Under the Meteor Flag Part 24

My companion conducted me across the square to the great centre door already mentioned, and, on our safely reaching the shelter of its deep recess, bade me place my basket on the ground. I did so; whereupon-- first glancing round to see whether there were any curious eyes turned in our direction, and apparently satisfied that there were not--he stooped down, and planting himself well in front of my basket, hastily selected a couple of moderate-sized fish, which he thrust up inside his tunic. This done, he seized a wooden handle which hung at the extremity of a rusty chain issuing from a small aperture in the wall, and tugged smartly at it. The result was a clanging from a large bell, imperfectly heard in the remote distance of the interior.

A minute or so elapsed; and then a wicket, cut in the woodwork of the door, opened; and an individual in plain clothes, apparently an officer's orderly, became visible inside.

"Can Monsieur Lemaitre be seen?" inquired my companion.

"Doubtless," replied the individual to whom the question was put. "Come in, Jacques. What do you want with him?"

"That I will tell him myself, comrade, when I see him," responded Jacques, pa.s.sing through the wicket and beckoning me to follow; which of course I did.

"As you please, _mon ami_," replied the other; and without further parley he departed to apprise that important personage, the general's cook, that he was wanted.

In the interval I employed myself in looking round me.

I found myself in a sort of entrance-hall of considerable size. The wall opposite the door contained a huge fireplace, sunk in the thickness of the masonry. The side walls were pierced, on my right and left, with semicircular archways, deeply moulded, and closed with strong wooden doors; and on the left, a ma.s.sive and elaborately carved stone staircase, of much more modern date than the building itself, led upward to a stone gallery which ran all round the wall, with doors communicating with the apartments above. The hall ceiling, two storeys above the pavement, was of stone, groined; the ribs of the groins boldly moulded, and ma.s.sively keyed in the centre with a stone of considerable size, boldly carved with the representation of a dragon or griffin coiled into a circle. Over the great fireplace hung a trophy of rusty and dinted armour, surmounted by another trophy of faded and dusty silken banners; and two other flag trophies adorned the side walls.

By the time that I had completed my survey, a sound of shuffling footsteps was heard; and immediately afterwards there emerged from a pa.s.sage underneath the staircase, a short, stout good-tempered-looking personage, dressed in a blouse and military trousers, with a cook's cap on his head, and a long white ap.r.o.n in front, reaching from his neck almost to his feet. He held a huge meat-knife in one hand, and a basting-ladle in the other. As he approached, my friend Jacques hastily informed me in a whisper that this was Monsieur Lemaitre.

In answer to this individual's inquiries, the corporal related the story of my pretended escape from the enemy, hinting also my desire to report myself to the general; and winding up with a description of my anxiety to procure Monsieur Lemaitre's acceptance, on behalf of the general, of the pick of my basket.

I began dimly to see that the general--whoever he was--was a much- dreaded individual; and that this present of fish, suggested by my friend the corporal, was intended by him, in all kindness, as a bribe, whereby I might obtain as favourable an introduction as possible to the presence of the great man.

Monsieur Lemaitre stooped down and, with much deliberation, turned over the various fish which I had brought, finally selecting a quant.i.ty of the choicest, amounting to about half my stock, which he laid upon the stone pavement of the hall. This done, he, in a very gracious and patronising manner, a.s.sured me I might count upon his best services to obtain for me an early interview with his master, and retired; promising to send some one forthwith to remove the fish he had selected.

The moment he was out of sight, my friend the corporal turned to me, and congratulated me warmly upon the favourable reception which had been accorded me by the great man's great man; congratulating himself, at the same time, upon the opportunity which had been afforded him of rendering a service of some little importance to a stranger. As he spoke thus, he cast such an expressive glance into my fish-basket, that there was no possibility of my misunderstanding him. Accordingly, when he immediately added that, as he could now be of no further service to me, he would take his departure, I uttered a few words of thanks for his kindness; and expressed a hope that he would oblige me by making a further selection of fish, as a slight token of my grat.i.tude.

"Well, comrade," said he, "since you are so anxious about the matter, I will; and I do it all the more readily since--between you and me--you will find these fellows about here such sharks that you will have to part with every fish in your basket before you will get an opportunity of reporting yourself. For my part, I detest such greediness; nothing is more abhorrent to a sensitive soul like mine; I consider that it ought to be baulked and discouraged in every way; and in order to aid in so good a work as far as possible I will just take this--and this--and these three--under my own care. And now--good-bye, comrade--nay, no thanks; you are heartily welcome; and I wish you a pleasant interview with the general."

Saying which he hastily retired through the wicket; just as a sound of footsteps along the pa.s.sage under the staircase announced the approach of Monsieur Lemaitre's a.s.sistants.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

HOW THE ADVENTURE TERMINATED.

The new-comers proved to be a couple of the kitchen servants. They were provided with a basket, in which they removed the fish selected by Monsieur Lemaitre, taking them up and conveying them away without vouchsafing to favour me with so much as a single word.

