The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (146 page)

It was a terrible moment.

Frantz and the others sprang toward the wall, to protect the sledge.

In another second, the clashing of lances and screams of rage could alone be heard, mingled with imprecations. Under the shadow of the old oak, through the straggling moonbeams, could be seen the horses prancing with tossing manes, as they endeavored to clear the meadow wall; while the barbarian Cossacks, with gleaming eyes and uplifted arms, struck furiously with their lances, advancing, retreating, and uttering piercing yells.

Louise, deathly pale, and Catherine, with her gray dishevelled hair, stood up in the straw.

Doctor Lorquin, in front of them, parried the strokes with his sabre, and all the time kept shouting to them—“Lie down! lie down!” But they did not hear him.

Louise, in the midst of the tumult and shouting, thought only of sheltering Catherine; and the old dame, in the midst of her terror, had recognized Yégof, on a tall, gaunt horse—Yégof, with his tin crown, bristling beard, long lance, and dog-skin floating from his shoulders. She saw him as distinctly as though it were broad daylight. He stood about ten feet distant, with sparkling eyes, brandishing his blue lance in the darkness, and striving to reach her. What could she do? Submit to her fate! Thus do the most resolute characters succumb to inevitable destiny. The old dame thought her fate was sealed. She saw all these people tearing like wolves, thrusting and parrying in the moonlight. She saw some fall; and horses running, riderless through the fields. She saw the topmost window of the guard-house thrown open; and old Cuny, in his shirt-sleeves, shoulder his gun, though not daring to fire into the crowd. All passed before her eyes with wonderful clearness. “The madman has returned,” she said to herself. “Do what they will, he will hang my head to the side of his saddle. It will end as I saw in my dream.”

And, indeed, everything seemed to justify her fears: the mountaineers, inferior in numbers, were giving way. The Cossacks had cleared the wall, and were already on the footpath. A well-aimed thrust passed through the old dame’s back-hair, and she felt the cold iron against her neck.

“Oh, the murderers!” she screamed, falling back and clutching fast at the reins.

Doctor Lorquin himself had been hurled against the sledge. Frantz and the others, surrounded by twenty Cossacks, could afford them no help. Louise felt a hand on her shoulder: it was the hand of the madman, seated on his great horse.

At this fearful moment, the poor child, mad with terror, uttered a scream of distress; then she saw something gleaming in the darkness: it was Lorquin’s pistols. Quick as lightning, tearing them from the doctor’s belt, she fired them off both at once, singeing Yégof’s beard, and blowing out the brains of a Cossack who was bending toward her with flaming eyes. She then seized Catherine’s whip, and pale as death, lashed the horse, who bounded away. The sledge flew through the bushes, swaying from right to left. Suddenly there was a shock. Catherine, Louise, the straw, and all rolled in the snow on the slopes of the ravine. The horse stopped short on its haunches, its mouth full of bloody foam. It had struck against an oak-tree.

Rapid as was the fall, Louise had seen figures passing like the wind behind the underwood. She had heard a powerful voice, that of Divès, crying out, “Forward! Cut them down!”

It was like a vision—one of those confused apparitions which pass before the eyes in moments of supreme danger; but, on rising, the young girl had no longer any doubts. Fighting was going on only a few paces distant behind the cover of some trees, and the voice of Marc was heard shouting, “Go it, my old fellows! Give them no quarter!”

Then she saw a dozen Cossacks clambering up the hill in front, like hares among the heather; below Yégof was crossing the valley in the moonlight with the speed of a terrified bird on the wing. Several shots were sent after him, but the madman remained unscathed, and, standing upright in his stirrups, with his horse at full gallop, he turned, waving his lance with bravado, and shouting “Hourah!” Two more shots whizzed by from the guard-house; a bit of rag fell from his loins, but the madman continued his course, crying “Hourah!” in a hoarse tone, and toiled up the path which his companions had taken before him.

All this passed before Louise like a dream.

Then, turning round, she saw Catherine by her side, stupefied and absorbed like herself. They gazed at each other for a moment, and then embraced with an inexpressible feeling of happiness.

