THE SEARCH.
A knock was heard on the trap-door leading to the garret.
"What is the matter?" cried Bonneville's voice.
He had heard a few words of what had passed, and became uneasy.
"Nothing, nothing," said the young woman, pressing the hand of her hostess with an affectionate strength that showed the impression the poor widow's words had made upon her. Then, giving another tone to her voice, she cried out cheerfully, going a few steps up the ladder to speak more easily, "And you--?"
The trap-door opened, and the smiling face of Bonneville looked down.
"How are you getting on?" said the peasant-woman, ending her sentence.
"All ready to do it over again, if your service requires it," he replied.
She thanked him by a smile.
"Who was it came here just now?" asked Bonneville.
"A peasant named Courtin, who didn't seem to be one of our friends."
"Ah, ha! the mayor of La Logerie?"
"That's the man."
"I know him," continued Bonneville; "Michel told me about him. He is a dangerous man. You ought to have had him followed."
"By whom? There is no one here."
"By Joseph Picaut."
"You know our brave Jean Oullier's repugnance to him."
"And yet he's a White," cried the widow,--"a White, who stood by and let them kill his brother."
The duchess and Bonneville both gave a start of horror.
"Then it is far better we should not mix him in our affairs," said Bonneville. "He would bring a curse with him. But have you no one we could put as sentry near the house, Madame Picaut?"
"Jean Oullier has provided some one, and I have sent my nephew on to the moor of Saint-Pierre; he can see over the whole country from there."
"But he is only a child," said the pretended peasant-woman.
"Safer than certain men," said the widow.
"After all," remarked Bonneville, "we haven't long to wait; it will be dark in three hours, and then our friends will be here with horses."
"Three hours!" said the young woman, whose mind had been painfully pre-occupied ever since her talk with the widow. "Many things may happen in three hours, my poor Bonneville."
"Some one is running in," cried Marianne Picaut, rushing from the window to the door, which she opened quickly. "Is it you, nephew?"
"Yes, aunt; yes!" cried the boy, out of breath.
"What is it?"
"Oh, aunt! aunt! the soldiers! They are coming up; they surprised and killed the man who was on the watch."
"The soldiers?" cried Joseph Picaut, who from his own door heard the cry of his boy.
"What can we do?" asked Bonneville.
"Wait for them," said the young peasant-woman.
"Why not attempt to escape?"
"If Courtin, the man who was here just now, sends them or brings them, they have surrounded the house."
"Who talks of escaping?" asked the Widow Picaut.
"Did I not say that this house was safe? Have I not sworn that so long as you are within it no harm should happen to you?"
Here the scene was complicated by the entrance of another person. Thinking, probably, that the soldiers were coming after him, Joseph Picaut appeared on the threshold of the widow's door. The house of his sister-in-law, who was known to be a Blue, may have seemed to him a safe asylum. Perceiving the widow's guests, he started back in surprise.
"Ha! so you have White gentlefolk here, have you? I see now why the soldiers are coming; you have sold your guests."
"Wretch!" cried Marianne, seizing her husband's sabre, which hung over the fireplace, and springing at Joseph, who raised his gun and aimed at her.
Bonneville sprang down the ladder; but the young peasant-woman had already flung herself between the brother and sister, covering the widow with her body.
"Lower your gun!" she cried to the Vendéan, in a tone that seemed not to come from that frail and delicate body, so male and energetic was it. "Lower your gun! in the king's name I command it!"
"Who are you who speak thus to me?" asked Joseph Picaut, always ready to rebel against authority.
"I am she who is expected here,--who commands here."
At these words, said with supreme majesty, Joseph Picaut, speechless, and as if bewildered, dropped his weapon to the ground.
"Now," continued the young woman, "go up in the loft with monsieur."
"But you?" said Bonneville.
"I stay here."
"But--"
"There's no time to argue. Go; go at once!"
The two men mounted the ladder, and the trap-door closed behind them.
"What are you doing?" the young woman asked with surprise, as the widow began to disarrange the bed on which the body of her husband lay and to drag it from the wall.
"I am preparing a hiding-place where no one will seek you."
"But I don't mean to hide myself. No one will recognize me in these clothes. I choose to await them as I am."
"And I choose that you shall not await them," said the Widow Picaut, in so firm a tone that she silenced her visitor. "You heard what that man said; if you are discovered while in my house it will be thought that I sold you, and I do not choose to run the risk of your being discovered."
"You, my enemy?"
"Yes, your enemy, who would lie down on this bed and die if she saw you made prisoner."
There was no reply to make. The widow of Pascal Picaut raised the mattress on which the body lay, and hid the clothes and shirt and shoes, which had so awakened Courtin's curiosity, beneath it. Then she pointed to a place between the mattress and the straw bed, on the side toward the wall, wide enough for a small person to lie, and the young woman glided into it without resistance, making for herself a breathing-space at the edge. Then the widow pushed the bedstead back into its place.
Mistress Picaut had barely time to look carefully into every corner of the room to make sure that nothing compromising to her guests was left about, when she heard the click of arms, and the figure of an officer passed before the casement.
