But first—how still all the place was! The men were busy, he supposed, with their dead master. Surely those windows were not so firmly fastened but that he could make his way in, and perhaps find some evidence to prove Monsieur Joseph's complicity in the plots of the moment. He walked lightly across the sand. A dog barked in the house, and Martin Joubard looked out from an upper window.
All the evil passions of his nature rose in Simon then. That was the man who knew he had arrested Angelot; that was the man who had knocked him down in the park and lost him half an hour of valuable time. As Angelot himself, in some mysterious way, was out of reach, here was this man on whom he might revenge himself. Both for his own sake and the General's, this man would be better out of the way; Simon raised his loaded carbine and fired.
Martin stepped back at the instant, and he missed him. The shot grazed Tobie's cheek as he knelt inside the room, resting his long gun-barrel on the low window-sill.
"Ah, Chouan-catcher, your time is come!" muttered Tobie, and his gun went off almost of itself.
Simon flung up his arms in the air, and dropped upon the sand.
While these things were happening at Les Chouettes, Angelot was hurrying back from his mission to the Étang des Morts. He was full of wild happiness, a joy that could not be believed in, till he saw and touched Hélène again. His heart was as light as the air of that glorious morning, so keen, clear, and still on the high moorlands as he crossed them.
He had done all and more than the little uncle expected of him. In the darkness before dawn, as he rode through the deep lanes beyond La Joubardière, he had met a friendly peasant who warned him that a party of police and gendarmes was watching the country a little farther south, towards the Étang des Morts. He therefore left his horse in a shed, took to the fields and woods, and intercepted César d'Ombré on his way to the rendezvous. Explanations were not altogether easy, for César cared little for the private affairs of young La Marinière. He had never expected much from the son of Urbain. He took his warning, and gave up his companionship easily enough. Striking off across country, avoiding all roads likely to be patrolled by the police, he made his way alone to Brittany and the coast, while Angelot returned by the way he had come.
For the sake of taking the very shortest cut across the landes, he brought his horse up to La Joubardière and left him there. For no horse could carry him through the lanes, rocky as they were, at the pace that he could run and walk across country, and it was only because Uncle Joseph insisted on it that he had taken a horse at all.
The golden light of sunrise spread over the moor as he ran. He took long leaps through the heather, and coveys of birds scuttled out of his way; but their lives were safe that morning, though his eyes followed them eagerly. Far beyond the purple landes, the woods of Lancilly lay heaped against the western sky, a billowy dark green sea of velvet touched with the bright gold of autumn and of sunrise; and the château itself shone out broad in its glittering whiteness. The guests were all gone now; the music was still; and for Angelot the place was empty, a mere shell, a pile of stones. Other roofs covered the joy of his life now.