Angelot Part 48

"I told that police fellow," he went on very mildly, "that I was ready to go with you to Sonnay, where the Prefect, of course, is the right person to deal with any suspected conspiracy. I also told him, and I tell you, that I will not have my house searched without the Prefect's warrant."

"And pray, how are you going to prevent it?" said Ratoneau, staring at him.

"Try it, and you will see," said Monsieur Joseph.

"Your nephew is shut up there, I know. He is taking care of his bride, and is afraid to come out and face me," said Ratoneau, with a frightful grin. "He will not dare to resist by force--miserable little coward!"

"All this shall be paid for by and by," Monsieur Joseph said to himself, consolingly. Aloud he said, "It happens that my nephew is not there, Monsieur le General."

"Not there! where are they gone then? I believe that is a lie."

Monsieur Joseph bowed politely, with his hand on his sword.

"Allow me to remark, Monsieur le General Ratoneau, that you are a cheat and a coward."

Ratoneau turned purple, and almost choked.

"Monsieur! You dare to use such words to me! I shall call my men up, and--"

"Call the whole of the usurper's army," said Monsieur Joseph, with unearthly coolness. "As they follow him they may follow you, his pasteboard image. But I am quite of your opinion, my words need explanation. I see through you, Monsieur le General. You tried to cheat the Comte de Sainfoy out of his daughter, whom he had refused you. And I am sure now, that my nephew's arrest the other day was a scoundrelly piece of cheating, a satisfaction of your private spite, a means of getting him out of your way. Yes, I see through you now. A fine specimen of an Imperial officer, bribing police spies to carry out his private malice. Coward and cheat! Defend yourself!"

Both swords were out, and the fight began instantly. The steel clashed and darted lightly, flashing back the rising day. It was no ordinary duel, no mere satisfaction of honour, though each might have had the right to demand this of the other. It was a quarrel of life and death, personal hatred that must slay or be slain.

Monsieur Joseph, with all his grace and amiability, had the pa.s.sionate nature of old France; his instincts were primitive and simple; he longed, and his longing had become irresistible, to send a villain out of the world. Perhaps, too, in Ratoneau's overbearing swagger, he saw and felt an incarnation of that Empire which had crushed his native country under its iron feet. But all mixed motives were fused together and flamed up in the fighting rage that drew that slight hand to the sword-hilt, and darted like lightning along the living blade.

Monsieur Joseph was a splendid swordsman. But Ratoneau, too, had perfect command of his weapon; and besides this, he was a taller and heavier man. And the fury of disappointment, of revenge, the dread of being found out, of probable disgrace, if Joseph de la Mariniere could prove his keen suspicions true; all this added to his caution, while he never lacked the bull-dog courage of a fighting soldier. Though foaming with rage, he was at that moment the cooler, the more self-possessed of the two.

Simon tried at first to interfere. He stepped out from among the trees, exclaiming, "Messieurs--messieurs!" but then withdrew again, for the very sight of the two men's faces, the sound of their breath, the quick clash of the swords, showed that this was a quarrel past mending. Simon watched. He was conscious, in the depths of his mind, of a knowledge that he would not mourn very deeply if General Ratoneau should be the one to fall. He hastily made his own plans. In that case he would slip away behind the trees, take the horse from the groom without a word, and ride away to Paris, trusting that he might never be called to account for any dark doings in Anjou. For there was not only the false arrest of Angelot; there were also certain dealings with the Prefect's secretary; there were tamperings with papers and seals, all to set forward that marriage affair that had failed so dismally, he hardly understood how.

But he had hoped that the Prefect would die, and the news of his rapid recovery seemed strangely inopportune. It appeared to Simon that General Ratoneau's star was on the wane; and so, for those entangled in his rascally deeds, a lucky thrust of Monsieur de la Mariniere's swiftly flashing sword--Ah, no! the fortune of war was on the wrong side that morning. A few pa.s.ses; a fight three or four minutes long; a low cry, then silence, and the slipping down of a light body on the gra.s.s.

General Ratoneau had run his adversary through the heart, had withdrawn his sword and stood, white but unmoved, looking at him as he lay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MONSIEUR LE GeNeRAL, YOU HAVE KILLED HIM!"]

Monsieur Joseph turned himself once, and stretched his slight limbs, as if composing himself to sleep. His face was towards his house and the rising dawn, and he gazed that way with dark eyes wide open. His lips moved, but no one heard what he said. All the fighting fury was gone from his face, and as a thin thread of blood trickled down from his side and began to redden the gra.s.s beneath, his look, at first startled and painful, became every moment more peaceful, more satisfied. His eyelids slowly drooped and fell; he died smiling, his whole att.i.tude and expression so lifelike that the two witnesses, Ratoneau and Simon, could scarcely believe that he was dead.

The General stood immovable. Simon, after a minute, knelt down and felt the pulse and examined the wound. It had been almost instantly fatal, the pulse was still.

"Mon Dieu, Monsieur le General, you have killed him!" Simon said, under his breath.

Ratoneau glared at him for a moment before he spoke.

"He tried to kill me," he said. "You were there, you can bear witness, he challenged and attacked me, the little fighting-c.o.c.k. I wish it had been his nephew. But now for him! Come, leave the body there; the servants will fetch it in presently."

