The Chouans Part 24

"My friend," said Marche-a-Terre in a curt tone, "don't let that happen in your case, or I'll cut you in two like a turnip. As to the emissaries of the Gars, they all carry his glove, but since that affair at La Vivetiere the Grande Garce has added a green ribbon to it."

Pille Miche nudged his comrade by the elbow and showed him d'Orgemont, who was pretending to be asleep; but Pille-Miche and Marche-a-Terre both knew by experience that no one ever slept by the corner of their fire, and though the last words said to Galope-Chopine were almost whispered, they must have been heard by the victim, and the four Chouans looked at him fixedly, thinking perhaps that fear had deprived him of his senses.

Suddenly, at a slight sign from Marche-a-Terre, Pille-Miche pulled off d'Orgemont's shoes and stockings, Mene-a-Bien and Galope-Chopine seized him round the body and carried him to the fire. Then Marche-a-Terre took one of the thongs that tied the f.a.gots and fastened the miser's feet to the crane. These actions and the horrible celerity with which they were done brought cries from the victim, which became heart-rending when Pille-Miche gathered the burning sticks under his legs.

"My friends, my good friends," screamed d'Orgemont, "you hurt me, you kill me! I'm a Christian like you."

"You lie in your throat!" replied Marche-a-Terre. "Your brother denied G.o.d; and as for you, you bought the abbey of Juvigny. The Abbe Gudin says we can roast apostates when we find them."

"But, my brothers in G.o.d, I don't refuse to pay."

"We gave you two weeks, and it is now two months, and Galope-Chopine here hasn't received the money."

"Haven't you received any of it, Galope-Chopine?" asked the miser, in despair.

"None of it, Monsieur d'Orgemont," replied Galope-Chopine, frightened.

The cries, which had sunk into groans, continuous as the rattle in a dying throat, now began again with dreadful violence. Accustomed to such scenes, the four Chouans looked at d'Orgemont, who was twisting and howling, so coolly that they seemed like travellers watching before an inn fire till the roast meat was done enough to eat.

"I'm dying, I'm dying!" cried the victim, "and you won't get my money."

In spite of these agonizing cries, Pille-Miche saw that the fire did not yet scorch the skin; he drew the sticks cleverly together so as to make a slight flame. On this d'Orgemont called out in a quavering voice: "My friends, unbind me! How much do you want? A hundred crowns-a thousand crowns-ten thousand crowns-a hundred thousand crowns-I offer you two hundred thousand crowns!"

The voice became so lamentable that Mademoiselle de Verneuil forgot her own danger and uttered an exclamation.

"Who spoke?" asked Marche-a-Terre.

The Chouans looked about them with terrified eyes. These men, so brave in fight, were unable to face a ghost. Pille-Miche alone continued to listen to the promises which the flames were now extracting from his victim.

"Five hundred thousand crowns-yes, I'll give them," cried the victim.

"Well, where are they?" answered Pille-Miche, tranquilly.

"Under the first apple-tree-Holy Virgin! at the bottom of the garden to the left-you are brigands-thieves! Ah! I'm dying-there's ten thousand francs-"

"Francs! we don't want francs," said Marche-a-Terre; "those Republican coins have pagan figures which oughtn't to pa.s.s."

"They are not francs, they are good louis d'or. But oh! undo me, unbind me! I've told you where my life is-my money."

The four Chouans looked at each other as if thinking which of their number they could trust sufficiently to disinter the money.

The cannibal cruelty of the scene so horrified Mademoiselle de Verneuil that she could bear it no longer. Though doubtful whether the role of ghost, which her pale face and the Chouan superst.i.tions evidently a.s.signed to her, would carry her safely through the danger, she called out, courageously, "Do you not fear G.o.d's anger? Unbind him, brutes!"

The Chouans raised their heads and saw in the air above them two eyes which shone like stars, and they fled, terrified. Mademoiselle de Verneuil sprang into the kitchen, ran to d'Orgemont, and pulled him so violently from the crane that the thong broke. Then with the blade of her dagger she cut the cords which bound him. When the miser was free and on his feet, the first expression of his face was a painful but sardonic grin.

"Apple-tree! yes, go to the apple-tree, you brigands," he said. "Ho, ho! this is the second time I've fooled them. They won't get a third chance at me."

So saying, he caught Mademoiselle de Verneuil's hand, drew her under the mantel-shelf to the back of the hearth in a way to avoid disturbing the fire, which covered only a small part of it; then he touched a spring; the iron back was lifted, and when their enemies returned to the kitchen the heavy door of the hiding-place had already fallen noiselessly. Mademoiselle de Verneuil then understood the carp-like movements she had seen the miser making.

"The ghost has taken the Blue with him," cried the voice of Marche-a-Terre.

