Complete weird tales of.., p.223
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 223
“Yes,... come, if you wish.”
She said no more, nor did I. Presently Sylvia appeared with a peasant woman, and the young countess went away, followed by the housekeeper with her keys at her girdle.
I rose and walked to the window; then, nerveless and depressed, I went out into the garden again to smoke a cigar.
The cat had disappeared; I traversed the garden, passed through the side wicket, and found myself on the cliffs. Almost immediately I was aware of a young girl, a child, seated on the rocks, her chin propped on her hands, the sea-wind blowing her curly elf-locks across her cheeks and eyes. A bundle tied in a handkerchief lay beside her; a cat dozed in her lap, its sleek fur stirring in the wind.
“Jacqueline!” I said, gently.
She raised her head; the movement awakened the cat, who stood up in her lap, stretching and yawning vigorously.
“I thought you were to sail from Lorient to-day?”
The cat stopped purring from her knees; the child rose, pushing back her hair from her eyes with both hands.
“Where is Speed?” she asked, drowsily.
“Did you want to see him, Jacqueline?”
“That is why I returned.”
“To see Speed?”
“Parbleu.”
“And you are going to let the others sail without you?”
“Yes.”
“And give up the circus forever, Jacqueline?”
“Y-es.”
“Just because you want to see Speed?”
“Only for that.”
She stood rubbing her eyes with her small fists, as though just awakened.
“Oui,” she said, without emotion, “c’est comme ça, m’sieu. Where the heart is, happiness lies. I left the others at the city gate; I said, ‘Voyons, let us be reasonable, gentlemen. I am happy in your circus; I am happy with Speed; I can be contented without your circus, but I cannot be contented without Speed. Voilà!’... and then I went.”
“You walked back all the way from Lorient?”
“Bien sûr! I have no carriage — I, Jacqueline.” She stretched her slim figure, raised her arms slowly, and yawned. “Pardon,” she murmured, “I have slept in the gorse — badly.”
“Come into the garden,” I said; “we can talk while you rest.”
She thanked me tranquilly, picked up her bundle, and followed me with a slight limp. The cat, tail up, came behind.
The young countess was standing at the window as we approached in solemn single file along the path, and when she caught sight of us she opened the door and stepped out on the tiny porch.
“Why, this is our little Jacqueline,” she said, quickly. “They have taken your father for the conscription, have they not, my child? And now you are homeless!”
“I think so, madame.”
“Then you will stay with me until he returns, won’t you, little one?”
There was a moment’s pause; Jacqueline made a grave gesture. “This is my cat, madame — Ange Pitou.”
The countess stared at the cat, then broke out into the prettiest peal of laughter. “Of course you must bring your cat! My invitation is also for Ange Pitou, you understand.”
“Then we thank you, and permit ourselves to accept, madame,” said Jacqueline. “We are very glad because we are quite hungry, and we have thorns from the gorse in our feet—” She broke off with a joyous little cry: “There is Speed!” And Speed, entering the garden hurriedly, stopped short in his tracks.
The child ran to him and threw both arms around his neck. “Oh, Speed! Speed!” she stammered, over and over again. “I was too lonely; I will do what you wish; I will be instructed in the graces of education — truly I will. I am glad to come back — and I am so tired, Speed. I will never go away from you again.... Oh, Speed, I am contented!... Do you love me?”
“Dearly, little sweetheart,” he said, huskily, trying to steady his voice. “There! Madame the countess is waiting. All will be well now.” He turned, smiling, toward the young countess, and lifted his hat, then stepped back and fixed me with a blank look of dismay, which said perfectly plainly that he had unpleasant news to communicate. The countess, I think, saw that look, too, for she gave me an almost imperceptible nod and took Jacqueline’s hand in hers.
“If there are thorns in your feet we must find them,” she said, sweetly. “Will you come, Jacqueline?”
“Yes, madame,” said the child, with an adoring smile at Speed, who bent and kissed her upturned face as she passed.
They went into the house, the countess holding Jacqueline’s thorn-scratched hand, the cat following, perfectly self-possessed, to the porch, where she halted and sat down, surveying the landscape with dignified indifference.
