It was about ten o'clock. Lights were burning in every window. At a table in the dining-room sat Monsieur and Madame Lavilette, the father of Magon Farcinelle, and Shangois, the notary. The marriage contract was before them. They had reached a point of difficulty. Farcinelle was stipulating for five acres of river-land as another item in Sophie's dot.
The corners tightened around Madame's mouth. Lavilette scratched his head, so that the hair stood up like flying tassels of corn. The land in question lay next a portion of Farcinelle's own farm, with a river frontage. On it was a little house and shed, and no better garden-stuff grew in the parish than on this same five acres.
"But I do not own the land," said Lavilette. "You've got a mortgage on it," answered Farcinelle. "Foreclose it."
"Suppose I did foreclose; you couldn't put the land in the marriage contract until it was mine."
The notary shrugged his shoulder ironically, and dropped his chin in his hand as he furtively eyed the two men. Farcinelle was ready for the emergency. He turned to Shangois.
"I've got everything ready for the foreclosure," said he. "Couldn't it be done to-night, Shangois?"
"Hardly to-night. You might foreclose, but the property couldn't beMonsieur Lavilette's until it is duly sold under the mortgage."
"Here, I'll tell you what can be done," said Farcinelle. "You can put the mortgage in the contract as her dot, and, name of a little man! I'll foreclose it, I can tell you. Come, now, Lavilette, is it a bargain?" Shangois sat back in his chair, the fingers of both hands drumming on the table before him, his head twisted a little to one side. His little reflective eyes sparkled with malicious interest, and his little voice said, as though he were speaking to himself:
"Excuse, but the land belongs to the young Vanne Castine—eh?"
"That's it," exclaimed Farcinelle.
"Well, why not give the poor vaurien a chance to take up the mortgage?"
"Why, he hasn't paid the interest in five years!" said Lavilette.
"But—ah—you have had the use of the land, I think, monsieur. That should meet the interest." Lavilette scowled a little; Farcinelle grunted and laughed.
"How can I give him a chance to pay the mortgage?" said Lavilette. "He never had a penny. Besides, he hasn't been seen for five years."
A faint smile passed over Shangois's face. "Yesterday," he said, "he had not been seen for five years, but to-day he is in Bonaventure."
"The devil!" said Lavilette, dropping a fist on the table, and staring at the notary; for he was not present in the afternoon when Castine passed by.
"What difference does that make?" snarled Farcinelle. "I'll bet he's got nothing more than what he went away with, and that wasn't a sou markee!"
A provoking smile flickered at the corners of Shangois's mouth, and he said, with a dry inflection, as he dipped and redipped his quill pen in the inkhorn:
"He has a bear, my friends, which dances very well." Farcinelle guffawed. "St. Mary!" said he, slapping his leg, "we'll have the bear at the wedding, and I'll have that farm of Vanne Castine's. What does he want of a farm? He's got a bear. Come, is it a bargain? Am I to have the mortgage? If you don't stick it in, I'll not let my boy marry your girl, Lavilette. There, now, that's my last word."
"'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor his wife, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his,"' said the notary, abstractedly, drawing the picture of a fat Jew on the paper before him.
The irony was lost upon his hearers. Madame Lavilette had been thinking, however, and she saw further than her husband.
"It amounts to the same thing," she said. "You see it doesn't go away from Sophie; so let him have it, Louis."
"All right," responded monsieur at last, "Sophie gets the acres and the house in her dot."
"You won't give young Vanne Castine a chance?" asked the notary. "The mortgage is for four hundred dollars and the place is worth seven hundred!"
No one replied. "Very well, my Israelites," added Shangois, bending over the contract.
An hour later, Nicolas Lavilette was in the big storeroom of the farmhouse, which was reached by a covered passage from the hall between the kitchen and the dining-room. In his off-hand way he was getting out some flour, dried fruit and preserves for the cook, who stood near as he loaded up her arms. He laughingly thrust a string of green peppers under her chin, and added a couple of sprigs of summer-savoury, then suddenly turned round, with a start, for a peculiar low whistle came to him through the half-open window. It was followed by heavy stertorous breathing.
