The Isle of Unrest

by Henry Seton Merriman

The count took no notice. Perhaps he did not hear. The road now mounted in a zigzag. The fugitive was already at the angle. In a few moments he would be back again at a higher level. Lory knew he could never overtake the fresher horse. There was but one chance—the chance perhaps of two shots as his father passed along the road above him. Should the gendarmes of Cauro, where there is a strong station, see this fugitive, so evidently from the macquis, with all the signs of outlawry upon him, they would fire upon him without hesitation. Also he might at any moment fall from the saddle and be dragged by the stirrup.

De Vasselot drew across the road to the outer edge of it, from whence he could command a better view of the upper slope. The count came on at a steady trot. He looked down with eyes that had no reason in them and yet no fear. He saw the barrel of the revolver, polished by long use in an inner pocket, and looked fearlessly into it. Lory fired and missed. His father threw back his head and laughed. His white hair fluttered in the wind. There was time for another shot. Lory took a longer aim, remembering to fire low, and horse and rider suddenly dropped behind the low wall of the upper road. De Vasselot rode on.

“It was the horse—it must have been the horse,” he said to himself, with misgiving in his heart. He turned the corner at a gallop. On the road in front, the horse was struggling to rise, but the count lay quite still in the dust. Lory dismounted as well as he could. Mechanically he tied the two horses together, then turned towards his father. With his uninjured hand he took the old man by the shoulder and raised him. The dishevelled white head fell to one side with a jerk that was unmistakable. The count was dead. And Lory de Vasselot found himself face to face with that question which so many have with them all through life: the question whether at a certain point in the crooked road of life he took the wrong or right turning.

Death itself had no particular terror for de Vasselot. It was his trade, and it is easier to become familiar with death than with suffering. He dragged his father to the side of the road where a great chestnut tree cast a shadow still, though its leaves were falling. Then he looked round him. There was no one in sight. He knew, moreover, that he was in a country where the report of firearms repels rather than attracts attention. It occurred to him at that moment that his father's horse had risen to its feet—a fact which had suggested nothing to his mind when he had tied the two bridles together. He examined the animal carefully. There was no blood upon it; no wound. The dust was rubbed away from the knees. The horse had crossed its legs and fallen as it started at the second report of his pistol.

Lory turned and stooped over his father. Here again, was no blood—only the evidence of a broken neck. Still, though indirectly, Lory de Vasselot had killed his father. It was well for him that he was a soldier—taught by experience to give their true value to the strange chances of life and death. Moreover, he was a Frenchman—gay in life and reckless of its end.

He sat down by the side of the road and remembered the Abbé Susini's words: “Life or death, you must be at Bastia on Wednesday morning.”

Mechanically, he drew his watch from within his tunic, which was white with dust. The watch had run down. And when Jean arrived a few minutes later, he found Lory de Vasselot sitting in the shade of the great chestnut tree, by the side of his dead father, sleepily winding up his watch.

“I fired at the horse to lame it—it crossed its legs and fell, throwing him against the wall,” he said, shortly.

Jean lifted his master, noted the swinging head, and laid him gently down again.

“Heaven soon takes those who are useless,” he said.