Complete weird tales of.., p.91
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 91
“It’s true,” said Harewood soberly; “the Prussians have cut the Orléans railroad near Athis.”
He handed the journal to Bourke, adding, “there’ll be the devil to pay in the streets to-night. I’ve a mind to stay here and dine at the Café Rouge. What do you say?”
“I told Yolette not to expect us,” replied Bourke, “so it’s all right. Come on!”
They threaded their way through the crowd, crossed the street and traversed the Place Saint Michel, where a jam of omnibuses and cabs, hopelessly mixed, blocked the passage of a battery of artillery. In the black mass, silhouettes of riders, towering in their high saddles, crossed and recrossed the gaslit bridge; here, a horse’s head tossed, sharply outlined; there, the slim shape of a cannon detached itself from the shadowy chaos.
As they pressed on up the hill of the Saint Michel and entered the brightly lighted terrace of the Café Rouge, cuirassiers were passing through the boulevard Saint Germain, sabres, casques and polished armour shining, crimsoned with mirrored reflections from the flaming torches borne by single cavaliers. A trumpeter rode by, a trooper carrying a guidon, staff in stirrup, followed, then, all alone, came a general, sombre face shadowed, gilded sash, chapeau and epaulettes glittering with woven gold. Under his cocked hat his dreamy eyes looked out into the glare undazzled; he saw neither torch nor shadow, nor the steel blades of swords — he, the mystic, the oracle of vagueness, the apostle of the past — this Breton Governor of Paris, General Trochu.
So he passed by with his armoured troop, a remnant of ancient pageantry, a Breton of emblazoned chronicles, silent, vague-eyed, dreaming dreams of chivalry and paradise, and the blessed sainte whose filmy veil was a shield of God for the innocent.
When the last squadron had trampled past and was blotted out in the darkness, Bourke, followed by Harewood, entered the Café Rouge and found seats at a table between a soldier of the National Guard and one of Franchetti’s scouts.
The latter was taunting the National Guardsman with the indiscipline of his battalion; the Guardsman answered sulkily and sawed away at his steak, washing huge mouthfuls down with goblets of red wine.
“You and your Major, eh?” sneered the scout. “Tell me, my friend, since when has a battalion of the National Guard boasted a Major? I leave it to these two gentlemen” — here he turned and nodded at Bourke and Harewood— “I leave it to these gentlemen, if it is possible for a National Guard battalion to have a Major, unless it’s a company of fantoches!”
“Fantoche yourself!” shouted the Guardsman, stung to fury by the taunt; “let me tell you that Major Flourens is Major because he’s accepted the command of three Belleville battalions. If you don’t like it, go up to the ‘Undertakers’ to-night and say so to Buckhurst — and see what happens.”
“Who is Buckhurst?” inquired the scout sarcastically.
The Guardsman swallowed a mouthful of bread, emptied his goblet, smacked his lips, and said: “None of your business.”
Bourke looked at Harewood.
“Buckhurst?” he repeated under his breath.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” muttered Harewood, “if that ruffian is in Paris; the ‘Undertakers’ is just the place for him.”
They ate in silence for a while, preoccupied with this bit of news, news which they knew was well worth cabling to America. Forger, murderer and incendiary, Jack Buckhurst had at last been caught during the draft riots in New York, and, after being clubbed into insensibility, had been locked in the Tombs prison to be dealt with later. The next day the warden reported him dying; the day after he was gone, but not to hell. Where he had gone the authorities tried for a while to find out, until at last the fame of his exploits faded into legendry, and nothing was left of his memory except an occasional line in a newspaper and a faded photograph in the rogues’ gallery.
The scout began again to tease the National Guardsman, asking sneering questions about Belleville and the battalions quartered there, until the Guardsman jumped up in a rage, cursing impartially the whole Latin quarter.
“If you think Belleville is so funny, come up and see: come up and tell us how funny we are!” he shouted; “Henri Rochefort will answer you — Major Flourens will reply to you — Monsieur Buckhurst may have a word to say! What is the Latin quarter, anyway, but a gutter full of cocottes and students and imbecile professors! Don’t tell me! And just wait a bit. The dance is beginning, my friend, and the red flag is a better flag than Badinguet’s tri-coloured horse blanket!”