The fright of the Chouans must have been great, for the words were followed by a stillness so profound that d'Orgemont and his companion could hear them muttering to themselves: "Ave, sancta Anna Auriaca gratia plena, Dominus tec.u.m," etc.

"They are praying, the fools!" cried d'Orgemont.

"Hus.h.!.+ are you not afraid they will discover us?" said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, checking her companion.

The old man's laugh dissipated her fears.

"That iron back is set in a wall of granite two feet thick," he said. "We can hear them, but they can't hear us."

Then he took the hand of his preserver and placed it near a crevice through which a current of fresh air was blowing. She then perceived that the opening was made in the shaft of the chimney.

"Ai! ai!" cried d'Orgemont. "The devil! how my legs smart!"

The Chouans, having finished their prayer, departed, and the old miser again caught the hand of his companion and helped her to climb some narrow winding steps cut in the granite wall. When they had mounted some twenty of these steps the gleam of a lamp dimly lighted their heads. The miser stopped, turned to his companion, examined her face as if it were a bank note he was doubtful about cas.h.i.+ng, and heaved a heavy sigh.

"By bringing you here," he said, after a moment's silence, "I have paid you in full for the service you did me; I don't see why I should give you-"

"Monsieur, I ask nothing of you," she said.

These words, and also, perhaps, the disdainful expression on the beautiful face, rea.s.sured the old man, for he answered, not without a sigh, "Ah! if you take it that way, I have gone too far not to continue on."

He politely a.s.sisted Marie to climb a few more steps rather strangely constructed, and half willingly, half reluctantly, ushered her into a small closet about four feet square, lighted by a lamp hanging from the ceiling. It was easy to see that the miser had made preparations to spend more than one day in this retreat if the events of the civil war compelled him to hide himself.

"Don't brush against that wall, you might whiten yourself," said d'Orgemont suddenly, as he hurriedly put his hand between the girl's shawl and the stones which seemed to have been lately whitewashed. The old man's action produced quite another effect from that he intended. Marie looked about her and saw in one corner a sort of projection, the shape of which forced from her a cry of terror, for she fancied it was that of a human being standing erect and mortared into the wall. D'Orgemont made a violent sign to her to hold her tongue, and his little eyes of a porcelain blue showed as much fear as those of his companion.

"Fool! do you think I murdered him? It is the body of my brother," and the old man gave a lugubrious sigh. "He was the first sworn-in priest; and this was the only asylum where he was safe against the fury of the Chouans and the other priests. He was my elder brother, and he alone had the patience to each me the decimal calculus. Oh! he was a good priest! He was economical and laid by money. It is four years since he died; I don't know what was the matter with him; perhaps it was that priests are so in the habit of kneeling down to pray that he couldn't get accustomed to standing upright here as I do. I walled him up there; they'd have dug him up elsewhere. Some day perhaps I can put him in holy ground, as he used to call it,-poor man, he only took the oath out of fear."

A tear rolled from the hard eyes of the little old man, whose rusty wig suddenly seemed less hideous to the girl, and she turned her eyes respectfully away from his distress. But, in spite of these tender reminiscences, d'Orgemont kept on saying, "Don't go near the wall, you might-"

His eyes never ceased to watch hers, hoping thus to prevent her from examining too closely the walls of the closet, where the close air was scarcely enough to inflate the lungs. Marie succeeded, however, in getting a sufficiently good look in spite of her Argus, and she came to the conclusion that the strange protuberances in the walls were neither more nor less than sacks of coin which the miser had placed there and plastered up.

Old d'Orgemont was now in a state of almost grotesque bewilderment. The pain in his legs, the terror he felt at seeing a human being in the midst of his h.o.a.rds, could be read in every wrinkle of his face, and yet at the same time his eyes expressed, with unaccustomed fire, a lively emotion excited in him by the presence of his liberator, whose white and rosy cheek invited kisses, and whose velvety black eye sent waves of blood to his heart, so hot that he was much in doubt whether they were signs of life or of death.

"Are you married?" he asked, in a trembling voice.

"No," she said, smiling.

"I have a little something," he continued, heaving a sigh, "though I am not so rich as people think for. A young girl like you must love diamonds, trinkets, carriages, money. I've got all that to give-after my death. Hey! if you will-"

The old man's eyes were so shrewd and betrayed such calculation in this ephemeral love that Mademoiselle de Verneuil, as she shook her head in sign of refusal, felt that his desire to marry her was solely to bury his secret in another himself.

"Money!" she said, with a look of scorn which made him satisfied and angry both; "money is nothing to me. You would be three times as rich as you are, if you had all the gold that I have refused-" she stopped suddenly.

"Don't go near that wall, or-"

"But I hear a voice," she said; "it echoes through that wall,-a voice that is more to me than all your riches."