I am leaving Paris for a few days; though you may not see me,you will hear of me.
“Well?”
“Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“It means that Roland is in pursuit of you.”
“What does that matter? He cannot die by the hand of any of us.”
“But you, unhappy man, you can die by his!”
“Do you think I should care so very much if he killed me, Amélie?”
“Oh! even in my gloomiest moments I never thought of that.”
“So you think your brother is on the hunt for us?”
“I am sure of it.”
“What makes you so certain?”
“Because he swore over Sir John’s body, when he thought him dead, to avenge him.”
“If he had died,” exclaimed the young man, bitterly, “we should not be where we are, Amélie.”
“God saved him, Charles; it was therefore good that he did not die.”
“For us?”
“I cannot fathom the ways of the Lord. I tell you, my beloved Charles, beware of Roland; Roland is close by.”
Charles smiled incredulously.
“I tell you that he is not only near here, but he has been seen.”
“He has been seen! Where? Who saw him?”
“Who saw him?”
“Yes.”
“Charlotte, my maid, the jailer’s daughter. She asked permission to visit her parents yesterday, Sunday; you were coming, so I told her she could stay till this morning.”
“Well?”
“She therefore spent the night with her parents. At eleven o’clock the captain of the gendarmerie brought in some prisoners. While they were locking them up, a man, wrapped in a cloak, came in and asked for the captain. Charlotte thought she recognized the new-comer’s voice. She looked at him attentively; his cloak slipped from his face, and she saw that it was my brother.”
The young man made a movement.
“Now do you understand, Charles? My brother comes to Bourg, mysteriously, without letting me know; he asks for the captain of the gendarmerie, follows him into the prison, speaks only to him, and disappears. Is that not a threatening outlook for our love? Tell me, Charles!”
As Amélie spoke, a dark cloud spread slowly over her lover’s face.
“Amélie,” said he, “when my companions and I bound ourselves together, we did not deceive ourselves as to the risks we ran.”
“But, at least,” said Amélie, “you have changed your place of refuge; you have abandoned the Chartreuse of Seillon?”
“None but our dead are there now.”
“Is the grotto of Ceyzeriat perfectly safe?”
“As safe as any refuge can be that has two exit.”
“The Chartreuse of Seillon had two exits; yet, as you say, you left your dead there.”
“The dead are safer than the living; they are sure not to die on the scaffold.”
Amélie felt a shudder go through her.
“Charles!” she murmured.
“Listen,” said the young man. “God is my witness, and you too, that I have always put laughter and gayety between your presentiments and my fears; but to-day the aspect of things has changed; we are coming face to face with the crisis. Whatever the end brings us, it is approaching. I do not ask of you, my Amélie, those selfish, unreasonable things that lovers in danger of death exact from their mistresses; I do not ask you to bind your heart to the dead, your love to a corpse—”
“Friend,” said the young girl, laying her hand on his arm, “take care; you are doubting me.”
“No; I do you the highest honor in leaving you free to accomplish the sacrifice to its full extent; but I do not want you to be bound by an oath; no tie shall fetter you.”
“So be it,” said Amélie.
“What I ask of you,” continued the young man, “and I ask you to swear it on our love, which has been, alas! so fatal to you, is this: if I am arrested and disarmed, if I am imprisoned and condemned to death, I implore you, Amélie, I exact of you, that in some way you will send me arms, not only for myself, but for my companions also, so that we may still be masters of our lives.”
“But in such a case, Charles, may I not tell all to my brother? May I not appeal to his tenderness; to the generosity of the First Consul?”
Before the young girl had finished, her lover seized her violently by the wrist.
“Amélie,” said he, “it is no longer one promise I ask of you, there are two. Swear to me, in the first place, and above all else, that you will not solicit my pardon. Swear it, Amélie; swear it!”
“Do I need to swear, dear?” asked the young girl, bursting into tears. “I promise it.”
“Promise it on the hour when I first said I loved you, on the hour when you answered that I was loved!”
“On your life, on mine, on the past, on the future, on our smiles, on our tears.”
“I should die in any case, you see, Amélie, even though I had to beat my brains out against the wall; but I should die dishonored.”
“I promise you, Charles.”
“Then for my second request, Amélie: if we are taken and condemned, send me arms—arms or poison, the means of dying, any means. Coming from you, death would be another joy.”
“Far or near, free or a prisoner, living or dead, you are my master, I am your slave; order and I obey.”
“That is all, Amélie; it is simple and clear, you see, no pardon, and the means of death.”
“Simple and clear, but terrible.”
“You will do it, will you not?”
“You wish me to?”
“I implore you.”
“Order or entreaty, Charles, your will shall be done.”
The young man held the girl, who seemed on the verge of fainting, in his left arm, and approached his mouth to hers. But, just as their lips were about to touch, an owl’s cry was heard, so close to the window that Amélie started and Charles raised his head. The cry was repeated a second time, and then a third.