“Well,” said I, turning to Speed, “what new deviltry is going on in Paradise now?”
“Preparations for train-wrecking, I should say,” he replied, bluntly. “They are tinkering with the trestle. Buckhurst’s ragamuffins have just seized the railroad station at Rose-Sainte-Anne, where the main line crosses, you know, near the ravine at Lammerin. I was sure there was something extraordinary going to happen, so I went down to the river, hailed Jeanne Rolland, the passeuse, and had her ferry me over to Bois-Gilbert. Then I made for the telegraph, gave the operator ten francs to let me work the keys, and called up the arsenal at Lorient. But it was no use, Scarlett, the governor of Lorient can’t spare a soldier — not a single gendarme. It seems that Uhlans have been signalled north of Quimper, and Lorient is frantic, and the garrison is preparing to stand siege.”
“You mean,” I said, indignantly, “that they’re not going to try to catch Buckhurst and Mornac?”
“That’s what I mean; they’re scared as rabbits over these rumors of Uhlans in the west and north.”
“Well,” said I, disgusted, “it appears to me that Buckhurst is going to get off scot-free this time — and Mornac, too! Did you know that Mornac was here?”
“Know it? I saw him an hour ago, marshalling a new company of malcontents in the square — a bad lot, Scarlett — deserters from Chanzy’s army, from Bourbaki, from Garibaldi — a hundred or more line soldiers, dragoons without horses, francs-tireurs, Garibaldians, even a Turco, from Heaven knows where — bad soldiers who disgrace France — marauders, cowardly, skulking mobiles — a sweet lot, Scarlett, to be let loose in Madame de Vassart’s vicinity.”
“I think so, too,” I said, seriously.
“And I earnestly agree with you,” muttered Speed. “That’s all I have to report, except that your friend, Robert the Lizard, is out yonder flat on his belly under a gorse-bush, and he wants to see you.”
“The Lizard!” I exclaimed. “Come on, Speed. Where is he?”
“Yonder, clothed in somebody’s line uniform. He’s one of them. Scarlett, do you trust him? He has a rifle.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, impatiently. “Come on, man! It’s all right; the fellow is watching Buckhurst for me.” And I gave Speed a nervous push toward the moors. We started, Speed ostentatiously placing his revolver in his side-pocket so that he could shoot through his coat if necessary. I walked beside him, closely scanning the stretch of open moor for a sign of life, knowing all the while that it is easier to catch moon-beams in a net than to find a poacher in the bracken. But Speed had marked him down as he might mark a squatting quail, and suddenly we flushed him, rifle clapped to his shoulder.
“None of that, my friend,” growled Speed; but the poacher at sight of me had already lowered the weapon.
I greeted him frankly, offering my hand; he took it, then his hard fist fell away and he touched his cap.
“I have done what you wanted,” he said, sullenly. “I have the company’s rolls — here they are.” He dragged from his baggy trousers pockets a mass of filthy papers, closely covered with smeared writing. “Here is the money, too,” he said, fishing in the other pocket; and, to my astonishment, he produced a flattened, soiled mass of bank-notes. “Count it,” he added, calmly.
“What money is that?” I asked, taking it reluctantly.
“Didn’t you warn me to get that box — the steel box that Tric-Trac sat down on when he saw me?”
“Is that money from the box?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, m’sieu. I could not bring the box, and there had been enough blood shed over it already. Besides, when Buckhurst broke it open there was only a bit of iron for the scrap-heap left.”
I touched Speed’s arm to call his attention; the poacher shrugged his shoulders and continued: “Tric-Trac made no ceremony with me; he told me that he and Buckhurst had settled this Dr. Delmont, and the other — the professor — Tavernier.”
“Murdered them?” muttered Speed.
“Dame! — the coup du Père François is murder, I suppose.”
Speed turned to me. “That’s the argot for strangling,” he said, grimly.
“Go on,” I motioned to the poacher. “How did you get the money?”
“Oh, pour ça — in my turn I turned sonneur,” he replied, with a savage smile.
