"La discretion défend de questionner, la délicatesse défend même de deviner."
"La discretion défend de questionner, la délicatesse défend même de deviner."
We were a quiet party that evening, Madame having decided to ask no one to meet us. It was like a piece of the old Paris life, for all had met for better or worse in that city, and spoke the language of the once brilliant capital.
Madame insisted that I should take the head of the table, she herself occupying a chair at the foot, which had remained vacant as long as I could remember. So I sat for the first time in the seat of my ancestors, whence my father had issued his choleric mandates, only, I fear, to be answered as hotly.
"You are quiet, Monsieur," said Lucille, who sat at my right hand, and I thought her glance searched my face in a way that was new.
"Say he is dull," put in Alphonse, whose gaiety was at high-water mark. "Ce cherDick—he is naturally so."
And he laughed at me with his old look of affection.
"Mademoiselle means that I am duller than usual," I suggested.
"No," said Lucille, "I meant what I said."
"As always?" inquired Alphonse, in a low voice aside.
"As always," she answered, gravely. And I think she only spoke the truth.
We did not sit long over our wine, and John Turner reserved his cigar until a later opportunity.
"I'll play you a game of billiards," he said, looking at me.
In the drawing-room we found Lucille already; at the piano.
"I have some new songs," she said, "from the Basque country. I wonder if you will prefer them to the old."
I was crossing the room towards Madame, and a silence made me pause and look towards the piano. Lucille was addressing me—and no doubt I was clumsy enough to betray my surprise.
"I think I shall prefer the old ones, Mademoiselle," I answered.
She was fingering the pages carelessly, and Alphonse, who was always quick at such matters, stepped forward.
"As the songs are new the pages will require turning."
"Thank you," answered Lucille, rather coldlyas I thought, and Madame looked at me with a queer expression of impatience, as if I had done something amiss. She took up her book and presently closed her eyes. John Turner did the same, and I, remembering that he was a heavy breather, went up to him.
"I am ready to beat you at billiards," I said.
Lucille and Alphonse were so much engaged at the piano as to be apparently oblivious to our departure. I suppose that they were grateful to us in their hearts for going.
My friend did not play long or skilfully, and I, like all ne'er-do-wells, played a fair game in those days.
"Yes," he said, when handsomely beaten, "you evidently play on Sundays. Let us sit down and smoke."
I could not help noticing that the music had ceased. Lucille and Alphonse were probably talking together in low voices at the piano while Madame kindly slept.
"Don't scowl at me like that," said John Turner, "but take one of these cigars."
We sat down, and smoked for some time in silence.
"It is one thing," said my companion at length, "to give a man a fair chance, and another to throw away your own."
"What do you mean?"
"Why marry Mademoiselle to a weak-kneed fellow like Giraud?"
"He is not a weak-kneed fellow," I interrupted, "and can sit a horse as well as any man in the county."
"Life does not consist of sitting on horses."
"And he has proved himself a brave soldier."
"A man may be a brave soldier and make a poor fight of his life," persisted Turner. "Besides, it is against her will."
"Against her will?"
"Yes," said John Turner. "She wants to marry quite a different man."
"That may be," answered I, "but it is none of my business. I have no influence with Mademoiselle, who is one of my enemies. I have many."
"No—you haven't," said Turner, stoutly. "You have but one, and she is a clever one. Isabella Gayerson is a dangerous foe, my boy. She has poisoned the minds of Lucille and Alphonse against you. She has tried to do the same by the Vicomtesse, and failed. She encouraged and harboured Devar in order to annoy you. You and I start for Paris to-morrow afternoon. Take my advice and ride over to Little Corton to-morrow morning. See Isabella, and have it out with her. Talk to her as you would to a man. Life wouldbe so much simpler if people would only recognise that sex is only a small part of it. Tell her you will see her d——d before you marry her, or words to that effect. It is all a matter of vanity or money. I'm going to bed. Good-night. My apologies to the ladies."
He took his candle, and left me with half a cigar to smoke.
I was up betimes the next morning, and set off on horseback through the quiet lanes soon after breakfast. Little Corton stands a mile inland, and two miles nearer to Lowestoft than the old Manor House of Hopton. Between the houses there is little pasture land, and I rode through fresh green corn with the dew still on it. The larks—and they are nowhere so numerous as on our sea-bound uplands—were singing a blithe chorus. The world was indeed happy that May morning.
