P. C. Wren - The Collected Works of P. C. Wren - Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories

"Well, what are you going to do?" he asked as they sat open-mouthed. "Whatever it is, Lejaune will do it first," he added, "so you'd better do nothing."

"And Lejaune will do it first," I put in.

Michael's coolness, bitter contempt for them, and his obvious sincerity, had won. They knew he spoke the truth, and they knew he had not betrayed them to Lejaune.

I watched Guantaio, and decided that save perhaps for a little courage, he was another Bolidar. Certainly Boldini would hear of Michael's action, if Lejaune did not, as soon as Guantaio could get away from his dupes.

"What to do!" murmured Schwartz. "What to do! If Lejaune knows everything! . . ."

"Declare the whole thing off," said Michael, "and then the noble soul who has told Lejaune so much, can tell him that too," and Michael's eye rested on Guantaio.

It rested so long upon Guantaio, that that gentleman felt constrained to leap to his feet and bluster.

"Do you dare to suggest . . ." he shouted and stopped. ( Qui s'excuse s'accuse. )

"I did not know I had suggested anything," said Michael softly. "Why should I suggest anything, my friend?"

"If it were you--I'd hang you to the wall with bayonets through your ears, you yellow dog," growled Schwartz, glaring at Guantaio.

"He lies! He lies!" screamed Guantaio.

"How do you know?" asked Michael. "How do you know what Lejaune knows?"

"I meant that you lie if you say that I betrayed the plot," blustered Guantaio.

"I haven't said it," replied Michael. "It is only you who have said it. . . . You seem to be another of the clever ones. . . ."

Michael's coolness and superiority were establishing a kind of supremacy for him over these stupid creatures, driven and bedevilled as they were by cafard and by Lejaune.

They stared at each other and at us.

"What's to be done?" said Schwartz. . . . "By God! When I catch the traitor . . ." he roared and shook his great fists above his shaggy head.

"Nothing's to be done," replied Michael again, "because you can do nothing. You are in Lejaune's hands absolutely. Take my advice and drop this lunacy, and you may hear nothing more of it. . . . There may be a new Commandant here in a week or two . . ."

"Yes--and his name may be Lejaune," answered Schwartz.

"Anyhow--he knows , and he's got us," put in Brandt. "I vote we all join in the plot and then all vote it abandoned. Then he can't punish one more than another. He can't put the whole blasted garrison in his cursed cells, can he?"

"You're right," said Haff. "That's it. Abandon the whole scheme, I say. And find out the traitor and give him a night that he'll remember through eternity in Hell. . . ."

But the ferocious Schwartz was of a different fibre, and in his dogged and savage brain the murder of Lejaune was an idée fixe .

"Abandon nothing!" he roared, springing to his feet. "I tell you I . . ." And then Michael laid his hand on his arm.

"Silence, you noisy fool," he said quietly. "Don't you understand yet that whatever you say now will go straight to Lejaune?"

Schwartz, foaming, swung round on Guantaio.

"Get out of this," he growled menacingly, and pointed to the door.

"I swear I . . ." began Guantaio indignantly.

"Get out, I say!" bawled Schwartz, "and when the time comes for us to strike our blow--be careful. Let me only suspect you, and I'll hang you to the flagstaff by one foot. . . . By God, I will. . . . Go! "

Guantaio slunk off.

"Now listen to me again," said Michael. "As I told you, Lejaune knows all about your plot to murder him and desert at full moon. I did not tell him. But I was going to tell him, if, after I had warned you, you refused to abandon the scheme."

Schwartz growled and rose to his feet again.

"Oh yes," Michael went on, "I was going to warn you first, to give you a chance to think better of it--in which case I should have said nothing, of course. . . . But now get this clear. If I know of any new scheme, or any change of date or method, or anything that Lejaune does not already know--I shall tell him. . . . Do you understand? . . ."

"You cursed spy! You filthy, treacherous hound! You . . ." roared Schwartz. "Why should you . . ."

"Oh, don't be such a noisy nuisance, Schwartz," interrupted Michael. "I and a party of my friends don't choose to give Lejaune the chance he wants , and we don't really like murder either. . . . We have as much right to live as you, haven't we?"

" Live ," snarled Brandt. "D'you call this living?"

"We aren't dying of thirst, anyhow," replied Michael. "And if we are chivvied and hunted and hounded by Lejaune, it's better than being hunted to our deaths by a camel-company of goums or by the Touaregs, isn't it?"

"And who are your precious friends?" asked Haff.

"There are five of them here, for a start," said St. André.

"And how many more?" asked Schwartz.

"You'll find that out when you start mutinying, my friend," said Maris. "Don't fancy that all your band mean all they say."

"In fact," put in Cordier, "you aren't the only conspirators. There is also a plot not to mutiny, d'you see? . . . And some good 'friends' of yours are in it too."

"So you'd better drop it, Schwartz," I added. "None of us is a spy, and none of us will report anything to Lejaune without telling you first and inviting you to give it up. And if you refuse--Lejaune is going to know all about it. You are simply surrounded by real spies, too, mind."

"You cowardly hounds!" growled Schwartz. "There isn't a man in the place. . . . Cowards , I say."

"Oh, quite," agreed Michael. "But we've enough pluck to stick things out while Lejaune is in command, if you haven't. . . . Anyhow--you know how things stand now," and he strolled off, followed by St. André, Maris, Cordier, and myself.

"This is a maison de fous ," observed St. André.

"A corner of the lunatic asylum of Hell," said Cordier.

"Some of us had better keep awake to-night, I think," observed Maris.

"Especially if Bolidar is not in his bed," I added.

Michael drew me aside.

"We'll have another word with that sportsman," he said. "I think he'll have the latest tip from the stable, and I fancy he'll believe any promise we make him."

§8.

After completing our astiquage and other preparations for the morrow, Michael and I strolled in the courtyard.

"What'll Schwartz do now?" I asked.

"Probably act to-night," said Michael, "unless he swallowed our bluff that our party consists of more than us five. He may be wondering as to how many of his supposed adherents will really follow him if he starts the show. . . ."

"He may see how many will take a solemn oath to stand by him and see it through, if he gives the word for to-night," I suggested.

"Quite likely," agreed Michael. "And if neither Guantaio nor Bolidar knows about it, Schwartz may pull it off all right."

"I don't somehow see Lejaune taken by surprise, when he knows what's brewing," I said.

"No," replied Michael. "But he may be relying on Bolidar giving him the tip."

"What are we going to do if we wake up and find that the show has begun?" I asked.

"Stand by Lejaune," replied Michael. "France expects that every halfpenny legionary this day will do his dooty."

"It'll be too late to save Lejaune if we're awakened by rifle-shots and 'alarums and excursions without,' won't it?" I observed.

"That won't be our fault," said Michael. "If they murder Lejaune and the others, all we can do is to decline to join the mutineers."

"If we survive and they desert, I suppose the senior soldier will carry on as Commandant of the fort," I mused. That will take some deciding if only St. André, Maris, Cordier, you, and I are left. . . ."