a token of their love. “It was on that,” he added, much agitated, “that you swore—”
He did not finish the sentence. The young girl placed her hand on the lips of her savage lover and silenced him.
“Need I swear?” she said.
He took his mistress gently by the hand, looked at her for a moment and said: “Is the lady you are with really Mademoiselle de Verneuil?”
Francine stood with hanging arms, her eyelids lowered, her head bowed, pale and speechless.
“She is a strumpet!” cried Marche-a-Terre, in a terrifying voice.
At the word the pretty hand once more covered his lips, but this time he sprang back violently. The girl no longer saw a lover; he had turned to a wild beast in all the fury of its nature. His eyebrows were drawn together, his lips drew apart, and he showed his teeth like a dog which defends its master.
“I left you pure, and I find you muck. Ha! why did I ever leave you! You are here to betray us; to deliver up the Gars!”
These sentences sounded more like roars than words. Though Francine was frightened, she raised her angelic eyes at this last accusation and answered calmly, as she looked into his savage face: “I will pledge my eternal safety that that is false. That’s an idea of the lady you are serving.”
He lowered his head; then she took his hand and nestling to him with a pretty movement said: “Pierre, what is all this to you and me? I don’t know what you understand about it, but I can’t make it out. Recollect one thing: that noble and beautiful young lady has been my benefactress; she is also yours—we live together like two sisters. No harm must ever come to her where we are, you and I—in our lifetime at least. Swear it! I trust no one here but you.”
“I don’t command here,” said the Chouan, in a surly tone.
His face darkened. She caught his long ears and twisted them gently as if playing with a cat.
“At least,” she said, seeing that he looked less stern, “promise me to use all the power you have to protect our benefactress.”
He shook his head as if he doubted of success, and the motion made her tremble. At this critical moment the escort was entering the courtyard. The tread of the soldiers and the rattle of their weapons awoke the echoes and seemed to put an end to Marche-a-Terre’s indecision.
“Perhaps I can save her,” he said, “if you make her stay in the house. And mind,” he added, “whatever happens, you must stay with her and keep silence; if not, no safety.”
“I promise it,” she replied in terror.
“Very good; then go in—go in at once, and hide your fears from every one, even your mistress.”
“Yes.”
She pressed his hand; he stood for a moment watching her with an almost paternal air as she ran with the lightness of a bird up the portico; then he slipped behind the bushes, like an actor darting behind the scenes as the curtain rises on a tragedy.
“Do you know, Merle,” said Gerard as they reached the chateau, “that this place looks to me like a mousetrap?”
“So I think,” said the captain, anxiously.
The two officers hastened to post sentinels to guard the gate and the causeway; then they examined with great distrust the precipitous banks of the lakes and the surroundings of the chateau.
“Pooh!” said Merle, “we must do one of two things: either trust ourselves in this barrack with perfect confidence, or else not enter it at all.”
“Come, let’s go in,” replied Gerard.
The soldiers, released at the word of command, hastened to stack their muskets in conical sheaves, and to form a sort of line before the litter of straw, in the middle of which was the promised barrel of cider. They then divided into groups, to whom two peasants began to distribute butter and rye-bread. The marquis appeared in the portico to welcome the officers and take them to the salon. As Gerard went up the steps he looked at both ends of the portico, where some venerable larches spread their black branches; and he called up Clef-des-Coeurs and Beau-Pied.
“You will each reconnoitre the gardens and search the bushes, and post a sentry before your line.”
“May we light our fire before starting, adjutant?” asked Clef-des-Coeurs.
Gerard nodded.
“There! you see, Clef-des-Coeurs,” said Beau-Pied, “the adjutant’s wrong to run himself into this wasp’s-nest. If Hulot was in command we shouldn’t be cornered here—in a saucepan!”
“What a stupid you are!” replied Clef-des-Coeurs, “haven’t you guessed, you knave of tricks, that this is the home of the beauty our jovial Merle has been whistling round? He’ll marry her to a certainty—that’s as clear as a well-rubbed bayonet. A woman like that will do honor to the brigade.”
“True for you,” replied Beau-Pied, “and you may add that she gives pretty good cider—but I can’t drink it in peace till I know what’s behind those devilish hedges. I always remember poor Larose and Vieux-Chapeau rolling down the ditch at La Pelerine. I shall recollect Larose’s queue to the end of my days; it went hammering down like the knocker of a front door.”
“Beau-Pied, my friend; you have too much imagination for a soldier; you ought to be making songs at the national Institute.”
“If I’ve too much imagination,” retorted Beau-Pied, “you haven’t any; it will take you some time to get your degree as consul.”
A general laugh put an end to the discussion, for Clef-des-Coeurs found no suitable reply in his pouch with which to floor his adversary.
“Come and make our rounds; I’ll go to the right,” said Beau-Pied.
“Very good, I’ll take the left,” replied his comrade. “But stop one minute, I must have a glass of cider; my throat is glued together like the oiled-silk of Hulot’s best hat.”
The left bank of the gardens, which Clef-des-Coeurs thus delayed searching at once, was, unhappily, the dangerous slope where Francine had seen the moving line of men. All things go by chance in war.
As Gerard entered the salon and bowed to the company he cast a penetrating eye on the men who were present. Suspicions came forcibly to his mind, and he went at once to Mademoiselle de Verneuil and said in a low voice: “I think you had better leave this place immediately. We are not safe here.”
“What can you fear while I am with you?” she answered, laughing. “You are safer here than you would be at Mayenne.”
A woman answers for her lover in good faith. The two officers were reassured. The party now moved into the dining-room after some discussion about a guest, apparently of some importance, who had not appeared. Mademoiselle de Verneuil was able, thanks to the silence which always reigns at the beginning of a meal, to give some attention to the character of the assemblage, which was curious enough under existing circumstances. One thing struck her with surprise. The Republican officers seemed superior to the rest of the assembly by reason of their dignified appearance. Their long hair tied behind in a queue drew lines beside their foreheads which gave, in those days, an expression of great candor and nobleness to young heads. Their threadbare blue uniforms with the shabby red facings, even their epaulets flung back behind their shoulders (a sign throughout the army, even among the leaders, of a lack of overcoats),—all these things brought the two Republican officers into strong relief against the men who surrounded them.
“Oh, they are the Nation, and that means liberty!” thought Marie; then, with a glance at the royalists, she added, “on the other side is a man, a king, and privileges.” She could not refrain from admiring Merle, so thoroughly did that gay soldier respond to the ideas she had formed of the French trooper who hums a tune when the balls are whistling, and jests when a comrade falls. Gerard was more imposing. Grave and self-possessed, he seemed to have