The Bronze Eagle: A Story of the Hundred Days
"A soldier of the Emperor, Mademoiselle, of the man who led France to victory and to glory, and will do so again, now that he has come back into his own once more."
"You and I, M. de Marmont," she said coldly, "look at France from different points of view. This is neither the hour nor the place to discuss our respective sentiments. I pray you, allow me to join my aunt in the carriage. I am cold and tired, and she will be anxious for me."
"Will you at least give me one word of encouragement, Mademoiselle?" he urged. "As you say, our points of view are very different. But I am on the high road to fortune. The Emperor is back in France, the army flocks to his eagles as one man. He trusts me and I shall rise to greatness under his wing. Mademoiselle Crystal, you promised me your hand, I have not released you from that promise yet. I will come and claim it soon."
"Excitement seems to have turned your brain, M. de Marmont," was all that Crystal said, and she walked straight past him to the carriage door.
Victor smothered a curse. These aristos were as arrogant as ever. What lesson had the revolution and the guillotine taught them? None. This girl who had spent her whole life in poverty and exile, and was like—after a brief interregnum—to return to exile and poverty again, was not a whit less proud than her kindred had been when they walked in their hundreds up the steps of the guillotine with a smile of lofty disdain upon their lips.
Victor de Marmont was a son of the people—of those who had made the revolution and had fought the whole of Europe in order to establish their right to govern themselves as they thought best, and he hated all these aristos—the men who had fled from their country and abandoned it when she needed her sons' help more than she had ever done before.
The aristocrat was for him synonymous with the émigré—with the man who had raised a foreign army to fight against France, who had brought the foreigner marching triumphantly into Paris. He hated the aristocrat, but he loved Crystal, the one desirable product of that old regime system which he abhorred.
But with him a woman's love meant a woman's submission. He was more determined than ever now to win her, but he wanted to win her through her humiliation and his triumph—excitement had turned his brain? Well! so be it, fear and oppression would turn her heart and crush her pride.
He made no further attempt to detain her: he had asked for a kind word and she had given him withering scorn. Excitement had turned his brain . . . he was not even worthy of parley—not even worthy of a formal refusal!
To his credit be it said that the thought of immediate revenge did not enter his mind then. He might have subjected her then and there to deadly outrage—he might have had her personal effects searched, her person touched by the rough hands of his soldiers. But though his estimate of a woman's love was a low one, it was not so base as to imagine that Crystal de Cambray would ever forgive so dastardly an insult.
As she walked past him to the door, however, he said under his breath:
"Remember, Mademoiselle, that you and your family at this moment are absolutely in my power, and that it is only because of my regard for you that I let you all now depart from here in peace."
Whether she heard or not, he could not say; certain it is that she made no reply, nor did she turn toward him at all. The light of the lanthorn lit up her delicate profile, pale and drawn, her tightly pressed lips, the look of utter contempt in her eyes, which even the fitful shadow cast by her hair over her brows could not altogether conceal.
The Comte had given what instructions he wished to Pierre. He stood by the carriage door waiting for his daughter: no doubt he had heard what went on between her and de Marmont, and was content to leave her to deal what scorn was necessary for the humiliation of the traitor.
He helped Crystal into the carriage, and also the unfortunate Jeanne; finally he too followed, and pulled the door to behind him.
Victor did not wait to see the coach make a start. He gave the order to remount.
"How far are we from St. Priest?" he asked.
"Not eight kilomètres, mon Colonel," was the reply.
"En avant then, ventre-à-terre!" he commanded, as he swung himself into the saddle.
The great high road between Grenoble and Lyons is very wide, and Pierre had no need to draw his horses to one side, as de Marmont and his troop, after much scrambling, champing of bits and clanking of metal, rode at a sharp trot past the coach and him.
For some few moments the sound of the horses' hoofs on the hard road kept the echoes of the night busy with their resonance, but soon that sound grew fainter and fainter still—after five minutes it died away altogether.
M. de Comte put his head out of the window.
"Eh bien, Pierre," he called, "why don't we start?"