The sight of the homely red walls of Little Corton nestling among the elms brought to my mind a hundred memories of the past days, wherein Isabella's parents had ever accorded a welcome to myself—a muddy-booted boy then, with but an evil reputation in the country-side.
Isabella had gone out, they told me, but as she had taken neither hat nor gloves, the servants opined that she could not be far away. I went in search, and found her in the beech wood. She hadtaken her morning letters there, and read them as she walked, her dress stirring the dead leaves. She did not hear my footstep until I was close upon her.
"Ah! have you come to tell me that Lucille and Alphonse are engaged?" she asked, without even bidding me good morning. In her eyes, usually quiet and reserved, there was a look of great expectancy.
"No."
She folded her letters slowly, and as we walked side by side her quiet eyes came slantwise to my face in a searching glance. She asked no other question, however, and left the burthen of the silence with me. There was a rustic seat near to us, and with one accord we went to it and sat down. Isabella seemed to be breathless, I know not why, and her bodice was stirred by the rapidity of her breathing. I noticed again that my old playmate was prettier than I had ever suspected—a strongly-built woman, upright and of a fine, graceful figure.
"Don't beat about the bush," John Turner had advised, and I remembered his words now.
"Isabella," I said, awkwardly enough, as I stirred the dead leaves with my whip, "Isabella, do you know the terms of my father's will?"
She did not answer at once, and, glancing in herdirection, I saw that she had flushed like a schoolgirl.
"ISABELLA," I SAID, AWKWARDLY ENOUGH, AS I STIRRED THE DEAD LEAVES WITH MY WHIP, "ISABELLA, DO YOU KNOW THE TERMS OF MY FATHER'S WILL?" SHE DID NOT ANSWER AT ONCE, AND, GLANCING IN HER DIRECTION, I SAW THAT SHE HAD FLUSHED LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL."ISABELLA," I SAID, AWKWARDLY ENOUGH, AS I STIRRED THE DEAD LEAVES WITH MY WHIP, "ISABELLA, DO YOU KNOW THE TERMS OF MY FATHER'S WILL?" SHE DID NOT ANSWER AT ONCE, AND, GLANCING IN HER DIRECTION, I SAW THAT SHE HAD FLUSHED LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL.
"Yes," she answered at length.
"I am penniless unless you marry me."
"Yes—I know."
Her voice was quiet and composed. Isabella was younger than I, but in her presence I always felt myself her inferior and junior, as, no doubt, I had always been in mind though not in years.
"You have always been my enemy, Isabella."
"Why should I be that?" she asked.
"I suppose it is on account of the squire's will."
"I care nothing for that."
"Then, if you are not my enemy, if you do not hate me—I do not recollect doing you an injury—if you do not hate me, why have you poisoned Lucille's mind against me and made Alphonse distrust me? Why did you encourage Devar, whom you knew to be my enemy?"
"So you have ridden over in order to bring these charges against me," answered Isabella, in her coldest voice; "and you came at a time when you knew you would find me alone, so as to do it the more effectually."
"I am letting you know that I am aware that you dislike me, and want to be told why. Do you remember long ago at the gate over there leading to Drake's Spinney? It was the first time you hadput your hair up and had a long dress on. I was a clumsy oaf and did not know that those things made such a difference. I gave you a push as you were climbing over, and you fell."
"Yes," said Isabella; "I remember."
"You hurt yourself, and cried, and said you hated me then. And I believe you did, for you have never been the same since. That was fourteen years ago, Isabella—my first year at Cambridge. You were eighteen then."
"Yes," answered Isabella, in a chilly voice. "You have all your dates very correct, and a simple addition sum will tell you that I am thirty-two now—a middle-aged woman, whose hair is turning grey! Thirty-two!"
And I was too stupid, or too wise, to tell her that she did not look it.
"I do not know," I said instead, "why you should have turned against me then, and remembered so long a mere boyish jest; for I thought we were to be good friends always—as we had been—and never dreamt that a few hairpins could make us different."
Isabella sat with her still, white hands clasped in her lap, and looked towards the gate that had caused this childish breach; but I could not see the expression on her face.
