Maître Courtin was not a little excited. As the last of the three persons he had followed from Couéron disappeared into the courtyard a vision danced before his eyes, such as he had seen that night on the moor returning from Aigrefeuille,--a vision that seemed to him the most beautiful of all possible visions: he saw before his dazzled eyes the sparkling of a pyramid of coins, casting their adorable gold reflections into the far, far future.
Only, the pyramid was double the size of the one he had then seen: for his first thought on finding the fish in his net was that he should be a monstrous fool if he let that mysterious man at Aigrefeuille share in the benefits of his catch. He resolved on the spot not to let him know of the discovery, but to go himself straight to the authorities of Nantes and reveal the matter to them. To do him justice, however, it must be said that Maître Courtin did think, in this first flush of his hopes, of his young master, and of the fact that he was about to deprive him of liberty, perhaps of life; but he instantly smothered that sentiment of untimely remorse, and, in order not to let his conscience send forth another such cry, he began to run with all his might toward the Prefecture.
He had hardly gone fifty yards before, just as he turned the corner of the rue du Marché, a man, running from the opposite direction, bolted against him and knocked him to the wall. Courtin gave a cry, not of pain, but amazement, for the man was no other than Monsieur Michel de la Logerie, whom he thought he had left safely behind the green door he had carefully marked with a white cross.
His stupefaction was so great that Michel would certainly have noticed it had he not himself been so preoccupied; but at the moment he was only delighted to see a man he thought to be his friend, and who, as he believed, might now be of use to him.
"Oh, Courtin!" he cried, "tell me, did you come down the rue du Marché?"
"Yes, Monsieur le baron."
"Then you must have met a man running away."
"No, Monsieur le baron."
"Why, yes, you must! It is impossible that you did not see him,--a man who seemed to be on the watch for some one?"
Maître Courtin reddened; but he instantly recovered himself.
"Wait! stop! yes, I did," he said, suddenly resolving to profit by this unexpected chance of averting all suspicion from himself. "There was a man walking in front of me, but I saw him stop at that green door you see down there."
"That's it!" cried Michel, forgetting everything except his desire to discover the man who had followed them. "Courtin, will you give me a proof of your fidelity and devotion? I positively must discover that man. Which way do you think he went?"
"That way," replied Courtin, pointing to the first street his eyes lighted on.
"Come on, then, and follow me."
Michel started to run in the direction Courtin had pointed out; but the latter, as he followed, began to reflect. For an instant he thought of leaving his master to run where he liked, and going himself about the business he was engaged in; but the next instant he thought otherwise and congratulated himself heartily for not following his first idea.
It was evident to his mind that the house had two issues; and as Michel had discovered they were watched, both must have been used to throw the pursuer off the scent. Petit-Pierre had probably gone out as Michel did, by another door. Michel must surely know, by this time, the real retreat where Mary lived with Petit-Pierre; he would therefore stay by Michel, from whom he could undoubtedly obtain the information he wanted; whereas he might lose all by pushing matters too hastily. He therefore resigned himself to the loss of his expected catch and possessed his soul in patience.
He hastened his pace, and rejoined Michel.
"Monsieur le baron," he said, "I must remind you to be cautious. It is getting to be daylight; the streets will soon be full of people, and they will all look at you if you run in this way with your clothes all wet and muddy. If we meet a police-agent he will certainly think it suspicious and arrest you; and what will your mother say then? She has given me so many cautions about you!"
"My mother? why, she thinks me at sea, on my way to England!
"Were you going away?" asked Courtin, with the most innocent air in the world.
"Yes; didn't she tell you so?"
"No, Monsieur de la Logerie," replied the farmer, giving an expression of deep and bitter sadness to his countenance, "no. I see that, in spite of all I have done for you, the baroness distrusts me; and I tell you that cuts me to the heart as a ploughshare cuts into the ground."
"Oh, nonsense! don't trouble about that, my good Courtin; but your change of front has been rather sudden and needs explanation. In fact, when I think of that night you cut the girths of my horse's saddle, I ask myself why you have become so kind and attentive and devoted."
"Oh, hang it, Monsieur Michel! that's easy told. At that time I was fighting for my political opinions; now that all danger of insurrection is over, and I am certain the government I love can't be overthrown, I don't see anything in Chouans and she-wolves but friends of my master; and it makes me sorry to be so little understood."
"Well," said Michel, "I am going to give you a proof that I appreciate your return to better ideas by confiding to you a secret I believe you have already guessed. Courtin, it is probable that the new Baronne de La Logerie will not be the one who, till now, people think it is."
"You mean you won't marry Mademoiselle de Souday?"
"Quite the contrary; only, my wife's name may be Mary, and not Bertha."
"Ah, I'm glad for you! for you know I helped that on as much as I could; and if I didn't do more it was because you wouldn't let me. Ah, ça! have you seen Mademoiselle Mary since you came to Nantes?"
"Yes, I have seen her; and the few minutes I spent with her sufficed, I hope, to secure my happiness," cried Michel, giving way to the intoxication of his joy. Then he added: "Are you obliged to go back to La Logerie to-night?"
"Monsieur le baron ought to feel that I am at his service," replied Courtin.
"Very good; then you shall see her yourself, Courtin; for to-night I'm to meet her again."
"Where?"
"Where I met you just now."