The postillion cracked his whip; Pierre shouted to his horses; the heavy coach groaned and creaked and was once more on its way.
In the interior no one spoke. Jeanne's terror had melted in a silent flow of tears.
Lyons was reached shortly before midnight. M. le Comte's carriage had some difficulty in entering the town, as by orders of M. le Comte d'Artois it had already been placed in a state of defence against the possible advance of the "band of pirates from Corsica." The bridge of La Guillotière had been strongly barricaded and it took M. le Comte de Cambray some little time to establish his identity before the officer in command of the post allowed him to proceed on his way.
The town was fairly full owing to the presence of M. le Comte d'Artois, who had taken up his quarters at the archiepiscopal palace, and of his staff, who were scattered in various houses about the town. Nevertheless M. le Comte and his family were fortunate enough in obtaining comfortable accommodation at the Hotel Bourbon.
The party was very tired, and after a light supper retired to bed.
But not before M. le Comte de Cambray had sent a special autographed message to Monseigneur le Comte d'Artois explaining to him under what tragic circumstances the sum of twenty-five million francs destined to reach His Majesty the King had fallen into a common highwayman's hands and begging that a posse of cavalry be sent out on the road after the marauders and be placed under the orders of M. le Marquis de St. Genis, who would be on the look-out for their arrival. He begged that the posse should consist of not less than thirty men, seeing that some armed followers of the Corsican brigand were also somewhere on the way.
CHAPTER V
THE RIVALS
I
The weather did not improve as the night wore on: soon a thin, cold drizzle added to the dreariness and to Maurice de St. Genis' ever-growing discomfort.
He had started off gaily enough, cheered by Crystal's warm look of encouragement and comforted by the feeling of certainty that he would get even with that mysterious enemy who had so impudently thrown himself athwart a plan which had service of the King for its sole object.
Maurice had not exchanged confidences with Crystal since the adventure, but his ideas—without his knowing it—absolutely coincided with hers. He, too, was quite sure that no common footpad had engineered their daring attack. Positive knowledge of the money and its destination had been the fountain from which had sprung the comedy of the masked highwayman and his little band of robbers. Maurice mentally reckoned that there must have been at least half a dozen of these bravos—of the sort that in these times were easily enough hired in any big city to play any part, from that of armed escort to nervous travellers to that of seeker of secret information for the benefit of either political party—loafers that hung round the wine-shops in search of a means of earning a few days' rations, discharged soldiers of the Empire some of them, whose loyalty to the Restoration had been questioned from the first.
Maurice had no doubt that whatever motive had actuated the originator of the bold plan to possess himself of twenty-five million francs, he had deliberately set to work to employ men of that type to help him in his task.
It had all been very audacious and—Maurice was bound to admit—very well carried out. As for the motive, he was never for a moment in doubt. It was a Bonapartist plot, of that he felt sure, as well as of the fact that Victor de Marmont was the originator of it all. He probably had not taken any active part in the attack, but he had employed the men—Maurice would have taken an oath on that!
The Comte de Cambray must have let fall an unguarded hint in the course of his last interview with de Marmont at Brestalou, and when Victor went away disgraced and discomfited he, no doubt, thought to take his revenge in the way most calculated to injure both the Comte and the royalist cause.
Satisfied with this mental explanation of past events, St. Genis had ridden on in the darkness, his spirits kept up with hopes and thoughts of a glaring counter revenge. But his limbs were still stiff and bruised from the cramped position in which he had lain for so long, and presently, when the cold drizzle began to penetrate to his bones, his enthusiasm and confidence dwindled. The village seemed to recede further and further into the distance. He thought when he had ridden through it earlier in the evening that it was not very far from the scene of the attack—a dozen kilomètres perhaps—now it seemed more like thirty; he thought too that it was a village of some considerable size—five hundred souls or perhaps more—he had noticed as he rode through it a well-illuminated, one-storied house, and the words "Débit de vins" and "Chambres pour voyageurs" painted in bold characters above the front door. But now he had ridden on and on along the dark road for what seemed endless hours—unconscious of time save that it was dragging on leaden-footed and wearisome . . . and still no light on ahead to betray the presence of human habitations, no distant church bells to mark the progress of the night.