“Ah!” murmured Amélie, “do you hear that bird of ill-omen? We are doomed, my friend.”
But Charles shook his head.
“That is not an owl, Amélie,” he said; “it is the call of our companions. Put out the light.”
Amélie blew it out while her lover opened the window.
“Even here,” she murmured; “they seek you even here!”
“It is our friend and confidant, the Comte de Jayat; no one else knows where I am.” Then, leaning from the balcony, he asked: “Is it you, Montbar?”
“Yes; is that you, Morgan?”
“Yes.”
A man came from behind a clump of trees.
“News from Paris; not an instant to lose; a matter of life and death to us all.”
“Do you hear, Amélie?”
Taking the young girl in his arms, he pressed her convulsively to his heart.
“Go,” she said, in a faint voice, “go. Did you not hear him say it was a matter of life and death for all of you?”
“Farewell, my Amélie, my beloved, farewell!”
“Oh! don’t say farewell.”
“No, no; au revoir!”
“Morgan, Morgan!” cried the voice of the man waiting below in the garden.
The young man pressed his lips once more to Amélie’s; then, rushing to the window, he sprang over the balcony at a bound and joined his friend.
Amélie gave a cry, and ran to the balustrade; but all she saw was two moving shadows entering the deepening shadows of the fine old trees that adorned the park.
The two young men plunged into the shadow of the trees. Morgan guided his companion, less familiar than he with the windings of the park, until they reached the exact spot where he was in the habit of scaling the wall. It took but an instant for both of them to accomplish that feat. The next moment they were on the banks of the Reissouse.
A boat was fastened to the foot of a willow; they jumped into it, and three strokes of the oar brought them to the other side. There a path led along the bank of the river to a little wood which extends from Ceyzeriat to Etrez, a distance of about nine miles, and thus forms, on the other side of the river, a pendant to the forest of Seillon.
On reaching the edge of the wood they stopped. Until then they had been walking as rapidly as it was possible to do without running, and neither of them had uttered a word. The whole way was deserted; it was probable, in fact certain, that no one had seen them. They could breathe freely.
“Where are the Companions?” asked Morgan.
“In the grotto,” replied Montbar.
“Why don’t we go there at once?”
“Because we shall find one of them at the foot of that beech, who will tell us if we can go further without danger.”
“Which one?”
“D’Assas.”
A shadow came from behind the tree.
“Here I am,” it said.
“Ah! there you are,” exclaimed the two young men.
“Anything new?” inquired Montbar.
“Nothing; they are waiting for you to come to a decision.”
“In that case, let us hurry.”
The three young men continued on their way. After going about three hundred yards, Montbar stopped again, and said softly: “Armand!”
The dry leaves rustled at the call, and a fourth shadow stepped from behind a clump of trees, and approached his companions.
“Anything new?” asked Montbar.
“Yes; a messenger from Cadoudal.”
“The same one who came before?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“With the brothers, in the grotto.”
“Come.”
Montbar rushed on ahead; the path had grown so narrow that the four young men could only walk in single file. It rose for about five hundred paces with an easy but winding slope. Coming to an opening, Montbar stopped and gave, three times, the same owl’s cry with which he had called Morgan. A single hoot answered him; then a man slid down from the branches of a bushy oak. It was the sentinel who guarded the entrance to the grotto, which was not more than thirty feet from the oak. The position of the trees surrounding it made it almost impossible of detection.
The sentinel exchanged a few whispered words with Montbar, who seemed, by fulfilling the duties of leader, desirous of leaving Morgan entirely to his thoughts. Then, as his watch was probably not over, the bandit climbed the oak again, and was soon so completely blended with the body of the tree that those he had left might have looked for him in vain in that aerial bastion.
The glade became narrower as they neared the entrance to the grotto. Montbar reached it first, and from a hiding-place known to him he took a flint, a steel, some tinder, matches, and a torch. The sparks flew, the tinder caught fire, the match cast a quivering bluish flame, to which succeeded the crackling, resinous flames of the torch.
Three or four paths were then visible. Montbar took one without hesitation. The path sank, winding into the earth, and turned back upon itself, as if the young men were retracing their steps underground, along the path that had brought them. It was evident that they were following the windings of an ancient quarry, probably the one from which were built, nineteen hundred years earlier, the three Roman towns which are now mere villages, and Cæsar’s camp which overlooked them.
At intervals this subterraneous path was cut entirely across by a deep ditch, impassable except with the aid of a plank, that could, with a kick, be precipitated into the hollow beneath. Also, from place to place, breastworks could still be seen, behind which men could intrench themselves and fire without exposing their persons to the sight or fire of the enemy. Finally, at five hundred yards from the entrance, a barricade of the height of a man presented a final obstacle to those who sought to enter a circular space in which ten or a dozen men were now seated or lying around, some reading, others playing cards.
Neither the readers nor the players moved at the noise made by the new-comers, or at the gleam of their light playing upon the walls of the quarry, so certain were they that none but friends could reach this spot, guarded as it was.
