D. Broster - A Fire of Driftwood - A Collection of Short Stories (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

“I see,” he said carelessly. “Well, perhaps I may join them.” But it was the last thing that he meant to do.

Marie gone, he struggled out of bed, and, unsteadily enough, dressed himself in Jean-Marie’s clothes, took a turn or two about the floor to try his legs, and called for the girl again. She came, looking at him with a vague reproach in her dreamy eyes.

“My pistols, child. Had I a sword when Yves brought me here?”

“No, Monsieur,” replied the girl, as she fetched the pistols from the press.

“N’importe. Thank you. Now, shall I take off this bandage?”

“Oh, why, Monsieur le Comte?”

“It is hot,” replied Hervé, who did not wish to tell her that he half feared to be recognised by its presence. He put up his hands. “How is it fastened?”

“Oh, don’t take it off, Monsieur Hervé!” pleaded Marie. “That is dangerous. See then, I will unfasten it a little and look at the wound, and if it is well enough I will take it off.”

“That would be kind,” said the young man, with a smile, and straightway sat down on the settle. Marie’s fingers fluttered round his brow, but he was not thinking of them. He was engaged in calculations of distances.

“Monsieur Hervé,” reported Marie at length, “if I try to take off the linen the wound will bleed again. You must keep it on.”

“Very well,” said l’Invincible, who rarely wasted words on a hopeless situation. “Thank you, my child. Can you find me a hat of Jean-Marie’s, too?”

She ran to a peg and handed him an old one of her uncle’s – the ordinary Breton hat with wide brim and pendant ribbons. Saint-Armel put it on.

“That hides the bandage, does it not? Now, if anyone asks you whether I have been here, and you should tell them ‘No,’ I think you would be absolved for the lie. – Good-bye, Marie.” He put out his hand; the thought of thanks had entered neither his mind nor hers.

“Monsieur Hervé,” said the girl in a voice of agony, clasping her hands together, “you are going into danger. I will pray for you. But take this medal, too . . . it is Notre Dame du Folgoët. . . .” Unable to say more she put into his outstretched hand a little cheap medal attached to a ribbon. Hervé looked at it a moment and slipped it into his pocket.

“Thank you, Marie,” he said gravely. “I will wear it; and I hope that the saints will hear your prayers. Good-bye.” He took off his hat, drew her gently to him and kissed her on the cheek – a cold, kind kiss. The next moment he was gone.

V

The Comte de Saint-Armel had walked, at varying rates of progression, for nearly two hours; he had eluded the vigilance of his hosts, who, to be sure, expected nothing less than to see him out of doors, and he had, by circuitous routes, covered a good part of the distance between himself and the hiding-place he had in mind. Many things now warned him that he could not accomplish the impossible; nothing indeed but his indomitable will had carried him so far. In the brilliant, merciless sunshine he now stood at the top of a small eminence, and knew that he could go no further. After all, it was as good a place to stop as any. The gorse bushes which covered the gentle slope were thick, tangled, and in many places of the height of a man; in the middle, round a few stunted firs, there stretched a small clearing. Hervé crossed it. His head ached consumedly; his legs seemed to be made alternately of lead and of paper, and it was with almost a cessation of consciousness that he sank down under the shadow of a large gorse bush. The clearing stretched away on his left, and what instinct still remained to him warned him that it was far safer to lie down, cramped though he might be, in among the bushes rather than on their edge, but he was too spent at the moment to care for safety. He stretched himself out at full length; “I will move in a few moments,” he thought . . . and in less than five minutes had sunk into the deep slumber of fatigue and convalescence.

The insects hummed over the gorse; the air vibrated with heat; dry pods exploded; a rabbit ran across the opening. Nothing of these did l’Invincible hear, as, tired to death, he lay slackly with outspread arms near the great gorse bush. Nor did he even hear the slight crackle of sticks and rustle of the gorse as two men in the blue and white uniform pressed cautiously through it on the other side of the clearing. They stopped dead like pointers when they saw him, and while one brought his musket to his shoulder and covered the sleeping man, the other turned and signed to his comrades behind. . . .

Hence Saint-Armel came back to waking life to find himself pinned down as he lay, with a grenadier clutching each arm and wrist and an officer standing over him sword in hand.

“Don’t move, Chouan!” said the latter grimly, and put his point on Hervé’s breast.

The Royalist did not attempt to move, but looked steadily up at his captors and cursed, not fate, but his own choice of a resting-place. But it was too late now for self-recrimination.

“What is your name?”

“I do not understand,” replied Hervé in Breton.

“What does he say?” demanded the officer.

“He says he doesn’t understand, mon lieutenant,” replied one of the soldiers.

“Cursed patois! Ask him then in his own language who he is, and if he knows where l’Invincible is.”

To these questions Hervé, still lying helpless, replied that his name was Fleur d’Epine and that he knew nothing of l’Invincible’s whereabouts.

“I suppose I shall get nothing out of him,” remarked the officer angrily. “The obstinacy of these Bretons is incredible. I dare wager that all the time he knows French as well as I do. Make him get up, Lenormant, and search him. If he makes the least movement to escape shoot him down.”

The two soldiers pulled Hervé to his feet, and under the levelled muskets of a couple more he submitted with a fine outward indifference to a systematic search. There was nothing in his pockets except a hunch of bread, half a sheet of assignats for five livres, and Marie’s little medal of Notre Dame du Folgoët. The man who had his coat searched the lining without success and threw it angrily down, while the medal passed contemptuously from hand to hand.

“Tie him up,” said the lieutenant briefly at the conclusion of the operation, and Saint-Armel’s arms were firmly lashed behind him with belts. His great object being to conceal his identity, he thanked Fate that he was not wearing, as his custom was, a fine cambric shirt beneath his peasant’s attire, for as he was now stripped to that garment the anomaly would have been patent to the eye. The lieutenant, running his gaze over his figure, studied his impassive face for a moment longer.

“I believe,” he said suddenly, “that you know quite well where l’Invincible is. If you tell me you shall go free; if you do not tell me, I shall shoot you at once.”

But Hervé was not to be caught thus. Once more he shook his head, and said dully in his patient Breton: “I do not understand.”

The pronouncement being translated to him, he returned his old answer that he knew nothing about l’Invincible. An angry flush mounted to the forehead of the officer, and Hervé saw that his threat was not going to be an idle one.

“I can’t waste time over this fool,” snapped the Republican, “while l’Invincible is probably getting away. Sergeant, draw up six men – over there by the fir-tree will do. Take him over there, Lenormant.”

He turned away, and a grenadier, who had evidently been waiting his opportunity, instantly thrust something under the captive’s gaze. It was Marie le Guerric’s parting gift.

“Where did you get that medal? Answer me!” he demanded, in an almost suffocated voice.