At last, in desperation, Maurice de St. Genis had thought of wrapping himself in his cloak and getting what rest he could by the roadside, for he was getting very tired and saddle-sore, when on his left he perceived in the far distance, glimmering through the mist, two small lights like bright eyes shining in the darkness.
What kind of a way led up to those welcome lights, Maurice had, of course, no idea; but they proclaimed at any rate the presence of human beings, of a house, of the warmth of fire; and without hesitation the young man turned his horse's head at right angles from the road.
He had crossed a couple of ploughed fields and an intervening ditch, when in the distance to his right and behind him he heard the sound of horses at a brisk trot, going in the direction of Lyons.
Maurice drew rein for a moment and listened until the sound came nearer. There must have been at least a score of mounted men—a military patrol sent out by M. le Comte d'Artois, no doubt, and now on its way back to Lyons. Just for a second or two the young man had thoughts of joining up with the party and asking their help or their escort: he even gave a vigorous shout which, however, was lost in the clang and clatter of horses' hoofs and of the accompanying jingle of metal.
He turned his horse back the way he had come; but before he had recrossed one of the ploughed fields, the troop of mounted men—whatever they were—had passed by, and Maurice was left once more in solitude, shouting and calling in vain.
There was nothing for it then, but to turn back again, and to make his way as best he could toward those inviting lights. In any case nothing could have been done in this pitch-dark night against the highway thieves, and St. Genis had no fear that M. le Comte d'Artois would fail to send him help for his expedition against them on the morrow.
The lights on ahead were getting perceptibly nearer, soon they detached themselves still more clearly in the gloom—other lights appeared in the immediate neighbourhood—too few for a village—thought Maurice, and grouped closely together, suggesting a main building surrounded by other smaller ones close by.
Soon the whole outline of the house could be traced through the enveloping darkness: two of the windows were lighted from within, and an oil lamp, flickering feebly, was fixed in a recess just above the door. The welcome words: "Chambres pour voyageurs. Aristide Briot, propriétaire," greeted Maurice's wearied eyes as he drew rein. Good luck was apparently attending him for, thus picking his way across fields, he had evidently struck an out-of-the-way hostelry on some bridle path off the main road, which was probably a short cut between Chambéry and Vienne.
Be that as it may, he managed to dismount—stiff as he was—and having tried the door and found it fastened, he hammered against it with his boot.
A few moments later, the bolts were drawn and an elderly man in blue blouse and wide trousers, his sabots stuffed with straw, came shuffling out of the door.
"Who's there?" he called in a feeble, querulous voice.
"A traveller—on horseback," replied Maurice. "Come, petit père," he added more impatiently, "will you take my horse or call to one of your men?"
"It is too late to take in travellers," muttered the old man. "It is nearly midnight, and everyone is abed except me."
"Too late, morbleu?" exclaimed the young man peremptorily. "You surely are not thinking of refusing shelter to a traveller on a night like this. Why, how far is it to the nearest village?"
"It is very late," reiterated the old man plaintively, "and my house is quite full."
"There's a shake-down in the kitchen anyway, I'll warrant, and one for my horse somewhere in an outhouse," retorted Maurice as without more ado he suddenly threw the reins into the old man's hand and unceremoniously pushed him into the house.
The man appeared to hesitate for a moment or two. He grumbled and muttered something which Maurice did not hear, and his shrewd eyes—the knowing eyes of a peasant of the Dauphiné—took a rapid survey of the belated traveller's clothes, the expensive caped coat, the well-made boots, the fashionable hat, which showed up clearly now by the light from within.
Satisfied that there could be no risk in taking in so well-dressed a traveller, feeling moreover that a good horse was always a hostage for the payment of the bill in the morning, the man now, without another word or look at his guest, turned his back on the house and led the horse away—somewhere out into the darkness—Maurice did not take the trouble to ascertain where.
