This story was published in Chambers’s Journal of December 1939, but—unlike many of Broster’s other stories published in magazines—I’m not aware that the journal, or any other form of the story, is available online, hence reproducing it here. By kind permission of the Principal and Fellows of St Hilda’s College, Oxford.
It stars Fortuné de la Vireville from Broster’s novel Sir Isumbras at the Ford, and I’m sure his fans will be delighted to see him again. However, the story has no particularly close connection with the novel; you don’t need to have read the novel to understand the story, and it contains no spoilers.
By D. K. BROSTER, Author of Sir Isumbras at the Ford, The Flight of the Heron, &c.
‘Twenty-five in all,’ murmured the Chevalier Charles-Marie-Thérèse-Fortuné de la Vireville to himself. ‘Two boat-loads.’
The sea air blew pleasantly upon him through the open window as he finished counting up the names on the paper which he held. It was headed, ‘List of French Emigrants to be received on board His Majesty’s hired armed Lugger Seaflower at St Helier by Order of His Serene Highness the Prince of Bouillon, and landed under the conduct of Mr de la Vireville in the Anse de la Bernerie on the French Coast during the Night of June 10, 1795.’
‘Very good,’ he said aloud to the young naval officer beside him. ‘Kindly tell the Prince, Mr Osborne, that I will be aboard the Seaflower by nine o’clock.’
The officer left the room at once, but the Frenchman stayed behind, studying the names of the compatriots who were to be committed to his care for a few hours. A tall, lean man in the thirties, with a humorous mouth and a scar on his cheek, he had just come for this list to the little house at Gorey where lived Captain Philip d’Auvergne, that native of Jersey who was at once a captain in the British Navy and titular Prince de Bouillon in the peerage of France. For here in Jersey His Serene Highness was in charge of such activities of the French Royalist émigrés against their foes of the Republic as the English Government saw fit to countenance and assist, activities for which that island served as a focus. Not a week passed but some party of these armed exiles would be landed at a quite spot on the Norman or Breton coasts, thence to make their way at the risk of their lives to one or other of the Royalist leaders waging a guerilla warfare in those provinces or in Vendée. La Vireville himself was actually one of those leaders, but he had left his Breton Chouans for a space, at the Prince’s request, to supervise certain landings and gun-runnings.
‘You have not gone yet, Chevalier? Good!’ said a voice behind him, and the Frenchman turned, to perceive the slightly florid presence of Captain d’Auvergne himself.
‘You wish to give me some last instructions, mon Prince?’ he inquired politely.
‘Only one. Be so good as to add to the names you have there that of the Vicomte de St Alyre, a young man who applied to me this afternoon, after the list was made out, for leave to join to-night’s party.’
La Vireville caught up a pen from the table. ‘How do you spell his name, Monseigneur?’
‘A-l-y-r-e, the Vicomte de St Alyre. And now that I come to think of it,’ added His Highness with a chuckle, ‘it is not an inappropriate name, since from something which he let fall it appears that the young gentleman must write a good deal of poetry.’
The pen dropped from La Vireville’s hand. ‘Writes poetry!’ he exclaimed, facing Captain d’Auvergne with an expression of stupefaction. ‘Writes poetry—and proposes to chouanner!’
‘And why not? In old times every army had its bard. What of Taillefer at the Battle of Hastings, Monsieur de la Vireville? And the troubadours?’
The disapproval on La Vireville’s face only deepened. ‘I don’t know about the Battle of Hastings, but when a man is waiting behind a hedge for a shot at the Blues he should have his finger on a trigger, not on a pen! You may be sure that St Alyre will go about with his eyes fixed on the stars, and will fall into an enemy patrol before he has found a rhyme to “planet.” You really wish me to take him over with the others, Monseigneur?’
The Prince nodded. ‘I do indeed. The young man is desperately set on going, and I have satisfied myself of his antecedents. Moreover, he did not give me at all the impression of a star-gazer, or you may be sure that I should not burden you with him. Well, good-bye, and good luck to you, my dear Charon!’
‘Plaît-il?’ asked La Vireville, raising his eyebrows.
‘Someone called you that the other day, and, egad, I thought it rather apt—though a trifle sinister, perhaps.’
‘Sinister?’ queried the Chouan. ‘Why? . . . Who, then, is this Charon, Monseigneur? I seem to remember having heard the name somewhere, but——’
‘Charon was the mythical ferryman who—But no, better perhaps not press the analogy, for the sake of your passengers to-night, for whom, indeed, I hope fervently that the Anse de la Bernerie will not prove the shore of Styx.’
The Chevalier de la Vireville, whose somewhat exiguous classical education had left small imprint on his memory, looked completely bewildered by this display of it in Captain d’Auvergne. ‘Sticks?’ he repeated. ‘Des bâtons? Lesquels? En vérité, mon Prince, je ne vous comprends pas du tout!’
