“Suddenly I came to a halt. In the faint moonlight, within a dozen yards of me, knelt the figure of a man. He was praying—his hands upraised, his face lifted—the words falling from his lips distinctly audible. I moved nearer. Before him was a new-made grave—one he had dug himself—to cover the body of a child who had died at sunset.
“It was a moment I have never forgotten, and never want to forget.
“On the hill above me were the men I had left—a frenzied body of bestial cowards who had dishonored themselves, their race, and their God; here beside me, huddled together, a group of forest children—spawn of cannibal and savage—racked with fever, half-starved, many of them delirious, their souls rising to heaven on the wings of a song.
“And then the kneeling man himself!—his courage facing death every hour of the day—alone—no one to help—only his Maker as witness. I tell you, gentlemen, that when I stood beside him and looked into his eyes, caught the tones of his voice, and watched the movement of his fingers patting the last handfuls of earth over the poor little nameless body, and realized that his only recompense lay in that old line I used to hear so often when I was a boy—‘If ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me’—I could have gone down on my knees beside him and thanked my Creator that He had sent me to him.”
IX
IN WHICH MADAME LA MARQUISE BINDS UP BROKEN HEADS AND BLEEDING HEARTS
The morning brought us two most welcome pieces of news, one being that Gaston, his head swathed in bandages, had, with the doctor’s approval, gone home an hour before breakfast, and the other that our now adorable Madame la Marquise de la Caux, with Marc as gentleman-in-waiting, would arrive at the Inn some time during the day or evening, the exact hour being dependent upon her duties at the site of her “ruin.” These pieces of news, being positive and without question, were received with the greatest satisfaction, Gaston’s recovery meaning fresh roses in Mignon’s cheeks and madame’s visit giving us another glimpse of her charming personality.
That which was less positive, because immediately smothered and sent around in whispers, were rumors of certain happenings that had taken place shortly after daybreak. Mignon, so the word ran, before seeking her little cot the night before, had caught a nod, or the lift of Leà’s brow, arched over a meaning eye, or a significant smile—some sort of wireless, anyway, with Leà as chief operator, and a private wire to Louis’ room, immediately over Gaston’s. What she had learned had kept the girl awake half the night and sent her skipping on her toes at the break of dawn to the little passageway at the far end of the court-yard, where she had cried over Gaston and kissed him good-by, Leà being deaf and dumb and blind. All this occurred before the horrible old bogie (Lemois was the bogie), who had given strict orders that everything should be done for the comfort of the boy before he left the Inn, was fairly awake; certainly before he was out of bed.
“By thunder!—I could hardly keep the tears out of my eyes I was so sorry for her,” Louis had said when he burst into my room an hour before getting-up time. “I heard the noise and thought he was suffering again and needed help, and so I hustled out and came bump up against them as they stood at the foot of the stairs. I wasn’t dressed for company and dared not go back lest they should see me, and so I flattened myself against the wall and was obliged to hear it all. I’m not going to give them away; but if any girl will love me as she does that young fellow she can have my bank account. And he was so manly and square about it all—no snivelling, no making a poor face. ‘It is nothing, Mignon—I am all right. Don’t cry,’ he kept saying. ‘Everything will come out our way in the end.’ By Jove!—I wish some girl loved me like that!”