He turned back again to the cook, gaily took her by the shoulders, and pushed her to the door. Closing it behind her, he shot the bolt and ran back to the window. As he did so, a hand appeared on the windowsill, and a face followed the hand.
"Ha! Nicolas Lavilette, is that you? So, you know my leetla whistle again!"
Nicolas's brow darkened. In old days he and this same Vanne Castine had been in many a scrape together, and Vanne, the elder, had always borne the responsibility of their adventures. Nicolas had had enough of those old days; other ambitions and habits governed him now. He was not exactly the man to go back on a friend, but Castine no longer had any particular claims to friendship. The last time he had heard Vanne's whistle was a night five years before, when they both joined a gang of river-drivers, and made a raid on some sham American speculators and surveyors and labourers, who were exploiting an oil-well on the property of the old seigneur. The two had come out of the melee with bruised heads, and Vanne with a bullet in his calf. But soon afterwards came Christine's elopement with Vanne, of which no one knew save her father, Nicolas, Shangois and Vanne himself. That ended their compact, and, after a bitter quarrel, they had parted and had never met nor seen each other till this very afternoon.
"Yes, I know your whistle all right," answered Nicolas, with a twist of the shoulder.
"Aren't you going to shake hands?" asked Castine, with a sort of sneer on his face.
Nicolas thrust his hands down in his pockets. "I'm not so glad to see you as all that," he answered, with a contemptuous laugh.
The black eyes of the bear-leader were alive with anger.
"You're a damn' fool, Nic Lavilette. You think because I lead a bear— eh? Pshaw! you shall see. I am nothing, eh? I am to walk on! Nic Lavilette, once he steal the Cure's pig and—"
"See you there, Castine, I've had enough of that," was the half-angry, half-amused interruption. "What are you after here?"
"What was I after five years ago?" was the meaning reply.
Lavilette's face suddenly flushed with fury. He gripped the window with both hands, and made as if he would leap out; but beside Castine's face there appeared another, with glaring eyes, red tongue, white vicious teeth, and two huge claws which dropped on the ledge of the window in much the same way as did Lavilette's.
There was a moment's silence as the man and the beast looked at each other, and then Castine began laughing in a low, sneering sort of way.
"I'll shoot the beast, and I'll break your neck if ever I see you on this farm again," said Lavilette, with wild anger.
"Break my neck—that's all right; but shoot this leetla Michael! When you do that you will not have to wait for a British bullet to kill you. I will do it with a knife—just where you can hear it sing under your ear!"
"British bullet!" said Lavilette, excitedly; "what about a British bullet—eh—what?"
"Only that the Rebellion's coming quick now," answered Castine, his manner changing, and a look of cunning crossing his face. "You've given your name to the great Papineau, and I am here, as you see."
"You—you—what have you got to do with the Revolution? with Papineau?"
"Pah! do you think a Lavilette is the only patriot! Papineau is my friend, and—"
"Your friend—"
"My friend. I am carrying his message all through the parishes. Bon'venture is the last—almost. The great General Papineau sends you a word, Nic Lavilette—here."
He drew from his pocket a letter and handed it over. Lavilette tore it open. It was a captain's commission for M. Nicolas Lavilette, with a call for money and a company of men and horses.
"Maybe there's a leetla noose hanging from the tail of that, but then— it is the glory—eh? Captain Lavilette—eh?" There was covert malice in Castine's voice. "If the English whip us, they won't shoot us like grand seigneurs, they will hang us like dogs."
Lavilette scarcely noticed the sneer. He was seeing visions of a captain's sword and epaulettes, and planning to get men, money and horses together—for this matter had been brooding for nearly a year, and he had been the active leader in Bonaventure.
"We've been near a hundred years, we Frenchmen, eating dirt in the country we owned from the start; and I'd rather die fighting to get back the old citadel than live with the English heel on my nose," said Lavilette, with a play-acting attempt at oratory.