For the rest, the scene of this encampment was extremely picturesque; wax candles were burning in profusion (the Companions of Jehu were too aristocratic to make use of any other light) and cast their reflection upon stands of arms of all kinds, among which double-barrelled muskets and pistols held first place. Foils and masks were hanging here and there upon the walls; several musical instruments were lying about, and a few mirrors in gilt frames proclaimed the fact that dress was a pastime by no means unappreciated by the strange inhabitants of that subterranean dwelling.
They all seemed as tranquil as though the news which had drawn Morgan from Amélie’s arms was unknown to them, or considered of no importance.
Nevertheless, when the little group from outside approached, and the words: “The captain! the captain!” were heard, all rose, not with the servility of soldiers toward their approaching chief, but with the affectionate deference of strong and intelligent men for one stronger and more intelligent than they.
Then Morgan shook his head, raised his eyes, and, passing before Montbar, advanced to the centre of the circle which had formed at his appearance, and said:
“Well, friends, it seems you have had some news.”
“Yes, captain,” answered a voice; “the police of the First Consul does us the honor to be interested in us.”
“Where is the messenger?” asked Morgan.
“Here,” replied a young man, wearing the livery of a cabinet courier, who was still covered with mud and dust.
“Have you any despatches?”
“Written, no, verbal, yes.”
“Where do they come from?”
“The private office of the minister of police.”
“Can they be trusted?”
“I’ll answer for them; they are positively official.”
(“It’s a good thing to have friends everywhere,” observed Montbar, parenthetically.)
“Especially near M. Fouché,” resumed Morgan; “let us hear the news.”
“Am I to tell it aloud, or to you privately?”
“I presume we are all interested, so tell it aloud.”
“Well, the First Consul sent for citizen Fouché at the Louvre, and lectured him on our account.”
“Capital! what next?”
“Citizen Fouché replied that we were clever scamps, very difficult to find, and still more difficult to capture when we had been found, in short, he praised us highly.”
“Very amiable of him. What next?”
“Next, the First Consul replied that that did not concern him, that we were brigands, and that it was our brigandage which maintained the war in Vendée, and that the day we ceased sending money to Brittany there would be no more Brittany.”
“Excellent reasoning, it seems to me.”
“He said the West must be fought in the East and the Midi.”
“Like England in India.”
“Consequently he gave citizen Fouché full powers, and, even if it cost a million and he had to kill five hundred men, he must have our heads.”
“Well, he knows his man when he makes his demand; remains to be seen if we let him have them.”
“So citizen Fouché went home furious, and vowed that before eight days passed there should not be a single Companion of Jehu left in France.”
“The time is short.”
“That same day couriers started for Lyons, Mâcon, Sons-le-Saulnier, Besançon and Geneva, with orders to the garrison commanders to do personally all they could for our destruction; but above all to obey unquestioningly M. Roland de Montrevel, aide-de-camp to the First Consul, and to put at his disposal as many troops as he thought needful.”
“And I can add,” said Morgan, “that M. Roland de Montrevel is already in the field. He had a conference with the captain of the gendarmerie, in the prison at Bourg, yesterday.”
“Does any one know why?” asked a voice.
“The deuce!” said another, “to engage our cells.”
“Do you still mean to protect him?” asked d’Assas.
“More than ever.”
“Ah! that’s too much!” muttered a voice.
“Why so,” retorted Morgan imperiously, “isn’t it my right as a Companion?”
“Certainly,” said two other voices.
“Then I use it; both as a Companion and as your leader.”
“But suppose in the middle of the fray a stray ball should take him?” said a voice.
“Then, it is not a right I claim, nor an order that I give, but an entreaty I make. My friends, promise me, on your honor, that the life of Roland de Montrevel will be sacred to you.”
With unanimous voice, all stretching out their hands, they replied: “We swear on our honor!”
“Now,” resumed Morgan, “let us look at our position under its true aspect, without deluding ourselves in any way. Once an intelligent police force starts out to pursue us, and makes actual war against us, it will be impossible for us to resist. We may trick them like a fox, or double like a boar, but our resistance will be merely a matter of time, that’s all. At least that is my opinion.”
Morgan questioned his companions with his eyes, and their acquiescence was unanimous, though it was with a smile on their lips that they recognized their doom. But that was the way in those strange days. Men went to their death without fear, and they dealt it to others without emotion.
“And now,” asked Montbar, “have you anything further to say?”
“Yes,” replied Morgan, “I have to add that nothing is easier than to procure horses, or even to escape on foot; we are all hunters and more or less mountaineers. It will take us six hours on horse back to get out of France, or twelve on foot. Once in Switzerland we can snap our fingers at citizen Fouché and his police. That’s all I have to say.”
“It would be very amusing to laugh at citizen Fouché,” said Montbar, “but very dull to leave France.”
