He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the little flames began to rustle and snap.
Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms; Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from Lorraine to Brocard.
The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes fixed on the reviving fire.
"Morteyn! Morteyn!" he repeated; "it exists no longer. There are many dead there—dead in the garden, in the court, on the lawn—dead floating in the pond, the river—dead rotting in the thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them—I, Brocard the poacher."
After a moment he resumed:
"There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges; I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game—boars, deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds—I really cannot tell."
He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the next moment, and he continued: "I heard the fusillade on the Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when God permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Tricasse at last. Zut! C'est embêtant! And poor old Passerat, too—and Brun, and all the rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I—but, no—no! I am doing very well—I, Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way."
An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth—that was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably already sent more than one Prussian to his account.
"That's all very well," he said, slowly—he had little sympathy with guerilla assassination—"but I'd rather hear how you are going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian lines."
"You take much for granted," laughed the poacher. "Now, did I offer to do any such thing?"