"Yes, an' dey call us Johnny Pea-soups," said Castine, with a furtive grin. "An' perhaps that British Colborne will hang us to our barn doors —eh?"
There was silence for a moment, in which Lavilette read the letter over again with gloating eyes. Presently Castine started and looked round.
"What's that?" he said in a whisper. "I heard nothing."
"I heard the feet of a man—yes."
They both stood moveless, listening. There was no sound; but, at the same time, the Hon. Mr. Ferrol had the secret of the Rebellion in his hands.
A moment later Castine and his bear were out in the road. Lavilette leaned out of the window and mused. Castine's words of a few moments before came to him:
"That British Colborne will hang us to our barn doors—eh?"
He shuddered, and struck a light.
Mr. Ferrol slept in the large guest-chamber of the house. Above it was Christine's bedroom. Thick as were the timbers and boards of the floor, Christine could hear one sound, painfully monotonous and frequent, coming from his room the whole night—the hacking, rending cough which she had heard so often since he came. The fear of Vanne Castine, the memories of the wild, half animal-like love she had had for him in the old days, the excitement of the new events which had come into her life; these kept her awake, and she tossed and turned in feverish unrest. All that had happened since Ferrol had arrived, every word that he had spoken, every motion that he had made, every look of his face, she recalled vividly. All that he was, which was different from the people she had known, she magnified, so that to her he had a distant, overwhelming sort of grandeur. She beat the bedclothes in her restlessness. Suddenly she sat up straight in bed.
"Oh, if I hadn't been a Lavilette! If I'd only been born and brought up with the sort of people he comes from, I'd not have been ashamed of myself or him of me."
The plush bodice she had worn that day danced before her eyes. She knew how horribly ugly it was. Her fingers ran over the patchwork quilt on her bed; and although she could not see it, she loathed it, because she knew it was a painful mess of colours. With a little touch of dramatic extravagance, she leaned over and down, and drew her fingers contemptuously along the rag-carpet on the floor. Then she cried a little hysterically:
"He never saw anything like that before. How he must laugh as he sits there in that room!"
As if in reply, the hacking cough came faintly through the time-worn floor.
"That cough's going to kill him, to kill him," she said.
Then, with a little start and with a sort of cry, which she stopped by putting both hands over her mouth, she said to herself, brokenly:
"Why shouldn't he—why shouldn't he love me! I could take care of him; I could nurse him; I could wait on him; I could be better to him than any one else in the world. And it wouldn't make any difference to him at all in the end. He's going to die before long—I know it. Well, what does it matter what becomes of me afterwards? I should have had him; I should have loved him; he should have been mine for a little while anyway. I'd be good to him; oh, I'd be good to him! Who else is there? He'll get worse and worse; and what will any of the fine ladies do for him then, I'd like to know. Why aren't they here? Why isn't he with them? He's poor—Nic says so—and they're rich. Why don't they help him? I would. I'd give him my last penny and the last drop of blood in my heart. What do they know about love?"
Her little teeth clinched, she shook her brown hair back in a sort of fury.
"What do they know about love? What would they do for it? I'd have my fingers chopped off one by one for it. I'd break every one of the ten commandments for it. I'd lose my soul for it.
"I've got twenty times as much heart as any one of them, I don't care who they are. I'd lie for him; I'd steal for him; I'd kill for him. I'd watch everything that he says, and I'd say it as he says it. I'd be angry when he was angry, miserable when he was miserable, happy when he was happy. Vanne Castine—what was he! What was it that made me care for him then? And now—now he travels with a bear, and they toss coppers to him; a beggar, a tramp—a dirty, lazy tramp! He hates me, I know—or else he loves me, and that's worse. And I'm afraid of him; I know I'm afraid of him. Oh, how will it all end? I know there's going to be trouble. I could see it in Vanne's face. But I don't care, I don't care, if Mr. Ferrol—"
The cough came droning through the floor.