“For that reason, I shall not put this extreme measure to a vote until after we have talked with Cadoudal’s messenger.”
“Ah, true,” exclaimed two or three voices; “the Breton! where is the Breton?”
“He was asleep when I left,” said Montbar.
“And he is still sleeping,” said Adler, pointing to a man lying on a heap of straw in a recess of the grotto.
They wakened the Breton, who rose to his knees, rubbing his eyes with one hand and feeling for his carbine with the other.
“You are with friends,” said a voice; “don’t be afraid.”
“Afraid!” said the Breton; “who are you, over there, who thinks I am afraid?”
“Some one who probably does not know what fear is, my dear Branche-d’Or,” said Morgan, who recognized in Cadoudal’s messenger the same man whom they had received at the Chartreuse the night he himself arrived from Avignon. “I ask pardon on his behalf.”
Branche-d’Or looked at the young men before him with an air that left no doubt of his repugnance for a certain sort of pleasantry; but as the group had evidently no offensive intention, their gayety having no insolence about it, he said, with a tolerably gracious air: “Which of you gentlemen is captain? I have a letter for him from my captain.”
Morgan advanced a step and said: “I am.”
“Your name?”
“I have two.”
“Your fighting name?”
“Morgan.”
“Yes, that’s the one the general told me; besides, I recognize you. You gave me a bag containing sixty thousand francs the night I saw the monks. The letter is for you then.”
“Give it to me.”
The peasant took off his hat, pulled out the lining, and from between it and the felt he took a piece of paper which resembled another lining, and seemed at first sight to be blank. Then, with a military salute, he offered the paper to Morgan, who turned it over and over and could see no writing; at least none was apparent.
“A candle,” he said.
They brought a wax light; Morgan held the paper to the flame. Little by little, as the paper warmed, the writing appeared. The experience appeared familiar to the young men; the Breton alone seemed surprised. To his naive mind the operation probably seemed like witchcraft; but so long as the devil was aiding the royalist cause the Chouan was willing to deal with him.
“Gentlemen,” said Morgan, “do you want to know what the master says?”
All bowed and listened, while the young man read:
MY DEAR MORGAN—If you hear that I have abandoned the cause, andam in treaty with the government of the First Consul and theVendéan leaders, do not believe it. I am a Breton of Brittany,and consequently as stubborn as a true Breton. The First Consulsent one of his aides-de-camp to offer me an amnesty for all mymen, and the rank of colonel for myself. I have not even consultedmy men, I refused for them and for me.Now, all depends on us; as we receive from the princes neithermoney nor encouragement, you are our only treasurer; close yourcoffers, or rather cease to open those of the government for us,and the royalist opposition, the heart of which beats only inBrittany, will subside little by little, and end before long.I need not tell you that my life will have ended first.Our mission is dangerous; probably it will cost us our heads; butwhat can be more glorious than to hear posterity say of us, ifone can hear beyond the grave: “All others despaired; but they,never!”One of us will survive the other, but only to succumb later. Letthat survivor say as he dies:Etiamsi omnes, ego non.Count on me as I count on you. CADOUDAL.P.S.—You know that you can safely give Branche-d’Or all the moneyyou have for the Cause. He has promised me not to let himself betaken, and I trust his word.
A murmur of enthusiasm ran through the group, as Morgan finished the last words of the letter.
“You have heard it, gentlemen?” he said.
“Yes, yes, yes,” repeated every voice.
“In the first place, how much money have we to give to Branche-d’Or?”
“Thirteen thousand francs from the Lake of Silans, twenty-two thousand from Les Carronnières, fourteen thousand from Meximieux, forty-nine thousand in all,” said one of the group.
“You hear, Branche-d’Or?” said Morgan; “it is not much—only half what we gave you last time, but you know the proverb: ‘The handsomest girl in the world can only give what she has.’”
“The general knows what you risk to obtain this money, and he says that, no matter how little you send, he will receive it gratefully.”
“All the more, that the next will be better,” said a young man who had just joined the group, unperceived, so absorbed were all present in Cadoudal’s letter. “More especially if we say two words to the mail-coach from Chambéry next Saturday.”
“Ah! is that you, Valensolle?” said Morgan.
“No real names, if you please, baron; let us be shot, guillotined, drawn and quartered, but save our family honor. My name is Adler; I answer to no other.”
“Pardon me, I did wrong—you were saying?”
“That the mail-coach from Paris to Chambéry will pass through Chapelle-de-Guinchay and Belleville next Saturday, carrying fifty thousand francs of government money to the monks of Saint-Bernard; to which I may add that there is between those two places a spot called the Maison-Blanche, which seems to me admirably adapted for an ambuscade.”
“What do you say, gentlemen?” asked Morgan, “Shall we do citizen Fouché the honor to worry about his police? Shall we leave France? Or shall we still remain faithful Companions of Jehu?”
There was but one reply—“We stay.”
