Messengers of Evil Part 53

XXII

AN EXECUTION

"Not much water about, is there?"

"That's so, old 'un.... If I'd known, it's boats I'd have taken to!"

"Bah! Your shoes are big enough. That's not saying it's weather for a Christian to be out in!"

"Don't you grumble, old 'un! The more it comes down cats and dogs, the fewer stumps will be stirring out doors!... But a comrade or two will be on the prowl, eh?"

"Right-o, old bird!... Keep a lookout!... Sure he'll come this way?"

"You bet your nut he will!... He got my bit of a scrawl this morning...."

"What then?"

"Shut up! Shut up! Folks coming!"

The night was inky black. Rain fell with sudden violence, threshed and driven by icy gusts of wind. The hour was late: the rue Raffet deserted save for the two men who had ventured out into the tempestuous darkness.

They advanced with difficulty, side by side, speaking low. Rough customers to deal with. Their faces were emaciated from excessive drinking: their eyes gleamed, their voices were hoa.r.s.e: a brutal pair!

But their movements were souple and lively: they walked with that ungainly swagger affected by the light-fingered gentry and the criminals of the underworld of Paris.

"And what did you say in your scrawl?"

"Oh, medlars! Take-ins! You know!... I didn't put my fist to it, though!"

"Who then?"

"You ask that?"

"I'm no wizard! If it wasn't your fist, whose then?"

"My woman...."

"Ernestine?"

"Yes. Ernestine."

They struggled on through the squally darkness. Then one of the two broke the silence.

"You're not jealous, Beadle, making your girl write letters to such folk?"

That sinister hooligan, the Beadle, burst out laughing.

"Jealous? Me? Jealous of Ernestine? You make me laugh, you really do, old Beard!"

But Beard did not share his companion's mirth. He leaned against a palisade to take breath, while a little sheltered from the fierce onslaughts of the wind.

"I tell you what," he said in a gruff and threatening voice: "I don't like such dodges--like those of this evening...."

"Why so, monsieur?"

"Why, because, after all, it's a comrade!"

"But he's betrayed--a traitor he is!"

"What do we know about it?"

The Beadle nodded; reflected.

"What does anyone know about it?" he said at last....

"Why, when the comrades told us, weren't they surprised, one and all?

Nibet, Toulouche, even Mimile--they didn't hesitate, not one of them!...

Well then, old 'un, as all the pals were of one mind, why hesitate?

What's the use of discussing!... but, between you and me, I don't relish it either--it bothers me to go for a pal!..."

Just then the tempest redoubled its fury: it seemed to the cowering men as though all the devils of the storm were galloping down the wind.

Somewhere there was a moon, for scurrying clouds were dancing a witches'

saraband across a faintly clearer sky. The unseen moon was mastering the obscurity of this midnight hour.

By now, the two sinister beings were nearing the rue du Docteur-Blanche.

They were pa.s.sing a garden, in which tall poplars, caught by the squall, took fantastic shapes: they were nightmare trees, terrifyingly strange.

"No more to be said," remarked the Beadle. "The scene is set!... Where is the meeting place?"

"A hundred yards from there--a little before the corner of the boulevard Montmorency...."

"Good! And the trap?"

"It waits for us a little further off."

"Who's aboard it?"

"Mimile."

"That's good."

The two men were now half-way along rue Raffet. The watch had begun.

Gripped by the cold they waited in silence.... The minutes pa.s.sed slowly, slowly, in the deserted street ... The Beard put his hand on the Beadle's shoulder.... A vague sound could be heard in the distance: the steps could be distinguished; some pedestrian was coming up the rue Raffet in their direction.

"It is he!" whispered the Beadle.