"Oh, that's good!" said Courtin, his face brightening with a satisfaction equal to that on Michel's own face. "That's good! you don't know how happy I am to have you marry according to your own likings. Faith! if your mother consents, you are right enough to take the one you love. You see, now, I gave you good advice."
And the worthy farmer rubbed his hands as though he were on a pinnacle of satisfaction.
"My good Courtin," said Michel, touched by his farmer's sympathy, "where shall I find you this evening?"
"Where you please."
"Didn't you put up, as I did, at the Point du Jour?"
"Yes, Monsieur le baron."
"Well, then, we can pass the day there. To-night you can go with me when I meet Mary, and keep watch for us."
"But," said Courtin, much embarrassed by a proposal which interfered with all his plans, "I've got a good deal to do in town."
"Well, I'll go with you; it will help me to kill time."
"No, that won't do; my business as mayor will take me to the Prefecture, and you mustn't go there. No, do you go back to the inn and keep quiet, and to-night at ten o'clock I'll be on hand to start,--you as happy as a king, and I very glad of your happiness."
Courtin was most anxious to be rid of Michel for the present. The idea of gaining the whole reward for the capture of Petit-Pierre so filled his mind that he was determined not to leave Nantes without knowing the exact amount offered, and laying some plan to obtain it all himself and not divide it with any one.
Michel yielded to Courtin's reasoning, and giving a glance at his muddy clothing he decided to take leave of him then and there and go back to the tavern.
As soon as his young master had left him Courtin made his way to the quarters of General Dermoncourt. He gave his name to the orderly, and after a few minutes' delay he was shown into the presence of the man he came to see.
The general was a good deal dissatisfied with the turn matters were taking; he had sent to Paris plans of pacification, somewhat like those which had succeeded so well under General Hoche. These plans had not been approved; the general saw the civil authority encroaching everywhere on the powers which martial law assigned to the military alone; and his susceptibilities as an old soldier, wounded at every turn, together with his patriotic feelings, made him deeply dissatisfied.
"What do you want?" he said to Courtin, looking him over from head to foot.
Courtin bowed as low as he was able.
"General," he said, "perhaps you remember the fair at Montaigu?"
"Parbleu, as if it were yesterday! and especially the night after it. Ha! that expedition would have been a success, and I might have strangled the insurrection at its birth if a scoundrelly keeper hadn't inveigled one of my troopers. By the bye, what was that man's name?"
"Jean Oullier."
"What became of him?"
Courtin could not help turning pale.
"He died," he said.
"The best thing he could do, poor devil; and yet, I'm sorry too,--he was a brave fellow."
"If you remember the man who defeated the affair, general, it seems strange you have forgotten the one who helped you with information."
The general looked at Courtin.
"Jean Oullier was a soldier, a comrade, and soldiers remember each other; the rest--I mean spies and informers--they forget as soon as possible."
"Very well," said Courtin. "Then I shall have to refresh your memory, general, and tell you that I am the man who informed you of Petit-Pierre's hiding-place."
"Oh, are you?" said the general. "Well, what do you want to say now? Speak out, and briefly!"
"I want to do you exactly the same service over again."
"As for that, times are changed, my good friend. We are no longer among the sunken roads of the Retz region, where a tiny foot, a fair skin, and a soft voice are remarkable because they are rare in the country. Here, all the women look like great ladies; and a score of men of your kind have been to me to sell their mare's-nests. My soldiers have been kept on the qui-vive all the time; we have searched a dozen different places, and all to no purpose."
"General, I have a right to expect you to put faith in me, because the information I gave you first was correct."
"Upon my word," muttered the general, in a low tone, "it would be rather pleasant to discover, all by myself, what that man from Paris with his squads of spies, and sneaks, and pimps, and criminal and detective police can't find out. Are you sure of what you say?" he continued, raising his voice.
"I am sure that within twenty-four hours I shall know the street and the number of the house--"
"Then come and see me."
"But, general, I should wish to know--Courtin stopped.
"Know what?" asked the general.
"I have heard talk of reward, and I wish to know--"
"Ah, true!" said the general, looking at Courtin with sovereign contempt. "I forgot, though you are a public functionary, that you are one of those who don't neglect their private interests."
"You said yourself, general, that we were the ones that were soonest forgotten."
"And you want money to take the place of public gratitude? Well, that's logical. So, then, you don't give, my worthy mayor, you sell, you traffic, you trade in human flesh; and to-day, having something to sell, you come to what you think the best market,--is that it?"
"You have said it. Oh, don't feel embarrassed, general, business is business; and I am not ashamed to attend to mine!"
"So much the better; but I'm not the man you ought to go to. They've sent down a gentleman from Paris who is specially charged to attend to this matter. When you can lay hands on your prey, you had better go to him and sell it."
"So I will, general. But," continued Courtin, "as I did you such a service that first time, don't you feel inclined to give me some reward?"
"My good fellow, if you think I owe you anything I am ready to pay it. Speak out! I'm listening."
"It will be all the easier because I don't ask much."
"Go on."
"Tell me the sum the government has promised to the man who delivers Petit-Pierre into your hands."
"Fifty thousand francs, perhaps; I didn't pay much attention to it, any way."
"Fifty thousand francs!" exclaimed Courtin, stepping back as if he had been struck. "Why, fifty thousand francs is nothing!"
"I agree with you there; it isn't worth while to be infamous for such a sum as that. But you can say that to those it concerns; as for you and me, we have done with each other, I think. Take yourself away. Good-day to you!"