"My father," I went on, determined to speakout that which was in my mind, "had no business to make such a will, which could only lead to trouble. And I should have been a scoundrel had I sacrificed your happiness to my own cupidity—or, rather, had I attempted to do so. You might have thought it your duty to take me, Isabella, had I asked you to, for the sake of the money—though you have always spared me any doubts as to your opinion of me. You have always known my faults, and been less charitable towards them than anyone else. I should have been a scoundrel indeed had I asked you to sacrifice yourself."
She sat quite still, and was breathing quietly now.
"So I came to talk it over with you—as old friends, as if we were two men."
"Which we are not," put in Isabella, with her bitter laugh; and God knows what she meant.
"We were placed in an impossible position by being thus asked to marry against our will. I did not ever think of you in that way—think of loving you, I mean. And you have made it plain enough, of course, that you do not love me. On the contrary—"
"Of course," she echoed, in a queer, tired voice. "On the contrary."
I somehow came to a stop, and sat mutely seeking words. At last, however, I broke the silence.
"Then," I said, making an effort to speak lightly and easily, "we understand each other now."—
"Yes," she answered; "we understand each other now."
I rose, for there seemed nothing more to be said, and yet feeling that I was no further on—that there was something yet misunderstood between us.
"And we are friends again, Isabella."
I held out my hand, and, after a momentary pause, she placed her fingers in it. They were cold.—"Yes, I suppose so," she said, and her lips were quivering.
I left her slowly, and with a feeling of reluctance. My way lay over the gate, where fourteen years earlier I had made that mistake. As I climbed it, I looked back. Isabella had turned sideways on the seat, and her face was hidden in her arms folded on the back of it. She seemed to be weeping. I stood for a minute or two in indecision. Then, remembering how she disliked me, went slowly on to the stable, and found my horse.
"Le courage commence l'œuvre et ... "
"Le courage commence l'œuvre et ... "
The same afternoon John Turner and I quitted Hopton. I with a heavy enough heart, which,d'ailleurs, I always carried when leaving Lucille. There was, however, work to be done, and a need for instant action is one of the surest antidotes to sad thought. I was engaged, moreover, in affairs intimately concerning Lucille. A man, it appears, whose heart is taken from him, is best employed in doing something for the woman who has it. No other occupation will fully satisfy him.
We journeyed to London, and there took the night train to Paris, crossing the Channel in a boat crowded with Frenchmen, who had contented themselves with deploring their country's evil day from across seas. As we drove through the streets of Paris in the early morning, John Turner sat looking out of the window of a cab. Never, surely, has a city been so wasted and destroyed.
"The d——d fools; the d——d fools!" my companion muttered under his breath. And Ibelieve the charred walls of each ruined landmark burnt into his soul.
I left John Turner in his rooms in the Avenue d'Antan, where everything seemed to be in order, and drove across to the Quartier St. Germain. It was my intention to dwell in the Hôtel Clericy until that house could be made habitable for the ladies. Theconcierge, I found, had been killed in one of the sorties, and his wife had, with the quick foresight of her countrywomen, secured the safety of the house by letting a certain portion of it in apartments to the officers of the National Guard as soon as the Commune was declared.
These gentlemen (one arrogant captain, I was informed, sold cat's meat in times of peace) had lived with a fine military freedom, and left marks of their boots on all the satin chairs. They had made a practice of throwing cigar ends and matches on the carpets, had stabbed a few pictures and bespattered the walls with wine, but a keen regard for their own comfort had prevented further wanton damage, and all could be repaired within a few days.
The woman made me some coffee, and while I was drinking it brought me a telegram.
"Sander wires that he has run Miste to earth in Nice. Wait for me. I follow by day mail."
The message was from Alphonse Giraud.
I laboured all day in Madame's interests, and re-engaged some of the servants who had been scattered by the war and Commune, and a fear, perhaps, of acknowledging any sympathy for the nobility.
In the evening I met Alphonse Giraud on his arrival at the Gare du Nord, and found him in fine feather, carrying a stick of British oak, which he had bought, he told me, for Miste's back.
"It will not be a matter of hitting each other with walking sticks," I answered.
We drove across to the Lyons station, and took the night mail to Marseilles. It was my second night out of bed. But I was hardy in those days, and can still thank God that I am stronger than many of my contemporaries.