A sonneur, in thieves’ slang, is a creature of the footpad type who, tripping his victim flat, seizes him by the shoulders and beats his head against the pavement until he renders him unconscious — if he doesn’t kill him.
“It was pay-day,” continued the Lizard. “Buckhurst opened the box and I heard him — he hammered it open with a cold chisel. I was standing guard on the forest’s edge; I crept back, hearing the hammering and the little bell ringing the Angelus of Tric-Trac. It was close to dusk; by the time he got into the box it was dark in the woods, and it was easy to jump on his back and strike — not very hard, m’sieu — but, I tell you, Buckhurst lay for two days with eyes like a sick owl’s! He knew one of his own men had done it. He never said a word, but I know he thinks it was Tric-Trac.... And when he is ready — bon soir, Tric-Trac!”
He drew his right hand across his corded throat with a horridly suggestive motion. Speed watched him narrowly.
I asked the poacher why Buckhurst had come to Paradise, and why his banditti had seized the railroad at Rose-Sainte-Anne. 336
“Ah,” cried the Lizard, with a ferocious leer, “that is the kernel under the limpet’s tent! And I have uncovered it — I, Robert Garenne, bon sang de Jésu!”
He stretched out his powerful arm toward the sea. “Where is that cruiser, m’sieu? Gone? Yes, but who sent her off? Buckhurst, with his new signal-book! Where? In chase of a sea-swallow, or a frigate (bird). Who knows? Listen, messieurs! We are to wreck the train for Brest to-night. Do you comprehend?”
“Where?” I asked, quietly.
“Just where the trestle at Lammerin crosses the ravine below the house of Josephine Tanguy.”
Speed looked around at me. “It’s the treasure-train from Lorient. They’re probably sending the crown diamonds back to Brest in view of the Uhlans being seen near Quimper.”
“On a false order?”
“I believe so. I believe that Buckhurst sent the cruiser to Brest, and now he’s started the treasure-trains back to Brest in a panic.”
“That is the truth,” said the Lizard; “Tric-Trac told me. They have the code-book of Mornac.” His eyes began to light up with that terrible anger as the name of his blood enemy fell from his lips; his nose twitched; his upper lip wrinkled into a snarl.
I thought quietly for a moment, then asked the poacher whether there was a guard at the semaphore of Saint-Yssel.
“Yes, the soldier Rolland, who says he understands the telegraph — a sot from Morlaix.” He hesitated and looked across the open moor toward Paradise. “I must go,” he muttered; “I am on guard yonder.”
I offered him my hand again; he took it, looking me sincerely in the eyes.
“Let your private wrongs wait a little longer,” I said. “I think we can catch Buckhurst and Mornac alive. Do you promise?”
“Y-es,” he replied.
“Strike, then, like a Breton!”
We struck palms heavily. Then he turned to Speed and motioned him to retire.
Speed walked slowly toward a half-buried bowlder and sat down out of ear-shot.
“For your sake,” said the poacher, clutching my hand in a tightening grip— “for your sake I have let Mornac go — let him pass me at arm’s-length, and did not strike. You have dealt openly by me — and justly. No man can say I betrayed friendship. But I swear to you that if you miss him this time, I shall not miss — I, Robert the Lizard!”
“You mean to kill Mornac?” I asked.
His eyes blazed.
“Ami,” he said, “I once spoke of ‘a little red deer,’ and you half understood me, for you are wise in strange ways, as I am.”
“I remember,” I said.
His strong fingers closed tighter on my hand. “Woman — or doe — it’s all one now; and I am out of prison — the prison he sent me to! Do you understand that he wronged me — me, the soldier Garenne, in garrison at Vincennes; he, the officer, the aristocrat?”
He choked, crushing my hand in a spasmodic grip. “Ami, the little red deer was beautiful — to me. He took her — the doe — a silly maid of Paradise — and I was in irons, m’sieu, for three years.”
He glared at vacancy, tears falling from his staring eyes.
“Your wife?” I asked, quietly.
“Yes, ami.”
He dropped my numbed fingers and rubbed his eyes with the back of his big hand. 338
“Then Jacqueline is not your little daughter?” I asked, gravely.