‘So much the better,’ replied His Highness, and held out his hand with a smile. ‘Once more, good-bye, La Vireville, and good luck!’
It was only when the lugger began to draw near to the French coast that La Vireville (sailor-bred though he was, having served under Suffren) went up on deck. Up to that time he had been closeted with the leader of the landing-party in the Seaflower’s cabin, where the hanging lamp swung, at times with quite pronounced oscillations, over the maps outspread on the table below it. But when her master, the Jerseyman Gosset, looked in to announce that they were standing in to the Anse de la Bernerie, the Chouan went on deck to give instructions about the spot for which the boats were to make.
Nearly all his charges had remained below, for besides a snatching sea there had been scuds of rain, but there was a figure holding on to a ratline of the mainmast shrouds which addressed him as he passed. It had the greenish-white face of one who has been, or who will shortly be, seasick; the face was young, and in other circumstances would have been remarkable for a delicate and slightly womanish beauty.
‘Are we nearly there, Monsier?’ gasped this figure convulsively.
‘Very nearly. We shall be heaving to in a few minutes, and no doubt you will find the motion of a rowing-boat less disagreeable,’ answered Fortuné kindly, for he had not forgotten his own first days at sea.—‘Are you by chance the Vicomte de St Alyre?’ he added.
The young man had just time to nod before he clapped a hand over his mouth and turned to the side. But La Vireville, as he went on his way, said to himself, not so kindly, ‘Of course, he would be seasick!’
It was not long before the Seaflower’s sails were down, and the disembarking émigrés were tumbling with more or less agility over the side of the lugger into the two boats which were to convey them into the little bay. The safe depositing of these small Royalist parties on a hostile coast was always nervous and responsible work. Naturally, a part of that coast known to be normally unpatrolled was always chosen, but there was an ever-present chance that the Republican soldiers—in Royalist parlance, the Blues—might have made a fresh disposition of their forces, and a holocaust of émigrés be the result. It had been part of La Vireville’s task, and not the least perilous, to acquaint himself with the present condition of this landing-place; but, as he had recently done so, his mind was fairly at rest, for he knew that there were no Blues nearer than the garrison of the erstwhile château of Gerville, a good three miles inland in the opposite direction to that which the party would take.
The moon to-night, less than full, gave sufficient light (when not obscured by a succession of clouds), but not too much—just what was wanted. It was clear of obstruction as the boats left the lugger, so that La Vireville, sitting beside the steersman of the first, to direct him, soon became aware of the presence of the Vicomte de St Alyre in the bows, gazing eagerly in the direction of the shore and its low, dimly seen cliffs. Here, in the lee of the land, the sea was traversed only by a long, gentle swell, which the late sufferer from mal de mer could evidently tolerate. Yet, intent though he looked, he could hardly, thought the Chouan, be meditating a poem on his recent experience.
The spit of rock which La Vireville had in mind as a landing-place—since the beach at this state of the tide was not very convenient for disembarkation—at last showed its presence, dark against the heaving moonlit surface. The boat drew alongside, and, scrambling onto the reef, Fortuné went unaccompanied over the slippery seaweed which clothed it—the tide was only just making—and a little way up the shingly beach to reconnoitre. Then he returned to the shoreward end of the rock, and giving a whistle, waited there.
Away at the farther end dim forms began at once to leave the boat and to make their way over the reef. La Vireville counted them as they came towards him, from one up to nine. The tenth, however, suddenly slipped and fell—and did not get up again. Number Eleven bent over him, Number Twelve did the same, and there was a halt in the proceedings. But after a few moments’ delay the fallen man was assisted to his feet again and, limping badly, was helped off the rock and a short distance along the beach to what appeared to be a heap of half-buried wreckage, against which he immediately subsided once more.
‘Damnation, who is the clumsy fool?’ thought La Vireville with annoyance. When one’s legs were the only means of transport this was emphatically not the moment to damage them. ‘I’ll wager it is that seasick young Taillefer!’
And on hurrying to the group he found that he was right. The figure half sitting on, half leaning against, the hull of the derelict lifted the slightly distorted countenance of the Vicomte de St Alyre.
‘I slipped, Monsieur,’ he explained hoarsely. ‘That cursed seaweed. . . . I am afraid I have twisted my knee rather severely.’
He received no commiseration for his mishap. ‘You have probably put your knee-cap out,’ was La Vireville’s curt reply. ‘Get one of these gentlemen to pull on the leg, and with luck it will go in again. I hope that no one else will be so clum—so unfortunate.’ And off he went to the reef to urge the other boat-load to caution. ‘I knew the troubadour would come to grief somehow,’ he told himself irritably. ‘He probably was star-gazing, as I told the Prince he would be!’
When he came back again he found the culprit on his feet, leaning on an arm of each of his companions.
‘That’s better,’ said La Vireville, without pausing to inquire further. ‘These gentlemen will no doubt continue to assist you for a little while, until you can walk unaided. But you must all keep up with the main party at any cost.’ And he hurried up the beach once more to give final directions to the leader of the band while the second boat-load finished picking their way over the seaweed.