He was under shelter. There was the remnant of a wood-fire in the hearth at the corner, some benches along the walls. If he could not get a bed, he could certainly get rest and warmth for the night. He put down his hat, took off his coat, and kicked the smouldering log into a blaze; then he drew a chair close to the fire and held his numbed feet and hands to the pleasing warmth.
Thoughts of food and wine presented themselves too, now that he felt a little less cold and stiff, and he awaited the old man's return with eagerness and impatience.
The shuffling of wooden sabots outside the door was a pleasing sound: a moment or two later the old man had come back and was busying himself with once more bolting his front door.
"Well now, père Briot," said Maurice cheerily, "as I take it you are the proprietor of this abode of bliss, what about supper?"
"Bread and cheese if you like," muttered the man curtly.
"And a bottle of wine, of course."
"Yes. A bottle of wine."
"Well! be quick about it, petit père. I didn't know how hungry I was till you talked of bread and cheese."
"Would you like some cold meat?" queried the man indifferently.
"Of course I should! Have I not said that I was hungry?"
"You'll pay for it all right enough?"
"I'll pay for the supper before I stick a fork into it," rejoined Maurice impatiently, "but in Heaven's name hurry up, man! I am half dead with sleep as well as with hunger."
The old man—a real peasant of the Dauphiné in his deliberate manner and shrewd instincts of caution—once more shuffled out of the room, and St. Genis lapsed into a kind of pleasant torpor as the warmth of the fire gradually crept through his sinews and loosened all his limbs, while the anticipation of wine and food sent his wearied thoughts into a happy day-dream.
Ten minutes later he was installed before a substantial supper, and worthy Aristide Briot was equally satisfied with the two pieces of silver which St. Genis had readily tendered him.
"You said your house was full, petit père," said Maurice after a while, when the edge of his hunger had somewhat worn off. "I shouldn't have thought there were many travellers in this out-of-the-way place."
"The place is not out-of-the-way," retorted the old man gruffly. "The road is a good one, and a short cut between Vienne and Chambéry. We get plenty of travellers this way!"
"Well! I did not strike the road, unfortunately. I saw your lights in the distance and cut across some fields. It was pretty rough in the dark, I can tell you."
"That's just what those other cavaliers said, when they turned up here about an hour ago. A noisy crowd they were. I had no room for them in my house, so they had to go."
St. Genis at once put down his knife and fork.
"A noisy crowd of travellers," he exclaimed, "who arrived here an hour ago?"
"Parbleu!" rejoined the other, "and all wanting beds too. I had no room. I can only put up one or two travellers. I sent them on to Levasseur's, further along the road. Only the wounded man I could not turn away. He is up in our best bedroom."
"A wounded man? You have a wounded man here, petit père?"
"Oh! it's not much of a wound," explained the old man with unconscious irrelevance. "He himself calls it a mere scratch. But my old woman took a fancy to him: he is young and well-looking, you understand. . . . She is clever at bandages too, so she has looked after him as if he were her own son."
Mechanically, St. Genis had once more taken up his knife and fork, though of a truth the last of his hunger had vanished. But these Dauphiné peasants were suspicious and queer-tempered, and already the young man's surprise had matured into a plan which he would not be able to carry through without the help of Aristide Briot. Noisy cavaliers—he mused to himself—a wounded man! . . . wounded by the stray shot aimed at him by Crystal de Cambray! Indeed, St. Genis had much ado to keep his excitement in check, and to continue with a pretence at eating while Briot watched him with stolid indifference.
"Petit père," said the young man at last with as much unconcern as he could affect. "I have been thinking that you have—unwittingly—given me an excellent piece of news. I do believe that the man in your best bedroom upstairs is a friend of mine whom I was to have met at Lyons to-day and whose absence from our place of tryst had made me very anxious. I was imagining that all sorts of horrors had happened to him, for he is in the secret service of the King and exposed to every kind of danger. His being wounded in some skirmish either with highway robbers or with a band of the Corsican's pirates would not surprise me in the least, and the fact that he had some half-dozen mounted men with him confirms me in my belief that indeed it is my friend who is lying upstairs, as he often has to have an escort in the exercise of his duties. At any rate, petit père," he concluded as he rose from the table, "by your leave, I'll go up and ascertain."