"If he'd only—ah! I'd do anything for him, anything; anybody would. I saw Sophie look at him as she never looked at Magon. If she did— if she dared to care for him—"
All at once she shivered as if with shame and fright, drew the bedclothes about her head, and burst into a fit of weeping. When it passed, she lay still and nerveless between the coarse sheets, and sank into a deep sleep just as the dawn crept through the cracks of the blind.
The weeks went by. Sophie had become the wife of the member for the country, and had instantly settled down to a quiet life. This was disconcerting to Madame Lavilette, who had hoped that out of Farcinelle's official position she might reap some praise and pence of ambition. Meanwhile, Ferrol became more and more a cherished and important figure in the Manor Casimbault, where the Lavilettes had made their home soon after the wedding. The old farmhouse had also secretly become a rendezvous for the mysterious Nicolas Lavilette and his rebel comrades. This was known to Mr. Ferrol. One evening he stopped Nic as he was leaving the house, and said:
"See, Nic, my boy, what's up? I know a thing or so—what's the use of playing peek-a-boo?"
"What do you know, Ferrol?"
"What's between you and Vanne Castine, for instance. Come, now, own up and tell me all about it. I'm British; but I'm Nic Lavilette's friend anyhow."
He insinuated into his tone that little touch of brogue which he used when particularly persuasive. Nic put out his hand with a burst of good- natured frankness.
"Meet me in the store-room of the old farmhouse at nine o'clock, and I'll tell you. Here's a key." Handing over the key, he grasped Ferrol's hand with an effusive confidence, and hurried out. Nic Lavilette was now an important person in his own sight and in the sight of others in Bonaventure. In him the pomp of his family took an individual form.
Earlier than the appointed time, Ferrol turned the key and stepped inside the big despoiled hallway of the old farmhouse. His footsteps sounded hollow in the empty rooms. Already dust had gathered, and an air of desertion and decay filled the place in spite of the solid timbers and sound floors and window-sills. He took out his watch; it was ten minutes to nine. Passing through the little hallway to the store-room, he opened the door. It was dark inside. Striking a match, he saw a candle on the window-sill, and, going to it, he lighted it with a flint and steel lying near. The window was shut tight. From curiosity only he tried to open the shutter, but it was immovable. Looking round, he saw another candle on the window-sill opposite. He lighted it also, and mechanically tried to force the shutters of the window, but they were tight also.
Going to the door, which opened into the farmyard, he found it securely fastened. Although he turned the lock, the door would not open.
Presently his attention was drawn by the glitter of something upon one of the crosspieces of timber halfway up the wall. Going over, he examined it, and found it to be a broken bayonet—left there by a careless rebel. Placing the steel again upon the ledge, he began walking up and down thoughtfully.
Presently he was seized with a fit of coughing. The paroxysm lasted a minute or more, and he placed his arm upon the window-sill, leaning his head upon it. Presently, as the paroxysm lessened, he thought he heard the click of a lock. He raised his head, but his eyes were misty, and, seeing nothing, he leaned his head on his arm again.
Suddenly he felt something near him. He swung round swiftly, and saw Vanne Castine's bear not fifteen-feet away from him! It raised itself on its hind legs, its red eyes rolling, and started towards him. He picked up the candle from the window-sill, threw it in the animal's face, and dashed towards the door.
It was locked. He swung round. The huge beast, with a loud snarl, was coming down upon him.
Here he was, shut within four solid walls, with a wild beast hungry for his life. All his instincts were alive. He had little hope of saving himself, but he was determined to do what lay in his power.
His first impulse was to blow out the other candle. That would leave him in the dark, and it struck him that his advantage would be greater if there were no light. He came straight towards the bear, then suddenly made a swift movement to the left, trusting to his greater quickness of movement. The beast was nearly as quick as he, and as he dashed along the wall towards the candle, he could hear its breath just behind him.
As he passed the window, he caught the candle in his hands, and was about to throw it on the floor or in the bear's face, when he remembered that, in the dark, the bear's sense of smell would be as effective as eyesight, while he himself would be no better off.