"Confound you!" cried Alphonse to me the next morning as the train raced down the valley of the Loire. "You have slept all night!"
"Of course."
"And I not a wink—when each moment brings us nearer to Miste. You are no sportsman after all, Dick."
"He is the best sportsman who has the coolest head," replied I, sleepily.
We arrived at Nice in the afternoon. The very pavement smelt of heat. At the station a man came up to me, and, raising his hat, spoke myname. He handed me a letter, which I read then and there.
"The bearer is watching Miste in Nice. I am going to stop the passages by Ventimiglia and the Col di Tende. Miste has evidently appointed to meet his confederate at Genoa. Two passages have been taken on the steamer sailing Saturday thence to Buenos Ayres."
The letter was unsigned, but the handwriting that of my astute agent, Sander. Things were beginning to look black for Monsieur Miste. I saw plainly enough that Sander was thinking only of the money, and meant to catch both the thieves. The bearer of the letter, who was a Frenchman, said that he had his eye on Miste, who was staying in the old inn of the Chapeau Rouge at the top of the Quai Massena, and passed for a commercial traveller there.
"Monsieur must not molest my charge," he said. "Mr. Sander has so ordered. It is probable that Miste has in his possession only a portion of the money."
"ARE WE MEN?" RETORTED ALPHONSE, IN RESPONSE, AS HE WRESTLED WITH HIS SHIRT COLLAR, "OR ARE WE SCHOOLGIRLS? TELL ME THAT, MR. THE POLICEMAN!""ARE WE MEN?" RETORTED ALPHONSE, IN RESPONSE, AS HE WRESTLED WITH HIS SHIRT COLLAR, "OR ARE WE SCHOOLGIRLS? TELL ME THAT, MR. THE POLICEMAN!"
We went to the Hôtel des Anglais, and there wrote fictitious names in the police register; for it was impossible to be too careful. Alphonse, in his zeal, would have written himself down an Englishman had I not remonstrated, and told him that the ordinary housefly could have in its mind nodoubt as to his nationality. So he borrowed the name of a friend who had gone to Pondicherry. Our orders were to keep within the hotel garden, and thus in masterly inactivity we passed the afternoon and evening. The heat was intense, and the gay town deserted. Indeed, one half of the shops were closed.
I went to bed early, and was already asleep when a great rapping aroused me. It was Sander's colleague, who came into my room, and dismissed the waiter who had brought him thither. Alphonse, aroused by the clamour, appeared on the scene, making use of a door of communication connecting our rooms.
"Quick, Messieurs!" the man said. "Into your clothes. I will tell you my news as you dress. My man," he went on, acting valet as he spoke, "has left by the night diligence for St. Martin Lantosque. But, tell me, are these gentlemen good for forty miles on horseback to-night?"
"Are we men?" retorted Alphonse, in response, as he wrestled with his shirt collar, "or are we schoolgirls? Tell me that, Mr. the Policeman!"
"You can only hope to do it on horseback," continued the man. "It is sixty kilometres, and for thirty of them you mount. No carriage ascends at the trot. The diligence is the quickest on the road. It proceeds at the trot where the hired carriages go at a snail's pace. You hire horses—they are your own. You beat them—hein!"
And he made a gesture descriptive of a successful and timely arrival.
"It is my custom," he went on, confidentially, "to make sure that my patients are comfortably in bed at night. I go this evening to the Chapeau Rouge—Monsieur knows the house—facing the river; wine excellent—drainage leaves to be desired. Well, I find our friend is absent—has taken his luggage. He has vanished—Pfui! I know he is safe at eight o'clock—at ten he is gone. There are no trains. This man wants to get to Italy, I know. There is no boat. One way remains. To take the diligence to St. Martin Lantosque, five miles from the frontier, at the head of the valley of the Vesubie—to walk over the pass; it is but a footpath, and now buried under the snow—to reach the wildest part of northern Italy, and, if the good God so will it, arrive at Entraque. Thence by way of Cuneo and Savona one takes the train to Genoa. I inquire at the diligence office. It is as I suspected. Miste is in the diligence. He is now"—the man paused to consult his watch—"between La Tourette and Levens. It is 11:30. The diligence was twenty minutes late in starting. Our friend has two hours and ten minutes start of these gentlemen."