The café was in an uproar by this time; the scout dashed a glass of red wine into the Guardsman’s face, somebody in the room threw a chair at somebody else, howls and curses mingled with the crash of crockery, until somebody shrieked: “I’m stabbed!” and there was a rush for the door.
Bourke found himself out on the sidewalk, warding off the cuffs and kicks of several enthusiastic citizens who kept shouting: “He’s a Prussian spy! Kill him!” until the hazard of battle brought Harewood to his aid. Together they managed to back out of the crush in good order until darkness enabled them to prudently efface themselves in the rue de Médécine. And it was well they did, for the cry of “Spy” in Paris at that period meant rough usage first and inquiry later — sometimes too late.
“Damnation!” said Harewood, furiously, holding up a tattered sleeve, “I’ve a mind to use my revolver next time, and I’ll do it, too! Idiots! I’ll show them who’s a spy — yes, I will, Cecil!”
“You’d better not,” said Bourke, grimly regarding his own dishevelled attire. “There’s no telling what your Parisians may do in this crisis. Jim, you heard what that rat-faced soldier said about Buckhurst? Of course we’ll cable it — but — what would you think of arresting the fellow and getting the government to hold him for extradition?”
“Government! What government? Not this crazy aggregation in Paris? What’s the use? They won’t do it; they won’t dare touch him if he’s hand in glove with the Belleville gang. Didn’t you hear the soldier couple his name with Rochefort’s and Flourens’? Probably he’s one of the shining lights of their cutthroat club, the Undertakers!”
Bourke looked up suddenly.
“Jim, that’s what we’ll do; we’ll go to Belleville to-night and attend a séance of the Undertakers!”
Harewood nodded uncertainly.
“You remember I have a friend at court there, the Mouse,” he said; “but, as you suggested, it’s possible that he may attempt to cut our throats as an expression of good will.”
Bourke hesitated. He looked sharply at Harewood, undecided, a little curious to know how his comrade would act.
“Do you care to go?” he asked, after a pause. “You needn’t — on my account.”
“Yes, if you are going,” replied Harewood, pleasantly.
“Come ahead, then,” said Bourke, wondering whether Harewood had accepted the risk through recklessness, a reporter’s instinct of rivalry, or an unwillingness to let him take the risk alone.
CHAPTER XI.
THE UNDERTAKERS.
THE REIGN OF Terror inoculated Paris with a virus, the first symptom of which was an eruption of “clubs.” A hundred years later the city was again violently infected; the Third Empire poisoned Paris, and a fresh outbreak of “clubs” followed, aggrevated by the declaration of war in July, 1870. Now that the German armies were closing in on the city, the irresponsible mania for organising clubs increased to such an extent that, in certain quarters of Paris, every street had its club. And, of all the clubs organised to discuss politics or to combat political parties, the grimmest, the most sinister, the most thoroughly revolutionary, was the so-called “Undertakers club” of Belleville.
In the beginning this club had been extremely radical but perfectly sane. It flickered into life with the birth of the Third Empire, blazed like a comet during the fusillades of the boulevards and streets, and finally went out like a greasy candle, leaving a doubtful stench in the city. The flame, however, was relighted when Napoleon III declared war against his “good brother,” King Wilhelm of Prussia; and when that mild-natured and sentimental old monarch left his becabbaged estates to chastise his “bad brother,” Napoleon, the Undertakers stirred in their slumbers.
The resurrection of the Undertakers was accomplished through three circumstances, the Franco-Prussian war, the will of God and Jack Buckhurst.
Where Buckhurst came from, how he came, why he came, no one knew; but in a week he had all Belleville aflame, clamouring for whatever he told it to clamour for. He walked into the Undertakers one evening, demanded an election, got it; demanded the privilege of the tribune, got it; demanded a revision of the constitution, a ballot for new officers, a new watchword, a new policy, and got everything he demanded. Then, with terrible vindictiveness, he turned on the semi-sane minority, crushed it and drove it from the quarter; and, when denounced and accused by Carl Marx from his exile, he defied the International, and was overwhelmingly elected president of the Undertakers.