He ran suddenly to the centre of the room, the candle still in his hand, and turned to meet his foe. It came savagely at him. He dodged, ran past it, turned, doubled on it, and dodged again. A half-dozen times this was repeated, the candle still flaring. It could not last long. The bear was enraged. Its movements became swifter, its vicious teeth and lips were covered with froth, which dripped to the floor, and sometimes spattered Ferrol's clothes as he ran past. No matador ever played with the horns of a mad bull as Ferrol played his deadly game with Michael, the dancing bear. His breath was becoming shorter and shorter; he had a stifling sensation, a terrible tightness across his chest. He did not cough, however, but once or twice he tasted warm drops of his heart's blood in his mouth. Once he drew the back of his hand across his lips mechanically, and a red stain showed upon it.
In his boyhood and early manhood he had been a good sportsman; had been quick of eye, swift of foot, and fearless. But what could fearlessness avail him in this strait? With the best of rifles he would have felt himself at a disadvantage. He was certain his time had come; and with that conviction upon him, the terror of the thing and the horrible physical shrinking almost passed away from him. The disease, eating away his life, had diminished that revolt against death which is in the healthy flesh of every man. He was levying upon the vital forces remaining in him, which, distributed naturally, might cover a year or so, to give him here and now a few moments of unnatural strength for the completion of a hopeless struggle.
It was also as if two brains in him were working: one busy with all the chances and details of his wild contest, the other with the events of his life.
Pictures flashed before him. Some having to do with the earliest days of his childhood; some with fighting on the Danube, before he left the army, impoverished and ashamed; some with idle hours in the North Tower in Stavely Castle; and one with the day he and his sister left the old castle, never to return, and looked back upon it from the top of Farcalladen Moor, waving a "God bless you" to it. The thought of his sister filled him with a desire, a pitiful desire to live.
Just then another picture flashed before his eyes. It was he himself, riding the mad stallion, Bolingbroke, the first year he followed the hounds: how the brute tried to smash his leg against a stone wall; how it reared until it almost toppled over and backwards; how it jibbed at a gate, and nearly dashed its own brains out against a tree; and how, after an hour's hard fighting, he made it take the stiffest fence and water- course in the county.
This thought gave him courage now. He suddenly remembered the broken bayonet upon the ledge against the wall. If he could reach it there might be a chance—chance to strike one blow for life. As his eye glanced towards the wall he saw the steel flash in the light of the candle.
The bear was between him and it. He made a feint towards the left, then as quickly to the right. But doing so, he slipped and fell. The candle dropped to the floor and went out. With a lightning-like instinct of self-preservation he swung over upon his face just as the bear, in its wild rush, passed over his head. He remembered afterwards the odour of the hot, rank body, and the sprawling huge feet and claws. Scrambling to his feet swiftly, he ran to the wall. Fortune was with him. His hand almost instantly clutched the broken bayonet. He whipped out his handkerchief, tore the scarf from his neck, and wound them around his hand, that the broken bayonet should not tear the flesh as he fought for his life; then, seizing it, he stood waiting for the bear to come on. His body was bent forwards, his eyes straining into the dark, his hot face dripping, dripping sweat, his breath coming hard and laboured from his throat.
For a minute there was absolute silence, save for the breathing of the man and the savage panting of the beast. Presently he felt exactly where the bear was, and listened intently. He knew that it was now but a question of minutes, perhaps seconds. Suddenly it occurred to him that if he could but climb upon the ledge where the bayonet had been, there might be safety. Yet again, in getting up, the bear might seize him, and there would be an end to all immediately. It was worth trying, however.
Two things happened at that moment to prevent the trial: the sound of knocking on a door somewhere, and the roaring rush of the bear upon him. He sprang to one side, striking at the beast as he did so. The bayonet went in and out again. There came voices from the outside; evidently somebody was trying to get in.
The bear roared again and came on. It was all a blind man's game. But his scent, like the animal's, was keen. He had taken off his coat, and he now swung it out before him in a half-circle, and as it struck the bear it covered his own position. He swung aside once more and drove his arm into the dark. The bayonet struck the nose of the beast.
