They believed that by delivering up Lacheneur to the authorities, they might obtain pardon for themselves.
Neither of these men would have consented to receive a single sou of the money promised to the betrayer; but to exchange their life and liberty for the life and liberty of Lacheneur did not seem to them a culpable act, under the circ.u.mstances.
"For did he not deceive us?" they said to themselves.
They decided, at last, that as soon as they had finished their supper, they would go to Saint-Jean-de-Coche and inform the Piedmontese guards.
But they reckoned without their host.
They had spoken loud enough to be overheard by Balstain, the innkeeper, who had learned, during the day, of the magnificent reward which had been promised to Lacheneur"s captor.
When he heard the name of the guest who was sleeping quietly under his roof, a thirst for gold seized him. He whispered a word to his wife, then escaped through the window to run and summon the gendarmes.
He had been gone half an hour before the peasants left the house; for to muster up courage for the act they were about to commit they had been obliged to drink heavily.
They closed the door so violently on going out that Lacheneur was awakened by the noise. He sprang up, and came out into the adjoining room.
The wife of the innkeeper was there alone.
"Where are my friends?" he asked, anxiously. "Where is your husband?"
Moved by sympathy, the woman tried to falter some excuse, but finding none, she threw herself at his feet, crying:
"Fly, Monsieur, save yourself--you are betrayed!"
Lacheneur rushed back into the other room, seeking a weapon with which he could defend himself, an issue through which he could flee!
He had thought that they might abandon him, but betray him--no, never!
"Who has sold me?" he asked, in a strained, unnatural voice.
"Your friends--the two men who supped there at that table."
"Impossible, Madame, impossible!"
He did not suspect the designs and hopes of his former comrades; and he could not, he would not believe them capable of ign.o.bly betraying him for gold.
"But," pleaded the innkeeper"s wife, still on her knees before him, "they have just started for Saint-Jean-de-Coche, where they will denounce you. I heard them say that your life would purchase theirs.
They have certainly gone to summon the gendarmes! Is this not enough, or am I obliged to endure the shame of confessing that my own husband, too, has gone to betray you."
Lacheneur understood it all now! And this supreme misfortune, after all the misery he had endured, broke him down completely.
Great tears gushed from his eyes, and sinking down into a chair, he murmured:
"Let them come; I am ready for them. No, I will not stir from here. My miserable life is not worth such a struggle."
But the wife of the traitor rose, and grasping the unfortunate man"s clothing, she shook him, she dragged him to the door--she would have carried him had she possessed sufficient strength.
"You shall not remain here," said she, with extraordinary vehemence.
"Fly, save yourself. You shall not be taken here; it will bring misfortune upon our house!"
Bewildered by these violent adjurations, and urged on by the instinct of self-preservation, so powerful in every human heart, Lacheneur stepped out upon the threshold.
The night was very dark, and a chilling fog intensified the gloom.
"See, Madame," said the poor fugitive gently, "how can I find my way through these mountains, which I do not know, and where there are no roads--where the foot-paths are scarcely discernible."
With a quick movement Balstain"s wife pushed Lacheneur out, and turning him as one does a blind man to set him on the right track:
"Walk straight before you," said she, "always against the wind. G.o.d will protect you. Farewell!"
He turned to ask further directions, but she had re-entered the house and closed the door.
Upheld by a feverish excitement, he walked for long hours. He soon lost his way, and wandered on through the mountains, benumbed with cold, stumbling over rocks, sometimes falling.
Why he was not precipitated to the depths of some chasm it is difficult to explain.
He lost all idea of his whereabouts, and the sun was high in the heavens when he at last met a human being of whom he could inquire his way.
It was a little shepherd-boy, in pursuit of some stray goats, whom he encountered; but the lad, frightened by the wild and haggard appearance of the stranger, at first refused to approach.
The offer of a piece of money induced him to come a little nearer.
"You are on the summit of the mountain, Monsieur," said he; "and exactly on the boundary line. Here is France; there is Savoy."
"And what is the nearest village?"
"On the Savoyard side, Saint-Jean-de-Coche; on the French side, Saint-Pavin."
So after all his terrible exertions, Lacheneur was not a league from the inn.
Appalled by this discovery, he remained for a moment undecided which course to pursue.
What did it matter? Why should the doomed hesitate? Do not all roads lead to the abyss into which they must sink?
He remembered the gendarmes that the innkeeper"s wife had warned him against, and slowly and with great difficulty descended the steep mountainside leading down to France.
He was near Saint-Pavin, when, before an isolated cottage, he saw a pretty peasant woman spinning in the sunshine.
He dragged himself toward her, and in weak tones begged her hospitality.
On seeing this man, whose face was ghastly pale, and whose clothing was torn and soiled with dust and blood, the woman rose, evidently more surprised than alarmed.
She looked at him closely, and saw that his age, his stature, and his features corresponded with the descriptions of Lacheneur, which had been scattered thickly about the frontier.
"You are the conspirator they are hunting for, and for whom they promise a reward of twenty thousand francs," she said.
Lacheneur trembled.