The Pomp of the Lavilettes, Volume 2

by Gilbert Parker

Above, an uncertain, watery moon flew in and out among the shifting clouds; and now and then a shot came through the mist and the half dusk, telling of some poor fugitive fighting, overtaken, or killed.

The horse neither turned head nor slackened gait. He was like a living machine, obeying neither call nor spur, but travelling with an unchanging speed along the level road, and up and down hill, mile after mile.

In the rider's heart were a hundred things; among them fear, that miserable depression which comes with the first defeats of life, the falling of the mercury from passionate activity to that frozen numbness which betrays the exhausted nerve and despairing mind. The horse could not go fast enough; the panic of flight was on him. He was conscious of it, despised himself for it; but he could not help it. Yet, if he were overtaken, he would fight; yes, fight to the end, whatever it might be. Nicolas Lavilette had begun to unwind the coil of fortune and ambition which his mother had long been engaged in winding.

A mile or two behind was another horse and another rider. The animal was clean of limb, straight and shapely of body, with a leg like a lady's, and heart and wind to travel till she dropped. This mare the little black notary, Shangois, had cheerfully stolen from beside the tent of the English general. The bridle-rein hung upon the wrist of the notary's palsied left hand, and in his right hand he carried the long sabre of an artillery officer, which he had picked up on the battlefield. He rode like a monkey clinging to the back of a hound, his shoulder hunched, his body bent forward even with the mare's neck, his knees gripping the saddle with a frightened tenacity, his small, black eyes peering into the darkness before him, and his ears alert to the sound of pursuers.

Twenty men of the British artillery were also off on a chase that pleased them well. The hunt was up. It was not only the joy of killing, but the joy of gain, that spurred them on; for they would have that little black thief who stole the general's brown mare, or they would know the reason why.

As the night wore on, Lavilette could hear hoof-beats behind him; those of the mare growing clearer and clearer, and those of the artillerymen remaining about the same, monotonously steady. He looked back, and saw the mare lightly leaning to her work, and a little man hanging to her back. He did not know who it was; and if he had known he would have wondered. Shangois had ridden to camp to fetch him back to Bonaventure for two purposes: to secure the five thousand dollars from Ferrol, and to save Nic's sister from marrying a highwayman. These reasons he would have given to Nic Lavilette, but other ulterior and malicious ideas were in his mind. He had no fear, no real fear. His body shrank, but that was because he had been little used to rough riding and to peril. But he loved this game too, though there was a troop of foes behind him; and as long as they rode behind him he would ride on.

He foresaw a moment when he would stop, slide to the ground, and with his sabre kill one man—or more. Yes, he would kill one man. He had a devilish feeling of delight in thinking how he would do it, and how red the sabre would look when he had done it. He wished he had a hundred hands and a hundred sabres in those hands. More than once he had been in danger of his life, and yet he had had no fear.

He had in him the power of hatred; and he hated Ferrol as he had never hated anything in his life. He hated him as much as, in a furtive sort of way, he loved the rebellious, primitive and violent Christine.

As he rode on a hundred fancies passed through his brain, and they all had to do with killing or torturing. As a boy dreams of magnificent deeds of prowess, so he dreamed of deeds of violence and cruelty. In his life he had been secret, not vicious; he had enjoyed the power which comes from holding the secrets of others, and that had given him pleasure enough. But now, as if the true passion, the vital principle, asserted itself at the very last, so with the shadow of death behind him, his real nature was dominant. He was entirely sane, entirely natural, only malicious.

The night wore on, and lifted higher into the sky, and the grey dawn crept slowly up: first a glimmer, then a neutral glow, then a sort of darkness again, and presently the candid beginning of day.