And the general, resuming the work he had laid aside to receive Courtin, paid not the slightest attention to the bows and civilities with which the mayor of La Logerie endeavored to make a proper retreat.
The latter departed far less satisfied in mind than he was when he entered. He had no doubt whatever that the general knew correctly the exact amount of the reward, and he could not reconcile what he had just heard with what the mysterious man at Aigrefeuille had told him,--unless it might be that the said mysterious man was the agent sent by the government from Paris. He now gave up all idea of acting without him, and he resolved, while practising the utmost caution, to let him know as soon as possible what had happened.
Until now the man had come to Courtin; but the farmer had his address, and was directed to write to him if anything important occurred. Courtin did not write; he went in person. After a good deal of trouble he managed to find, in the lowest quarter of the town, at the farther end of a damp and muddy blind alley full of the sordid booths of rag-pickers and old-clothes men, a tiny shop, where, following certain directions, he asked for Monsieur Hyacinthe. He was told to go up a ladder, and was then shown into a small room, much cleaner and more decent than might have been expected from the general appearance of this lair.
There he found the man from Aigrefeuille, who received him far better than the general had done; and with whom he had a long conference.
If the day seemed long to Michel, to Courtin its length was intolerable; he thought that night would never come. And though he felt he ought to keep away from the rue du Marché and the adjacent streets, it was impossible to avoid airing his impatience in their neighborhood.
When evening came, mindful of his engagement with Michel, he returned to the tavern of the Point du Jour. There he found Michel awaiting him eagerly. As soon as the young man saw him he exclaimed:--
"Ah, Courtin, I am thankful to see you. I have discovered the man who followed us last night."
"Hein! what? what did you say?" asked Courtin, making, in spite of himself, a step backward.
"I have discovered him, I tell you!"
"But the man--who is he?" asked Courtin.
"A man in whom I felt sure I might trust; and you would have trusted him too in my position,--Joseph Picaut."
"Joseph Picaut!" repeated Courtin, feigning astonishment.
"Yes."
"Where did you meet him?"
"At this inn, where he is hostler, or rather, where he is playing the part of hostler."
"Why did he follow you? You can't have had the imprudence to tell him your secret? Ah, young man, young man!" exclaimed Courtin; "they may well say youth and imprudence go together. A former galley-slave!"
"That's the very reason. Don't you know why he was sent to the galleys?"
"Damn it, yes! for highway robbery."
"But it was in the time of the great war. However, that's neither here nor there. I gave him an errand to do."
"If I were to ask you what errand, you'd think me inquisitive; and yet it is my real interest in you that makes me ask, and nothing else."
"Oh! I have no reason for concealing the matter from you. I sent him to let the captain of the 'Jeune Charles' know that I should be on board at three o'clock in the morning. Well, no one has since seen Picaut or the horse--and, by the bye," added the young baron, laughing, "the horse was your pony, my poor Courtin; your pony, which I took from the farm and rode to Nantes."
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Courtin, "then Sweetheart is--"
"Sweetheart is probably lost to you forever."
"Perhaps he has gone back to his stable," said Courtin, who, even in presence of the grand financial horizon which was opening before him, felt a profound regret for the twenty or twenty-five pistoles at which he valued his pony.
"Well, what I want to tell you is, that if, as I suppose, Joseph Picaut followed us he must now be on the watch about the neighborhood."
"What object has he?" inquired Courtin. "If he wanted to deliver you up nothing could have been easier than to bring the gendarmes here."
Michel shook his head.
"No,--do you say no?"
"I say it is not I whom he is after, Courtin; it is not on my account he watched us yesterday."
"Why so?"
"Because the price on my head would not pay him for his treachery."
"But whom else can he be spying on?" said the farmer, calling up all the vacant simplicity he was capable of imprinting on his face and accent.
"A Vendéan leader whom I was anxious to save while making my own escape," replied Michel, beginning to perceive whither Courtin's questions were leading him,--though he was not sorry to admit the latter into half his secret in order to use him when occasion came.
"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Courtin; "and you think he has discovered the hiding-place of the Vendéan leader? That would be a misfortune, Monsieur Michel."
"No; he only got to the outworks, as it were; but I am afraid, now that he is once on the scent, he may have better luck this time."
"This time,--how do you mean?"
"Why, to-night, if he watches us, he will find out I have a meeting with Mademoiselle Mary."
"Mordieu! you're right."
"And that makes me very uneasy," said Michel.
"But I shall be on the watch; and if you are followed I'll whistle in time for you to get away."
"And you?"
Courtin laughed.
"Oh! I--I don't risk anything. My opinions are well-known, thank God; and in my capacity as mayor I can have all the dangerous companions I choose."
"Evil is good sometimes," said Michel, laughing in his turn. "But listen, what time is that?"
"Striking nine from the clock at Bouffai."
"Then, come on, Courtin."
Courtin took his hat, Michel his, and they both went out and were soon at the corner where Michel had met his farmer the night before. The latter stood with his right to the rue du Marché and his left toward the alley into which opened the green door he had marked with a cross.
"Stay there, Courtin," said Michel. "I'll wait at the farther end of this alley; I don't know which way Mary means to come. If she passes you, direct her toward me; if she comes my way, do you move up nearer to us, so as to be ready in case of need."
"Don't trouble about that," said Courtin, as he settled himself on the watch.
