“Who are you?” asked the dragoon rudely over his shoulder. “A damned civilian! This is a matter for the military, thanks! The Chouan general de Kersaint is to be arrested, safe-conduct or no safe-conduct; those are the orders of the First Consul himself!”
Camain drew up his imposing figure. “I am deputy for the department of Maine-et-Loire,” he declared in his deepest voice. “(Be quiet, Rose!) What you are proposing to do is atrocious, and I protest!”
“Go back to your department then, and protest there!” retorted the officer insolently. “Now that Madame has so obligingly furnished the identification we wanted . . . Once more, Monsieur de Kersaint, will you come, or will you have a useless mêlée here?”
Gaston set his teeth. It was true after all, this incredible infamy! If he had listened to de Brencourt! . . . Valentine—should he ever see her again? The room, seething now with excitement, swam for a second. . . . No, they should not take him alive! This, the last, would be a good fight—one against how many . . . twelve, thirteen? He slipped a couple of feet further backwards still, till he was almost in the angle of the wall, the blade he had never thought to use again glittering in his hand. Then he smiled, not altogether scornfully. His intention was obvious.
In the ring now round him several other swords slid out. Most of the guests, vociferating, had already made a bolt for the door, but Rose was clinging to her husband in a frenzy. “Georges! Georges! don’t let them do it! It is the Duc, it is indeed! Tell them you had charge of Mirabel—tell them . . .” But her words, vain in any case, could not penetrate the uproar. And, even as she spoke, the officer of dragoons drew and cocked a pistol. “Now, for the last time, Monsieur de Kersaint! See, we do not want to harm your escort, if you have one—our business is not with them—but if you drive us to use force, you will certainly get them killed as well as yourself!”
His escort! that escort for the moment, mercifully, out of hearing. In the imminent prospect of combat Gaston had forgotten them. Good God, that was only too true—they would certainly get themselves cut to pieces for him! Roland—Roland!—and those other boys slaughtered for his sake . . . and uselessly! The idea was too horrible. He must let them take him—quickly. His face grew sombre, and he lowered his point a little.
“So this is the First Consul’s honour!” he said, but his voice cut like a sword, “—and yours, soldiers and Frenchmen! I was warned of this—but I would not believe such a thing possible!”
“It is orders!” a chorus answered him.
“Swear that you will let my escort go unharmed—no, how can I rely on your word?” he said, looking contemptuously round, and this time no one answered him. “At least I shall never give up my sword now, since there is no one left worthy to receive it.” And before anyone had moved he had put his left hand to the naked blade, and, bending his knee, snapped the weapon across. Then he threw the two halves at his feet and folded his arms. “I am at your disposal . . . gentlemen . . . only be quick about it!”
They had no desire to be other than speedy. There was a travelling carriage just drawn up at the inn door; small matter that it belonged to the Deputy who had tried to interfere. Five minutes later, with fifty dragoons round it, that carriage had started for Auray and Vannes, while the remaining officers, having thrust aside the doubly infuriated Camain, were dealing in the passage with the distracted young men of their prisoner’s escort, to whom news of the catastrophe had meanwhile penetrated. The short and furious mêlée was indeed none of the Republicans’ seeking, but its end was just as inevitable as if it had been. . . . For Artamène, his head laid open by a sabre, having stumbled, blinded with blood, into the eating-room, and fallen his length among the tables, lay there without stirring; while Lucien, his arm fractured, leant with shut eyes against the doorpost, his uniform torn on one side from shoulder to waist. And in the now emptied setting of the drama which she had unwittingly brought about, Rose Camain, kneeling by the bleeding and unconscious boy on the floor, but not trying in any way to succour him, her hands to the sides of her head in approved theatrical fashion, was sending forth shriek after shriek. . . .