To Yvon"s great surprise, the tavern-keeper"s appearance had greatly changed. He was no longer the lean and wiry fellow of before. Now his girth was broad, his cheeks were full, wore a thick black beard and tinkled with the warm color of life and health. Within reach of the tavern-keeper lay a cutla.s.s, a pike and an ax--all red with blood. At his feet an enormous mastiff picked a bone well covered with meat. The spectacle angered the forester. He and his family could have lived a whole day upon the remnants left by the dog; moreover, how did the tavern-keeper manage to procure so large a loin? Cattle had become so dear that only the seigneurs and the ecclesiastics could afford to purchase any; beef cost a hundred gold sous, sheep a hundred silver sous! A sense of hate rose in Yvon"s breast against Gregory whom he had until then looked upon very much as a friend. The forester could not take his eyes from the meat, thinking of the joy of his family if he were to return home loaded with such a booty. For a moment Yvon was tempted to knock at the door of the serf and demand a share, at least the chunks thrown at the dog. But judging the tavern-keeper by himself, and noticing, moreover, that the former was well armed, he reflected that in days like those bread and meat were more precious than gold and silver; to request Gregory the Hollow-bellied to yield a part of his supper was folly; he would surely refuse, and if force was attempted he would kill the intruder. These thoughts rapidly succeeded one another in Yvon"s troubled brain. To add to his dilemma, his presence was scented by the mastiff who, at first, growled angrily without, however, dropping his bone, and then began to bark.
At that moment Gregory was removing the meat from the spit. "What"s the matter, Fillot? Be brave, old boy! We shall defend our supper. You are furnished with good strong jaws and fangs, I with weapons. Fear not. No one will venture to enter. So be still, Fillot! Lie down and keep quiet!" But so far from lying down and keeping quiet, the mastiff dropped his bone, stood up, and approaching the window where Yvon stood, barked louder still. "Oh, oh!" remarked the tavern-keeper depositing the meat in a large wooden platter on the table. "Fillot drops a bone to bark ... there must be someone outside." Yvon stepped quickly back, and from the dark that concealed him he saw Gregory seize his pike, throw the window wide open and leaning out call with a threatening voice: "Who is there? If any one is in search of death, he can find it here." The deed almost running ahead of the thought, Yvon raised his bow, adjusted an arrow and, invisible to Gregory, thanks to the darkness without, took straight aim at the tavern-keeper"s breast. The arrow whizzed; Gregory emitted a cry followed by a prolonged groan; his head and bust fell over the window-sill, and his pike dropped on the snow-covered ground. Yvon quickly seized the weapon. It was done none too soon. The furious mastiff leaped out of the window over his dead master"s shoulders and made a bound at the forester. A thrust of the pike nailed the faithful brute to the ground. Yvon had committed the murder with the ferocity of a famished wolf. He appeased his hunger. The dizziness that had a.s.sailed his head vanished, his reason returned, and he found himself alone in the tavern with a still large piece of meat beside him,--more than half of the original chunk.
Feeling as if he just woke from a dream, Yvon looked around and felt frozen to the marrow. The light emitted by the hearth enabled him to see distinctly among the b.l.o.o.d.y remnants near where the mastiff had been gnawing his bone, a human hand and the trunk of a human arm. Horrified as he was, Yvon approached the bleeding members.
There was no doubt. Before him lay the remains of a human body. The surprising girth that Gregory the Hollow-bellied had suddenly developed came to his mind. The mystery was explained. Nourished by human flesh, the monster had been feeding on the travelers who stopped at his place.
The roast that had just been hungrily swallowed by Yvon proceeded from a recent murder. The forester"s hair stood on end; he dare not look towards the table where still lay the remains of his cannibal supper. He wondered how his mouth did not reject the food. But that first and cultivated sense of horror being over, the forester could not but admit to himself that the meat he had just gulped down differed little from beef. The thought started a poignant reflection: "My son, his wife and children are at this very hour undergoing the tortures of hunger; mine has been satisfied by this food; however abominable it may be, I shall carry off the rest; the same as I was at first ignorant of what it was that I ate, my family shall not know the nature of the dish.... I shall at least have saved them for a day!" The reasoning matured into resolution.