Courtin was now at the summit of happiness; his plan had completely succeeded. In one way or another he was certain to come in contact with Mary; Mary was the intimate attendant on Petit-Pierre; he would fellow Mary when she left Michel, and he had no doubt that the young girl, unconscious of being tracked, would herself betray the hiding-place of the princess by going there.
Half-past nine o'clock ringing from all the belfries in Nantes surprised Courtin in the midst of these reflections. Their metallic vibrations were hardly stilled before he heard a light step coming up on his right; he went in that direction, and saw a young peasant-woman wrapped in a mantle and carrying a package in her hand, whom he recognized to be Mary. The young girl, seeing a strange man apparently on the watch, hesitated. Courtin went up to her and made her recognize him.
"It is all right, Mademoiselle Mary," he said, replying to her relieved gesture; "but I'm not the one you are looking for, am I? You want Monsieur le baron; well, there he is, waiting for you down there."
And he pointed with his finger to the alley. The girl thanked him with a gesture of her head and moved hastily away in the direction given her. As for Courtin, convinced that the interview would be a long one, he sat down, philosophically, on a milestone, prepared to wait. From that milestone, however, he could keep the two young people in sight while dreaming of his coming fortune, which now seemed a certainty,--for he held in Mary one end of the thread that would lead him through the labyrinth; and this time, he vowed, the thread should not break.
But he had scarcely begun to set up the scaffolding of glorious dreams on the golden clouds of his imagination, when the two young people, after exchanging a few sentences, returned in his direction. They passed in front of him; the young baron had Mary on his arm and was carrying the little package the farmer had lately seen in Mary's hand. Michel nodded to him.
"Ho, ho!" thought Courtin, "is it going to be as easy as this? There's absolutely no credit in it." And he followed the lovers on a sign from Michel, keeping at a short distance behind them.
Presently, however, he began to feel a slight uneasiness. Instead of going to the upper town, where Courtin felt instinctively that the princess was hidden, the pair turned down toward the river. The farmer followed their movements with deep anxiety. Soon, however, he began to fancy that Mary had some errand in that direction, and that Michel was only accompanying her.
Nevertheless, his anxiety again deepened when, on turning the corner of the quay, he saw the young pair making straight for the tavern of the Point du Jour, which they presently entered. Unable to restrain himself any longer he ran hastily forward and overtook the baron.
"Ah, here you are,--just in time!" said Michel.
"What is it?" asked the spy.
"Courtin, my dear fellow, I'm the happiest man on earth!"
"Why so?"
"Quick! saddle me two horses!"
"Two horses?"
"Yes."
"And Mademoiselle Mary? don't you mean to take her back?"
"No, Courtin, I shall carry her off!"
"Where?"
"To Banl[oe]uvre; where we shall make some plan to get away together."
"But will Mademoiselle Mary desert--"
Courtin stopped short; he was about to betray himself. But Michel was much too happy and excited to be distrustful.
"Mademoiselle Mary will not desert any one, my dear Courtin; we are to send Bertha in her place. Don't you see that I can't be the one to tell Bertha I do not love her?"
"Then who will tell her?"
"Don't trouble yourself about that, Courtin; somebody will tell her. Now, quick! saddle those horses!"
"Have you any horses here?"
"No, none of my own; but there are always horses, don't you understand, for those who travel for the good of the cause."
And Michel pushed Courtin toward the stable, where, in fact, two horses were munching their oats as if awaiting the young people.
Just as Michel was putting the saddle on the second horse the master of the inn came down, followed by Mary.
"I come from the South and am going to Rosny," Michel said to him, continuing to saddle one of the horses, while Courtin was saddling, but more slowly, the other. Courtin heard the password, but did not comprehend it.
"Very good," said the master of the inn, nodding his head in sign of intelligence.
Then, as Courtin seemed rather behindhand, he helped him to saddle the other horse and rejoin Michel.
"Monsieur Michel," said Courtin, making a last effort, "why go to Banl[oe]uvre instead of to La Logerie? You would be more comfortable at my house."
Michel questioned Mary by a look.
"Oh! no, no, no!" she said. "Remember, my dear friend," she whispered, "that Bertha will be certain to return there to get news of us, and to know why the vessel was not at the place agreed upon; and I wouldn't for all the world see her before the friend you know of speaks to her. I think I should die of shame and grief if I saw her just now."
At Bertha's name, which he overheard, Courtin raised his head as a horse raises his to the sound of trumpets.
"Mademoiselle does not want to go to La Logerie?" he said.
"But, Mary," said Michel, hesitating.
"What?" asked the girl.
"Who will give your sister the letter that summons her to Nantes?"
"As for that," said Courtin, "it isn't hard to find a messenger. If there is anything you want said or done, Monsieur Michel, I'll undertake it."
Michel hesitated; but he, like Mary, dreaded Bertha's first outbreak of anger. Again he looked at Mary; she replied with an assenting sign.
"Then we will go to Banl[oe]uvre; and you must take the letter," said Michel, giving Courtin a paper. "If you have anything to say to us, Courtin, you will find us there for the present."
"Ah, poor Bertha! poor Bertha!" said Mary, springing on her horse. "How shall I ever console myself for my happiness?"
The two young people were now in their saddles; they made a friendly sign to the master of the inn; Michel commended the letter once more to Courtin's care, and then they both rode away from the tavern of the Point du Jour.