If the Undertakers had once been radical — even revolutionary — now it was of the “Reds,” reddest. All the worst elements of Belleville entered into its composition, its walls rang with furious denunciations of all existing social order, its motto was “disorder, destruction, death!”
If Buckhurst had not been the devil’s own prophet, if he had not foreseen what was to be, if he had not known as surely as the sun rises that the Commune was coming, coming inexorably after the brief war cloud had blown clear of a humiliated nation, the Undertakers would never have lifted a finger to equip a battalion for the defense of Paris. But Buckhurst saw further; he knew that every new marching battalion from Belleville meant, for him and his, a veteran reserve in time of need. His need would come when the Commune came. So when two organised battalions of the National Guard elected Flourens their commandant, Buckhurst rose in the tribune and called for volunteers to form a third battalion. He knew what he was doing, he crushed opposition and won his point, and the Undertakers fixed a night for the mustering in of their battalion and a reception to “Major” Flourens. All this, of course, was contrary to law, military and civil; there was no such title as major in the National Guard, but the government dared not antagonise Belleville at such a moment.
When Bourke and Harewood entered the hall, nobody apparently paid them the slightest attention. They slipped quietly up stairs to the wooden gallery, found a seat on the steps between two aisles, and looked down at the tumult below. A thick fog of tobacco smoke hung over everything, through which gas jets burned with pale, attenuated, spearlike flames. High on the three seats of the tribune, behind the pulpit-shaped desks, sat three men; on the right, Flourens, young, flushed, handsome, blue eyes dilated and nostrils fairly quivering with impatience, on the left sat Mortier, all body and bandy legs, with the eyes of a lunatic deep set under a high, bald, domelike forehead.
In the middle, Buckhurst sat.
Harewood and Bourke leaned forward, eyes fixed on this incomprehensible international criminal. He sat there, pale eyes set in a paler face, a man of forty, lithe of movement, well proportioned, dainty of hand and foot. There was a hardness about his smoothly shaven face, yet each feature was well nigh perfect — except his eyes. These were so pale in colour that, in the gas flare, they looked almost pearly.
The hall was packed with the Undertakers and their friends, sitting cheek by jowl around hundreds of little iron tables, sloppy with beer dregs and the blue-black lees of cheap wine. Everybody was smoking, cheering, screeching, hammering beer mugs on the round iron tables; women waved wine glasses in the smoke-choked glare; soldiers of the National Guard banged on the floor with bayonets and sword-sheaths. Red flags were draped around the hall alternating with hideous decorations, mostly emblems of death and the undertaker’s profession. In the midst of the uproar, the foul, smoke-reeking atmosphere, and stench of stale beer, half-a-dozen well-fed reporters sat writing at a long table which stood directly in front of the base of the tribune. Their sleek, ruddy faces, their well-groomed persons, silk hats, ivory-handled walking sticks, fat cigars tucked under waxed mustaches, presented a picture at once incongruous and reassuring. Oblivious to the crowd, the stench, the furious fulminations from militant anarchists, denouncing everything, including the Maker of everything, these reporters scribbled away at their pads, sharpened pencils or flicked the ashes from good cigars, under the very noses — in the very faces — of the most irresponsible crowd of ruffians that ever gathered to encourage each other’s criminal instincts.
Mortier began to speak, rising on his crooked legs, his long throat swathed in a red handkerchief. Under the grotesque dome of his bald forehead, his villainous face contracted till the scrubby beard bristled. When he opened the black cavern of his mouth a single tooth broke the monotony of his grinning gums.
He spoke for a long time, his piercing voice splitting the choked atmosphere till the crowd howled again and the dreadful tumult broke back from the echoing rafters into a very hell of sound.