“Right!” said Morgan. “Brothers, I recognize you there. Cadoudal points out our duty in that admirable letter we have just received. Let us adopt his heroic motto:Etiamsi omnes, ego non.” Then addressing the peasant, he said, “Branche-d’Or, the forty-nine thousand francs are at your disposal; you can start when you like. Promise something better next time, in our name, and tell the general for me that, wherever he goes, even though it be to the scaffold, I shall deem it an honor to follow, or to precede him. Au revoir, Branche-d’Or.” Then, turning to the young man who seemed so anxious to preserve his incognito, “My dear Adler,” he said, like a man who has recovered his gayety, lost for an instant, “I undertake to feed and lodge you this night, if you will deign to accept me as a host.”
“Gratefully, friend Morgan,” replied the new-comer. “Only let me tell you that I could do without a bed, for I am dropping with fatigue, but not without supper, for I am dying of hunger.”
“You shall have a good bed and an excellent supper.”
“Where must I go for them.”
“Follow me.”
“I’m ready.”
“Then come on. Good-night, gentlemen! Are you on watch, Montbar?”
“Yes.”
“Then we can sleep in peace.”
So saying, Morgan passed his arm through that of his friend, took a torch in his other hand, and passed into the depths of the grotto, where we will follow him if our readers are not too weary of this long session.
It was the first time that Valensolle, who came, as we have said, from the neighborhood of Aix, had had occasion to visit the grotto of Ceyzeriat, recently adopted as the meeting-place of the Companions of Jehu. At the preceding meetings he had occasion to explore only the windings and intricacies of the Chartreuse of Seillon, which he now knew so well that in the farce played before Roland the part of ghost was intrusted to him. Everything was, therefore, curious and unknown to him in this new domicile, where he now expected to take his first sleep, and which seemed likely to be, for some days at least, Morgan’s headquarters.
As is always the case in abandoned quarries—which, at the first glance, partake somewhat of the character of subterranean cities—the different galleries excavated by the removal of the stone end in a cul de sac; that is to say, at a point in the mine where the work stops. One of these streets seemed to prolong itself indefinitely. Nevertheless, there came a point where the mine would naturally have ended, but there, in the angle of the tunnelled way, was cut (For what purpose? The thing remains a mystery to this day among the people of the neigbborhood) an opening two-thirds the width of the gallery, wide enough, or nearly so, to give passage to two men abreast.
The two friends passed through this opening. The air there became so rarefied that their torch threatened to go out at every step. Vallensolle felt drops of ice-cold water falling on his hands and face.
“Bless me,” said he, “does it rain down here?”
“No,” replied Morgan, laughing; “only we are passing under the Reissouse.”
“Then we are going to Bourg?”
“That’s about it.”
“All right; you are leading me; you have promised me supper and a bed, so I have nothing to worry about—unless that light goes out,” added the young man, looking at the paling flame of the torch.
“That wouldn’t matter; we can always find ourselves here.”
“In the end!” said Valensolle. “And when one reflects that we are wandering through a grotto under rivers at three o’clock in the morning, sleeping the Lord knows where, with the prospect of being taken, tried, and guillotined some fine morning, and all for princes who don’t even know our names, and who if they did know them one day would forget them the next—I tell you, Morgan, it’s stupid!”
“My dear fellow,” said Morgan, “what we call stupid, what ordinary minds never do understand in such a case, has many a chance to become sublime.”
“Well, well,” said Valensolle, “I see that you will lose more than I do in this business; I put devotion into it, but you put enthusiasm.”
Morgan sighed.
“Here we are,” said he, letting the conversation drop, like a burden too heavy to be carried longer. In fact, his foot had just struck against the first step of a stairway.
Preceding Valensolle, for whom he lighted the way, Morgan went up ten steps and reached the gate. Taking a key from his pocket, he opened it. They found themselves in the burial vault. On each side of the vault stood coffins on iron tripods: ducal crowns and escutcheons, blazoned azure, with the cross argent, indicated that these coffins belonged to the family of Savoy before it came to bear the royal crown. A flight of stairs at the further end of the cavern led to an upper floor.
Valensolle cast a curious glance around him, and by the vacillating light of the torch, he recognized the funereal place he was in.
“The devil!” said he, “we are just the reverse of the Spartans, it seems.”
“Inasmuch as they were Republicans and we are royalists?” asked Morgan.
“No; because they had skeletons at the end of their suppers, and we have ours at the beginning.”
“Are you sure it was the Spartans who proved their philosophy in that way?” asked Morgan, closing the door.
“They or others—what matter?” said Vallensolle. “Faith! My citation is made, and like the Abbé Vertot, who wouldn’t rewrite his siege, I’ll not change it.”
“Well, another time you had better say the Egyptians.”
“Well,” said Valensolle, with an indifference that was not without a certain sadness, “I’ll probably be a skeleton myself before I have another chance to display my erudition. But what the devil are you doing? Why did you put out the torch? You’re not going to make me eat and sleep here I hope?”