At the end of the pont Rousseau they came near riding over a man who, in spite of the heat of the weather, was wrapped in a sort of mantle which almost hid his face. This sombre apparition alarmed Michel; he quickened his horse's pace and told Mary to do the same. After going about a hundred yards Michel turned round. The stranger had stopped, and, in spite of the darkness, was watching them.
"He is looking at us!" said Michel, feeling instinctively that they had just passed some great danger.
After the unknown man had lost sight of the riders he continued his way to Nantes. At the door of the Point du Jour he stopped, looked about him as if in search of some one, and saw a man reading a letter by the light of a lantern. He went up to the man, who, at the sound of his steps, looked round.
"Ah, it's you!" said Courtin. "Faith, you've just missed getting here too soon; a minute earlier and you would have found yourself in company you wouldn't have liked."
"Who were those two young people who nearly knocked me over on the bridge?"
"The very ones I mean."
"Well, what's the news,--good, or bad?"
"Both; but more good than bad."
"Is it to be to-night?"
"No; the affair is postponed."
"You mean failed, blunderer!"
Courtin smiled.
"It is true that luck has been against me since yesterday; but no matter! we must be satisfied with walking, not running, that's all. Though to-day is a failure, in view of immediate results, I wouldn't take twenty thousand francs for it."
"Ah, ha! you are sure of that?"
"Yes, very sure. The proof is that I've got hold of something already."
"What?"
"This," said Courtin, showing the letter he had just unsealed and read.
"A letter?"
"A letter."
"What's in it?" said the man in the cloak, putting out his hand to take the paper.
"One moment. We will read it together. I prefer to hold it, because it is intrusted to me for delivery."
"Well, let us read it," said the man.
They both went up to the lantern and read as follows:--
Come to me as soon as possible; you know the passwords.
Your affectionate
Petit-Pierre.
"To whom is that letter addressed?" asked the man in the cloak.
"To Mademoiselle Bertha de Souday."
"Her name is not on the cover, nor at the bottom of the page."
"Because a letter might be lost."
"And you are commissioned to deliver that letter?"
"Yes."
The man gave a second glance at the paper.
"The writing is certainly hers," he said. "Ah! if you had only allowed me to accompany you we should have her by this time."
"What does that matter, if you are sure of her later?"
"Yes, true. When shall I see you again?"
"Day after to-morrow."
"Here, or in the country?"
"At Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu; that is half way between Nantes and my house."
"I hope next time you won't stir me up for nothing."
"I promise you that."
"Try to keep your word; I keep mine. Here's the money. See, I hold it ready, so that you may not have to wait for it."
He opened his wallet and showed the farmer, complacently, a mass of bank-bills amounting probably to a hundred thousand francs.
"Oh," said Courtin, "only paper!"
"Paper, of course, but signed 'Garat;' that is a good signature."
"No matter," said Courtin; "I prefer gold."
"Well, gold you shall have," said the other, replacing the portfolio in his pocket and crossing his mantle over his coat.
If the pair had not been so engrossed in their conversation they would have seen that a peasant had climbed the wall between the street and the courtyard by the help of a cart which stood outside, and was listening to what they said, and gazing at the bank-notes with an air which implied that in Courtin's place he would have been quite satisfied with Garat's signature.
"Very good; then the day after to-morrow at Saint-Philbert," repeated the man in the cloak.
"Day after to-morrow."
"What time?"
"Evening, of course."
"Say seven o'clock. The first comer will wait for the other."
"But you'll bring the money?"
"You mean the gold? yes."
"All right."
"Do you expect to bring the matter to conclusion then?"
"I hope to. It costs nothing to hope."
"Day after to-morrow, at Saint-Philbert, seven o'clock," muttered the peasant on the wall, letting himself gently down into the street. "We'll be there." Then he added with a laugh that sounded terribly like the grinding of teeth: "When a man is branded he ought to earn his label."
Bertha, who had left the farmhouse at La Logerie at the same time as Michel, reached, her father after a tramp of about two hours. She found him extraordinarily depressed and utterly disgusted with the hermit's life he was leading in Maître Jacques' warren, though the latter had arranged it for his personal comfort and installed him safely in it.
From a feeling that was purely chivalrous, Monsieur de Souday had not been willing to leave the country so long as Petit-Pierre was in it, and in danger. Therefore, when Bertha came to him with the news of the duchess's probable departure, the old Vendéan gentleman resigned himself, though without heartiness, to follow the advice of General Dermoncourt and depart for the third time to foreign lands.
He and his daughter left the forest of Touvois at once. Maître Jacques, whose hand was now nearly well, though it lacked two fingers, wished to accompany them to the coast and assist in their embarkation.
It was midnight when the three travellers, following the high-road from Machecoul, reached the heights above the valley of Souday. As the marquis looked at the four weathercocks on his four towers, which were shimmering in the moonlight above the sea of verdure which surrounded them, he sighed. Bertha heard him and came nearer to his side.
"What is it, father?" she said. "What are you thinking of?"
"Of many things, my poor child," he answered, shaking his head.
"Don't take gloomy thoughts into your head, father. You are still young and vigorous; you'll see the house again some day."
"Yes," said the marquis, with another sigh, "but--" he stopped, half choking.
"But what?" asked Bertha.
"I shall never see my poor Jean Oullier again."
"Alas!" said the girl.
"Oh, house,--poor house!" said the marquis; "how empty you will seem to me without him!"
