But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the franc-tireurs were surrounded.
Then Trica.s.se raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the road:
""ca ira! ca ira!""
It was the horrible song of the Terror.
""Que faut-il au Republicain?
Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!
""Du fer pour travailler, Du plomb pour nous venger, Et du pain pour nos freres!""
And the fierce voices sang:
""Dansons la Carmagnole!
Dansons la Carmagnole!
ca ira! ca ira!
Tous les cochons a la lanterne!
ca ira! ca ira!
Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!""
The road trembled under the advancing cavalry; they surged around the bend, a chaos of rearing horses and levelled lances; a ring of fire around the little group of franc-tireurs, a cry from the whirl of flame and smoke:
"France!"
So they died.
XXVIII
THE BRACONNIER
Lorraine had turned ghastly white; Jack"s shocked face was colourless as he drew her away from the ridge with him into the forest. The appalling horror had stunned her; her knees gave way, she stumbled, but Jack held her up by main force, pushing the undergrowth aside and plunging straight on towards the thickest depths of the woods. He had not the faintest idea where he was; he only knew that for the moment it was absolutely necessary for them to get as far away as possible from the Uhlans and their butcher"s work. Lorraine knew it, too; she tried to recover her coolness and her strength.
"Here is another road," she said, faintly; "Jack--I--I am not strong--I am--a--little--faint--" Tears were running over her cheeks.
Jack peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road.
Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.
"Who are you?" came the summons again in French. Jack did not answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip, stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of the slope.
"Hallo!" he called, softly.
Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly and puzzled smile.
"What do you want?" asked Jack, suspiciously.
"Parbleu! what do you want yourself?" asked the peasant, and showed his teeth in a frank laugh.
Jack was silent.
The peasant"s eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her blanched face half hidden under the ma.s.ses of her hair. "Oho!" he said--"a woman!"
Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and close up to Jack.
"Thought you might be one of those German spies," he said. "Is the lady ill? Cur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has happened? I am Brocard--Jean Brocard; they know me here in the forest--"
"Eh!" broke in Jack--"you say you are Brocard the poacher?"
"Hey! That"s it--Brocard, braconnier--at your service. And you are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the little chatelaine De Nesville! Cur Dieu! Have the Prussians brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche--I know you and I know the little chatelaine--oh, I know!--I, who have watched you at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must live! Yes, I am Brocard--I do not lie. I have taken enough game from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?"
He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told him the exact truth, word by word, slowly and without bitterness, his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.
"Cur Dieu!" muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine; "I"ve half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in the hides of these Prussian swine!"
He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.
"I have a guest," he said; "you need not fear him. Come!"
In a dozen steps they entered the low doorway, Brocard leading, Lorraine leaning heavily on Jack"s shoulder.
"Pst! There is a thick-headed Englishman in the next room; let him sleep in peace," murmured Brocard.
He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the little flames began to rustle and snap.
Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms; Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from Lorraine to Brocard.
The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes fixed on the reviving fire.
"Morteyn! Morteyn!" he repeated; "it exists no longer. There are many dead there--dead in the garden, in the court, on the lawn--dead floating in the pond, the river--dead rotting in the thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them--I, Brocard the poacher."
After a moment he resumed:
"There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges; I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game--boars, deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds--I really cannot tell."
He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the next moment, and he continued: "I heard the fusillade on the Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when G.o.d permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Trica.s.se at last. Zut!
C"est embetant! And poor old Pa.s.serat, too--and Brun, and all the rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I--but, no--no! I am doing very well--I, Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way."
An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth--that was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably already sent more than one Prussian to his account.
"That"s all very well," he said, slowly--he had little sympathy with guerilla a.s.sa.s.sination--"but I"d rather hear how you are going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian lines."