By way of reply we made greater haste, and, in truth, were aided therein by our new ally, who, if he possessed a busy tongue, had fingers as active.
"The horses," he continued, "await us in the Rue Paradis, just behind here—a quiet street—good horses of two comrades of mine in the mounted gendarmerie who are away on furlough. If necessary, you can leave them at the Hôtel des Alpes, at St. Martin, and write me word. If the horses come to harm, I know these gentlemen will not let my comrades suffer."
Here Alphonse, who had borrowed the money from me earlier in the day, produced two notes of five hundred francs, and pressed them unavailingly on the agent.
As we walked rapidly towards the Rue Paradis, our masterful friend gave us particulars of the road.
"It is," he said, "the route de Levens. Monsieur knows it—well, no matter! They say it was built hundreds of years before the Romans came. One ascends this bank of the river until the road divides, then to the left through the village of St. André. After two kilometres one finds one's self in a gorge—the cliffs on either side of many hundred feet. There are places where the sunlight never enters. It is an ascent always—follows La Tourette, a fortified village high above the road onthe right. Then the road becomes dangerous. There are places between Levens and St. Jean de la Rivière where to make a false step is to fall a thousand feet. One hears the Vesubie roaring far below, but the river is invisible—it is dark even at midday. The great cliffs are unbroken by a tree or a pathway. This is the Col du Dragon, a great height. In descending one passes through a long tunnel cut in the rock, and that is half-way. At St. Jean de la Rivière you will find yourselves in the valley of the Vesubie. Here, again, one mounts continually by the side of the river. The road is a dangerous one, for there are landslips and chutes of stone—at times the whole roadway is swept down into the river."
The man, with the quick gestures of his people, described all so graphically that I could see the road and its environments as he traversed it in imagination.
"Before long, however, one sees Venanson," he went on, "a church and village on a point of rock far above the river. At a turn of the road Venanson is left behind; and in front, three thousand feet above the sea, surrounded by snow mountains, lies St. Martin Lantosque. The air is cold, the people are different from the Niçois—it is another world. These gentlemen have a wonderful ride before them, and there is a moon. If I were ayounger man—but there! I am married, and have two children. Also I am afraid of my wife. Mon Dieu! I make no concealment of it. My comrades know that I fear nothing that comes in the way of our business; but I tremble before my wife—a little woman as high as my elbow. What will you? A tongue!—Pstt!"
And with his forefinger he described in the air the descent of a fork of lightning.
"These are the horses, gentlemen."
And indeed he had done us well.
"Your comrades," I said, "must be fine fellows," as I climbed up the side of a horse as tall as one of my own hunters at home.
We were soon on the road, which was plain enough, and Alphonse had crammed a handful of the hotel matches into his pocket in case we should have to climb the sign posts.
My companion, it may be imagined, was in high good humour, and sat on the top of his great charger in a state of ebullient excitement worthy of a schoolboy on his first mount.
"Ah!" he cried, as we clattered along the dusty road before the great mad-house, "this is sport, my friend. Surely, fox-hunting cannot beat this?"
"'Tis rather like riding to covert, but we cannot tell what sport this fox will give us."
The police horses were heavy footed, and worepart of their professional accoutrement, so we made a military clatter which obviously pleased the brave soul of my companion.
We had to make all speed, and yet spare no care, for should we make a false turn there would be no stopping Monsieur Miste on this side of the frontier. There were, fortunately, many carts on the road with teams of four or five horses, carrying vast loads of produce from the outlying villages to Nice. Of the drivers of these we made careful inquiries, though we often had to wake them for the purpose, as they lay asleep on the top of the load of hay or straw. One of these men thanked us for arousing him, and would have detained us to relate a tale of some carter who, at a spot called the "Saut du Français," had been thrown thus, as he slept, from the summit of his hay cart, and was broken to pieces on the rock two thousand feet below.
As we topped the Col du Dragon the day broke, and lighted up the white peaks in front of us with a pink glow. The vast snow-capped range of the Alpes Maritimes was stretched out before us like a panorama—behind us the Mediterranean lay in a blue and perfect peace. The air was cool and clear as spring water.
Alphonse Giraud pulled off his hat as he looked around him.
"Blessed Name," he cried, "what a world the good God made when He was busy with it."