Though there was really more of egotism than attachment to his faithful servant in the marquis's regret, if Jean Oullier could have heard that lament it would certainly have touched him deeply.
Bertha resumed the subject.
"Do you know, father," she said, "I can't help fancying, though I am sure I don't know why, that our poor friend, in spite of all they say, is not dead. It seems to me that if he were really dead I should have wept more for him; a secret hope, which I can't explain, comes and stops my tears."
"That's odd," interrupted Maître Jacques; "but I have just the same feeling. No, Jean Oullier is not dead; and I have something better than presumption to go upon,--I saw the body they said was his, and I couldn't recognize it."
"Then what has become of him?" asked the marquis.
"Faith, I don't know!" replied Maître Jacques; "but I keep expecting every day to get news of him."
The marquis sighed again. At this moment they were passing through an angle of the forest. Perhaps he was thinking of the hecatombs of game he and his faithful keeper had piled beneath those verdant arches,--a sight, alas! he might never see again. Perhaps the few words said by Maître Jacques had opened his heart to a renewed hope of recovering his old friend. The latter supposition is the more probable, for he urged the master of rabbits to make most particular inquiries about Jean Oullier's fate, and to let him know the result.
When they reached the seashore the marquis would not wholly conform to the plan laid down by Michel and Bertha for his embarkation. He feared that if they followed the shore along the bay of Bourgneuf, as agreed upon, they might draw the attention of the coast-guard cutter to the schooner; nothing would induce him to incur the reproach of compromising Petit-Pierre's safety for personal considerations, and he decided that the proper thing to do was for himself and daughter to go out to sea and meet the "Jeune Charles."
Maître Jacques, who had friends and accomplices everywhere, soon found a fisherman who was willing, for the consideration of a few louis, to take them in his boat to the schooner. The little craft was drawn up on the shore. The marquis and Bertha, instructed by Maître Jacques, who was familiar with all smuggling man[oe]uvres, slipped into it and escaped the eyes of the custom-house officers who watched the coast. An hour later the tide floated the boat; the owner and his two sons, who served as crew, got into her and put out to sea.
As it still wanted half an hour till daybreak, the marquis did not wait till the boat was in the offing to come out of his hiding-place in the little deck cabin, where he was even more cribbed and confined than in Maître Jacques' burrow. As soon as the fisherman saw him he began to ask questions.
"You say, monsieur, that the vessel you expect is coming from the mouth of the Loire?"
"Yes," replied the marquis.
"At what hour was she to leave Nantes?"
"From three to five this morning," said Bertha.
The fisherman consulted the wind.
"The wind is southwest," he said; "the tide was high at three o'clock. We ought to meet them between eight and nine; it will take them four hours to get here. Meantime, in order not to attract attention from the coast-guard, we had better throw over some drag-nets and make a pretence of fishing, to explain our being here."
"Make a pretence!" cried the marquis; "why, I should like to fish in good earnest! All my life I have wanted the opportunity for that sport; and faith, as I can't hunt in Machecoul this year, it is a fine compensation which Heaven sends me,--too fine to miss it!"
In spite of Bertha's cautions--for she feared her father's great height might attract attention--the marquis began to work with the fisherman at once.
The net was thrown out and allowed to drag for some time at the bottom of the sea; but before long, the Marquis de Souday, who had valiantly hauled on the ropes to bring the net to the surface, was as delighted as a child with the shining mass of eels, turbot, plaice, skate, and oysters which came up palpitating from the depths of the sea. He at once forgot his griefs, his hopes, his memories; he forgot Souday and the forest of Machecoul, the marches of Saint-Philbert, the great moors; and with them he forgot wild-boars, deer, foxes, hares, partridges, and snipe, and thought only of the shining population with smooth or scaly skins which each throw of the net produced before his eyes.
Daylight came.
Bertha, who till then had sat in the bows absorbed in thought, watching the waves as they parted at the prow of the little vessel and floated away in two phosphorescent furrows,--Bertha now climbed on a coil of rope to examine the horizon.
Through the morning mists, thicker at the mouth of the river than elsewhere, she could see the tall masts and spars of several vessels; but none of them carried the blue pennant by which they were to recognize the "Jeune Charles." She observed this to the fisherman, who assured her, with an oath, that it was impossible for the schooner, if she left Nantes during the night, to have made the open sea already.
The marquis did not give the worthy fisherman and his men much time for discussion, for he was so pleased with his taste of their trade that he allowed no spare time between the throws of the net; and any little pause that occurred he filled up with questions to the old sailor on the rudiments of nautical science.
It was in the course of this instructive conversation that the fisherman requested him to observe that by throwing the net as a drag they were forced to make long tacks, and that this method of proceeding would end by leading them astray from their post of observation. But the marquis, with that careless indifference which was the basis of his character, paid no attention to the skipper's argument, and continued to fill the hold of the boat with the products of the haul.
The morning went by. It was ten o'clock, and still no vessel approached them. Bertha became very uneasy; she mentioned her fears to her father several times, and at last with so much urgency that the marquis could do no less than consent to go nearer to the mouth of the river. He profited by the man[oe]uvre, however, to make the old sailor teach him how to haul his wind,--that is to say, how to trim his sails so as to make as slight an angle with the keel as the rigging would allow. They were in the most tangled part of the demonstration when Bertha uttered a cry.
She had just seen at a few hundred feet from the boat a large vessel with all sail spread, to which she had hitherto paid no attention, as it did not fly the promised signal, and was now partly hidden by the jib of the boat.