"This must be the place," she heard him say, addressing a companion who walked behind him.
"What do you want?" asked the widow, opening the door.
"You have strangers here; we wish to see them," replied the officer.
"Ah, ça! don't you recognize me?" interrupted Marianne Picaut, avoiding a direct reply.
"Yes; of course, I recognize you. You are the woman who served us as guide last night."
"Well, if I guided you in search of the enemies of the government, it isn't likely I should be hiding them here now, is it?"
"That's logical enough, isn't it, captain?" said the second officer.
"Bah! one can't trust any of these people; they are brigands from the breast," replied the lieutenant. "Didn't you notice that boy, a little scamp not ten years old, who in spite of our shouts and threats ran across the moor at full speed? He was their sentinel; they have been warned. Happily, they have not had time to escape; they must be hidden somewhere here."
"Possibly."
"Certainly." Then, turning to the widow, he said, "We shall not do you any harm, but we must search the house."
"As you please," she said, with perfect composure.
Seating herself quietly in the corner of the fireplace, she took her shuttle and distaff, which she had left upon a chair, and began to spin.
The lieutenant made a sign with his hand to five or six soldiers, who now entered the room. Looking carefully about him, he went up to the bed.
The widow grew paler than the flax on her shuttle. Her eyes flamed; the distaff slipped from her fingers. The officer looked under the bed, then along the sides of it, and, finally, put out his hand to raise the sheet that covered the body. Pascal's widow could contain herself no longer. She rose, bounded to the corner of the room where her husband's gun was leaning, resolutely cocked it, and threatening the officer, exclaimed:--
"If you lay a hand on that body, so sure as I am an honest woman, I will shoot you like a dog."
The second lieutenant pulled away his comrade by the arm. The Widow Picaut, without laying down the weapon, approached the bed, and for the second time she raised the sheet that covered the dead.
"See there!" she said. "That man, who was my husband, was killed yesterday in your service."
"Ah! true; our first guide,--the one that was killed at the ford of the river," said the lieutenant.
"Poor woman!" said his companion; "let us leave her in peace. It is a pity to torment her at such a time."
"And yet," replied the first officer, "the information of the man we met was precise and circumstantial."
"We did wrong not to oblige him to come back with us."
"Have you any other room than this?" said the chief officer to the widow.
"I have the loft above, and that stable over the way."
"Search the loft and the stable; but first, open all the chests and closets, and look carefully in the oven."
The soldiers spread themselves through the house to execute these orders. From her terrible hiding-place the young woman heard every word of the conversation. She also heard the steps of the soldiers as they mounted the ladder to the loft, and she trembled with greater fear at that sound than when the officer had attempted to remove the death-sheet that concealed her, for she thought, with terror, that Bonneville's hiding-place was far less safe than her own.
When, therefore, she heard those who had gone to search the loft coming down, without any sound of a struggle or cry to show that the men were discovered, her heart was lightened of a heavy load.
The first lieutenant was waiting in the lower room, and was seated on the bread-box. The second officer was directing the search of eight or ten of the soldiers in the stable.
"Well," asked the first lieutenant, "have you found anything?"
"No," said a corporal.
"Did you shake the straw, the hay, and everything?"
"We prodded everywhere with our bayonets. If there was a man hidden anywhere it is impossible he should have escaped being stabbed."
"Very good; then we will go to the adjoining house. These persons must be somewhere."
The men left the room, and the officer followed them.
While the soldiers continued their exploration the lieutenant stood leaning against the outer wall of the house, looking suspiciously at a little pent-house he resolved to search carefully. Suddenly a bit of plaster, no bigger than a man's finger, fell at his feet. He raised his head and fancied he saw a hand disappearing under the roof.
"Here!" he cried to his men, in a voice of thunder.
The soldiers surrounded him.
"You are a pretty set of fellows!" he said; "you do your business finely!"
"What's happened, lieutenant?" asked the men.
"It has happened that the men are up there in the very loft you pretend to have searched. Go up again, quick! and don't leave a spear of straw unturned."
The soldiers re-entered the widow's house. They went straight to the trap-door and tried to raise it; but this time it resisted. It was fastened from above.
"Good! now the matter is plain enough," said the officer, putting his own foot upon the ladder. "Come," he cried, raising his voice to be heard in the loft, "out of your lair, or we'll fetch you."
The sound of a sharp discussion was heard; it was evident that the besieged were not agreed as to their line of action. This is what had happened with them:--
Bonneville and his companion, instead of hiding under the thick hay, where the soldiers would, of course, chiefly look for them, had slipped under a light pile of it, not more than two feet deep, which lay close to the trap-door. What they hoped for had happened; the soldiers almost walked over them, prodding the places where the hay lay thicker, but neglecting to examine that part of the loft where it seemed to be only a carpet. The searching party retired, as we have seen, without finding those they were looking for.