He started to walk towards the house, carrying his drawn sword in his hand. In the middle of the slope he turned round with a furious look to his follower.

"Those who insult me, and stand in my way--you see the lessons I teach them!" he said hoa.r.s.ely, and walked on.

The western front of Les Chouettes, the tower rising into the slowly lightening sky, presented a lifeless face to the woods where its master lay. All the windows were closed and shuttered; dead silence reigned.

When the General shouted an order to open, beating with his sword-hilt at a window, he was only answered by the growling and barking of the dogs, whom the defenders had called in. He walked round by the south to the east front; the same chorus accompanied him, but of human voices there were none. He whistled up the rest of the gendarmes, and ordered them to force the dining-room window. Then the shutters of a window above it were pushed open, and a white-haired man looked out into the court.

"Now, old Chouan, do you hear me?" shouted Ratoneau, in his most overbearing tones. "Come down and open some of these windows."

"Pardon, monsieur," old Joubard answered quietly. "I have Monsieur de la Mariniere's orders to keep them shut."

"Have you, indeed? Well, it makes no difference to him whether they are shut or open. Tell his nephew, Monsieur Ange, with my compliments, to come down and speak to me. Tell him I want to see his pretty wife, and to congratulate him on his marriage. Tell him to bring a sword, if he knows how to use one, and to revenge his uncle."

There was a dead pause. The two Joubards and the servants, all together in that upper room, looked strangely at each other.

"Tiens, Maitre Joubard, let me come to the window and I'll shoot that man dead!" groaned Tobie in the background.

"No, you fool, Tobie," Joubard said angrily. "Do you want us all to be ma.s.sacred? Anyhow, let us first know what he means."

"I wonder where the master is!" said Gigot, and his teeth chattered.

"He has killed him," Martin whispered, looking at his father.

"This will be the ruin of us all," said old Joubard aside to him. "You, at least, keep out of the way. Those men have carbines. You have not come home from Spain to be shot by mistake for a Chouan. I will try to speak civilly. Monsieur le General," he said, leaning out of the window, "your worship is mistaken. There are no Chouans here, and no ladies. And Monsieur Angelot is not here. Only we, a few harmless servants and neighbours, taking care of the house, left in charge while Monsieur de la Mariniere went to speak to you, waiting till he comes back. We can do nothing without his orders, Monsieur le General."

"Then you will do nothing till doomsday," said Ratoneau. "Don't you understand that he is dead, old fool, whoever you may be?"

"Dead! Impossible!" old Joubard stammered. "Monsieur Joseph dead--murdered! And the gendarmes on your side, monsieur! Why, he was here giving us our orders, a quarter of an hour ago."

In the horrified look he turned on Martin, there was yet the shadow of a smile. For Martin's eager persuasions had sent Helene and Riette away with Marie Gigot through the woods to La Mariniere, almost before Monsieur Joseph's appointed time.

Joubard leaned again out of the window, his rugged face in the full light of the morning.

"This is a bad business, Monsieur le General," he said. "If it is true that you have killed Monsieur Joseph, you have done enough for one day.

Take my advice, draw your men off and go away. Justice will follow you; and you have no right here. I am not a Chouan. I am Joubard, of La Joubardiere, Monsieur Urbain de la Mariniere's best tenant, and my only son lost his limbs fighting for the Emperor."

Simon drew near, with his bandaged head, and looked up at the window.

"Ah! He has limbs enough left to do some mischief," he growled savagely.

"Is he there, your precious cripple of a son? I shall have something to say to him, one of these days."

"Begone with you all," cried old Joubard, "for a pack of thieves and murderers! You are a disgrace to the Emperor, his police and his army!"

"Silence, old fool!" shouted Ratoneau. "What do you say about murder, you idiot? Did you never hear of a man being killed in a duel? Come down, some of you, I say, or I force my way in."

He would have done so, and easily, but for a sudden interruption.

There was a wild howl of pain from among the trees beyond the kitchen, where one of Monsieur Joseph's faithful dogs followed him to the land where all faithfulness is perhaps rewarded; and then the gendarme whom Joubard had tied to a tree came running down to the house with the comrade who had freed him and killed his guard. He was eager to tell the General what he had seen while every one but himself was away in the western wood. He had seen two women and a child escape from the house, and hurry away by the footpath under the trees towards La Mariniere. One of the women was dressed in white; he could see it under her cloak; she spoke, and it was a lady's voice; they had pa.s.sed quite near him. How long ago? Well, perhaps a quarter of an hour. General Ratoneau stamped his foot and ground his teeth.

"Bring my horse!" he said; and then he looked up again at the window, at old Joubard's stern face watching him.

"Monsieur Ange de la Mariniere!" he shouted in tones of thunder. "Come out of your hole, little coward, if you are there. I will teach you to marry against the Emperor's commands! You shall meet me before you see your wife again. I will give account of you, and I will have what is my own. What! you dare not come out? Then follow me to Sonnay, monsieur, by way of La Mariniere."

He flung himself into the saddle and rode off at a furious pace, turning round to shout back to Simon, "I shall overtake her! Go on--shoot them all--burn the house, if you must."

His horse plunged down into the shadows of the narrow lane, and they heard the heavy thud of its hoofs as it galloped away.