"It is some mistake. You have no business to arrest me. You will answer for this, police! You will answer it to Monsieur le Prefet. He is ill, and cannot have given the order. Show me your authority."
"Never mind our authority," said the chief. "We don"t want Monsieur de la Mariniere, but we do want his son. Are you coming quietly, young gentleman, or must we put on handcuffs? Get out of the way with your stick, you one-legged fellow, or I shall have to punish you."
"Keep back, Martin; you can do nothing. Go and tell my father," said Angelot. He shook off the men"s hands, and stood still and upright in the midst of them.
"Why do you arrest me?" he said. "Where are you going to take me?"
"Ah, that you will see," said the police officer.
The snarling malice in his voice seemed suddenly familiar to Angelot.
"Why, I know you--you are--"
"Never mind who I am. It is my business to keep down Chouans."
"But I am not a Chouan!"
"A man is known by his company. Now then--quick march--away!"
"Adieu, Martin! This is all nonsense--I shall soon come back," Angelot cried, as they hustled him on.
A few moments, and the very tramp of their feet was lost in the dusk, for they had dragged their prisoner out of the lane and were crossing the open moor. Martin, in much tribulation, made the best of his way back to meet his father and mother, and with them carried the news to La Mariniere.
Half an hour later, Monsieur Urbain, whistling gaily, came back from a pleasant stroll home with his Sainfoy cousins. Everything seemed satisfactory; Adelade had been kind, the vintage was splendid. If only Angelot were a sensible boy, there would be nothing left to wish for.
The moon was up, flooding the old yards that were now empty and still.
As he came near, he saw Anne waiting for him in the porch, and supposed that the moonlight made her so strangely pale.
"My dearest," he said, as he came up, "there is to be a ball this month at Lancilly, in honour of Georges. But I do not know whether that foolish son of yours will be invited."
Anne looked him in the face; no, it was not the moonlight that made her so pale.
"They have arrested Ange as a Chouan," she said.
CHAPTER XX
HOW ANGELOT CLIMBED A TREE
The police had caught Angelot; but they did not keep him long.
They had to do with a young man who knew every yard of that wild country far better than they did, and was almost as much a part of it as the birds and beasts that haunted it.
"Where are you taking me?" he said, as they walked across the high expanse of the _landes_, dimly lighted by the last glimmer of day. "This is a very roundabout way to Sonnay-le-Loir."
"It is not the way at all," said the officer who took the lead, "and we know that as well as you."
"But I demand to be taken to Sonnay," Angelot said, and stopped. "The warrant for my arrest, if you have such a thing, must be from the Prefect. Take me to him, and I will soon convince him that there is some mistake."
"Monsieur le Prefet is ill, as you know. Walk on, if you please."
"Then take me to the sous-Prefet, or whoever is in his place."
"You are going to a higher authority, monsieur, not a lower one."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You are going to Paris. Monsieur le Comte Real, the head of our branch of the police, will decide what is to be done with you."
"Mon Dieu! The old Jacobin! He nearly had my uncle in his fangs once,"
said Angelot, half to himself. "But what do they accuse me of?
Chouannerie? But I am not a Chouan, and you know enough of our affairs to know that, Monsieur Simon!"
The Chouan-catcher laughed sourly.
"I believe this is some private devilry," the prisoner went on, with careless daring. "The Prefect has nothing to do with it. It is spite against my uncle--but you are a little afraid of touching him. Don"t imagine, though, that you will annoy him particularly by carrying me off. We are not on good terms just now, my uncle and I. In truth, I have offended all my relations, and n.o.body will be sorry to have me away for a time."
"Tant mieux, monsieur!" said Simon. "Then you won"t object to giving the Minister of Police a little information about your uncle and the other Chouan gentlemen, his friends."
"Ah! that is quite another story! That is the idea, is it? Monsieur le Duc de Rovigo, and Monsieur le Comte Real, flatter themselves that they have got hold of a traitor?"
"Pardon, monsieur! It is the Chouans who are traitors."
"I think I could find a few others in our poor France this very night.
But I am not one of them. Again, whose authority have you for arresting me? Is it Monsieur Real who has stretched his long arm so far?"
"The authority is sufficient, and you are my prisoner," Simon answered coolly.
"I suspect you have no authority but your own!"
"They will enlighten you in Paris, possibly."
"Come, tell me, how much are they paying you for this little trick?"
One of the other men laughed suddenly, and Simon became angry.
"Hold your tongue, prisoner, or I shall have you gagged. You need not speak again till the authorities in Paris take means to make you. Yes, I a.s.sure you, they can persuade rather strongly when they like. Now, quick march--we have a post-chaise waiting in the road over there."
Angelot saw that his wisest course was to say no more. He was unarmed; they had taken away the knife he had used for cutting grapes; his faithful fowling-piece was hanging in the hall at La Mariniere. He was guarded by five men, all armed, all taller and bigger than himself. He walked along in silence, apparently resigned to his fate, but thinking hard all the while.
His thoughts, busy and curious as they were, did not hit on the right origin of his very disagreeable adventure. Knowing a good deal of Simon by repute, and a little by experience, and having heard legends of such police exploits in the West within the last ten years, though not since Monsieur de Mauves took office, he felt almost sure that the spy was taking advantage of the Prefect"s illness to gain a little money and credit on his own account. And of course his own arrest, a young and unimportant man, was more easily managed and less likely to have consequences than that of his uncle, for instance, or Monsieur des Barres. He did not believe that the Paris authorities knew anything of it, yet; but he did believe that Simon knew what he was doing; that Real, the well-known head of the police in the western _arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_, trained under Fouche in suspicion, cunning and mercilessness, would make unscrupulous use of any means of knowing the present state of Royalist opinion in Anjou. He would be all the more severe, probably, because the mildness of the Prefect of the Loir had more than once irritated him. So Angelot thought he saw that Simon might easily drag his chosen victim into a dangerous place, from which it would be hard to escape with honour.
They reached the north-east edge of the moor just as the moon was rising. At first the low light made all things strangely confused, marching armies of shadows over the wild ground. Every bush might hide a man, and the ranks of low oaks stood like giants guarding the hollow black paths that wound between them. Les Chouettes, the only habitation near, lay a mile away below the vineyards. The high-road to Paris might be reached by one of the narrow roads that crossed the heath not far away.
When they came to the edge of the open ground, near a grove of oaks plunged in bracken, with a few crumbling walls beyond it where a farm had once stood, Simon halted his party and whistled. He seemed to expect a reply, but got none. After waiting a few minutes, whistling again, exclaiming impatiently, he beckoned one of the other men and they walked away together towards the road.