In a short time the whole of the procession was vanishing towards the low, grass-topped cliffs up which the guide whom La Vireville was sending would lead them—for he himself was not accompanying the contingent farther, but returning in the second boat to the Seaflower and so to Jersey. ‘That’s safely over, thank Heaven!’ he thought, drawing a breath of relief—until, turning seaward, he saw that it was not over. Clouds were now invading the moon, but the dwindling light showed him the same three figures in the selfsame spot.
‘Peste!’ he exclaimed. ‘That will never do!’ And as he once more hurried towards the group the voice of the disabled poet was borne to him.
‘No, it’s impossible! Even if the knee-cap is in place again, as you assert, Messieurs, I cannot walk more than a step or two.’
‘Courage! We will carry you if necessary!’ announced one of his companions.
La Vireville arrived. ‘You will do nothing of the kind!’ he interposed angrily. ‘Follow the others at once, you two, or you will get cut off! If Monsieur de St Alyre is so much injured that he cannot walk he must return with me to Jersey. Quick, gentlemen, you have not a minute to lose!’
He was right, and the other two knew it. They ran instantly up the shingle, their mentor following them a certain distance to make sure that they were going in the right direction, for an almost night-black contingent of cloud had now engulfed the moon. Then he turned again, prepared to retrace his steps and to say ‘Better luck next time’ to a young man who, since he had apparently so ardently desired to take part in this expedition, must be horribly mortified at this tame conclusion to his hopes.
But the words were never spoken, for, when La Vireville reached the heap of wreckage, to his amazement there was no one there. St Alyre, who had declared himself unable to walk more than a step or two, could be seen—indistinctly—hobbling hastily along the shore in the opposite direction to that taken by his comrades.
In a flash the Chouan was after the retreating figure, and reaching it, gripped it by the arm.
‘Here, where are you off to, man? And it seems you have the use of your legs, after all!’ To himself he said, ‘The white feather, of course (as the English call it), and a sham injury. Taillefer, indeed!’
Genuinely disabled or no, the young man was forced to a standstill. ‘Do you blame me for experimenting?’ he inquired, turning a sulky face upon his captor. ‘As a result I find that my knee does permit me to walk—if with difficulty. So kindly allow me, Monsieur, to overtake my comrades.’
This did not seem like a failure of courage, glossed over by a pretended accident, else why should he continue to limp; but it was devilish queer all the same. ‘Your comrades, young man,’ retorted Fortuné, ‘have not gone in this direction, as you very well know. And, in any case, I cannot allow you to attempt to overtake them. You would only impede them if you succeeded—nor would you succeed. You will return with me to Jersey.’
If ever there was overt rebellion on a face it was on the delicate features of the ‘troubadour’ at that moment. ‘Let me go, Monsieur. The Prince de Bouillon——’
‘Gave me absolute discretion in this affair,’ finished Fortuné. ‘If I say that you are not to follow the rest, that is enough. Come along with me to the boat.’
‘I tell you once for all that I am not going back to Jersey with you!’ declared the recalcitrant, his long-lashed eyes glittering with resentment even in the dimmed light.
La Vireville began to wonder if he were dealing with an eccentric of some kind. ‘Look here, my young friend,’ he said impatiently, ‘I have no intention of standing on this beach all night to argue with you. If you do not obey my orders, I shall have small scruple in putting that leg of yours genuinely out of action—with a bullet through the calf. Then the boat’s crew can embark you with no further difficulty.’ And he gave a shrill double whistle to indicate to the invisible boat waiting off the reef that he was ready to return.
The prospect of reinforcements made the rebel change his tone. ‘I beseech you not to do that, Monsieur,’ he said, almost imploringly. ‘If you will only leave me behind here I give you my word of honour that I will not endanger the others by trying to overtake them. Indeed,’ he added after a second or two’s pause, ‘I will confess that it never was my intention to go with them more than a short way. Then I should have given them the slip. But this cursed wrench to my knee——’
‘Given them the slip!’ exclaimed his captor, thunderstruck, but still holding on to him. ‘Then why in the devil’s name did you volunteer to go with them at all?’
‘Because it was an unrivalled chance of getting over to this part of the coast, which it was imperative that I should do.’
‘In God’s name, why?’
‘For a very weighty private reason,’ replied the young man slowly, and went on more quickly: ‘So, since I am here, Chevalier, let us part, if you have any heart in you! Then, without endangering anyone, I can—carry out my project.’
And La Vireville thought he saw light at last. Not the white feather, but those feathers on the end of Cupid’s arrow were behind this conduct. The sting of that barb it undoubtedly was which had driven the youth to use such shifts to get himself landed in the Anse de la Bernerie. But he should not be allowed to throw away his life for an amour.