Morgan had in fact extinguished the torch at the foot of the steps leading to the upper floor.
“Give me your hand,” said the young man.
Valensolle seized his friend’s band with an eagerness that showed how very slight a desire he had to make a longer stay in the gloomy vaults of the dukes of Savoy, no matter what honor there might be in such illustrious companionship.
Morgan went up the steps. Then, by the tightening of his hand, Valensolle knew he was making an effort. Presently a stone was raised, and through the opening a trembling gleam of twilight met the eyes of the young men, and a fragrant aromatic odor came to comfort their sense of smell after the mephitic atmosphere of the vaults.
“Ah!” cried Valensolle, “we are in a barn; I prefer that.”
Morgan did not answer; he helped his companion to climb out of the vault, and then let the stone drop back in its place.
Valensolle looked about him. He was in the midst of a vast building filled with hay, into which the light filtered through windows of such exquisite form that they certainly could not be those of a barn.
“Why!” said Valensolle, “we are not in a barn!”
“Climb up the hay and sit down near that window,” replied Morgan.
Valensolle obeyed and scrambled up the hay like a schoolboy in his holidays; then he sat down, as Morgan had told him, before a window. The next moment Morgan placed between his friend’s legs a napkin containing a paté, bread, a bottle of wine, two glasses, two knives and two forks.
“The deuce!” cried Valensolle, “‘Lucullus sups with Lucullus.’”
Then gazing through the panes at a building with numberless windows, which seemed to be a wing of the one they were in, and before which a sentry was pacing, he exclaimed: “Positively, I can’t eat my supper till I know where we are. What is this building? And why that sentry at the door?”
“Well,” said Morgan, “since you absolutely must know, I will tell you. We are in the church of Brou, which was converted into a fodder storehouse by a decree of the Municipal Council. That adjoining building is now the barracks of the gendarmerie, and that sentry is posted to prevent any one from disturbing our supper or surprising us while we sleep.”
“Brave fellows,” said Valensolle, filling his glass; “their health, Morgan!”
“And ours!” said the young man, laughing; “the devil take me if any one could dream of finding us here.”
Morgan had hardly drained his glass, when, as if the devil had accepted the challenge, the sentinel’s harsh, strident voice cried: “Qui vive!”
“Hey!” exclaimed the two young men, “what does this mean?”
A body of thirty men came from the direction of Pont d’Ain, and, after giving the countersign to the sentry, at once dispersed; the larger number, led by two men, who seemed to be officers, entered the barracks; the others continued on their way.
“Attention!” said Morgan.
And both young men, on their knees, their ears alert, their eyes at the window, waited.
Let us now explain to the reader the cause of this interruption of a repast which, though taken at three o’clock in the morning, was not, as we have seen, over-tranquil.
The jailer’s daughter had not been mistaken; it was indeed Roland whom she had seen in the jail speaking to the captain of the gendarmerie. Neither was Amélie wrong in her terror. Roland was really in pursuit of Morgan.
Although he avoided going to the Château des Noires-Fontaines, it was not that he had the slightest suspicion of the interest his sister had in the leader of the Companions of Jehu; but he feared the indiscretion of one of his servants. He had recognized Charlotte at the jail, but as the girl showed no astonishment, he believed she had not recognized him, all the more because, after exchanging a few words with the captain, he went out to wait for the latter on the Place du Bastion, which was always deserted at that hour.
His duties over, the captain of gendarmerie joined him. He found Roland impatiently walking back and forth. Roland had merely made himself known at the jail, but here he proceeded to explain the matter, and to initiate the captain into the object of his visit.
Roland had solicited the First Consul, as a favor to himself, that the pursuit of the Companions of Jehu be intrusted to him personally, a favor he had obtained without difficulty. An order from the minister of war placed at his disposal not only the garrison of Bourg, but also those of the neighboring towns. An order from the minister of police enjoined all the officers of the gendarmerie to render him every assistance.
He naturally applied in the first instance to the captain of the gendarmerie at Bourg, whom he had long known personally as a man of great courage and executive ability. He found what he wanted in him. The captain was furious against the Companions of Jehu, who had stopped diligences within a mile of his town, and on whom he was unable to lay his hand. He knew of the reports relating to the last three stoppages that had been sent to the minister of police, and he understood the latter’s anger. But Roland brought his amazement to a climax when he told him of the night he had spent at the Chartreuse of Seillon, and of what had happened to Sir John at that same Chartreuse during the succeeding night.
The captain had heard by common rumor that Madame de Montrevel’s guest had been stabbed; but as no one had lodged a complaint, he did not think he had the right to investigate circumstances which it seemed to him Roland wished to keep in the dark. In those troublous days more indulgence was shown to officers of the army than they might have received at other times.
