THE PATH of HONOR
CHAPTER I.
THE TRAP OF SERGEANT DUBOSQ.
Dawn was just breaking as I bade my fat little host at the Beau Visage good-by and, leaving the white streets of Tours behind me, crossed the shallow river and turned my face southward on the pleasant road to Poitiers.
The morning was a perfect one, soft and warm, with the shimmer of sunshine and the stirring of green things over the earth; for spring had come again to our fair land of Touraine, and I sat erect in the saddle, drinking long draughts of the good air, riotously, gloriously happy. For I was young, heart-whole, care-free, and setting forth upon a pilgrimage which would have given my father joy had he been alive to know. Yes, and it was the last morning of my life that I could apply to myself those three adjectives—though I did not suspect it then.
The way was thronged with market-women hastening toward the town, pushing their little carts before them, their sabots clacking merrily upon the hard, clean road, and their tongues clacking more merrily still. They looked up, with smiling countenances under their white caps, to wish me good-morning and God-speed, and more than once I caught a flash of dark eyes in a fresh and rosy face which sent through me a pang of regret that I could not linger.
The broad valley of the river seemed one continued village, so closely were cottages and farmsteads set; but as I pushed forward into the flat country beyond, houses became less frequent, the road grew more and more deserted, and the fields stretched fallow and neglected to left and right as far as the eye could reach. Here and there, indeed, I caught a glimpse of a château veiled by a screen of trees, but the land itself seemed empty of humankind. There were no flocks in the pastures, no peasants in the fields, not a single plow driving a furrow through the waiting soil.
All of which, I told myself, was the bitter fruit of the Revolution. No one would sow when there was small likelihood of reaping; besides, the canaille found it more amusing to jostle about the streets of Paris, to shout for the Nation, and to watch the guillotine at work. Ever since that dusty battalion from Marseilles, with its red bonnets and furious faces, had marched up to Paris, singing its terrifying hymn, others, large and small, had followed, until it seemed that all France was crowding to the capital. When hunger gnawed there was always Citizen Santerre, offering refreshment to every one under certain easy conditions; there was work on the fortifications, or enlistment in the National Guard; and finally of course, food might be stolen, if too difficult to earn. Or as a last resort information against one’s neighbor might be laid before the Committee of Public Safety, and a reward secured.
I thanked God that we of Touraine had not yet been caught in the eddies of that maelstrom. Danton had been too busy at home to cast his eyes in our direction, and if our peasants ran away it was at least without leaving behind them blackened walls and outraged bodies. So we had lived our lives in peace, undisturbed by massacres, by the worship of Reason, or by that grim machine which toiled so ceaselessly upon the Place de la Révolution.
But as I topped a rise in the road, I saw that the instruments of war at least had at last invaded even this peaceful country. Under a tree by the roadside a group of soldiers were sitting, and it needed no second glance to tell me they were Republicans. They were lolling about, talking idly among themselves; only their officer was on his feet, but he was watching the road intently and the instant his eyes met mine he uttered a sharp command. In a breath his men had sprung to arms and deployed across the road.
I was a peaceful traveller, intent on my own business; so telling myself that I had nothing to fear from even the most rabid of Revolutionists, I continued on without hesitating. It could not be for such a small and inoffensive fish as I that a net so elaborate had been spread.
“Halt, citizen!” called the officer, as I came up. “I must ask you to dismount,” he added, looking at me with eyes of extraordinary brilliancy.
“Willingly,” I replied, “if one of your men will hold my horse;” but two of them had him by the bridle before the words were fully uttered.
“Now, citizen,” continued the officer, urbanely, as I sprang from the saddle and faced him, “there are a few questions which I shall have to ask you. But the sun is warm, and to stand is fatiguing, so let us sit down together in the shade of that tree yonder.”
“Very well,” I assented, and followed him to a spot where we were defended not only from the rays of sun but also from the curious ears of the soldiers of the detachment, which still held its position across the road.
