The Maids of Paradise Part 68

"That is the truth," said the Lizard; "Tric-Trac told me. They have the code-book of Mornac." His eyes began to light up with that terrible anger as the name of his blood enemy fell from his lips; his nose twitched; his upper lip wrinkled into a snarl.

I thought quietly for a moment, then asked the poacher whether there was a guard at the semaph.o.r.e of Saint-Yssel.

"Yes, the soldier Rolland, who says he understands the telegraph--a sot from Morlaix." He hesitated and looked across the open moor toward Paradise. "I must go," he muttered; "I am on guard yonder."

I offered him my hand again; he took it, looking me sincerely in the eyes.

"Let your private wrongs wait a little longer," I said. "I think we can catch Buckhurst and Mornac alive. Do you promise?"

"Y-es," he replied.

"Strike, then, like a Breton!"

We struck palms heavily. Then he turned to Speed and motioned him to retire.

Speed walked slowly toward a half-buried bowlder and sat down out of ear-shot.

"For your sake," said the poacher, clutching my hand in a tightening grip--"for your sake I have let Mornac go--let him pa.s.s me at arm's-length, and did not strike. You have dealt openly by me--and justly. No man can say I betrayed friendship. But I swear to you that if you miss him this time, I shall not miss--I, Robert the Lizard!"

"You mean to kill Mornac?" I asked.

His eyes blazed.

"Ami," he said, "I once spoke of '_a little red deer_,' and you half understood me, for you are wise in strange ways, as I am."

"I remember," I said.

His strong fingers closed tighter on my hand. "Woman--or doe--it's all one now; and I am out of prison--the prison _he_ sent me to! Do you understand that he wronged me--me, the soldier Garenne, in garrison at Vincennes; he, the officer, the aristocrat?"

He choked, crushing my hand in a spasmodic grip. "Ami, the little red deer was beautiful--to me. He took her--the doe--a silly maid of Paradise--and I was in irons, m'sieu, for three years."

He glared at vacancy, tears falling from his staring eyes.

"Your wife?" I asked, quietly.

"Yes, ami."

He dropped my numbed fingers and rubbed his eyes with the back of his big hand.

"Then Jacqueline is not your little daughter?" I asked, gravely.

"Hers--not mine. That has been the most terrible of all for me--since she died--died so young, too, m'sieu--and all alone--in Paris. If he had not done that--if he had been kind to her. And she was only a child, ami, yet he left her."

All the ferocity in his eyes was gone; he raised a vacant, grief-lined visage to meet mine, and stood stupidly, heavy hands hanging.

Then, shoulders sloping, he shambled off into the thicket, trailing his battered rifle.

When he was very far away I motioned to Speed.

"I think," said I, "that we had better try to do something at the semaph.o.r.e if we are going to stop that train in time."

XX

THE SEMAPh.o.r.e

The telegraph station at the semaph.o.r.e was a little, square, stone hut, roofed with slate, perched high on the cliffs. A sun-scorched, wooden signal-tower rose in front of it; behind it a line of telegraph poles stretched away into perspective across the moors. Beyond the horizon somewhere lay the war-port of Lorient, with its a.r.s.enal, armed redoubts, and heavy bastions; beyond that was war.

While we plodded on, hip deep, through gorse and thorn and heath, we cautiously watched a spot of red moving to and fro in front of the station; and as we drew nearer we could see the sentry very distinctly, rifle slung muzzle down, slouching his beat in the sunshine.

He was a slovenly specimen, doubtless a deserter from one of the three provincial armies now forming for the hopeless dash at Belfort and the German eastern communications.

When Speed and I emerged from the golden gorse into plain view the sentinel stopped in his tracks, shoved his big, red hands into his trousers pockets, and regarded us sulkily.

"What are you going to do with this gentleman?" whispered Speed.

"Reason with him, first," I said; "a louis is worth a dozen kicks."

The soldier left his post as we started toward him, and advanced, blinking in the strong sunshine, meeting us half-way.

"Now, bourgeois," he said, shaking his unkempt head, "this won't do, you know. Orders are to keep off. And," he added, in a bantering tone, "I'm here to enforce them. Allons! En route, mes amis!"

"Are you the soldier Rolland?" I asked.

He admitted that he was with prompt profanity, adding that if we didn't like his name we had only to tell him so and he would arrange the matter.

I told him that we approved not only his name but his personal appearance; indeed, so great was our admiration for him that we had come clear across the Saint-Yssel moor expressly to pay our compliments to him in the shape of a hundred-franc note. I drew it from the soiled roll the Lizard had intrusted to me, and displayed it for the sentinel's inspection.

"Is that for me?" he demanded, unconvinced, plainly suspicious of being ridiculed.

"Under certain conditions," I said, "these five louis are for you."

The soldier winked. "I know what you want; you want to go in yonder and use the telegraph. What the devil," he burst out, "do all you bourgeois want with that telegraph in there?"

"Has anybody else asked to use it?" I inquired, disturbed.

"Anybody else?" he mimicked. "Well, I think so; there's somebody in there now--here, give your hundred francs or I tell you nothing, you understand!"

I handed him the soiled note. He scanned it with the inborn distrust of the true malefactor, turned it over and over, and finally, p.r.o.nouncing it "en regle," shoved it cheerfully into the lining of his red forage cap.

"A hundred more if you answer my questions truthfully," I said, amiably.

"'Cre cochon!" he blurted out; "fire at will, comrade! I'll sell you the whole cursed semaph.o.r.e for a hundred more! What can I do for you, captain?"

"Who is in that hut?"