect. His arms were well knit at the
joints and he seemed lithe and agile on his legs. In view of his whole
bearing, which suggested strength, energy, initiative, I gathered that
the cane on which he was leaning he carried not for support but as a
weapon.
I, a soldier in my early thirties, felt helpless in the presence of
that powerful octogenarian. Instinctively my hand went to the automatic
in my hip-pocket, where only one of the eight bullets was dead--the one
that had put poor Siegfried out of his agony. However, I felt ashamed,
almost at once, of such stupid and unreasonable fear of the man. I
again addressed him, and this time with a deferential and somewhat
effusive politeness:
“I have not thanked you, Sir, as yet. Do, please, excuse such rudeness.
I appreciate your generous kindness in going to so much trouble in my
behalf. I am sure you have saved my life by coming to my rescue down
that perilous cliff. Please accept my deepest thanks. I am Captain
André Narcy, of the staff of Vice-Admiral de Fierce ...!”
I stopped, expecting that a name would be volunteered in exchange for
mine. But the old man did not introduce himself, though he did listen
to what I was saying with the closest attention. I began again:
“I was, I am, the bearer of a dispatch to the corporal on guard at
the Grand Cap battery. It was in an effort to execute that mission,
unfortunately still unperformed, that I lost my way, wandered aimlessly
about for a time, and finally lay down here to sleep when I was quite
all in. And now, Sir, might I impose upon your kindness further? Could
you not direct me to the Grand Cap trail, the good one, the one I was
looking for and could not manage to find myself?”
Meanwhile I was studying the old man carefully. There was nothing
unusual about his dress. His clothes were, to a button approximately,
those one might expect to find in such weather on a shepherd, a hunter,
a wood-chopper of those mountain regions; heavy hobnailed shoes and
thick leggings, corduroy trousers and coat, a plain flannel shirt.
But it was just at this point that the contrast between his costume
and the cultivated intonation of his language first impressed me. The
observation caused me another thrill of fear. In my confusion I caught
his reply but indistinctly:
“The good road, Monsieur? In truth, you are on the bad road, the worst
road, I might even say!”