‘My dear young man, do you know what happens to persons of our political views who go about private matters on these coasts within reach of the Blues?’ Fortuné asked, with not unkindly irony. ‘They very quickly find themselves in a particularly private spot some six feet in length, where they stay undisturbed till the last trump.’ (For returning émigrés were now liable to be shot out of hand.) ‘Perhaps they do not acquire even that hasty tenement, but just lie under a hedge and rot. So with whatever charming lady you have a rendezvous in the commune of Gerville, you must really give her the go-by.—Where has that damned boat got to?’ And, realising that there had been no reply to his last signal, he whistled again.
‘Charming lady!’ repeated his captive, with the utmost scorn. ‘Is that how you interpret my errand, Monsieur de la Vireville? It is a very different one, I assure you! And, as your sailors do not seem to be coming to overpower me, I shall stay behind, by Heaven, and carry it out!—As for returning to Jersey, look!’
He pointed seaward. The moon, poking her head at this moment through the thick black shawl which she had been wearing during this colloquy, revealed a silvered plain broken only by the shape of the lugger making her way back under full sail to St Helier. Of the waiting boat there was no sign anywhere.
In all his life La Vireville had probably never uttered a more fervent oath. There had been some misunderstanding; her master must have thought he was remaining—scarcely an unreasonable deduction, either, with this delay. Whistle—as well whistle for the moon up there! If he could light a flare it might just possibly attract Gosset’s attention; but for that he must loose his prisoner. Well, if the young fool insisted upon getting himself shot he must do it.
The young fool lost no time in setting out to his fate. He had torn himself away even before his arm had been freed, and in a moment was half-running, half-hobbling away up the beach, while the Chouan ran back to the derelict boat to see if there were a possibility of setting light to any part of its forlorn timbers.
No. The wood was all damp, sand-embedded, and unbreakable. In any case, too, the action would be dangerous as well as, probably, futile. Instead of summoning the lugger back it might very well bring a patrol of Blues upon him. He was becoming as crazy as that troublesome youngster himself. Much better betake himself for the remainder of the night to the little cave not far away, which had sheltered him before now, until such time as Gosset should realise his mistake and return for him—a realisation which might possibly not take place until he had reported to the Prince de Bouillon at Gorey in the morning. Ten thousand curses! If he himself had not been so taken up with that young imbecile he might have perceived earlier what was happening, and not have found himself now so ignominiously—and even perilously—marooned here.
La Vireville was on the point of turning away from the useless derelict when the moonlight struck a glint from something lying on the sand beside it. It was a small leather pocket-book with metal clasps, dropped no doubt by one of the three who had recently stood there, since it was apparently undamaged by sea-water or exposure. He slipped it hastily into his pocket and made off along the shore towards his refuge. St Alyre, as another glance cliffwards showed him, had already vanished on his way to his mistress.
But suppose that he was not on his way to her? Suppose that this young man, who had given himself out as a poet, and who certainly looked like one, was actually a spy, and was even now on his way to the garrison of Gerville to inform about the party of Royalists just landed? He had all their lives in his hand. La Vireville stood transfixed as this unpleasant idea formulated itself, his fingers tightening round the butt of the pistol in his belt. Triple idiot that he had been, ever to lose his hold of the young devil! He must go after him at once. . . . But almost instantly came a saner view of the situation. The Vicomte de St Alyre might be a besotted lover, but he could not have joined this expedition with the object of betraying in cold blood those fellow-adventurers of his own class!
Yet, as the dark entry of the cave was receiving him, a few minutes later, misgivings crowded upon the Chouan again. What, after all, did anyone know of this young man? It was true that the Prince had personally authorised his inclusion in the party, but what credentials had St Alyre given the Prince? Could he have gulled his Serene Naval Highness?
Uneasy once more, and struggling with a growing feeling of self-reproach, the Chevalier de la Vireville felt along the rocky ledge where he had secreted a candle-end against emergencies, found it, and thrust a hand into his pocket for his tinder-box. It met at the same time the notebook which he had just picked up on the beach, and which, in a very short time, seated on a bit of spar, he was examining, at first with a certain bewilderment, and then with sensible relief.
For the little book, which bore no owner’s name, was crammed with scraps of verse, much of it altered, re-copied, or scored out, with fumblings after rhymes, and with discarded epithets. And the book must be St Alyre’s, dropped when he rested against the wreckage; it was not likely to have belonged to either of the other two émigrés.
Its finder idly turned over the pages. There were several drafts of a poem which appeared to be addressed to a certain ‘Lucille’—was this the lady whom the writer had so rashly gone to meet?—and some sonnets wherein ‘la France martyre’ figured alternatively as Prometheus the light-bringer, ravaged by the beak of the eagle of revolution, and as Andromeda, chained to her rock and awaiting the delivering Perseus. (Fortuné, who had already suffered one unintelligible classical allusion to-day, tried in vain to remember who these individuals were.) But one thing was abundantly clear to him: all this mass of versification proved that St Alyre was what he was alleged to be—a poet, and therefore ex hypothesi harmless. Moreover, if—at least, as far as the present reader could make out—he wrote with such condemnation of the Revolution, he was hardly likely to hand over further victims to it.