My companion paused a moment to look at me before he began his questioning, and gave me in turn the opportunity to examine him. He was a tall, raw-boned man, evidently of enormous strength. His face was roughened by wind and rain and burned to a deep red by the sun. A ferocious mustache shaded mouth and chin, and his eyes gleamed behind their bushy brows like those of a beast in ambush. His hair was streaked with gray, but I judged not so much from age,—for his whole being was instinct with fire and vigor,—as from the appalling scenes in which he had played a part. He embodied for me at that moment the very spirit of the Revolution, irate, implacable, but with a certain rude sense of honor and of justice and a confused belief that its cause was in some way bound up with human rights and human progress.
“Come, citizen,” he began at last, “your name?”
“Jean Tavernay,” I answered, deeming it wise to omit the preposition.
“Your home?”
“Near Beaufort.”
“Your destination?”
“Poitiers.”
“Your business?”
I hesitated.
“A private matter,” I said finally.
He frowned fiercely.
“The Republic has the right to know!” he said, in a formidable voice.
“This is not a thing which in any way concerns the Republic. It concerns only myself.”
“That is for me to judge. Besides, the business of the Republic is that of each of its citizens. Will you answer?”
I have,—I may as well confess at once what the reader must soon discover,—concealed under an exterior the most ordinary, a vein of obstinacy which has often impelled me to deeds the most foolish. It was so now. A hesitancy which had its origin in boyish shyness crystallized suddenly into sullen determination.
“Come,” repeated my questioner even more fiercely, “will you answer?”
“No!” I said bluntly, and nerved myself for what might follow.
Then I began to suspect that this dragon, like that of Rouen, was ferocious only in appearance, for he contented himself with gnawing at his mustache and looking at me darkly.
“How am I to know you are not a ci-devant?” he rasped out at last. “A traitor, a conspirator against the Nation, a scoundrel upon whose head a price has been set?”
“Merely by looking at me, my friend,” I retorted, and smiled at the thought that I, whose whole life had passed peacefully at Beaufort, could be any of those things.
I cannot say that he actually smiled in answer, but his face certainly relaxed.
“When did you leave Beaufort?” he questioned, in a milder tone.
“Yesterday morning.”
“And last night?”
“I spent at Tours.”
“What inn?”
“The Beau Visage.”
“The landlord’s name?”
“Triboulet.”
“His appearance?”
“Short and fat, a red face, eyes like gimlets, and a head as bald as an egg.”
My captor nodded.
“That’s Triboulet,” he said. “A fine fellow.”
“Yes,” I agreed; “and his wife——”
My captor smacked his lips.
“She made you an omelet?”
“The best I ever ate.”
“She is famous for that,” he said, and looked at me again, pulling pensively at his mustache.
“Come, citizen,” he added, and this time he really smiled, “it is evident that you are not the game I am after.”
“I should hope so,” I agreed.
“I am looking for a wolf, not for a mouse.”
“At least I am not a wolf,” I conceded.
“Old Dubosq has seen too much of the world to be mistaken in a matter so clear as this,” he continued, throwing out his chest. “A conspirator? Bah! You don’t know its meaning. You’re too pink and white—too much of the nursery—its odor clings to you! Why, infant, you’ve never before been away from your mother!”
I flushed, and he burst into a roar of laughter as he saw my face.
“A hit!” he cried. “Ah, citizen, would I could blush like that! But for Dubosq that day is past and far away. Come, my friend, all you need is a little knowledge of the world to be a perfect devil with the ladies. Join my troop and let Dubosq finish you, polish you, give you the true air. Come; it shall be my revenge.”
“Your revenge?”
“Against the women. They have made me suffer and have laughed. A month ago I won my promotion, but a petticoat intervened, and the reward which should have been mine passed to another. Some day I will tell you——”
A shout from his men interrupted him.
We sprang to our feet and saw, just topping the rise in the road, another rider. He drew short up at the shout and at sight of the guard barring his passage. Then he wheeled sharp around as though to retreat, but again stopped.
Dubosq chuckled.
“Caught!” he cried.
“But why doesn’t he go back?” I asked.
“Because, my child, there’s another detachment across the road down yonder, as you would have seen had you looked around.” He drew a pistol from his belt and fired it in the air. “That will bring them on,” he added. “Now, citizen, you will see the trap close—the trap of Sergeant Dubosq. Advance, men! Bring him down if he attempts to escape.”
The Blues began to advance slowly, their guns presented.
“Hold your horse, citizen,” said Dubosq, “and wait here for me. I have something more to say to you;” and he set off after his men.