"Look out! look out!" she cried; "there's a ship coming down upon us!"
The fisherman saw in an instant the danger that threatened them, and springing to the helm he wrenched it from the hand of the marquis, then, without observing that he knocked the latter flat on the deck, he managed to get the boat round to windward of the ship, which was close upon them. Rapid as the man[oe]uvre was, he could not prevent a slight collision; the boom of the lugger's mainsail grazed the side of the schooner with a loud noise, her gaff was entangled for a moment with the latter's bowsprit; the boat heeled over, shipped a sea, and if the skipper's rapid man[oe]uvre had not enabled him to catch the wind, she might not have righted as rapidly as she did, or perhaps not have righted at all.
"The devil take that damned coaster!" cried the old fisherman. "Another minute and we should have gone to the bottom in exchange for the fish we've just caught!"
"Go about! go about!" cried the marquis, exasperated by his fall. "After him! the devil take me if I don't board him and ask the captain what he means by such insolence!"
"Do you expect me," said the old sailor, "with my one sail and two poor jibs, to overhaul a craft of that kind? Look at his canvas, the villain!--every stitch set! And see how it draws!"
"Yet we must overtake him!" cried Bertha, running aft. "It is the 'Jeune Charles!'"
And she showed her father a broad, white band at the stern of the other vessel on which could be read, in letters of gold. "LE JEUNE CHARLES."
"Faith, you are right, Bertha!" cried the marquis. "Go about, my friend, go about! But why doesn't he carry the signal agreed upon with Monsieur de la Logerie? And why, instead of steering for the bay of Bourgneuf, is he heading east?"
"Perhaps some accident has happened," said Bertha, turning pale.
"God grant it may not be to Petit-Pierre!" muttered the marquis.
Bertha admired her father's stoicism, but in her heart she murmured: "God grant it may not be to Michel!"
"Never mind!" said the marquis, "we must find out what all this means."
The lugger had meantime gone about, and again catching the wind, began to move rapidly through the water; this man[oe]uvre on a vessel of her size could be done so quickly that the schooner, in spite of her volume of sail, did not get far in advance. The fisherman was able to hail her.
The captain appeared on the poop.
"Are you the 'Jeune Charles' from Nantes?" asked the skipper of the boat, making a trumpet of his two hands.
"What's that to you?" answered the captain of the schooner, whose good humor did not seem to be restored by the certainty of having evaded the clutches of the law.
"I have folks aboard for you!" cried the fisherman.
"More messengers! A thousand devils! I tell you if you bring me any more such fellows like those I have had this night, I'll run you down, you old oyster-dredger, before I let 'em aboard!"
"No, they are passengers! Aren't you looking out for passengers?"
"I'm looking out for a good wind to take me round Cape Finisterre!"
"Let me come alongside," said the fisherman, at Bertha's suggestion.
The captain of the "Jeune Charles" looked at the sea, and not perceiving between himself and the coast anything to warrant apprehension, and desirous, moreover, to know if the passengers asking to come aboard were those for whom his vessel was chartered, he did as the fisherman requested, hauled down his foresail and mainsail and brought-to his vessel sufficiently to throw a line to the lugger and bring her alongside.
"Now, then!" cried the captain, leaning over his bulwarks, "what's all this about?"
"Ask Monsieur de la Logerie to come and speak to us," said Bertha.
"Monsieur de la Logerie is not aboard of me," replied the captain.
"But," returned Bertha, in a troubled voice, "at any rate, you have two ladies, haven't you?"
"Ladies or passengers, I haven't any," said the captain; "except a rascal in irons down in the hold, where he is cursing and swearing fit to take the masts out of the ship and make the bulkhead he's lashed to tremble."
"Good God!" cried Bertha, trembling herself. "Do you know if any accident has happened to the persons who were to embark on your ship?"
"Faith, my pretty young lady," said the captain, "if you would tell me what all this means you would oblige me greatly; for the devil is in it if I can make out anything about it. Last night two men came on board, both from Monsieur de la Logerie, with two different messages: one ordered me to sail at once; the other told me to stay where I was. One of these men was an honest farmer,--a mayor, I think, for he showed me a bit of a tricolor scarf. It was he who told me to up anchor and be off as fast as I could. The other, who wanted me to stay, was an old galley-slave. I put faith in the most respectable of the two, for, after all, his advice was safest, and I came away."
"My God!" exclaimed Bertha, "it must have been Courtin; some accident has happened to Monsieur de la Logerie!"
"Do you want to see the other man?" asked the captain.
"What man?" said the marquis.
"The one I've got below in irons. You may recognize him, and then we shall get at the truth of this business,--though it is too late now to do any good."
"Too late to get away,--yes, that may be," said the marquis; "but not too late to save our friends if they are in any peril. Show us the man!"
The captain gave an order, and a few seconds later Joseph Picaut was brought on deck. He was still chained and bound; but, in spite of his bonds, he had no sooner caught sight of the coast of La Vendée, which he thought he was fated never to see again, than, without reckoning distance, or the impossibility of swimming, bound as he was, he tried to escape his captors and fling himself into the sea.
This happened on the starboard side forward, so that the passengers in the lugger, which was now to leeward near the stern of the vessel, could not see what happened; but they heard Joseph Picaut's cry and knew that a struggle of some kind was taking place on the schooner. The fisherman pushed his boat along the side of the ship, and they then saw Joseph Picaut struggling in the grasp of four men.