As Yvon was about to quit the tavern with his load of human flesh, the gale that had been howling without and now found entrance through the window, violently threw open the door of a closet connecting with the room he was in. The odor of a charnel house immediately a.s.sailed the forester"s nostrils. He ran to the hearth, picked up a flaming brand, and looked into the closet. Its naked walls were bespattered with blood; in a corner lay a heap of dried twigs and leaves used for kindling a fire and from beneath them protruded a foot and part of a leg. Yvon scattered the heap of kindling material with his feet ... they hid a recently mutilated corpse. The penetrating smell obviously escaped from a lower vault. Yvon noticed a trap door. Raising it, there rose so putrid an odor that he staggered back; but driven despite himself to carry his investigation to the end, he approached the flaming brand to the opening and discovered below a cavern that was almost filled with bones, heads and other human members, the b.l.o.o.d.y remnants of the travelers whom Gregory the Hollow-bellied had lived upon. In order to put an end to the horrible spectacle, Yvon hurled his flaming brand into the mortuary cellar; it was immediately extinguished; for a moment the forester remained in the dark; he then stepped back into the main room; and overcoming a fresh a.s.sault of human scruple, darted out with the remains of the roast in his bag, thinking only of his famishing family.
Without, the gale blew violently; its rage seemed to increase. The moon, then at its fullest, cast enough light, despite the whirls of snow, to guide Yvon"s steps. He struck the road to the Fountain of the Hinds in haste, moving with firm though rapid strides. The infernal food he had just partaken of returned to him his pristine strength. About two leagues from his hut, he stopped, struck with a sudden thought. The mastiff he had killed was enormous, fleshy and fat. It could furnish his family with food for at least three or four days. Why had he forgotten to bring it along? Yvon turned back to the tavern, long though the road was. As he approached the house of Gregory he noticed a great brilliancy from afar and across the falling snow. The light proceeded from the door and window of the tavern. Only two hours before when he left, the hearth was extinct and the place dark. Could someone have gone in afterwards and rekindled the fire? Yvon crept near the house hoping to carry off the dog without attracting notice, but voices reached him saying:
"Friends, let us wait till the dog is well roasted."
"I"m hungry! Devilish hungry!"
"So am I ... but I have more patience than you, who would have eaten the dainty raw.... Pheu! What a smell comes from that charnel room! And yet the door and window are open!"
"Never mind the smell!... I"m hungry!"
"So, then, Master Gregory the Hollow-bellied slaughtered the travelers to rob them, I suppose.... One of them must have been beforehand with him and killed him.... But the devil take the tavern-keeper! His dog is now roasted. Let"s eat!"
"Let"s eat!"
CHAPTER V.
THE DELIRIUM OF STARVATION.
Too old a man to think of contesting the spoils for which he had returned to Gregory"s tavern, Yvon hurried back home and reached his hut towards midnight.
On entering, a torch of resinous wood, fastened near the wall by an iron ring, lighted a heart-rending spectacle. Stretched out near the hearth lay Den-Brao, his face covered by his mason"s jacket; himself expiring of inanition, he wished to escape the sight of the agony of his family.
His wife, Gervaise, so thin that the bones of her face could be counted, was on her knees near a straw pallet where Julyan lay in convulsions.
Almost fainting, Gervaise struggled with her son who was alternately crying with fury and with pain and in the frenzy of starvation sought to apply its teeth to his own arms. Nominoe, the elder, lay flat on his face, on the pallet with his brother. He would have been taken for dead but for the tremor that from time to time ran over his frame still more emaciated than his brother"s. Finally Jeannette, about three years old, murmured in her cradle with a dying voice: "Mother ... I am hungry.... I am hungry!"
At the sound of Yvon"s steps, Gervaise turned her head: "Father!" said she in despair, "if you bring nothing with you, I shall kill my children to shorten their agony ... and then myself!"
Yvon threw down his bow and took his bag from his shoulders. Gervaise judged from its size and obvious weight that it was full. She wrenched it from Yvon"s hands with savage impatience, thrust her hand in it, pulled out the chunk of roasted meat and raising it over her head to show it to the whole family cried out in a quivering voice: "Meat!...