The fugitive looked about him again. He was fairly caught between two fires. In a moment he must surrender, covered by twenty muskets. But he did not wait for that moment. Instead he put his horse at the ditch, leaped it, and made off across the fields.
“Fire!” yelled Dubosq. “Fire!”
A volley of shots rang out, echoed by another from up the road, and my heart rejoiced as I saw the fugitive keep on unharmed. But only for an instant. His horse bounded twice, then staggered and fell headlong.
The Blues gave a yell of triumph, leaped the ditch and started after their quarry, spreading fan-wise so that he could not escape. But he sprang from the saddle even as his horse fell, and ran with surprising speed toward a cluster of trees just ahead. In a moment he had disappeared among them.
I watched until his pursuers reached the grove and plunged into it; then I tied my horse to the tree and resumed my seat beneath its branches, for I was curious to see the end of this encounter. My sympathies were wholly with the fugitive. Whatever his offense, so gallant a dash for liberty deserved to be successful. And yet he could scarcely hope to escape with twenty men at his heels.
Once a chorus of frantic yells came to me from the grove, and I thought for a time that the chase was ended. But the moments passed, and I saw no sign of either the fugitive or his pursuers. Perhaps he had eluded them after all; or perhaps they were pushing across the country after him. In either event it was useless for me to tarry longer; it was time for me to be getting forward if I wished to reach Châtellerault, as I had planned, by nightfall. Only I should have liked to say good-by to Sergeant Dubosq. There was about the man a fascination, an air of deviltry, that pleased me. Perhaps at another time I might even have found myself listening to his words, but now——
“Sit still, monsieur,” said a low voice just behind me; and I started round to find myself looking down the long barrel of a pistol above which gleamed two eyes, blue and cold as steel. “I was moved to shoot you,” he went on evenly, “as the shortest way out; but after all I am not a murderer. I will give you one chance. I must have your horse. Give me your word of honor to sit there quietly, and you are safe; refuse,”—and he made a menacing little motion with his pistol.
There could be no doubting his earnestness. One glance at that resolute countenance convinced me that its owner would not hesitate to carry out his threat. But to lose my horse——
“Come,” he said; “decide quickly. Faith, the choice ought not to be difficult;” and he laughed grimly.
“Take the horse, monsieur,” I said, in a voice trembling with rage and chagrin. “But my hour will come!”
He laughed again, put up his pistol, and came out upon the road.
As I watched him untie my horse, I realized suddenly all that this loss would mean to me, and a blind impulse seized me to rush upon him and run him through. I think I must have yielded to it, in spite of my passed word, had he not seemed to trust it so implicitly. For he even turned his back to me as he bent to adjust the stirrups.
He seemed in no haste—indeed, I was apparently far more excited than he—and I had time to admire the erect figure, the easy carriage, the grace of movement. Dubosq had spoken truly when he had pointed out that no one could mistake me for this finished cavalier. He sprang to the saddle with superb unconcern and paused for a look about him. He was even humming a song.
“Ah, there they come,” he said, and following his eye, I saw Dubosq and his men burst from the grove and come charging across the field. “At last they have discovered how I eluded them! Blockheads! Adieu, monsieur.”
“Till we meet again,” I corrected.
He laughed blithely.
“As you will,” he said, and gathered up the reins. “Whither are you bound?” he added, turning back to me.
“To Poitiers,” I answered.
“Then we may indeed meet again;” and waving his hand to his enemies, who by this time were very near, he set spur to flank and galloped away down the road.
A shower of bullets followed him, but he kept on apparently unhurt, and in a moment more was out of gunshot.
Dubosq came panting up, his men at his heels. He was fairly livid. He stopped for an instant to shake his fist at the cloud of dust far down the road. Then he turned to me.
“Traitor!” he cried, hoarsely. “Aristocrat!” And I saw how the great veins stood out across his forehead. “So you had the effrontery to wait for me!”
“Assuredly,” I replied, as calmly as I could, “since you requested it.”
He glared at me for a moment with bloodshot eyes. Then he turned to his men.
“Secure him!” he said. “We will let him espouse Madame Guillotine.”
And before I could open my lips to protest, my hands were lashed behind me.