"Let me jump into the water!" he was shouting. "I'd rather die at once than rot in that hole!"
He might possibly have succeeded in flinging himself overboard if he had not at that instant recognized the faces of the Marquis de Souday and Bertha, who were looking up at him in amazement. "Ah, Monsieur le marquis! ah, Mademoiselle Bertha!" cried Picaut; "you will save me, won't you? It is for executing Monsieur Michel's orders that this brute of a captain treats me as he does; and the lies of that scoundrel Courtin are at the bottom of it."
"Now, then, I want to know the truth about all this," interposed the captain. "If you can relieve me of that blaspheming fellow I shall be glad enough; for I'm not bound for either Botany-Bay or Cayenne."
"Alas!" said Bertha, "it is all true, captain. I don't know what motive the mayor of La Logerie could have had to send you to sea without your passengers; but it is very certain that this man is the one who told you the truth."
"Unbind him, then! Ten thousand cat-o'-nine-tails! let him go hang where he pleases! Now, as for you, what do you want? Are you coming with me, or are you not? It won't cost any more to take you or leave you. I was paid in advance; and to ease my conscience I'd rather like to take somebody."
"Captain," said Bertha, "isn't it possible to go back up the river and let our friends embark to-night as they meant to do last night?"
"Impossible!" replied the captain, shrugging his shoulders. "Think of the custom-house officers and the river-police! No, no; a plan postponed is a plan defeated. Only, I say again, if you wish to use my vessel to get over to England, I am at your service, and it shall cost you nothing."
The marquis looked at his daughter, but she shook her head.
"Thank you, captain, thanks," replied the marquis. "It is impossible."
"Then we had better part company at once," said the captain. "But before we do so, let me ask you to do me a service."
"What is it?"
"It is about a little note of hand which I will give you, duly signed, requesting you to draw my share of it when you draw your own."
"I'll do anything to please you, captain," said the marquis, affably.
"Very good; then add one hundred lashes on the back of the fellow who fooled me last night, in addition to your own."
"It shall be done," replied the marquis.
"If he has any strength to bear them after he has paid what he owes to me," said a voice.
At the same instant a heavy body fell into the water, and the head of Joseph Picaut was seen about ten paces off, its owner swimming vigorously to the lugger. Once freed of his irons, the Chouan, fearful, no doubt, that some unforeseen circumstance should detain him on the vessel, had plunged head foremost over the schooner's bulwark.
The skipper and the marquis gave him each a hand, and Joseph Picaut clambered into the boat. He was scarcely there before he shouted:--
"Monsieur le marquis, tell that old whale up there that the brand on my shoulder is a cross of honor!"
"Yes, captain, that's true!" cried the marquis. "This peasant was sent to the galleys for doing his duty in the days of the Empire,--his duty as we see it, I mean; and though I don't wholly approve of the means he took, I can declare to you that he has not deserved the treatment you gave him."
"Very well," said the captain, "that's all right. Once, twice, thrice, will you come aboard, or will you not?"
"No, captain, thank you."
"Then good-bye, and better luck."
So saying, the captain signed to the helmsman, the schooner paid off into the wind, the sails were squared again, and the vessel sailed rapidly away, leaving the lugger stationary.
While the old fisherman was working his boat to shore, Bertha and her father held counsel together. In spite of Picaut's explanations (and those explanations were brief, the Chouan having only seen Courtin at the moment when he was seized and bound) they could not understand the motives of the mayor of La Logerie. His conduct, however, was plain enough, and seemed to them extremely suspicious,--although, as Bertha now told her father, he had shown a true devotion to Michel during his illness, and had often expressed to her the utmost attachment to his young master. The marquis, however, was strongly of opinion that his present tortuous behavior concealed some scheme that was not only dangerous to Michel's safety, but to that of their other friends.
As for Picaut, he declared plainly that he lived and breathed for vengeance only, and that if Monsieur de Souday would give him a suit of sailor's clothes to replace those which were torn from his back in the struggles he had gone through, he would start for Nantes the instant he touched land.
The marquis, convinced that Courtin's treachery was in some way connected with Petit-Pierre, wished to go to the town himself; but Bertha, who believed that Michel, finding the escape a failure, would return to the farmhouse at La Logerie, where he would expect her to join him, persuaded her father to put off entering Nantes till he could get some more definite information.
The fisherman landed his passengers at the Pornic point. Picaut, for whose benefit the skipper's son had given up his spencer and his oilskin cap, started across country in a bee-line for Nantes, swearing in every key that Courtin had better look out for himself. But before leaving the marquis he begged him to tell Maître Jacques all the particulars of his adventure, feeling quite certain that the master of the warren would fraternally assist in his revenge.
It was thus that, thanks to his knowledge of localities, he was able to reach Nantes about nine that evening; and going, naturally, to his old post at the Point du Jour, he overheard a part at least of the conversation between Courtin and the mysterious individual of Aigrefeuille, and saw the money, or rather the bank-bills, which Courtin did not regard as valuable until they were changed into coin.
As for the marquis and his daughter, it was not until nightfall that they ventured, notwithstanding Bertha's impatience, to start for the forest of Touvois; and it was not without actual grief of heart that the old gentleman thought of the happy morning he had spent among the fishes, reflecting that it would have no morrow, and that he was fatally condemned to live, for an indefinite time, like a rat in his hole.