Usually clear-headed enough, and endowed with his nation’s inborn gift of logic, Monsieur de la Vireville happily did not perceive that he was arguing in somewhat of a circle as to the ownership of the notebook and what it proved, at one moment postulating that, since the book contained poetry, it must be St Alyre’s, in the next taking it for granted that it was St Alyre’s and, because it contained poetry, showed that he was innocuous.
Much reassured, at any rate, he was going to clasp the little volume together again, when his glance fell on a page which he had missed. At once his eyes remained glued there, while a chill which was not due to the atmosphere of the cave crawled through him. Upside down on that page was scrawled a rough but perfectly recognisable sketch of the coast-line of the Anse de la Bernerie, and below it was a more detailed plan of two floors of a building which instinct told him was the Château de Gerville itself. And a room on the first floor was significantly marked, ‘Here.’
It was more than sufficient. Young devil! Flinging the evidence of treachery onto the ledge of rock, La Vireville blew out the candle-end and plunged like fury out of the cave, possessed by but one thought, to intercept the informer before he could get to the château. God, what a guilty fool he had been to let the scorpion slip through his fingers when he might have put a bullet into him! And could he ever catch up St Alyre now, in spite of that damaged knee of his?
About an hour later a young Republican officer stood in the doorway of a bedroom in the Château de Gerville with his hand at the salute.
‘The patrol has just brought in a prisoner, mon Commandant—a man whom they captured in the wood. He appears to be an émigré.’
The grizzled officer, slowly mending his quill at the candle-lit escritoire, turned half round in his high-backed chair. He was blinking with sleep. ‘Has he been questioned?’
‘Not possible yet, sir. He is insensible—had a pretty shrewd knock on the head.’
‘To-morrow, then,’ said his superior officer drowsily. And as the door shut he stretched out his arms with an immense yawn, the pen-knife slipping from his hand as he did so. He looked down after it with half-closed eyes, saw that it could not be recovered without rising, and (very disastrously for himself) abandoned the attempt to keep awake which that evening’s enjoyment of Monsieur de Gerville’s cellar had already made so difficult. In five minutes’ time, his head against the carved back of the chair, he was snoring.
Catherine-wheels of light were revolving dizzily before Fortuné de la Vireville’s eyes, and somewhere behind them was a horrid ache, when he opened them to surroundings which almost convinced him that he had passed into another world.
But which? Not the lowest of all—so he reasoned—for it was distinctly cold, this twilit place in which he found himself lying. It was quiet, too, and apparently empty, save for himself. Purgatory, then, presumably. But why, in that case, could he just discern, some way above him, the figure of a particularly buxom angel blowing upon a soundless trumpet, an angel clad in voluminous but rather dingy draperies?
Greatly puzzled, he carried a hand to his throbbing head, encountered something of the nature of a bandage tied about it . . . and gave vent to an even more heart-felt imprecation than he had already uttered on the seashore. He guessed now where he was, and to what disastrous goal his chase after the young scorpion had led him. He, a seasoned guerrilla leader, had run, for the first time in his life, straight into the arms of an enemy patrol—so straight, in face, that (fortunately for himself) there had been no opportunity on the part of its members for bullet or bayonet, and that a brief hand-to-hand struggle had terminated ignominiously by a crashing blow on the head from a pistol butt.
And now he was a prisoner in the château of Gerville, where he would probably be shot out of hand next morning as a returned émigré—if the Blues recognised him as such, for he had been carrying no incriminating papers. And that young scoundrel of an informer was still at large to carry out his treacherous intention—probably had carried it out by this time! Sick with rage and mortification, his head aching worse than ever, La Vireville shut his eyes again and swore steadily to himself.
But it was of no use giving way to these emotions. Better, if he were physically capable of doing so, to make use of the one asset left to him in this calamitous business, the fact that he had not been tied up. He managed to roll over and get to his knees, then to his feet, and to stare round him. What was this place which sprouted angels?
Scant as was the very early morning light admitted through its pointed windows, he soon saw. It was the little chapel of the château, floridly decorated in the style of the Grand Monarque, and overburdened with bulging plaster cherubs and too-prolific carved vegetation. Hangings and all movable furniture save a confessional appeared to have been looted, but there still remained the stripped stone altar and an ample pillared organ. And it was from the neighbourhood of this instrument, as the captive stood surveying his unusual jail, that there came suddenly a sound suggestive of a hinge being turned, and a grating hinge at that.
La Vireville instantly became as immobile as any of the stout seraphs above him. A long thin slit of light appeared between the corner of the organ and the wall of the building, as a thickly garlanded rosewood pillar, turning upon its socket, exchanged itself for the figure of a young man with a lantern dangling from his hand. It was St Alyre.
‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Fortuné savagely. ‘I knew I should find you here!’ He rushed upon him, intending to take him by the throat, but a remnant of giddiness causing him to stagger suddenly, he thought better of it, and only blocked his opponent’s egress from the corner. ‘How much did you get for selling them to the Blues, you dirty hound?’
‘For selling my poems to the Blues!’ retorted St Alyre, in a high voice pierced by some emotion which sounded uncommonly like elation. ‘You are mad, Monsieur de la Vireville.—But let me pass, in God’s name! I must get away at once. . . . I thought you were dead when I saw you lying there a little while ago,’ he added inconsequently.
La Vireville’s head had ceased to swim, and the grip which at that he fastened on the speaker’s shoulders was secure enough. ‘So you have been in here before! I dare say you are disappointed to find me alive—and waiting to hear the nature of your business with the garrison of Gerville! No, you don’t get away from me so easily this time.’
‘Damn you!’ said St Alyre furiously, as he struggled. ‘I have not run these risks to be stopped by a blundering fool of my own party just when I have succeeded.’
‘Succeeded in what?’ demanded La Vireville, still holding him firmly. ‘In any case, if you can get out of this place, you will take me with you.’
‘Not I. You can hardly stand; you would only impede me—as you told me I should impede the others!’
With these callous words the poet put forth a sudden effort, wrenched himself free, and hurried round the organ. But, as in La Vireville’s own case a while earlier, his haste was his undoing, for in the uncertain light he tripped over one of the pedals and fell headlong, his lantern rolling from his hand. Next moment Fortuné was upon him, pinning him down where he lay, though his own head swam in the effort. Many pedals were thereupon depressed, fortunately without sound.
‘You intend, do you, to leave me in the lurch because of the blow which I sustained on your account? I think not, my friend.’
‘Let me up!’ gasped the prostrate minstrel, wriggling violently, yet all the time fending off his assailant with one hand only, while the other held his coat firmly together over his breast.
‘Is there a passage from this chapel, or have you an accomplice to let you out?’ demanded La Vireville, seizing and immobilising the free hand also. ‘Hallo, what is this on your hand—blood?’
‘Possibly—I scratched myself. . . . Yes, there is a passage. . . . Let me up, and I will show you.’
‘You will do more than that. You will come with me to Jersey to account for your presence here. It is no use pretending,’ as the prostrate wrestler began to say something, ‘that you intend joining the others now.’
‘I have told you once, dunderhead,’ retorted the young man impolitely, ‘that I never had the slightest intention of going with them in the first instance. Now that I have what I came for I shall return to Jersey—if only you do not keep me here until we are both discovered.’
The comment was not unjustified. Fortuné rose at once. The poet, pale, dusty, and furious, scrambled to his feet, and having snatched up the lantern (which had still continued to burn), went to the confessional, set his back against it, and pushed until, sliding along, it revealed what had been covered, a stone trap-door in the floor. But in order to pull this up by its ring Monsieur de St Alyre was forced to set down the lantern, which La Vireville, who had followed on his heels, promptly pounced upon.
‘Very pretty,’ he observed, looking down at the flight of stone steps disclosed by the raising of the trap. ‘Wait just a moment, however’—and he held the lantern out of reach—‘and tell me how you propose to get back to Jersey?’
‘In the lugger, naturally,’ retorted the adventurer impatiently. ‘She is sure to return for you.’
‘The devil you do! You think that Lieutenant Gosset will accept you as a substitute for me? And you know the precise spot her boat is likely to make for, and how to signal to it?’
For all his haste, the youth looked rather shaken. ‘I shall reach her somehow.’
‘And find yourself in irons when you do.’
‘Give me that lantern!’
‘Yes, when you have gone first and given me an arm down. You have no alternative, young man, but to play the Good Samaritan, however reluctant you are, because you will never see Jersey without me.’
There was no mistake about the reluctance.
Stories of underground passages had come La Vireville’s way more than once, but in all his adventurous life he had never been in one before to-night. Very damp and dark it was, too, and uneven going for a man recovering from a knock-out blow on the head, whose companion, for reasons of his own, was anxious to get away as fast as possible, and was in a better condition than he to do so—though not very much, for his knee was plainly troubling him still. But it was not long before the two emerged outside the château precincts into a small roofless building of some sort, a mere shell overgrown with ivy and climbing bushes.
And here La Vireville was glad to rest for a moment, for his head was throbbing like a drum. Almost dreamily he watched St Alyre extinguish the lantern and immediately plunge his hands—soiled perhaps by contact with it—into some long dew-drench grass and scrub them vigorously. It was about three o’clock on a hazy morning, and outside the ruin the birds were beginning their day. It was to be hoped that the Blues were not doing the same. Yet they must have sentries posted somewhere round the château, and, now that it was daylight and the fugitives had no choice but to emerge from their shelter, things would not be so easy, probably, as they had been.