“We are saved!” murmured Catherine; and they both wept. “Thou hast behaved bravely. Jean-Claude, Gaspard, and I have good reason to be proud of thee!”

Louise was deeply agitated and trembled all over. The danger being passed, her gentle nature again resumed its sway, and she could not understand whence came her courage of a few minutes before.

They were recovering from their fright and about to get into the sledge, when they saw five or six partisans with the doctor coming toward them.

“Ah! you may cry as much as you like, Louise,” said Lorquin; “but, for all that, you are a regular dragoon, a real little warrior. Though you now look so gentle, we have all seen you at work. But where are my pistols?”

At that moment the shrubs were pushed aside, and Marc Divès, sword in hand, appeared.

“Ah, Mistress Catherine, these are rough adventures for you. Zounds! what luck that I happened to come up. Those villains were spoiling you right and left.”

“Yes,” replied she, pushing her hair under her cap again; “it was very fortunate.”

“Very fortunate! I should think so. It is only ten minutes since I arrived with my wagon at Cuny’s. ‘Do not go to the Donon,’ said he; ‘the sky has been red for an hour in that direction; there is certainly fighting going on up there.’ ‘You think so?’ ‘Faith! yes.’ ‘Then Joson must go out and reconnoitre a little and we others will drink a glass while waiting.’ ‘Good!’ Hardly had Joson left, when I heard shouts as though five hundred devils were let loose. ‘What is it, Cuny?’ ‘I don’t know.’ We pushed open the door, and saw the fray. Ha!” exclaimed the big smuggler, “we did not wait long. I jumped on my brave horse Fox, and dashed forward. What luck!”

“Ah!” said Catherine, “if we were only sure that our affairs go as well on the Donon, we might then rejoice.”

“Yes, yes! Frantz told me about that:—it is the devil—there must always be something wrong,” replied Marc. “But—but why stay here with our feet in the snow? Let us hope that Piorette will not allow his comrades to be crushed, and let us go and empty our glasses, which we left half full.”

Four other smugglers then arrived, saying that that rascally Yégof would probably come back, with some more brigands like himself.

“Very likely,” replied Divès. “We will return to the Falkenstein, since it is Jean-Claude’s orders; but we can’t bring our wagon with us: it would prevent our taking the short cuts; and in an hour all these bandits would be down upon us. Let us go first to Cuny’s. Catherine and Louise will not be sorry to drink a little wine; and the others too. It will put their hearts in the right place again. Up, Bruno!”

He led his horse by the bridle. Two wounded men had been laid in the sledge; two others having been killed, as well as seven or eight Cossacks stretched with their boots wide apart in the snow, were abandoned, and they went on toward the forester’s house.

Frantz was consoling himself for not having been on the Donon: he had finished two Cossacks, and the sight of the inn made him feel in a good humor. Before the door stood the small wagon full of cartridges. Cuny came out, saying: “A hearty welcome, Mistress Lefèvre. What a night for women! Be seated! What is going on up there?”

While they were hastily drinking some wine, everything had to be explained over again. The worthy old man in a blouse and green breeches, with his wrinkled face, bald head, and wide-open eyes, listened with clasped hands, exclaiming: “Good God! Good God! in what times are we living? One can no longer follow the high-roads without risk of being attacked. It is worse than the old Swedish tales.” And he shook his head.

“Come,” said Divès, “time flies. We must continue our way.”

Everybody being ready, the smugglers led the wagon, which contained some thousands of cartridges and two small kegs of brandy, about three hundred yards off, to the middle of the valley, and then unharnessed the horses.

“Go forward!” shouted Marc; “we will rejoin you in a few minutes.”

“But what art thou going to do with the cart?” said Frantz. “Since we have no time to take it to the Falkenstein, it had better be left under Cuny’s shed than in the road.”

“Yes, to get the poor old man hanged, when the Cossacks arrive, for they will be here in less than an hour. Do not trouble thyself; I have my own idea.”