Now there was a knocking and a hammering at the window, and the wrenching of the shutters. He gathered himself together for the next assault. Suddenly he felt that every particle of strength had gone out of him. He pulled himself up with a last effort. His legs would not support him; he shivered and swayed. God, would they never get that window open!
His senses were abnormally acute. Another sound attracted him: the opening of the door, and a voice—Vanne Castine's—calling to the bear.
His heart seemed to give a leap, then slowly to roll over with a thud, and he fell to the floor as the bear lunged forwards upon him.
A minute afterwards Vanne Castine was goading the savage beast through the door and out to the hallway into the yard as Nic swung through the open window into the room.
Castine's lantern stood in the middle of the floor, and between it and the window lay Ferrol, the broken bayonet still clutched in his right hand. Lavilette dropped on his knees beside him and felt his heart. It was beating, but the shirt and the waistcoat were dripping with blood where the bear had set its claws and teeth in the shoulder of its victim.
An hour later Nic Lavilette stood outside the door of Ferrol's bedroom in the Manor Casimbault, talking to the Regimental Surgeon, as Christine, pale and wildeyed, came running towards them.
"Is he dead? is he dead?" she asked distractedly. "I've just come from the village. Why didn't you send for me? Tell me, is he dead? Oh, tell me at once!"
She caught the Regimental Surgeon's arm. He looked down at her, over his glasses, benignly, for she had always been a favourite of his, and answered:
"Alive, alive, my dear. Bad rip in the shoulder—worn out—weak— shattered—but good for a while yet—yes, yes—certainement!"
With a wayward impulse, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. The embrace disarranged his glasses and flushed his face like a schoolgirl's, but his eyes were full of embarrassed delight.
"There, there," he said, "we'll take care of him—!" Then suddenly he paused, for the real significance of her action dawned upon him.
"Dear me," he said in disturbed meditation; "dear me!"
She suddenly opened the bedroom door and went in, followed by Nic. The Regimental Surgeon dropped his mouth and cheeks in his hand reflectively, his eyes showing quaintly and quizzically above the glasses and his fingers.
"Well, well! Well, well!" he said, as if he had encountered a difficulty. "It—it will never be possible. He would not marry her," he added, and then, turning, went abstractedly down the stairs.
Ferrol was in a deep sleep when Christine and her brother entered the chamber. Her face turned still more pale when she saw him, flushed, and became pale again. There were leaden hollows round his eyes, and his hair was matted with perspiration. Yet he was handsome—and helpless. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned her head away from her brother and went softly to the window, but not before she had touched the pale hand that lay nerveless upon the coverlet.
"It's not feverish," she said to Nic, as if in necessary explanation of the act.
She stood at the window for a moment, looking out, then said:
"Come here, Nic, and tell me all about it."
He told her all he knew: how he had come to the old house by appointment with Ferrol; had tried to get into the store-room; had found the doors bolted; had heard the noise of a wild animal inside; had run out, tried a window, at last wrenched it open and found Ferrol in a dead faint. He went to the table and brought back the broken bayonet.
"That's all he had to fight with," he said. "Fire of a little hell, but he had grit—after all!"
"That's all he had to fight with!" she repeated, as she untwisted the handkerchief from the hilt end. "Why did you say he had true grit— 'after all'? What do you mean by that 'after all'?"
"Well, you don't expect much from a man with only one lung—eh?"
"Courage isn't in the lungs," she answered. Then she added: "Go and fetch me a bottle of brandy—I'm going to bathe his hands and feet in brandy and hot water as soon as he's awake."
"Better let mother do that, hadn't you?" he asked rather hesitatingly, as he moved towards the door.
Her eyes snapped fire. "Nic—mon Dieu, hear the nice Nic!" she said."The dear Nic, who went in swimming with—"
She said no more, for he had no desire to listen to an account of his misdeeds, which were not a few,—and Christine had a galling tongue.
When the door was shut she went to the bed, sat down on a chair beside it, and looked at Ferrol earnestly and sadly.