Our horses threw up their heads, and answered to the voice with a willingness that made us wish we had a shorter journey before us.
At St. Jean de la Rivière we rested them for fifteen minutes. The villagers were already astir, and we learnt that we had as yet gained only half an hour on the diligence.
There was no doubt about the road now, for we were enclosed in a narrow valley, with only the great thoroughfare built above the river, and that not too securely. We made good speed, and soon sighted Venanson, a queer village perched above all vegetation on the spur of a mountain.
At a turn of the road we seemed suddenly to quit France, and wheel into Switzerland. The air was Alpine, and the vegetation that of the higher valleys there. It was near seven o'clock when we approached St. Martin Lantosque, a quaint brown village of wood, clustering around a domed church.
We soon found the Hôtel des Alpes, which was but a sorry inn of no great cleanliness. The proprietor, a white-faced man, watched us descend without enthusiasm.
"What time did the diligence come in?" I asked him.
"These gentlemen have ridden," he said pleasantly.
He was joined at this moment by a person who seemed to be a waiter, though he was clad more like a stable help.
I repeated my question at a shout, and the attendant, placing his lips against the innkeeper's ear, issued another edition of it in a voice that awakened an echo far across the vale, and startled the tired horses.
"The patron is deaf," explained the servant.
"You don't say so," I answered.
We gave these people up as hopeless, and Alphonse had the brilliant idea of applying at the post-office across the way. Here we found an intelligent man. Miste had arrived by the diligence. He had sent a telegram to Genoa. He had posted a letter; and, after a hurried breakfast at the hotel, he had set off half an hour ago by the bridle path to the Col di Finestra, alone and on foot.
".... le temps l'achève."
".... le temps l'achève."
Before setting out we had a light breakfast at the Hôtel des Alpes, where we were informed by several other persons, and on two further occasions by the waiter that the "patron" was deaf. Indeed, the village had no other news.
The postmaster had ordered a carriage, which, however, could only take us two miles on our road, for this ceased at that distance, and only a bad bridle path led onward to Italy.
Alphonse was by this time beginning to feel the effects of his long ride and sleepless night; for he had not closed his eyes, while I had snatched a priceless hour of sleep. Moreover, the hardships of the campaign had rendered him less equal to a sudden strain than a man in good condition. He kept up bravely, however, despite a great thirst which at this time assailed him, and sent him to the brook at the side of the path much too often for his good.
We entered at once upon a splendid piece ofmountain scenery, and soon left behind us the vivid green of the upper valley. To our left a sheer crag rose from the valley in one unbroken slope, and in front the mountains seemed to close and bar all progress. We had five thousand feet to climb from the frontier stone, and I anticipated having to accomplish the larger part of it alone. They had warned us that we should find eight feet of snow at the summit of the pass.
Miste had assuredly been hard pressed to attempt such a passage alone, and bearing, as he undoubtedly did, a large sum of money. The man had a fine nerve, at all events; for on the other side he would plunge into the wildest part of northern Italy, where the human scum that ever hovers on frontiers had many a fastness. Villainy always requires more nerve than virtue.
I meant, however, to catch Mr. Charles Miste on the French side of the Chapel of the Madonna di Finestra.
We trod our first snow at an altitude of about five thousand feet. The spring, it will be remembered, was a cold one in 1870, and the snow lay late that year. At last, on turning a corner, we saw about two miles ahead of us a black form on the white ground, and I confess my heart stood still.
Alphonse, who had no breath for words, graspedmy arm, and we stood for a moment watching Miste, for it could be no other. The sun was shining on the great snow-field, and the man's figure was the one dark spot there. He was evidently tired, and made but slow progress.
"I am not going to lose him now," I said to Alphonse. "If you cannot keep up with me, say so, and I will go on alone."
"You go at your own pace," answered the Frenchman, with admirable spirit, "and I will keep up till I drop. I mean to be in at the death if I can."
Miste never turned, but continued his painful, upward way. He was a light stepper, as his shallow footprints betokened; but I saw with grim delight that each step of mine overlapped his measure by a couple of inches.
There is nothing so still as the atmosphere of a summit, and in this dead silence we hurried on. Giraud's laboured breathing alone broke it. I glanced at him, and saw that his face was of a pasty white and gleaming with perspiration. Poor Alphonse had not much more in him. I slackened pace a little.