Frantz rejoined the sledge, which went on its way. In a short time they passed by the saw-works of the Marquis and turned sharp to the right, to reach the farm of Bois-de-Chênes, whose tall chimneys could be perceived three-quarters of a league distant on the plateau. They were on the hill-side when Marc Divès and his men overtook them, shouting:

“Halt! Stop a bit! Look down there!”

And, looking down into the gorge, they saw the Cossacks capering round the wagon—about three hundred of them.

“They are coming! Let us fly!” cried Louise.

“Wait a bit,” said the smuggler. “We have nothing to fear.”

He was still speaking, when an immense sheet of flame sped out from one mountain to the other, illuminating the woods, rocks, and the little house of the forester fifteen hundred yards below; then there was a report so terrible that the earth seemed to tremble.

While those near him gazed in bewilderment and dumb terror at each other, Marc’s bursts of laughter reached their ears, in spite of the din.

“Ha, ha, ha!” shouted he, “I was sure the rogues would stop round the wagon, to drink up my brandy. I knew the match would have just time to reach the powder!”

“Do you think they will pursue us?”

“Their arms and legs are now hanging from the branches of the pine-trees! Come along! And may heaven grant the same fate to all those who have now crossed the Rhine!”

The whole escort, the partisans, the doctor, all had grown silent: so many terrible emotions had filled them with endless thoughts such as do not fall within the experience of every-day life. They said to themselves: “What are men that they destroy, harass, and ruin each other in this manner? Why do they hate each other so? And what spirit of evil is it that thus excites them?”

But Divès and his men were not at all troubled by these events: they galloped along, laughing and boasting.

“For my part,” said the big smuggler, “I never saw such a farce before. Ha, ha, ha! if I lived a thousand years, I should laugh at it still.” Then he became more serious, and exclaimed: “All the same, Yégof is the cause of this. One must be blind not to see that it was he who led the Germans to the Blutfeld. I shall be sorry if he has been struck down by a piece of my wagon; I have something better in store for him than that. All that I wish is that he may keep in good health till we meet somewhere in a lonely corner of the wood. It is no matter whether it be in one year, ten years, twenty years, provided only that we meet. The longer it is deferred, the more savage my determination becomes: the daintiest morsels are eaten cold, like a boar’s head in white wine.”

He said this with an air of good-humor, but those who knew him perceived beneath it a serious danger for Yégof.

Half an hour later, they all reached the plateau on which the farm of Bois-de-Chênes was situated.

CHAPTER XXI

“ALL IS LOST”

Jérome of St. Quirin had managed to make good his retreat to the farm, and since midnight he had occupied the plateau.

“Who goes there?” cried his sentinels as the escort approached.

“It is we, from the village of Charmes,” shouted Marc, in his stentorian voice.

The sentinels approached to examine them, and then they passed on their way.

The farm was silent; a sentry, his musket over his arm, was pacing before the granary, where about thirty partisans were asleep upon the straw. At the sight of these great dark roofs, the stables and outhouses belonging to the old building where she had spent her youth, where her father and grandfather had led their tranquil laborious lives in peace, and which she was now about to abandon, perhaps forever, Catherine felt a terrible wrenching at her heart; but no word escaped her. Springing from the sledge, as in other days when she returned from marketing, she said: “Come, Louise, here we are at home, thank God.”

Old Duchêne pushed open the door, exclaiming: “Is that you, Madame Lefèvre?”

“Yes, it is I. Any news from Jean-Claude?”

“No, Madame.”

They entered the large kitchen. Some cinders were still smouldering on the hearth, and in the dark, under the broad chimney, was sitting Jérome of St. Quirin, with his big horsehair hood, his great stick between his knees, and his carbine leaning against the wall.

“Good-day, Jérome,” said the old farm-wife.

“Good-day, Catherine,” replied the grave chief of the Grosmann. “Have you come from the Donon?”

“Yes: things are going badly, my poor Jérome. The ‘kaiserlichs’ were attacking the farm when we left the plateau. Nothing but white uniforms was to be seen on every side. They were already beginning to cross the breastworks.”