The Frontier Part 16

"Didn't you hear a sort of a hoot?"

"Yes, the hoot of an owl."

"Are you sure? It doesn't sound natural to me."

"What do you say it is, then? A signal?"

"I'm certain of it."

Jorance reflected:

"After all, it's quite possible ... some smuggler perhaps.... But it's a bad moment to have chosen."

"Why?"

"Well, now that the German post has been cut down, it's likely that all this part of the frontier is being more closely watched than usual."

"Yes, of course," said Morestal. "Still, that owl's hoot ..."

There was a short slope and then they emerged upon a higher upland, surrounded by enormous fir-trees, which formed a sort of rampart. This was the b.u.t.te-aux-Loups. The road cut it in two; and the posts of each country stood facing each other.

Jorance noticed that the German post had been put up again, but in a makeshift fashion, with the aid of a number of large stones which kept it in position.

"A gust of wind and down it comes again," he said, shaking it.

"I say, mind what you're about!" said Morestal, with a chuckle. "Don't you see yourself toppling it over and having the police down upon you?... You'd better make a strategic movement to the rear, my friend!..."

But he had not finished speaking when another cry reached his ears.

"Ah, this time," said Morestal, "you'll admit...."

"Yes ... yes ..." Jorance agreed. "An owl gives a duller, slower hoot.... It really is like a signal, a hundred yards or so ahead of us.... Smugglers, of course, French or German."

"Suppose we turned back?" said Morestal. "Aren't you afraid of being mixed up in an affair?..."

"Why? It's the custom-house people's business; it doesn't concern you and me. They can settle it among themselves...."

They listened for a moment and then went on, thoughtfully, with watchful ears.

After the b.u.t.te-aux-Loups, the ridge becomes flatter, the forest spreads out and the road, now freer, winds among the trees, runs from one slope to the other, avoids the big roots, pa.s.ses round the inequalities of the ground and, at times, disappears from sight under a bed of dead leaves.

But the moon had come out again and Morestal walked straight in front of him, without hesitation. He knew the frontier so well! He could have followed it with his eyes closed, in the dusk of the darkest night! At one place, there was a branch that blocked the way; at another, there was the trunk of an old oak which sounded hollow when he hit it with his stick. And he announced the branch before he came to it; and he struck at the old oak.

His uneasiness, which began to seem unreasonable, was dispelled.

Consulting his watch again, he hurried his steps, so as to reach home by the time which he had said.

But suddenly he stopped. He thought he saw a shadow hiding, thirty or forty yards away from him:

"Did you see?" he whispered.

"Yes ... I saw...."

And, all at once, there came a shrill, strident whistle, apparently from the very place where the shadow had vanished.

"Don't move," said Jorance.

They waited, their hearts tense with the anguish of what was coming.

A minute pa.s.sed and more minutes; and then there was a sound of footsteps, below them, on the German side, the sound of a man hurrying....

Morestal thought of the precipitous hill which he had described to Dourlowski as the way up to the frontier from the Albern Woods, by the Cold Spring, the Fontaine-Froide. In all certainty, somebody was scaling the upper portion of that precipice, clinging on to the branches and dragging himself along the pebbles.

"A deserter!" whispered Jorance. "No nonsense now!"

But Morestal pushed him away and began to run to where the two roads crossed. At the very moment when he reached the spot, a man appeared, all frenzied and out of breath, and stammered, in French:

"Save me!... I've been given away!... I'm frightened!..."

Morestal seized hold of him and flung him off the road:

"Run!... Look sharp!... Straight ahead of you!"

There was the report of a rifle. The man staggered, with a moan; but he was evidently only wounded, for, after a few seconds, he drew himself up and made off through the woods.

A chase ensued forthwith. Four or five Germans crossed the frontier and set off in pursuit of the fugitive, swearing as they went, while their comrades, forming the greater number, turned towards Morestal.

Jorance took him round the waist and compelled him to recoil:

"This way," he said, "over there.... They won't dare ..."

They returned in the direction of the b.u.t.te-aux-Loups, but were at once caught up:

"Halt!" commanded a rough voice. "I arrest you.... You are accomplices.... I arrest you."

"We are in France," retorted Jorance, facing his aggressors.

A hand fell on his shoulder:

"We'll see about that.... We'll see about that.... You're coming with us."

The men surrounded them; but, vigorous both and exasperated, they succeeded in fighting their way through with their fists:

"To the b.u.t.te-aux-Loups," said Jorance, "and keep to the left of the road."

"We're not on the left," said Morestal, who saw, after a moment, that they had branched off to the right.

They re-entered French territory; but the police who were pursuing the deserter, having lost his tracks, now fell back in their direction.