From their hiding-place, with their ears to the floor, which was thin, Bonneville and the Vendéan could hear distinctly all that was said in the room below. Hearing the officer give the order to search his house, Joseph Picaut grew uneasy, for in it was a quantity of gunpowder, the possession of which might get him into trouble. In spite of his companion's remonstrances, he left his hiding-place to watch the soldiers through the chinks left between the wall and the roof of the loft. It was then that he knocked off the fragment of plaster which fell near the officer and re-awakened his attention; and it was Joseph's hand the lieutenant had noticed, which he had rested against a rafter, while leaning forward to look into the yard.
When Bonneville heard the officer's shout and knew that he and his companion were discovered, he sprang to the trap-door and fastened it, bitterly reproaching the Vendéan for the folly of his conduct. But reproaches were useless now that they were discovered; it was necessary to decide on a course.
"You saw them, at any rate," said Bonneville.
"Yes," replied Joseph Picaut.
"How many are there?"
"About thirty, I should say."
"Then resistance would be folly. Besides, they have not discovered Madame, and our arrest would take them away from here, and make her safety with your brave sister-in-law more secure."
"Then your advice is?" questioned Picaut.
"To surrender."
"Surrender!" cried the Vendéan. "Never!"
"Why not?"
"Oh, I know what you are thinking of! You are a gentleman; you are rich. They'll put you in a fine prison, where you'll have all your comforts. But me!--they'll send me to the galleys, where I've already spent fourteen years. No, no; I'd rather lie in a bed of earth than a convict's bed,--a grave rather than a cell."
"If a struggle compromised ourselves only," said Bonneville, "I swear I would share your fate, and, like you, they should not take me living; but it is the mother of our king that we must save, and this is no moment to consult our own likings."
"On the contrary, let us kill all we can; the fewer enemies of Henri V. we leave alive, the better. Never will I surrender, I tell you that!" cried the Vendéan, putting his foot on the trap-door, which Bonneville was about to raise.
"Oh," said the count, frowning, "you will obey me, and without replying, I presume!"
Picaut burst out laughing.
But in the midst of his threatening mirth, a blow from Bonneville's fist sent him sprawling to the other end of the loft. As he fell he dropped his gun; but in falling he came against the loft window, which was closed by a wooden shutter. A sudden idea struck him,--to let the young man surrender, and profit by the diversion to escape himself.
While, therefore, Bonneville opened the trap-door, he himself undid the shutter, picked up his gun, and as the count called down from the top of the ladder, "Don't fire; we surrender!" the Vendéan leaned forward, discharged his gun into the group of soldiers, turned again, and sprang with a prodigious bound from the loft to a heap of manure in the garden; and after drawing the fire of one or two soldiers stationed as sentinels, he reached the forest and disappeared.
The shot from the loft brought down one man, dangerously wounded. But ten muskets were instantly pointed on Bonneville; and before the mistress of the house could fling herself forward and make a rampart with her body for him, as she tried to do, the unfortunate young man, pierced by seven or eight balls, rolled down the ladder to the widow's feet, crying out with his last breath:--
"Vive Henri V!"
To this last cry from Bonneville came an echoing cry of grief and of despair. The tumult that followed the explosion and Bonneville's fall hindered the soldiers from noticing this second cry, which came from Pascal Picaut's bed, and seemed to issue from the breast of the corpse, as it lay there, majestically calm and impassible amid the horrors of this terrible scene.
The lieutenant saw, through the smoke, that the widow was on her knees, with Bonneville's head, which she had raised, pressed to her breast.
"Is he dead?" he asked.
"Yes," said Marianne, in a voice choking with emotion.
"But you yourself,--you are wounded."
Great drops of blood were falling thick, and fast from the widow's forehead upon Bonneville's breast.
"I?" she said.
"Yes; your blood is flowing."
"What matters my blood, if not a drop remains in him for whom I could not die as I had sworn?" she cried.
At this moment a soldier looked down through the trapdoor.
"Lieutenant," he said, "the other has escaped through the loft; we fired at him and missed him."
"The other!" cried the lieutenant; "it is the other we want!"--supposing, very naturally, that the one who had escaped was Petit-Pierre. "But unless he finds another guide we are sure of him. After him, instantly!" Then reflecting, "But first, my good woman, get up," he continued. "You men, search that body."
The order was executed; but nothing was found in Bonneville's pocket, for the good reason that he was wearing Pascal Picaut's clothes, which the widow had given him while she dried his own.
"Now," said Marianne Picaut, when the order was obeyed, "he is really mine, is he not?" and she stretched her arm over the body of the young man.
"Yes; do what you please with him. But thank God that you were useful to us last night, or I should have sent you to Nantes to be taught there what it costs to give aid and comfort to rebels."
With these words, the lieutenant assembled his men and marched quickly away in the direction the fugitive had taken. As soon as they were well out of sight the widow ran to the bed, and lifting the side of the mattress, she drew out the body of the princess, who had swooned.
Ten minutes later Bonneville's body was laid beside that of Pascal Picaut; and the two women,--the presumptive regent and the humble peasant,--kneeling beside the bed, prayed together for these, the first two victims of the last insurrection of La Vendée.