"My dear! my dear, dear, dear!" she said in a whisper, "you look so handsome and so kind as you lie there—like no man I ever saw in my life. Who'd have fought as you fought—and nearly dead! Who'd have had brains enough to know just what to do! My darling, that never said 'my darling' to me, nor heard me call you so. Suppose you haven't a dollar, not a cent, in the world, and suppose you'll never earn a dollar or a cent in the world, what difference does that make to me? I could earn it; and I'd give more for a touch of your finger than a thousand dollars; and more for a month with you than for a lifetime with the richest man in the world. You never looked cross at me, or at any one, and you never say an unkind thing, and you never find fault when you suffer so. You never hurt any one, I know. You never hurt Vanne Castine—"
Her fingers twitched in her lap, and then clasped very tight, as she went on:
"You never hurt him, and yet he's tried to kill you in the most awful way. Perhaps you'll die now—perhaps you'll die to-night—but no, no, you shall not!" she cried in sudden fright and eagerness, as she got up and leaned over him. "You shall not die; you shall live—for a while— oh! yes, for a while yet," she added, with a pitiful yearning in her voice; "just for a little while—till you love me, and tell me so! Oh, how could that devil try to kill you!"
She suddenly drew herself up.
"I'll kill him and his bear too—now, now, while you lie there sleeping. And when you wake I'll tell you what I've done, and you'll—you'll love me then, and tell me so, perhaps. Yes, yes, I'll—"
She said no more, for her brother entered with the brandy.
"Put it there," she said, pointing to the table. "You watch him till I come. I'll be back in an hour; and then, when he wakes, we'll bathe him in the hot water and brandy."
"Who told you about hot water and brandy?" he asked her, curiously.
She did not answer him, but passed through the door and down the hall till she came to Nic's bedroom; she went in, took a pair of pistols from the wall, examined them, found they were fully loaded, and hurried from the room.
About a half-hour later she appeared before the house which once had belonged to Vanne Castine. The mortgage had been foreclosed, and the place had passed into the hands of Sophie and Magon Farcinelle; but Castine had taken up his abode in the house a few days before, and defied anyone to put him out.
A light was burning in the kitchen of the house. There were no curtains to the window, but an old coat had been hung up to serve the purpose, and light shone between a sleeve of it and the window-sill. Putting her face close to the window, the girl could see the bear in the corner, clawing at its chain and tossing its head from side to side, still panting and angry from the fight.
Now and again, also, it licked the bayonet-wound between its shoulders, and rubbed its lacerated nose on its paw. Castine was mixing some tar and oil in a pan by the fire, to apply to the still bleeding wounds of his Michael. He had an ugly grin on his face.
He was dressed just as in the first day he appeared in the village, even to the fur cap; and presently, as he turned round, he began to sing the monotonous measure to which the bear had danced. It had at once a soothing effect upon the beast.
After he had gone from the store-room, leaving Ferrol dead, as he thought, it was this song alone which had saved himself from peril; for the beast was wild from pain, fury and the taste of blood. As soon as they had cleared the farmyard, he had begun this song, and the bear, cowed at first by the thrusts of its master's pike, quieted to the well- known ditty.
He approached the bear now, and, stooping, put some of the tar and oil upon its nose. It sniffed and rubbed off the salve, but he put more on; then he rubbed it into the wound of the breast. Once the animal made a fierce snap at his shoulder, but he deftly avoided it, gave it a thrust with a sharp-pointed stick, and began the song again. Presently he rose and came towards the fire.
As he did so he heard the door open. Turning round quickly, he saw Christine standing just inside. She had a shawl thrown round her, and one hand was thrust in the pocket of her dress. She looked from him to the bear, then back again to him.
He did not realise why she had come. For a moment, in his excited state, he almost thought she had come because she loved him. He had seen her twice since his return; but each time she would say nothing to him further than that she wished not to meet or to speak to him at all. He had pleaded with her, had grown angry, and she had left him. Who could tell—perhaps she had come to him now as she had come to him in the old days. He dropped the pan of tar and oil. "Chris!" he said, and started forward to her.