While he rattled off these pretty proceeds of his own imagination, Maurice de St. Genis kept a sharp watch on Aristide Briot's face, ready to note the slightest sign of suspicion should it creep into the old man's shrewd eyes.
Briot, however, did not exhibit any violent interest in his guest's story, and when the latter had finished speaking he merely said, pointing to the remnants of food upon the table:
"I thought you said that you were hungry."
"So I was, petit père," rejoined Maurice impatiently, "so I was: but my hunger is not so great as it was, and before I eat another morsel I must satisfy myself that it is my friend who is safe and well in your old woman's care."
"Oh! he is well enough," grunted Briot, "and you can see him in the morning."
"That I cannot, for I shall have to leave here soon after dawn. And I could not get a wink of sleep whilst I am in such a state of uncertainty about my friend."
"But you can't go and wake him now. He is asleep for sure, and my old woman wouldn't like him to be disturbed, after all the care she has given him."
St. Genis, fretting with impatience, could have cursed aloud or shaken the obstinate old peasant roughly by the shoulders.
"I shouldn't wake him," he retorted, irritated beyond measure at the man's futile opposition. "I'll go up on tiptoe, candle in hand—you shall show me the way to his room—and I'll just ascertain whether the wounded man is my friend or not, then I'll come down again quietly and finish my supper.
"Come, petit père, I insist," he added more peremptorily, seeing that Briot—with the hesitancy peculiar to his kind—still made no movement to obey, but stood close by scratching his scanty locks and looking puzzled and anxious.
Fortunately for him Maurice understood the temperament of these peasants of the Dauphiné, he knew that with their curious hesitancy and inherent suspiciousness it was always the easiest to make up their minds for them.
So now—since he was absolutely determined to come to grips with that abominable thief upstairs, before the night was many minutes older—he ceased to parley with Briot.
A candle stood close to his hand on the table, a bit of kindling wood lay in a heap in one corner, with the help of the one he lighted the other, then candle in hand he walked up to the door.
"Show me the way, petit père," he said.
And Aristide Briot, with a shrug of the shoulders which implied that he there and then put away from him any responsibility for what might or might not occur after this, and without further comment, led the way upstairs.
II
On the upper landing at the top of the stairs Briot paused. He pointed to a door at the end of the narrow corridor, and said curtly:
"That's his room."
"I thank you, petit père," whispered St. Genis in response. "Don't wait for me, I'll be back directly."
"He is not yet in bed," was Briot's dry comment.
A thin streak of light showed underneath the door. As St. Genis walked rapidly toward it he wondered if the door would be locked. That certainly was a contingency which had not occurred to him. His design was to surprise a wounded and helpless thief in his sleep and to force him then and there to give up the stolen money, before he had time to call for help.
But the miscreant was evidently on the watch, Briot still lingered on the top of the stairs, there were other people sleeping in the house, and St. Genis suddenly realised that his purpose would not be quite so easy of execution as he had hot-headedly supposed.
But the end in view was great, and St. Genis was not a man easily deterred from a set purpose. There was the royalist cause to aid and Crystal to be won if he were successful.
He knocked resolutely at the door, then tried the latch. The door was locked: but even as the young man hesitated for a moment wondering what he would do next, a firm step resounded on the floor on the other side of the partition and the next moment the door was opened from within, and a peremptory voice issued the usual challenge:
"Who goes there?"
A tall figure appeared as a massive silhouette under the lintel. St. Genis had the candle in his hand. He dropped it in his astonishment.
"Mr. Clyffurde!" he exclaimed.
At sight of St. Genis the Englishman, whose right arm was in a sling, had made a quick instinctive movement back into the room, but equally quickly Maurice had forestalled him by placing his foot across the threshold.
Then he turned back to Aristide Briot.
"That's all right, petit père," he called out airily, "it is indeed my friend, just as I thought. I'm going to stay and have a little chat with him. Don't wait up for me. When he is tired of my company I'll go back to the parlour and make myself happy in front of the fire. Good-night!"