As for Roland, he had said nothing because he wished to reserve for himself the satisfaction of pursuing the assassins and sham ghosts of the Chartreuse when the time came. He now arrived with full power to put that design into execution, firmly resolved not to return to the First Consul until it was accomplished. Besides, it was one of those adventures he was always seeking, at once dangerous and picturesque, an opportunity of pitting his life against men who cared little for their own, and probably less for his. Roland had no conception of Morgan’s safe-guard which had twice protected him from danger—once on the night he had watched at the Chartreuse, and again when he had fought against Cadoudal. How could he know that a simple cross was drawn above his name, and that this symbol of redemption guaranteed his safety from one end of France to the other?
For the rest, the first thing to be done was to surround the Chartreuse of Seillon, and to search thoroughly into its most secret places—a thing Roland believed himself perfectly competent to do.
The night was now too far advanced to undertake the expedition, and it was postponed until the one following. In the meantime Roland remained quietly in hiding in the captain’s room at the barracks that no one might suspect his presence at Bourg nor its cause. The following night he was to guide the expedition. In the course of the morrow, one of the gendarmes, who was a tailor, agreed to make him a sergeant’s uniform. He was to pass as a member of the brigade at Sons-le-Saulnier, and, thanks to the uniform, could direct the search at the Chartreuse without being recognized.
Everything happened as planned. Roland entered the barracks with the captain about one o’clock, ascended to the latter’s room, where he slept on a bed on the floor like a man who has just passed two days and two nights in a post-chaise. The next day he restrained his impatience by drawing a plan of the Chartreuse of Seillon for the captain’s instruction, with which, even without Roland’s help, that worthy officer could have directed the expedition without going an inch astray.
As the captain had but eighteen men under him, and it was not possible to surround the monastery completely with that number, or rather, to guard the two exits and make a thorough search through the interior, and, as it would have taken three or four days to bring in all the men of the brigade scattered throughout the neighborhood, the officer, by Roland’s order, went to the colonel of dragoons, garrisoned at Bourg, told him of the matter in hand, and asked for twelve men, who, with his own, made thirty in all.
The colonel not only granted the twelve men, but, learning that the expedition was to be commanded by Colonel Roland de Montrevel, aide-de-camp to the First Consul, he proposed that he himself should join the party at the head of his twelve men.
Roland accepted his co-operation, and it was agreed that the colonel (we employ the words colonel and chief of brigade indifferently, both being interchangeable terms indicating the same rank) and his twelve dragoons should pick up Roland, the captain, and his eighteen men, the barracks being directly on their road to the Chartreuse. The time was set for eleven that night.
At eleven precisely, with military punctuality, the colonel of dragoons and his twelve men joined the gendarmes, and the two companies, now united in one, began their march. Roland, in his sergeant’s uniform, made himself known to his brother colonel; but to the dragoons and gendarmes he remained, as agreed upon, a sergeant detached from the brigade at Sons-le-Saulnier. Only, as it might otherwise have seemed extraordinary that a sergeant, wholly unfamiliar with these localities, should be their guide, the men were told that Roland had been in his youth a novice at Seillon, and was therefore better acquainted than most persons with the mysterious nooks of the Chartreuse.
The first feeling of these brave soldiers had been a slight humiliation at being guided by an ex-monk; but, on the other hand, as that ex-monk wore the three-cornered hat jauntily, and as his whole manner and appearance was that of a man who has completely forgotten that he formerly wore a cowl, they ended by accepting the humiliation, and reserved their final judgment on the sergeant until they could see how he handled the musket he carried on his arm, the pistols he wore in his belt, and the sword that hung at his side.
The party was supplied with torches, and started in perfect silence. They were divided into three squads; one of eight men, led by the captain of gendarmerie, another of ten, commanded by the colonel, and the third of twelve men, with Roland at its head. On leaving the town they separated.
The captain of the gendarmerie, who knew the localities better than the colonel of dragoons, took upon himself to guard the window of La Correrie, giving upon the forest of Seillon, with his eight men. The colonel of dragoons was commissioned by Roland to watch the main entrance of the Chartreuse; with him were five gendarmes and five dragoons. Roland was to search the interior, taking with him five gendarmes and seven dragoons.
Half an hour was allowed each squad to reach its post; it was more than was needed. Roland and his men were to scale the orchard wall when half-past eleven was ringing from the belfry at Péronnaz. The captain of gendarmerie followed the main road from Pont d’Ain to the edge of the woods, which he skirted until he reached his appointed station. The colonel of dragoons took the crossroad which branches from the highway of Pont d’Ain and leads to the great portal of the Chartreuse. Roland crossed the fields to the orchard wall which, as the reader will remember, he had already climbed on two occasions.
Punctually at half-past eleven he gave the signal to his men to scale the wall. By the time they reached the other side the men, if they did not yet know that Roland was brave, were at least sure that he was active.
Roland pointed in the dusk to a door—the one that led from the orchard into the cloister. Then he sprang ahead through the rank grasses; first, he opened the door; first, he entered the cloister.
All was dark, silent and solitary. Roland, still guiding his men, reached the refectory. Absolute solitude; utter silence.