"We are gaining on him, every step tells," said I encouragingly, but it was clear that my companion would soon drop.
We went on in silence for nearly half an hourand gained visibly on Miste, who never looked back or paused. At the end of the time we were within a mile of him, and only spoke in whispers, for at such an altitude sound travels far. Every moment that Miste was ignorant of the pursuit was invaluable to us. I could see clearly now that it was he and no other; the man's back was familiar to me, and his lithe springy gait.
"Have you a revolver?" whispered Giraud as we stumbled on.
"Not I."
"Then take mine, I cannot—last—much longer."
Supposing that Miste should be in better training than myself! Supposing that when he turned and saw us he should be able to increase his pace materially, he would yet escape me!
I stretched out my hand and took the revolver, which was of a familiar pattern. I made up my mind to shoot Miste sooner than lose him, for the chase had been a long one, and my blood was hot.
We were gaining on him still, and the heat of the day made him slacken his pace. The sun beat down on us from a cloudless sky. My lips and throat were like dry leather. Alphonse had long been cooling his with snow. We did not care to speak now. All our hearts were in our eyes; at any moment Miste might turn.
Suddenly Alphonse lagged behind. I glancedat him, and he pointed upward, so I went on. It was difficult enough to breathe at such an altitude, and my heart kept making matters worse by leaping to my throat and choking me. I felt giddy at times, and shivered, though the perspiration ran off my face like rain.
I was within three hundred yards of Miste now, and Alphonse was somewhere behind me, I could not pause to note how far. We were near the summit, and the world seemed to contain but three men. My breath was short, and there was clockwork going in my head.
Then at length Miste turned. He took all in at a glance, probably recognising us. At all events he had no doubt of our business there; for he hurried on, and I could see his hand at his jacket pocket. Still I gained on him.
"Beer against absinthe," I remember thinking.
There was an unbroken snow-field ahead of us, the sheer side of a mountain with the footpath cut across it—a strip of blue shadow.
After ten minutes of rapid climbing, Miste turned at length, and waited for me. He had a cool head; for he carefully buttoned his coat and stood sideways, presenting as small a target as possible.
He raised his revolver and covered me.
"He won't fire yet," thought I, forty yards below him, and I advanced quickly.
He stood covering me for a few seconds, and then lowered his arm and waited for me. In such an atmosphere we could have spoken in ordinary tones, but we had nothing to say. Monsieur Miste and I understood each other without need of words.
"Fire, you fool!" cried Giraud behind me—nearer than I had suspected.
I was within twenty yards of Miste now; the man had a narrow, white face, and was clean shaven. I saw it only for a moment, for the revolver came up again.
"He is probably a bad shot, and will miss first time," I thought quickly, as I crept upward. The slope was steep at this point.
I saw the muzzle of the revolver quiver—a sign, no doubt, that he was bearing on the trigger. Then there was a flash, and the report, as it seemed, of a cannon. I staggered back, and dropped on one knee. Miste had hit me in the shoulder. I felt the warm blood running down within my clothes, and had a queer sensation of having fallen from a great height.
"I'll kill him!—I'll kill him!" I found myself repeating in a silly way, as I got to my feet again.
No sooner was I up than Miste fired again, and I heard the bullet whistle past my ear. At this I whipped out Giraud's revolver, for I thought the next shot would kill me. The scoundrel let mehave it a third time, and tore a piece out of my cheek; the pain of it was damnable. I now stood still and took a careful sight, remembering, in a dull way, to fire low. I aimed at his knees. Monsieur Charles Miste leapt two feet up into the air, fell face forwards, and came sliding down towards me, clutching at the snow with both hands.
I was trying to stop my two wounds, and began to be conscious of a swimming in the head. In a moment Giraud was by my side, and clapped a handful of snow on my cheek. He had been through the winter's campaign, and this was no new work for him. He tore open my shirt and pressed snow on the wound in my shoulder, from which the blood was pumping slowly. I was in a horrid plight, but in my heart knew all the while that Miste had failed to kill me.
Giraud poured some brandy into my mouth, and I suppose that I was nearly losing consciousness, for I felt the spirit running into me like new life.
In a minute or two we began to think of Miste, who was lying on his face a few yards away.
"All right now?" asked Alphonse, cheerily.
