The path of honor: A tale of the war in the Bocage

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Whatever the result of that struggle, there was evidently nothing left for me to do save to stand sentinel over my companion and see that no harm came to her. I sat down with my back against the wall of stone and composed myself as comfortably as I could to watch the valley. Indeed my posture was too comfortable. The knowledge that we were safe, the lifting of the cloud of horror, the slackening of the strain under which I had labored, left me strangely weary. My eyelids drooped, and before I realized the danger I was sound asleep.

I awoke with a guilty start, but a single glance down into the valley reassured me—no danger threatened us from that direction. How long I had slept I could not guess, but it must have been some hours, for I felt refreshed, invigorated, ready for anything—ready especially to undertake an energetic search for food to appease the gnawing in my stomach.

But first I turned back into the cave and bent over my companion. She was still sleeping peacefully. A ray of light which had fought its way through the leafy curtain fell upon her face in benediction. I saw how sleep had wiped away the lines of weariness and care, and I knew she would be ready for the task which nightfall would bring with it.

I drew her cloak more closely about her, then went out softly, leaving her undisturbed. I glanced up and down the valley to assure myself that I was unobserved, drew carefully together the veil of vines behind me, then paused a moment to reflect. I had two things to do—I must secure food, and I must discover if possible the fate of our companions. I resolved to do the latter first, and so proceeded cautiously down the valley, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. I thought for a time that I had got my directions strangely reversed, for the sun appeared to be rising in the west instead of in the east; but I soon perceived that it was not rising at all, but setting, and that instead of being mid-morning, it was mid-afternoon. I had slept not three or four hours, as I had fancied, but eight or nine.

That discovery had the effect of hastening my steps and lessening my caution. I had no time to lose, and whatever the result of the fight at the cliff, it was improbable that any of the enemy had lingered so long in the neighborhood. So I went forward boldly and as swiftly as I could, down the hill, into the narrow bed of the torrent where now murmured the clear waters of a little brook, over the rough stones, around a jagged point of rock—and the scene of the fight lay before me.

For a moment I saw only the rocks, the red earth. Then my eye was caught by a huddled mass so trampled into the mud as to be almost indistinguishable from it, yet unmistakably a human body. I hastened to it; I bent above it and stared down into the battered and blackened face. Disfigured, repulsive as it was, I knew it instantly—it was Pasdeloup.

With a sudden feeling of suffocation I stood erect and looked about me, trembling at the thought of the dread objects my eyes sought and yet shrank from. Then I drew a quick breath of relief, of joy, of thankfulness. Pasdeloup had sacrificed his life, indeed, but not in vain. His master had escaped—by some miracle he had escaped, bearing his wife with him. But which way had he gone? Why had he not pressed forward to the cave? Which way——

I stopped, shivering, my eyes burning into my brain; for there, in cruel exposure half way down the slope, were two objects....

How I got down to them, shaken as I was by the agony of that discovery, I know not. I remember only the tempest of wild rage which burst within me as I looked down at those mutilated figures. And I held my clenched hands above my head and swore, as there was a God in heaven, that I would have vengeance on the devil who had done this thing. He should pay for it—he should pay to the uttermost, drop by drop. I vowed myself to the task. By my father’s memory, by my mother’s honor, by my hope of heaven, I swore that for me there should be no rest, no happiness, no contentment, until I had pulled this monster down and sent his soul to the torture which awaited it.

For an instant the mad thought seized me to set off at once on the trail of the murderers, to harry them, cleave them asunder, seize the fiend who had set them on and wring his life out. A superhuman strength possessed me, a divine ardor of vengeance; and not for an instant did I doubt that God would nerve my arm to accomplish all this. But suddenly I remembered that another duty had been laid upon me. I must discharge that first; I must go on to the Bocage. Then I could turn back to Dange.