(2)
Occasional glimpses taken over his shoulder, as Michel Royer pulled into shore near the "Panier" that afternoon, conveyed to him the impression of two forms lying on the beach between the cave and the edge of the water; and when he had clambered out of his boat and pulled it up, he found that his impression was perfectly correct. One of the young men he had guided overnight—the fair-haired one who wore uniform—was half sitting, half lying, against a small rock; the other was lying at full length on the sand with his head propped against him. They seemed so engrossed in conversation that they did not hear his approach.
He cleared his throat as he got nearer, and on that the young man sitting against the rock did turn his head. The other made no movement.
"Here is our host—if that is the correct term," he heard the former say. "Good afternoon, Monsieur Royer. To what do we owe this pleasure?"
"I remembered that there was no wine," said the fisherman, holding up a piece of old fishing-net. "I have brought ye a bottle; and a rare good ham, and another loaf or two. And I weren't easy in my mind about your friend there—him that's hurt."
He that was hurt said quietly, "I am perfectly well this afternoon, thank you, Monsieur Royer." And Michel saw the other look down at him with a smile.
"I've come also, gentlemen," went on the old man, setting down his net, and mysteriously dropping his voice, "because I've something to tell ye which, if it's true—and mind ye, it mayn't be—will likely do ye both a power of good. They are saying in Sarzeau, so we hear this morning, that the Emperor's had a great defeat at some place I don't mind the name of, and his army's all to bits, and retreating."
"But the last we heard was of a victory won by him on the sixteenth!" cried the young officer. His friend had suddenly raised himself from his recumbent position. But for all their questions Mercury could tell them no more, and presently departed, as he came, by sea, himself only half believing that his information was correct, and not knowing that what he had just carried was the news of Waterloo.
"This may be true, or it may not," opined Laurent at length; "at any rate, I am going to have a swim on the strength of it. Take care of my clothes for me!"
He stripped them off hastily, ran down the beach, and plunged in. Aymar looked after him with a smile. When the swimmer came back, laughing and dripping, L'Oiseleur said thoughtfully, "There must be something in this news. If it is true, perhaps we need not stay here long."
"Yes," agreed Laurent, rubbing his face with his handkerchief, "but we can't move till we know something more definite. Meanwhile"—he hurried into his clothes—"let us go and eat. I am hungry. We will even drink to the news in the stuff Royer has brought."
Aymar's arm was over his shoulder as they went towards the cave. At the entrance he suddenly removed it, and said in a rather unsteady voice, ". . . I find it so hard to believe. . . . Oh, mon ami, are you merely trying to comfort me when you say you hold me justified, when you say you would have done the same in my place? Is it true, Laurent, or is it only your good heart?"
And, his face as pale as ivory against the darkness within, he looked at him with eyes that pierced and supplicated at the same time. Laurent threw down the net of provisions and seized his available hand in both his own.
"Aymar, on my honour as a gentleman! Have I not said so enough? You have brooded over this thing till you are morbid about it. I don't wonder. But, given what went before, the almost completed plan on the one hand and a woman's life at stake on the other, I should have done the same. So would any man. If you will not believe me, what am I to do? Call you out for it?"
Aymar freed his hand and put it on his shoulder. "Did I not say that no man ever had a friend like you?"
"But it isn't friendship, it's common sense!" retorted Laurent stoutly. ". . . Oh, saints and angels, I have broken the bottle of wine!"