At that moment the bear, as if it knew the girl's mission, sprang forward, with a growl. Its huge mouth was open, and all its fierce lust for killing showed again in its wild lunges. Castine turned, with an oath, and thrust the steel-set pike into its leg. It cowered at the voice and the punishment for an instant, but came on again.
Castine saw the girl raise a pistol and fire at the beast. He was so dumfounded that at first he did not move. Then he saw her raise another pistol. The wounded bear lunged heavily on its chain—once—twice—in a devilish rage, and as Christine prepared to fire, snapped the staple loose and sprang forward.
At the same moment Castine threw himself in front of the girl, and caught the onward rush. Calling the beast by its name, he grappled with it. They were man and servant no longer, but two animals fighting for their lives. Castine drew out his knife, as the bear, raised on its hind legs, crushed him in its immense arms, and still calling, half crazily, "Michael! Michael! down, Michael!" he plunged the knife twice in the beast's side.
The bear's teeth fastened in his shoulder; the horrible pressure of its arms was turning his face black; he felt death coming, when another pistol shot rang out close to his own head, and his breath suddenly came back. He staggered to the wall, and then came to the floor in a heap as the bear lurched downwards and fell over on its side, dead.
Christine had come to kill the beast and, perhaps, the man. The man had saved her life, and now she had saved his; and together they had killed the bear which had maltreated Tom Ferrol.
Castine's eyes were fixed on the dead beast. Everything was gone from him now—even the way to his meagre livelihood; and the cause of it all, as he in his blind, unnatural way thought, was this girl before him—this girl and her people. Her back was towards the door. Anger and passion were both at work in him at once.
"Chris," he said, "Chris, let's call it even-eh? Let's make it up. Chris, ma cherie, don't you remember when we used to meet, and was fond of each other? Let's make it up and leave here—now—to-night-eh?
"I'm not so poor, after all. I'll be paid by Papineau, the leader of theRebellion—" He made a couple of unsteady steps towards her, for he wasweak yet. "What's the good—you're bound to come to me in the end!You've got the same kind of feelings in you; you've—"
She had stood still at first, dazed by his words; but she grew angry quickly, and was about to speak as she felt, when he went on:
"Stay here now with me. Don't go back. Don't you remember Shangois's house? Don't you remember that night—that night when—ah! Chris, stay here—"
Her face was flaming. "I'd rather stay in a room full of wild beasts like that"—she pointed to the bear" than be with you one minute—you murderer!" she said, with choking anger.
He started towards her, saying:
"By the blood of Joseph! but you'll stay just the same; and—"
He got no further, for she threw the pistol in his face with all her might. It struck between his eyes with a thud, and he staggered back, blind, bleeding and faint, as she threw open the door and sped away in the darkness.
Reaching the Manor safely, she ran up to her room, arranged her hair, washed her hands, and came again to Ferrol's bedroom. Knocking softly she was admitted by Nic. There was an unnatural brightness in her eyes. "Where've you been?" he asked, for he noticed this. "What've you been doing?"
"I've killed the bear that tried to kill him," she answered.
She spoke louder than she meant. Her voice awakened Ferrol.
"Eh, what?" he said, "killed the bear, mademoiselle,—my dear friend," he added, "killed the bear!" He coughed a little, and a twinge of pain crossed over his face.
She nodded, and her face was alight with pleasure. She lifted up his head and gave him a little drink of brandy. His fingers closed on hers that held the glass. His touch thrilled her.
"That's good, that's easier," he remarked.
"We're going to bathe you in brandy and hot water, now—Nic and I," she said.
"Bathe me! Bathe me!" he said, in amused consternation.
"Hands and feet," Nic explained.
A few minutes later as she lifted up his head, her face was very near him; her breath was in his face. Her eyes half closed, her fingers trembled. He suddenly drew her to him and kissed her. She looked round swiftly, but her brother had not noticed.
Illusive hopes and irresponsible deceptionsShe lacked sense a little and sensitiveness muchTo be popular is not necessarily to be contemptibleWho say 'God bless you', in New York! they say 'Damn you!'