A Tatter of Scarlet Part 41

The lieutenant flushed and bowed. He wished the firing party would stand a little closer about a certain square of the green turf. He need not have troubled, Rhoda Polly's mind was a hundred miles from any idea of minute observation at that moment.

"_Tiens!_ The 131st!" she exclaimed. "If you cross the river you must go up and see my father. Your colonel is rather a pet of his!"

At the idea of their fire-eating bristling old colonel being anybody's pet, a smile pa.s.sed among the rank and file, but the lieutenant being well-mannered remained grave.

"I shall immediately do myself the honour of waiting on your father!"

He marched his men down the hill. Jack Jaikes and his party stepped out on the highway which led to St. Andre. Only Rhoda Polly and I lingered.

CHAPTER XL

THE LAST OF THE "TATTER OF SCARLET"

Rhoda Polly was on her way to see her friend Alida, and knowing well that parental permission would be refused her in the troublous state of the neighbourhood, she had taken it and followed un.o.btrusively in the wake of Jack Jaikes and his party.

I had trouble even now to get her away from the scene of the execution.

She would have sat down on the very spot, save that I hastened her departure, saying that I must go back and see her father. I had, I said, both news and a message for him.

So we walked through the woods to Gobelet, very quietly and without much talk between us. We reached there to find that Dennis Deventer had just arrived from the Chateau, that Chardon had disappeared, and that Hugh was in the full flush of his morning's triumph. His father nodded approval. As for Alida she clung to his arm and looked up in his face. I do not think she was conscious of my presence in the room, and even upon Rhoda Polly she only bestowed a left-handed greeting without letting go her hold upon Hugh Deventer. Verily the manners of the East are strange.

I knew very well that she would find her hero one day, but I never supposed he would come to her in my poor Hugh's likeness.

I felt a sudden leap of loneliness in my heart and moved nearer to Rhoda Polly. _She_ would never look at me like that. But instead she stood on tiptoe till her lips were near my ear and whispered, "I have always known it would be so--don't they look silly?"

It was a point of view, though at that moment hardly mine, but who was I that I should grudge Hugh Deventer his one hour of triumph? He was telling his story.

"I heard them all about us, and I knew they were getting ready for the rush. There were about forty of us, professors, _pions_, and seniors, to whom rifles could be served. I tell you I had a time finding out who could shoot even a bit. I had to try each with a dummy gun to see how he handled it. They lied so--yes, even the professors!

"But your old Renard was a brick. He spotted the sportsmen as if by magic and remembered the boys whose fathers had shootings. He helped a lot, I can tell you--and tucked up his black gown and hopped about on his thin legs (which were black too) as lively as a cricket.

"Brown was attending to the electric lamp and barbed-wire obstacles while I was doing the drill sergeant, and by ten we had the business in pretty fair shape. I set the posts as you told me, sir, or as near as possible. For, of course, having been a pupil, the old place was like my bedroom to me, and I knew just where they would try to rush us."

His father nodded, and the smile which accompanied the nod encouraged the hero to continue. Not that this was necessary, for at his elbow Alida was behaving most foolishly.

("_You_ never looked at me like that, Rhoda Polly," I whispered, "the night when we blew them back from the Big Gate, when Jack Jaikes and I fought in the open."

"Hadn't time," retorted Rhoda Polly, "besides, I was in that business as well as you. Did you think that I had been left behind in the Chateau cellar?")

"Just when twelve struck," Hugh proceeded, "they dashed into the ditch with a yell--just at the places you said, father, when I showed you the plan I had made. But the wire and stakes brought them all up standing.

My black regiment fired all round the wall. I don't believe they hit many, but the crackle of the rifle fire was a very disconcerting circ.u.mstance, and at any rate Brown and I 'scourged' them well with your repeaters, sir. Brown had switched on his big search-light and everything was as bright as glory.

"'How many were there?' That I could not say, sir. They looked a lot when they clumped together, which was not often. But the line was thin-sown when they spread out to take cover. The professors swore to a hundred, but I could not really make it more than fifty.