The time pa.s.sed on without any one else appearing; a silence, as if of the grave, prevailed in the building; and had it not been for the bugle- calls in the adjacent barrack-yard, the shouts of command and the measured tramp of the men at drill, together with the loud and frequent boom of artillery from the walls, and the fainter echo of our own ordnance in the distance, I might have supposed myself to be in a deserted city.

At length the tramp of horses became audible outside; the sound increased rapidly; and in another minute I became aware that a cavalcade of some sort had approached the great door of the building; then there came the sound of champing of bits, the clatter of accoutrements, the jingle of spurs, and loud voices talking and laughing. Finally the heavy latch of the door was turned, one leaf swung heavily back upon its well-oiled hinges, and a group of some fourteen officers entered the hall; among whom was one who I had no doubt was the general.

The majority of the officers merely glanced carelessly at me and pa.s.sed on; one of them, however, apparently a lieutenant, stopped and asked me what I wanted.

I replied by telling him shortly the story I had arranged; adding that I had been advised to come up and report myself to the general. When I had finished he ordered me to follow him; and we made sail in the wake of the others; pa.s.sing through a door at the far end of the hall, which led, not, as I had supposed, to a room, but to a long pa.s.sage terminating in a yard, in one side of which was an archway leading through the building into the barrack-yard, and on the opposite side a group of one-storey buildings, the first of which appeared to be a sort of guard-room.

Entering this room, in which were some twenty men, who rose and saluted my conductor as we pa.s.sed, we continued on through it into another and very large room, the tables in which were strewed with plans and drawings.

Here we found a great many of the officers who had preceded us, engaged in unbuckling their swords, etcetera, preparatory, as it seemed to me, to sitting down to work upon some of the drawings which lay scattered about.

Crossing this room also, followed by curious glances from many of its occupants, we paused before a door, at which my guide tapped.

"_Entrez_," exclaimed a voice from the inside.

The lieutenant turned the handle, threw open the door, and pa.s.sed into the other apartment, signing to me to follow. I did so, and found myself in a small but very comfortably furnished room, containing a press full of papers, a case of books, half a dozen chairs, and a large writing-table, at which the individual whom I had rightly taken to be the general was just seating himself.

He was a man apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, a trifle above medium height, thin and spare of body, with a bronzed complexion, and grey hair and moustache, both cut quite short. His eyes were dark and piercing; the expression of his features severe and cruel; and his beauty--if he ever had any--was completely destroyed by a great ghastly scar which reached from the outer corner of his right eyebrow to his chin, splitting both the upper and under lip in its course.

"Well, Saint Croix; what now?" exclaimed he sharply, as we entered.

"I have taken the liberty of introducing this man to you at once, sir,"

said my guide. "He informs me that he is an escaped prisoner from the English fleet; and that in accordance with advice received, he wishes, as a stranger in the town, to report himself to you and to be duly registered."

"Call Montrouge here."

The lieutenant retired into the adjoining room, and presently reappeared, accompanied by another officer; the general, meanwhile, taking no notice whatever of me, but busying himself in searching among a large bundle of papers which lay on the table.

On the entrance of the two officers, their surly senior looked fiercely at the new-comer, and pointing to the opposite side of the table said,--

"Sit down there; take paper; and note down what this fellow has to say for himself."

Then turning angrily to me, he ordered me to proceed.

I told my story; stopping at intervals, when desired, in order that the officer who was taking it down might properly follow me. When I had finished, the officer called Montrouge was ordered to read over to me what he had written; and at the close I was asked by the general if that was a correct transcription of my story.

I replied that it was.

I was then ordered to give all the information I possessed with regard to the fleet; its strength; number and calibre of guns; and so on.

To this I replied that having been confined during the whole of my captivity between two guns, on the lower-deck, I had had no means of gaining any information whatever, either upon the points mentioned, or indeed any others.

My statement was received with a look of incredulity and a dissatisfied grunt.

"What think you, gentlemen," exclaimed the old martinet, "does this young man's story strike you as being truthful?"

"It sounds plausible enough," replied the officer called Montrouge. "I see no reason to doubt it."

"What is your opinion, Saint Croix?"

"I believe it to be the truth," replied the individual addressed.

"Good! We differ slightly in opinion, that is all, gentlemen," remarked the general. "For my own part, I am convinced that this story,"-- striking disdainfully the written statement, which he held in his hand--"is a simple tissue of falsehood. Luckily, we possess the means of putting the matter to the test. Send for Guiseppe the Corsican."

Guiseppe the Corsican! the man who had sold me into the hands of the enemy once already, and who, I had every reason to believe, had betrayed Count Lorenzo di Paoli also. If this man and I were brought face to face, I was hopelessly lost.

At that moment, and not until then, did I feel what a shameful and despicable course of conduct I had entered upon. I had not only a.s.sumed voluntarily the _role_ of a spy; but I had sought to shelter myself beneath a cloak of falsehood; and now, out of my own mouth was I to be judged--and surely condemned.

I felt thoroughly crestfallen and humiliated; not so much at my certain detection as a spy, but at having placed myself in a position where deliberate falsehood had become an absolute necessity to my safety, which after all it had not only failed to a.s.sure, but had hopelessly compromised.