‘And where now?’ inquired Fortuné in a low voice, as the young man returned to him.
‘Now,’ whispered back the Vicomte de St Alyre, ‘there is a smugglers’ track which we can follow part of the way; it is well hidden. And is,’ he hissed irritably, reading his companion’s thoughts with accuracy, ‘you want to know how I am familiar with all this, the Comte de Gerville is my uncle.—Are you ready to go on?’
‘Your uncle!’ exclaimed Fortuné. At last he understood. St Alyre had risked his life to bring away something of value for this kinsman who was, La Vireville had heard, an émigré in Germany. This something, being obviously of little bulk, was probably a paper or papers. The youth rose greatly in his estimation, and he felt that he owed him an apology. But it was too early to make it yet.
‘Yes, lead the way,’ he replied, rising. ‘I have found my legs now.’
Rather more than three-quarters of an hour later, after a cautious and completely unconversational journey, the two were safely at the coast again, within sound, though not within sight, of the sea, for the mist lay over it almost to the water’s edge. Looking at the haze, Fortuné shrugged his shoulders. Until it cleared there was no possibility of signalling to the cutter, even if she were in the offing, which it was obviously impossible to know. There was nothing to do but to make their way along to the cave and to wait there; indeed, since Gosset was aware of its existence, it was not at all improbable that he would of his own accord send a boat thither.
A little later, therefore, the pair, descending to the seashore, entered that ill-lighted retreat, and St Alyre, rekindling the lantern, which he had not abandoned, set it on the floor and took, as Fortuné had expected, a small packet of papers from his breast.
Guarded conversation being no longer imprudent, Fortuné, as he watched him, commented on this. ‘So it was on behalf of your uncle that you penetrated into Gerville. You have there papers of value, I take it. If you had only confided in me last night——’
‘Of value, you say?’ broke in St Alyre. ‘Yes, indeed, of inestimable value.’ His delicate features were lit with rapture as he gazed down at the packet in his hands. ‘All the gold in the world would not buy this treasure of mine!’ And he actually hugged the packet to his breast as a mother might a recovered babe.
‘Oh, it is yours, then!’ said La Vireville, surprised. ‘Am I indiscreet in asking what it is?’
‘By no means. It is my great poem on Clovis, which by a series of ill chances had been left in the escritoire of my bedroom when I was last at Gerville, before my uncle emigrated, and which I have spent more than two years scheming to recover. Yes, my poem, my epic, which now I have again and can give to the world!’
‘Poem!’ exclaimed the thunderstruck Fortuné after a second’s silence. ‘Poem! You have risked your life—and mine—for a poem!’
‘And why not, pray?’ asked the intrepid songster, his eyes glowing. ‘Is either of our lives worth setting for a moment against verse that will become immortal? Long after you and I are dust, Monsieur de la Vireville, men will read . . . will know by heart . . . the epic of Clovis, King of the Franks. Long after the terms “émigré” and “Blue” mean nothing, will Frenchmen, and not only Frenchmen——’
‘Well, I’m damned, doubly damned!’ exclaimed the Chouan, staring at him as he had never yet stared at another human being. Verses, a scribbler’s rhymes, it was for the sake of those. . . . ‘You mean to say that it was just to recover . . . an old poem of yours . . . that you got leave to join the expedition?’ he demanded, still half incredulous.
‘Entirely,’ said the author of Clovis coolly. He had seated himself on a bit of rock and was eagerly unwrapping the package. ‘I should have given the others the slip easily enough, once we were away from the shore, but that infernal wrench to my knee upset all my plans. Had you not so needlessly given way to suspicions of me and followed me, Monsieur de la Vireville, you would not have suffered that injury to your head. You suggest that I ought to have confided my design to you. I was careful not to do so, because, to be frank, I considered you too much . . . what shall I say? . . . too much a man of action to appreciate its importance. In view of what has happened to you I ask your pardon for my reticence—though I still think it was justified.’
To this estimate of him Fortuné had really nothing to say, since it was correct. He contemplated, still with a certain stupefaction, the Vicomte de St Alyre spreading MS. out on his knee and fishing out a pencil from his pocket.
‘How the devil,’ he asked, ‘did you penetrate into the room where your verses had been left without encountering any of the garrison?’
‘Because the secret staircase from the chapel came out into that very room, as I knew.’
‘Parbleu, how miraculously convenient!’ The plan in the pocket-book with its significantly marked room came back to La Vireville’s memory. He must return the book to its owner and ask him why, with this local knowledge, he had had need of a plan at all. There was time enough for that, however, when they had got off Republican territory. Indeed, the question of the moment was whether they would be able to accomplish this departure.
‘None of this immortality which you make so certain of, St Alyre,’ he observed drily, ‘will come your way if the Blues discover us here before we can be taken off.’ But the poet being now too deeply absorbed to heed this unpleasant reminder, the Chouan went to the mouth of the cave and looked uneasily forth.