Flourens followed, speaking first earnestly, then with frightful impetuosity. He leaped to the platform before his desk and stretched out his arm. Every movement set the gaslight glittering and shimmering over the gilded arabesques on his uniform. The crowd roared, mad with exultation.
Then Buckhurst rose.
At the first quiet word a hush fell over the hall; his voice was placid, passionless, cool and grateful as summer showers.
“Citizens,” he said, “you have organised your battalion, you have added your voices to the voices of the other two battalions; a legion has been formed; Major Flourens is your leader. The government says that he is not. We differ from the government — we expect to differ more seriously still — when the time comes. At present we can afford to wait. But a time is very near when orders that come from the Palais Bourbon will be countermanded by orders issued from the Hôtel de Ville. The Undertakers need a larger hall — the Hôtel de Ville is not too large.”
Frantic cheering checked him for a moment. Then he resumed:
“For a time it is best that we go to the ramparts, that we fight the Prussians under the tri-colour. This is policy — for the moment. But — policies change; so do flags; so does what is now called patriotism.
“Citizen Mortier has reminded you that universal brotherhood is not compatible with patriotism, that the red flag of revolt is the universal banner of human brotherhood, that there is nobler game for your rifle bullets than the hearts of battle-driven peasants, who, although Prussians, are your brothers and your comrades in arms against the wealth of all the world. It is well to bear this in mind — and wait.
“And now, as you have elected Major Flourens chief of the new legion, and as you have elected me commandant of your battalion, I ask you for the privilege of naming to you two of my fellow-countrymen for election as captains in the third battalion.”
“Name them! Name them!” shouted the crowd.
Bourke leaned over the balcony, clutching Harewood’s arm.
“By heaven!” he whispered, “do you see who he’s going to name?”
Harewood, mute with astonishment, stared down at the platform, where two men had mounted from the crowded floor and now stood facing Buckhurst.
The two men were Speyer and Stauffer.
Amid a whirlwind of applause, their names were presented and accepted. Buckhurst administered the oath. Flourens dramatically returned their salutes; Mortier, his ape-like face stained a dull red with excitement, sat behind his desk, on which lay a pile of red cocardes. His little insane eyes snapped as Speyer and Stauffer marched up to be invested with the badge of anarchy; the crowd howled; drums and bugles crashed out; the meeting was at an end. Suddenly, in the midst of the tumult, Harewood felt that somebody on the swarming floor below was looking straight at him. He turned his head uneasily; Buckhurst’s colourless eyes met his own. For a full minute they gazed silently at each other across that smoke-reeking chaos; the bugle’s ear-splitting racket, the crashing of brazen drums, the echoing howl died away in Harewood’s ears; he only heard a clear, penetrating voice repeating, “Silence, silence, if you please, gentlemen,” and Buckhurst, with his eyes still fixed on him, touched Speyer on the elbow. Stauffer, too, was looking up now; Speyer had turned livid when he saw Harewood.
“Come,” muttered Bourke, “we might as well get out of this,” and he moved toward the stairway, Harewood following.
As they reached the last step and started to push through the crowded doors, a hand fell lightly on Harewood’s shoulder; Buckhurst stood beside him.
The involuntary start that Harewood gave communicated itself to Bourke; he also turned to confront Speyer and Stauffer.
“Gentlemen,” said Buckhurst, speaking in English, “your faces are familiar to me. Captain Speyer tells me that you are reporters. Do you know me?”
“Yes,” said Harewood, sullenly. Buckhurst’s pale eyes stole around to Bourke, then returned directly to Harewood.
“Of course,” he said, placidly, “if you cable anything unpleasant about me I’ll have your throat cut.”
Harewood started on again toward the door, but Speyer jerked him back, saying savagely: “Listen! Do you hear?” and Buckhurst added quietly:
“You’d better listen.”
If Bourke had not gripped Harewood’s arm in time, Speyer’s face would have suffered. With clenched fists Harewood pushed toward him; Buckhurst flung him back, showing his teeth slightly, his face distorted with that ghastly smile that none who had ever seen it could forget.
“If you cable for my extradition,” he said, “I’ll cut your throat as a spy!”