"They let fly at us, but we were all behind the big stone wall. The bullets whizzed over us, and spotted the walls, but that was all. Then they drew off to hold a council.

"Once they nearly got us. They had dynamite or some infernal stuff, and they blew up the outer main gate. But then, as you know, that did not much matter, for the really strong one is twenty yards farther on, and those who ran in found themselves up Blind Alley. I tell you, sir, Brown and I sacrificed them before they got out. But they kept it up, firing at us till dawn without ever making a hit. They saw the uselessness of this at last, and were just hopping off over the plateau on the road to Spain, when the red breeches put in an appearance, and nabbed the lot--that is very nearly all, for some got away by the woods.

"'After that?'--Well, sir. I shall tell you the rest to-night. I came down here to see how Mr. Cawdor was getting on."

Hugh Deventer had so clearly the floor that I did not attempt to interfere. Nor did I grudge him his glory. Had we not, Jack Jaikes, Rhoda Polly, and I, seen a greater thing--the fight over Allerdyce's gun before the main entrance?

"Come out on the terrace, Rhoda Polly," I said, for I really had had enough of Hugh's strutting and Alida's languorous glances. We pa.s.sed through the tall window out upon the lawn, and went slowly to the crescent sweep of the promenade, which made so beautiful a look-out station over the river.

The morning smoke was rising over Aramon-les-Ateliers. Within the factory some of the tall chimneys were already sending forth long trails of vapour. Dennis Deventer's gangs were preparing for a return to normal conditions.

The secret negotiations had been going on some time. The men were wearying to get back. The tyranny of the Black Band was wholly dissipated, and honest folks breathed freely. The women were more anxious than the men. For if the city should be occupied by troops--if military tribunals were set up, where would their husbands be so safe as in the factory? Dennis Deventer had the long arm. Dennis Deventer could protect his own.

I looked at Rhoda Polly, and she smiled.

"I suppose there is really nothing to say," I said, answering her glance. "This is not proper love-making, but we simply can't do without one another, can we, Rhoda Polly? So it has just got to be."

"I suppose so," said Rhoda Polly, looking far out across the flat lands to the blue line of the Mediterranean. "But what are you going to do all day--and I? We are busy people, Angus Cawdor, and in idleness we should soon quarrel!"

She swung her legs engagingly, awaiting my answer.

"Well," I said, "I will let you into a secret. My father's next book, 'A History of the Third Republic,' is to have both our names on the t.i.tle-page. Also I am to translate all his books into French. You have got to help."

"I shall love it," cried Rhoda Polly, "but what else am I to do?"

"You will have this house of Gobelet to be sole mistress of, and, besides, you and your mother must superintend the housekeeping of Linn and Keller Bey in the Garden Cottage!"

"But, Angus, have you thought of Jeanne?"

"What Jeanne?"

"Jeanne Felix, sir!"

I was so stunned I could not answer, so great was my astonishment. Rhoda Polly had not been so blind as I had supposed--or was it possible that Jeanne herself----? No, I thanked Heaven that at least need not be thought of.

Rhoda Polly laughed a ringing, joyous laugh, and gave my arm a little playful clutch.

"Silly," she said, "I will put you out of any remorse you may feel for any of your misdeeds. Jeanne is to be married to young Emile Bert, the fruit-grower of Les Cabannes. She is at last going to reward his constancy--as I am yours!"

She looked at me with gay, ironic eyes. The vixen!

I did not answer. It was indeed a difficult corner to turn with plain lying, but most happily at that moment we saw a strange and memorable thing.

Across the river, from the fort which dominated the town, and also from the high tower of the Mairie, we saw the red flag of revolt flutter down, and simultaneously, like a burst of sunlight, the tricolour was broken out at each mast-head, gay and hopeful in that entrancing Provencal air.

Instinctively Rhoda Polly's hand sought mine. We both stood silent and bareheaded as in the presence of the dead, for both of us knew that we had looked our last upon the "Tatter of Scarlet."

THE END