The tide had not long begun to ebb; a dozen yards or so away its edge was visible, lapsing half-heartedly onto the shingle. Beyond this verge was mist, thin indeed, but showing no immediate prospect of lifting. And as he stood there pondering, La Vireville heard the rocky walls behind him begin to resound with alexandrines. St Alyre, unable to contain himself, was declaiming his masterpiece aloud.
Fortuné swung round. ‘Be quiet!’ he said angrily. ‘Are you trying to bring the Blues upon us?’ He was damned if, with his head still aching as it was, he would listen to the infernal balderdash which had brought about that condition.
Peace thereupon reigned in the cavern for a while, though the silenced minstrel’s lips still moved soundlessly, while La Vireville stood for some ten minutes in the entrance, straining his ears for tidings of the Seaflower. For all he knew she might already have made her effort to bring him off, and have abandoned it.
But at last his sailor’s hearing detected a distant and very faint splash of oars, even the squeak of rowlocks. He could still see nothing, but directly he was sure that he was not deluding himself he gave the signal whistle. A moment, and through the mist came the answer.
‘You can roll up that stuff now, St Alyre,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘The lugger’s boat is making towards us. Your luck has held to the end. And I fancy that your biggest slice of it,’ he added as he felt about on the shelf for the famous pocket-book, ‘was in finding that particular room in the château empty.’
‘It was not actually empty,’ observed the poet, making a short emendation in his manuscript. ‘But the occupant was asleep.’
‘So there was an occupant!’ exclaimed Fortuné. ‘You did not tell me that. And he never woke while you hunted for your poem?’
‘No, because I naturally took measures that he should not,’ replied the young man, leisurely, almost regretfully, folding up Clovis, King of the Franks.
There was a little silence before La Vireville asked curtly, ‘What measures?’
‘Why, the measures you would have taken yourself, Monsieur de la Vireville.’ Bestowing his treasure in his breast, St Alyre got up. ‘I killed him—I had to.’
Hardened fighter and adventurer though he was, and not over given to sentiment, La Vireville recoiled. ‘You . . . you killed him! You killed a sleeping man, merely in order to——’
‘It was better than doing it when he was awake. He was not in bed, as you seem to think. (If he had been, he might have been alive now.) It happened like this: As I entered the room quietly from the secret stairway I saw a middle-aged officer—perhaps the commandant himself—lying back fast asleep in a chair at the very escritoire where I knew my poem to be. He would certainly have awakened at once if I had attempted to get it out of the secret drawer, and then I should have thrown away my life—and what was far more important, my poem—to no purpose. I could not use my pistol on account of the noise, and I had no other weapon. But his penknife, as I saw, was lying on the floor. So I went behind him, and succeeded in cutting his throat with it before he woke. There was no other way in which I——’
He was interrupted. ‘You—cut his throat!’ ejaculated Fortuné, in a tone and with a look of the utmost repugnance. ‘Like that—as he sat there—in cold blood!’
St Alyre looked astonished. ‘But you, of all people, surely cannot consider the life of a Blue as so sacred,’ he retorted. ‘I do not deny that I should have preferred not to take this step, but you must appreciate that it was Clovis that was at stake, and that——’
‘I don’t appreciate anything of the sort,’ broke in Fortuné violently, ‘and if I hear any more about your miserable epic I swear that I will throw it into the sea before we reach Jersey—and you as well! Here, take this book which you dropped last night, for that is full of your doggerel too, and I have no mind to be knifed for its possession, either asleep or awake.’ And with that he tossed the pocket-book at its owner’s feet and strode out of the cave.
Under the bandage his forehead was quite damp. Was it possible that this woman-faced boy had actually cut a sleeping man’s throat in the coldest of cold blood, and that not to rescue a comrade or to safeguard some secret vital to the cause he served, which might have justified the action, but merely to secure his own immature scribblings? As a man not cursed with literary leanings himself La Vireville found it almost incredible—yet it seemed to be true. He had first mistaken St Alyre for a coward, then for a traitor—what he thought him now he hardly knew. A monster? The real significance of that scrubbing of the hands in the ruin, of the smear on one of them in the chapel, came to him now. It was as if a tame pigeon had suddenly grown the beak and talons of a vulture.
Then he became conscious that two figures were hurrying over the shingle towards him, and that farther away the blurred shape of a boat was moving gently up and down on the mist-enshrouded water. Apologies rang in his ears, remorseful exclamations called forth by the sight of his swathed head.
He cut them all short. ‘There’s no need of explanations, Letellier. And there is one of last night’s party who did not accompany the others returning with me. See that he gets aboard quickly.’
The antipathy still in his voice was misinterpreted by the Seaflower’s mate. ‘The white feather, eh?’
Fortuné de la Vireville looked at him queerly for a moment. ‘The white feather? No, not the white feather—certainly not!’
And as he went past the slightly puzzled seaman towards the waiting boat he gave a harsh little laugh, and added to himself, ‘On the contrary!’