And he left Brent to think it over.
Paul returned to the Café de la Victoire, and it was then that he remembered that he had not looked at the place where Manon Latour had buried her treasure. He went out into the garden and saw the mound of stones had not been moved. Nettles had grown up in between the stones, and the inference was obvious.
“She will come back,” was Brent’s thought.
And he added:
“Unless she is dead.”
Brent felt hungry. He had carried a couple of empty ammunition boxes into the kitchen, one to serve as a seat, the other as a table, when he remembered the fact that his water-bottle was nearly empty. He went out at once to examine the well, not liking the idea of getting his water from the stream. The windlass, chain and bucket had been left behind, and Brent opened the queer little iron gate in the well-house and sent the bucket down for a sample. He heard it splash below, and felt the suck of it as it came up full at the end of the taut chain. When he lifted out the bucket into the sunlight he found the water looking clean and wholesome. Brent smelt it, took some in his palm and tasted it. The water had neither smell nor taste.
Paul was conscious of a pleasant and boyish elation. Beaucourt made him think of Crusoe’s Island. It was full of the adventure of finding things; it challenged a man’s wits, promised all sorts of surprises. The idea of trying to live in Beaucourt tickled the eternal boy in Brent. He brought out a battered enamelled mug and plate from his bag, sat himself down on his ammunition box, and made his first meal in Beaucourt, tackling the inevitable corned beef and biscuits with the relish of a clean hunger.
Satisfied, he lit his pipe, for he still had a little tobacco left, and carrying his box out into the doorway he sat in the sun and meditated. His pipe tasted good; the sky was blue; he felt warm, and his boots had kept out the mud. Even the ruins of Beaucourt had a beauty of their own, a fantastic unexpectedness, a droll yet pathetic irregularity of outline. These little ruined houses were very human; some had fallen in upon themselves and stood huddled in utter dejection; others had the staring eyes of despair; a few still seemed to be calling for help. The village resembled a little Pompeii, to be explored and dreamed about, and yet it differed from Pompeii in that it was potentially alive. It struck Brent as being rather odd and delightful that he should be the one and only inhabitant of Beaucourt, a stranger taking a holiday in this starlit and admirably ventilated ruin.
And then the old Frenchman’s words recurred to him:
“We shall come back.”