“Hers — not mine. That has been the most terrible of all for me — since she died — died so young, too, m’sieu — and all alone — in Paris. If he had not done that — if he had been kind to her. And she was only a child, ami, yet he left her.”
All the ferocity in his eyes was gone; he raised a vacant, grief-lined visage to meet mine, and stood stupidly, heavy hands hanging.
Then, shoulders sloping, he shambled off into the thicket, trailing his battered rifle.
When he was very far away I motioned to Speed.
“I think,” said I, “that we had better try to do something at the semaphore if we are going to stop that train in time.”
* * *
XX
THE SEMAPHORE
THE TELEGRAPH STATION at the semaphore was a little, square, stone hut, roofed with slate, perched high on the cliffs. A sun-scorched, wooden signal-tower rose in front of it; behind it a line of telegraph poles stretched away into perspective across the moors. Beyond the horizon somewhere lay the war-port of Lorient, with its arsenal, armed redoubts, and heavy bastions; beyond that was war.
While we plodded on, hip deep, through gorse and thorn and heath, we cautiously watched a spot of red moving to and fro in front of the station; and as we drew nearer we could see the sentry very distinctly, rifle slung muzzle down, slouching his beat in the sunshine.
He was a slovenly specimen, doubtless a deserter from one of the three provincial armies now forming for the hopeless dash at Belfort and the German eastern communications.
When Speed and I emerged from the golden gorse into plain view the sentinel stopped in his tracks, shoved his big, red hands into his trousers pockets, and regarded us sulkily.
“What are you going to do with this gentleman?” whispered Speed.
“Reason with him, first,” I said; “a louis is worth a dozen kicks.” 340
The soldier left his post as we started toward him, and advanced, blinking in the strong sunshine, meeting us half-way.
“Now, bourgeois,” he said, shaking his unkempt head, “this won’t do, you know. Orders are to keep off. And,” he added, in a bantering tone, “I’m here to enforce them. Allons! En route, mes amis!”
“Are you the soldier Rolland?” I asked.
He admitted that he was with prompt profanity, adding that if we didn’t like his name we had only to tell him so and he would arrange the matter.
I told him that we approved not only his name but his personal appearance; indeed, so great was our admiration for him that we had come clear across the Saint-Yssel moor expressly to pay our compliments to him in the shape of a hundred-franc note. I drew it from the soiled roll the Lizard had intrusted to me, and displayed it for the sentinel’s inspection.
“Is that for me?” he demanded, unconvinced, plainly suspicious of being ridiculed.
“Under certain conditions,” I said, “these five louis are for you.”
The soldier winked. “I know what you want; you want to go in yonder and use the telegraph. What the devil,” he burst out, “do all you bourgeois want with that telegraph in there?”
“Has anybody else asked to use it?” I inquired, disturbed.
“Anybody else?” he mimicked. “Well, I think so; there’s somebody in there now — here, give your hundred francs or I tell you nothing, you understand!”
I handed him the soiled note. He scanned it with the inborn distrust of the true malefactor, turned it over and over, and finally, pronouncing it “en règle,” shoved it cheerfully into the lining of his red forage ca
“A hundred more if you answer my questions truthfully,” I said, amiably.
“‘Cré cochon!” he blurted out; “fire at will, comrade! I’ll sell you the whole cursed semaphore for a hundred more! What can I do for you, captain?”
“Who is in that hut?”
“A lady — she comes often — she gives ten francs each time. Zut! — what is ten francs when a gentleman gives a hundred! She pays me for my complaisance — bon! Place aux dames! You pay me better — bon! I’m yours, gentlemen. War is war, but money pulls the trigger!”
The miserable creature cocked his forage-cap with a toothless smirk and twisted his scant mustache.
“Who is this lady who pays you ten francs?” I asked.
“I do not know her name — but,” he added, with an offensive leer, “she’s worth looking over by gentlemen like you. Do you want to see her? She’s in there click-clicking away on the key with her pretty little fingers — bon sang! A morsel for a king, gentlemen.”