They crossed the hall obliquely, and returned to the garden without alarming a living creature except the owls and the bats. There still remained the cistern, the mortuary vault, and the pavilion, or rather, the chapel in the forest, to be searched. Roland crossed the open space between the cistern and the monastery. After descending the steps, he lighted three torches, kept one, and handed the other two, one to a dragoon, the other to a gendarme; then he raised the stone that concealed the stairway.
The gendarmes who followed Roland began to think him as brave as he was active.
They followed the subterranean passage to the first gate; it was closed but not locked. They entered the funereal vault. Here was more than solitude, more than silence; here was death. The bravest felt a shiver in the roots of their hair.
Roland went from tomb to tomb, sounding each with the butt of the pistol he held in his hand. Silence everywhere. They crossed the vault, reached the second gate, and entered the chapel. The same silence, the same solitude; all was deserted, as it seemed, for years. Roland went straight to the choir; there lay the blood on the stones; no one had taken the trouble to efface it. Here was the end of his search, which had proved futile. Roland could not bring himself to retreat. He fancied he was not attacked because of his numerous escort; he therefore left ten men and a torch in the chapel, told them to put themselves in communication, through the ruined window, with the captain of the gendarmerie, who was ambushed in the forest within a few feet of the window, while he himself, with two men, retraced his steps.
This time the two men who followed Roland thought him more than brave, they considered him foolhardy. But Roland, caring little whether they followed or not, retraced his own steps in default of those of the bandits. The two men, ashamed, followed him.
Undoubtedly the Chartreuse was deserted. When Roland reached the great portal, he called to the colonel of dragoons; he and his men were at their post. Roland opened the door and joined them. They had seen nothing, heard nothing. The whole party entered the monastery, closing and barricading the door behind them to cut off the bandits’ retreat, if they were fortunate enough to meet any. Then they hastened to rejoin their comrades, who, on their side, had united with the captain and his eight men, and were waiting for them in the choir.
There was nothing for it but to retire. Two o’clock had just struck; nearly three hours had been spent in fruitless search. Roland, rehabilitated in the estimation of the gendarmes and the dragoons, who saw that the ex-novice did not shirk danger, regretfully gave the signal for retreat by opening the door of the chapel which looked toward the forest.
This time Roland merely closed the door behind him, there being no longer any hope of encountering the brigands. Then the little troop returned to Bourg at a quick step. The captain of gendarmerie, with his eighteen men and Roland, re-entered the barracks, while the colonel and his twelve men continued on their way toward the town.
It was the sentinel’s call, as he challenged the captain and his party, which had attracted the attention of Morgan and Valensolle; and it was the noise of their return to the barracks which interrupted the supper, and caused Morgan to cry out at this unforeseen circumstance: “Attention!”
In fact, in the present situation of these young men, every circumstance merited attention. So the meal was interrupted. Their jaws ceased to work to give the eyes and ears full scope. It soon became evident that the services of their eyes were alone needed.
Each gendarme regained his room without light. The numerous barrack windows remained dark, so that the watchers were able to concentrate their attention on a single point.
Among those dark windows, two were lighted. They stood relatively back from the rest of the building, and directly opposite to the one where the young men were supping. These windows were on the first floor, but in the position the watchers occupied at the top of bales of hay, Morgan and Valensolle were not only on a level, but could even look down into them. These windows were those of the room of the captain of gendarmes.
Whether from indifference on the worthy captain’s part, or by reason of State penury, the windows were bare of curtains, so that, thanks to the two candles which the captain had lighted in his guest’s honor, Morgan and Valensolle could see everything that took place in this room.
Suddenly Morgan grasped Valensolle’s arm, and pressed it with all his might.
“Hey” said Valensolle “what now?”
Roland had just thrown his three-cornered hat on a chair and Morgan had recognized him.
“Roland de Montrevel!” he exclaimed, “Roland in a sergeant’s uniform! This time we are on his track while he is still seeking ours. It behooves us not to lose it.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Valensolle, observing that his friend was preparing to leave him.
“Inform our companions. You stay here and do not lose sight of him. He has taken off his sword, and laid his pistols aside, therefore it is probable he intends to spend the night in the captain’s room. To-morrow I defy him to take any road, no matter which, without one of us at his heels.”
And Morgan sliding down the declivity of the hay, disappeared from sight, leaving his companion crouched like a sphinx, with his eyes fixed on Roland de Montrevel.
A quarter of an hour later Morgan returned. By this time the officer’s windows were dark like all the others of the barracks.
“Well?” asked Morgan.
“Well,” replied Valensolle, “it ended most prosaically. They undressed themselves, blew out the candles, and lay down, the captain on his bed, Roland on a mattress. They are probably trying to outsnore each other at the present moment.”
“In that case,” said Morgan, “good-night to them, and to us also.”
Ten minutes later the wish was granted, and the two young men were sleeping, as if they did not have danger for a bed-fellow.