"All right," I answered, rising and going towards the black form of my enemy.
We turned him over. The eyes were open—large, liquid eyes, of a peculiarly gentle expression.I had seen them before, in Radley's Hotel at Southampton, under a gay little Parisian hat. I was down on my knees in the snow in a moment—all cold with the thought that I had killed a woman.
But Charles Miste was a man—and a dead one at that. My relief was so great that I could have shouted aloud. Miste had therefore been within my grasp at Southampton, only eluding me by a clever trick, carried out with consummate art. The dead face seemed to wear a smile as I looked at it.
Alphonse opened the man's shirt, and we looked at the small blue hole through which my bullet had found his heart. Death must have been very quick. I closed the gentle eyes, for they seemed to look at me from a woman's face.
"And now for his pockets!" I said, hardening my heart.
We turned them out one by one. His purse contained but little, and in an inner pocket some Italian silver, for use across the frontier. He had thought of everything, this careful scoundrel. In a side pocket, pinned to the lining of it, I found a flat packet enveloped in newspaper. This we unfolded hastily. It contained a number of papers. I opened one of them—a draft for five thousand pounds, drawn by John Turner on Messrs. Sweed & Carter of New York! I counted the drafts aloud and had a long task, for they numbered seventy-nine.
"AND NOW FOR HIS POCKETS!" I SAID, HARDENING MY HEART."AND NOW FOR HIS POCKETS!" I SAID, HARDENING MY HEART.
"That," I said, handing them to Giraud, "is the half of your fortune. If we have luck we shall find the remainder in Sander's hands at Genoa."
And Alphonse Giraud must needs embrace me, hurting my shoulder most infernally, and pouring out a rapid torrent of apology and self-recrimination.
"I listened when it was hinted to me that you were not honest," he cried, "that you were not seeking the money at all, or that you had already recovered it! I have watched you as if you were a thief—Mon Dieu, what a scoundrel I have been."
"At all events you have the money now."
"Yes." He paused, fingering the papers, while he thoughtfully looked down into the valley. "Yes, Dick—and it cannot buy me what I want."
Thus we are, and always shall be, when we possess at length that for which we have long yearned.
We made a further search in Miste's pockets, and found nothing. The man's clothing was of the finest, and his linen most clean and delicate. I had a queer feeling of regret that he should be dead—having wanted his life these many months and now possessing it. Ah—those accomplished desires! They stalk through life behind us—an army of silent ghosts. For months afterwards I missed him—incomprehensible though this may appear. A good foe is a tonic to the heart. Some of us arevirtuous for the sake of our friends—others pay the tribute to their foes.
There was still plenty of work for us to do, though neither was in a state to execute it. My left arm had stiffened right down to the fingers, which kept closing up despite my endeavours to keep life and movement in them. The hurt in my cheek had fortunately ceased bleeding, and Giraud bound it up with Miste's handkerchief. I recall the scent of the fine cambric to this day, and when I smell a like odour see a dead man lying on a snow-field.
We composed Miste in a decent attitude, with his slim hands crossed on his breast, and then turned our steps downward towards St. Martin Lantosque. To one who had never known a day's illness, the fatigue consequent upon the loss of so much blood was particularly irksome, and I cursed my luck many a time as we stumbled over the snow. Giraud would not let me finish the brandy in his flask, but kept some for an emergency.
The peasants were at work in the fields when we at length reached the valley, and took no heed of us. We told no one of Miste lying alone on the snow far above, but went straight to the gendarmerie, where we found the chief—a sensible man, himself an old soldier—who heard our story to an end without interruption, and promised to give us all assistance. He sent at once for the doctor, andheld my shoulder tenderly while the ball was taken from it. This he kept, together with Miste's revolver, and indeed acted throughout with the greatest shrewdness and good sense. As an old campaigner he strongly urged me to remain quietly at St. Martin for a few days until the fever which inevitably follows a bullet wound should have abated; but, on learning that it was my intention to proceed at once to Genoa, placed no difficulty in my way.
Knowing that I should find Sander at Genoa, where I could be tended, Giraud decided to remain at St. Martin Lantosque until Miste had been buried and all formalities observed.
So I set forth alone about midday—in a private carriage placed at my disposal by some local good Samaritan—feeling like a worm and no man.