MAÎTRE JACQUES PROCEEDS TO KEEP THE OATH HE MADE TO AUBIN COURTE-JOIE.
The sound which Baron Michel and Petit-Pierre now heard in the direction by which Courtin had left them changed presently into a loud noise approaching rapidly; and two minutes later a dozen chasseurs, riding at a gallop in pursuit of the trail, or rather the noise made by the running horse, which was snorting and neighing as it ran, passed like a flash, not ten steps from Petit-Pierre and her companion, who, rising slightly after the horsemen had passed, watched their wild rush into the distance.
"They ride well," said Petit-Pierre; "but I doubt if they catch up with that horse."
"They are making straight for the place where our friends are awaiting us, and I think the marquis is in just the humor to put a stop to their course."
"Then it is battle!" cried Petit-Pierre. "Well, water yesterday, fire to-day; for my part, I prefer the latter."
And she tried to hurry Michel in the direction where the fight would take place.
"No, no, no!" said Michel, resisting; "I entreat you not to go there."
"Don't you wish to win your spurs under the eyes of your lady, baron? She is there, you know."
"I think she is," said the young man, sadly. "But troops are scattered over the country in every direction; at the first shots they will all converge toward the firing. We may fall in with one of their detachments, and if, unfortunately, the mission with which I am charged should end disastrously I shall never dare to appear again before the marquis--"
"Say before his daughter."
"Well, yes,--before his daughter."
"Then, in order not to bring trouble into your love affairs I consent to obey you."
"Oh, thank you! thank you!" cried Michel, seizing Petit-Pierre's hand vehemently. Then perceiving the impropriety of his action, he exclaimed, stepping backward, "Oh, pardon me; pray, pardon me!"
"Never mind," said Petit-Pierre; "don't think of it. Where did the Marquis de Souday intend to shelter me?"
"In a farmhouse of mine."
"Not that of your man Courtin, I hope?"
"No, in another, perfectly isolated, hidden in the woods beyond Légé. You know the village where Tinguy lived?"
"Yes; but do you know the way there?"
"Perfectly."
"I distrust that adverb in France. My poor Bonneville said he knew the way perfectly, but he lost it." Petit-Pierre sighed as she added, in a lower tone, "Poor Bonneville! alas! it may have been that very mistake that led to his death."
The topic brought back the melancholy thoughts that filled her mind as she left the cottage where the catastrophe that cost her the life of her first companion had taken place. She was silent, and after making a gesture of consent, she followed her new guide, replying only by monosyllables to the few remarks which Michel addressed to her.
As for the latter, he performed his new functions with more ability and success than might have been expected of him. He turned to the left, and crossing some fields, reached a brook where he had often fished for shrimps in his childhood. This brook runs through the valley of the Benaste from end to end, rises toward the south and falls again toward the north, where it joins the Boulogne near Saint-Colombin. Either bank, bordered with fields, gave a safe and easy path to pedestrians. Michel took to the brook itself, and followed it for some distance, carrying Petit-Pierre on his shoulders as poor Bonneville had done.
Presently, leaving the brook after following it for about a kilometre, he bore again to the left, crossed the brow of a hill, and showed Petit-Pierre the dark masses of the forest of Touvois, which were visible in the dim light, looming up from the foot of the hill on which they now stood.
"Is that where your farmhouse is?" asked Petit-Pierre.
"We have still to cross the forest," he said; "but we shall get there in about three quarters of an hour."
"You are not afraid of losing your way?"
"No; for we do not have to plunge into the thicket. In fact, we shall not enter the wood at all till we reach the road from Machecoul to Légé. By skirting the edge of the forest to the eastward we must strike that road soon."
"And then?"
"Then all we have to do is to follow it."
"Well, well," said Petit-Pierre, cheerfully, "I'll give a good account of you, my young guide; and faith, it shall not be Petit-Pierre's fault if you don't obtain the reward you covet! But here is rather a well-beaten path. Isn't this the one you are looking for?"
"I can easily tell," replied Michel, "for there ought to be a post on the right--There! here it is! we are all right. And now, Petit-Pierre, I can promise you a good night's rest."
"Ah! that is a comfort," said Petit-Pierre, smiling; "for I don't deny that the terrible emotions of the day have not relieved the fatigues of last night."
The words were hardly out of her lips before a black outline rose from the other side of the ditch, bounded into the road, and a man seized Petit-Pierre violently by the collar of the peasant's jacket which she wore, crying out in a voice of thunder:--
"Stop, or you're a dead man!"
Michel sprang to the assistance of his young companion by bringing down a vigorous blow with the butt-end of his whip on her assailant. He was near paying dear for his intervention. The man, without letting go of Petit-Pierre, whom he held with his left arm, drew a pistol from his jacket and fired at the young baron. Happily for the latter, in spite of Petit-Pierre's feebleness she was not of a stuff to keep as passive as her captor expected. With a rapid gesture she struck the arm that fired the weapon, and the ball, which would otherwise have gone straight to Michel's breast, only wounded him in the shoulder. He returned to the charge, and their assailant was just pulling a second pistol from his belt when two other men sprang from the bushes and seized Michel from behind.
Then the first assailant, seeing that the young man could interfere no longer, contented himself by saying to his companions:--
"Secure that fellow first; and then come and rid me of this one."
"But," said Petit-Pierre, "by what right do you stop us in this way?"
"This right," said the man, striking the carbine, which he carried on his shoulder. "If you want to know why, you will find out presently. Bind that man securely," he said to his men. "As for this one," he added contemptuously, "it isn't worth while; I think there'll be no trouble in mastering him."
"But I wish to know where you are taking us," insisted Petit-Pierre.
"You are very inquisitive, my young friend," replied the man.
"But--"
"Damn it! come on, and you'll find out. You shall see with your own eyes where you are going in a very few minutes."
And the man, taking Petit-Pierre by the arm, dragged her into the bushes, while Michel, struggling violently, was pushed by the two assistants in the same direction.
They walked thus for about ten minutes, at the end of which time they reached the open where, as we know, was the burrow of Maître Jacques and his bandits. For it was he, bent on sacredly keeping his oath to Aubin Courte-Joie, who had stopped the two travellers whom luck had sent in his way; and it was his pistol-shot which, as we have already seen at the close of a preceding chapter, put the whole camp of the refractories on the qui vive.