Ninety-Three. Victor HugoЧитать онлайн книгу.
go to and fro, changes take place, while I live beneath the stars."
Again Tellmarch became thoughtful, then went on:—
"I know something of bone-setting and medicine. I am familiar with herbs and the use of plants; the peasants see me preoccupied for no apparent reason, and so I pass for a wizard. Because I dream, they think that I am wise."
"Do you belong to the neighborhood?" asked the Marquis.
"I have never left it."
"Do you know me?"
"Certainly. The last time I saw you, you were passing through this part of the country on your way to England; that was two years ago. Just now I saw a man on the top of the dune—a tall man. Tall men are not common hereabouts; Brittany is a country of short men. I looked more closely; I had read the notice, and I said to myself, 'See here!' And when you came down, the moon was up and I recognized you."
"But I do not know you,"
"You have looked at me, but you never saw me." And Tellmarch the Caimand added—
"I saw you. The passer-by and the beggar look with different eyes."
"Have I ever met you before?"
"Often, for I am your beggar. I used to beg on the road, below your castle. Sometimes you gave me alms; he who gives takes no notice, but he who receives looks anxiously and observes well. A beggar is a born spy. But though I am often sad, I try not to be a malicious spy. I used to hold out my hand, and you saw nothing but that, into which you threw the alms that I needed in the morning to keep me from dying of hunger at night. Frequently I went twenty-four hours without food. Sometimes a penny means life itself. I am paying you now for the life I owe you."
"True, you are saving my life."
"Yes, I am saving your life, monseigneur."
The voice of Tellmarch grew solemn:—
"On one condition."
"What is that?"
"That you have not come here to do harm."
"I have come here to do good."
"Let us sleep," said the beggar.
They lay down side by side on the bed of sea-weed. The beggar dropped to sleep at once. The Marquis, although much fatigued, remained awake for some time, thinking and watching his companion in the darkness; finally he lay back. Lying upon the bed was equivalent to lying on the earth, and he took advantage of this to put his ear to the ground and listen. He could hear a hollow subterranean rumbling. It is a fact that sound is transmitted into the bowels of the earth; he could hear the ringing of the bells.
The tocsin continued.
The Marquis fell asleep.
V.
WHEN HE AWOKE IT WAS DAYLIGHT.
The beggar was standing up—not in his den, for it was impossible to stand erect there, but outside on the threshold. He was leaning on his staff, and the sunshine fell upon his face.
"Monseigneur," said Tellmarch, "it has just struck four from the belfry of Tanis. I heard it strike—therefore the wind has changed; it comes from the land, and as I heard no other sound the tocsin must have ceased. All is quiet at the farm and in the village of Herbe-en-Pail. The Blues are either sleeping or gone. The worst of the danger is over; it will be prudent for us to separate. This is my time for going out."
He indicated a point in the horizon.
"I am going this way;" then pointing in the opposite direction, he said—
"You are to go that way."
The beggar gravely waved his hand to the Marquis.
"Take those chestnuts with you, if you are hungry," he added, pointing to the remains of the supper.
A moment after he had disappeared among the trees.
The Marquis rose and went in the direction indicated by Tellmarch.
It was that charming hour called in the old Norman peasant dialect the "peep of day." The chirping of the finches and of the hedge-sparrows was heard. The Marquis followed the path that they had traversed the day before, and as he emerged from the thicket he found himself at the fork of the roads marked by the stone cross. The placard was still there, looking white and almost festive in the rising sun. He remembered that there was something at the foot of this notice that he had not been able to read the evening before, on account of the small characters and the fading light. He went up to the pedestal of the cross. Below the signature "Prieur, de la Marne," the notice ended with the following lines in small characters:—
The identity of the ci-devant Marquis of Lantenac having been established, he will be executed without delay.
Signed:
GAUVAIN,
Chief of Battalion in Command of Exploring Column.
"Gauvain!" said the Marquis.
He paused, wrapt in deep thought, his eyes fixed on the placard.
"Gauvain!" he repeated.
He started once more, turned, looked at the cross, came back, and read the placard over again.
Then he slowly walked away. Had any one been near, he might have heard him mutter to himself in an undertone:—
"Gauvain!"
The roofs of the farm on his left were not visible from the sunken paths through which he was stealing. He skirted a precipitous hill, covered with blossoming furze, of the species known as the thorny furze. This eminence was crowned by one of those points of land called in this district a hure,[1] and at its base the trees cut off the view at once. The foliage seemed bathed in light. All Nature felt the deep joy of morning.
Suddenly this landscape became terrible. It was like the explosion of an ambuscade. An indescribable tornado of wild cries and musket-shots fell upon these fields and woods all radiant with the morning light, and from the direction of the farm rose a dense smoke mingled with bright flames, as though the village and the farm were but a truss of burning straw. It was not only startling but awful—this sudden change from peace to wrath; like an explosion of hell in the very midst of dawn, a horror without transition. A fight was going on in the direction of Herbe-en-Pail. The Marquis paused.
No man in a case like this could have helped feeling as he did; curiosity is more powerful than fear. One must find out what is going on, even at the risk of life. He climbed the hill at the foot of which lay the sunken path. From there, although the chances were that he would be discovered, he could at least see what was taking place. In a few moments he stood on the hure and looked about him. In fact, there was both a fusillade and a fire. One could hear the cries and see the fire. The farm was evidently the centre of some mysterious catastrophe. What could it be? Was it attacked? And if so, by whom? Could it be a battle? Was it not more likely to be a military execution? By the orders of a revolutionary decree the Blues frequently punished refractory farms and villages by setting them on fire. For instance, every farm and hamlet which had neglected to fell the trees as prescribed by law, and had not opened roads in the thickets for the passage of republican cavalry, was burned. It was not long since the parish of Bourgon near Ernée had been thus punished. Was Herbe-en-Pail a case in point? It was evident that none of those strategic openings ordered by the decree had been cut, either in the thickets or in the environs of Tanis and Herbe-en-Pail. Was this the punishment thereof? Had an order been received by the advanced guard occupying the farm? Did not this advanced guard form a part of one of those exploring columns called colonnes infernales?
The eminence on which the Marquis had stationed himself was surrounded on all sides by a wild and bristling thicket called the grove of Herbe-en-Pail; it was about as large as a forest, however, and extended to the farm, concealing, as all Breton