Oh, we shall not yet die! Den-Brao.... Children!... Meat!... Meat!" At these words Den-Brao sat up precipitately; Nominoe, too feeble to rise, turned on his pallet and stretched out his eager hands to his mother; little Jeannette eagerly looked up from her cradle; while Julyan, whom his mother was not now holding, neither heard nor saw aught but was biting into his arms in the delirium of starvation, unnoticed by either Yvon or any other member of the family. All eyes were fixed upon Gervaise, who running to a table and taking a knife sliced off the meat crying: "Meat!... Meat!"
"Give me!... Give me!" cried Den-Brao, stretching out his emaciated arms, and he devoured in an instant the piece that he received.
"You next, Jeannette!" said Gervaise, throwing a slice to the little girl who uttered a cry of joy, while her mother herself, yielding to the cravings of starvation bit off mouthfuls from the slice that she reached out to her oldest son, Nominoe, who, like the rest, pounced upon the prey, and fell to eating in silent voracity. "And now, you, Julyan,"
continued Gervaise. The lad made no answer. His mother stooped down over him: "Julyan, do not bite your arm! Here is meat, dear boy!" But his elder brother, Nominoe, having swallowed up his own slice, brusquely seized that which his mother was tendering to Julyan. Seeing that the latter continued motionless, Gervaise insisted: "My child, take your arm from your teeth!" But hardly had she p.r.o.nounced these words than, turning towards Yvon, she cried: "Come here, father.... His arm is icy and rigid ... so rigid that I cannot withdraw it from his jaws."
Yvon rushed to the pallet where Julyan lay. The little boy had expired in the convulsion of hunger, although less unfeebled than his brother and sister. "Step aside," Yvon said to Gervaise; "step aside!" She realized that Julyan was dead, obeyed Yvon"s orders and went on to eat.
But her hunger being appeased, she approached her son"s corpse and sobbed aloud:
"My poor little Julyan!" she lamented. "Oh, my dear child! You died of hunger!... A few minutes longer and you would have had something to eat like the others ... at least for to-day!"
"Where did you get this roast, father?" asked Den-Brao.
"I found the tracks of a buck," answered Yvon dropping his eyes; "I followed the animal but failed to come up to it. In that way I went as far as the tavern of Gregory the Hollow-bellied. He was at supper.... I shared his repast, and he gave me what you have just eaten."
"Such a gift! and in days of famine, father! in such days when only seigneurs and the clergy do not suffer of hunger!"
"I made the tavern-keeper sympathize with our distress," Yvon answered brusquely, and, in order to put an end to the subject he added: "I am worn out with fatigue; I must rest," saying which he walked into the contiguous room to stretch himself out on his couch, while his son and daughter remained on their knees near the body of little Julyan. The other two children fell asleep, still saying they were hungry. After a long and troubled sleep, Yvon woke up. It was day. Gervaise and her husband still knelt near Julyan. His brother and sister were saying: "Mother, give us something to eat; we are hungry!"
"Later, dear little ones," answered the unhappy woman to console them; "later you shall have something to eat."
Den-Brao raised his head and asked: "Where are you going, father?"
"I am going to dig the grave of my little grandson.... I wish to save you the sad task."
"Dig ours also, father," Den-Brao replied with a dejected mien. "We shall all die to-night. For a moment allayed, our hunger will rise more violent than last night ... dig a wide grave for us all."
"Despair not, my children. It has stopped snowing. I may be able to find again the traces of the buck."
Yvon picked up a spade with which to dig Julyan"s grave near where the boy"s great-grandfather, Leduecq, lay buried. Near the place was a heap of dead branches that had been gathered shortly before by the woodsmen serfs to turn into coal. After the grave was dug, Yvon left his spade near it and as the snow had ceased falling he started anew in pursuit of the buck. It was in vain. Nowhere were the animal"s tracks to be seen.
It grew night with the prospect of a long darkness, seeing the moon would not rise until late. Yvon was reminded by the pangs of hunger, that began to a.s.sail him, that in his hut the sufferings must have returned. A spectacle, even more distressing than that of the previous night now awaited him--the convulsive cries of starving children, the moaning of their mother, the woe-begone looks and dejectment of his son who lay on the floor awaiting death, and reproaching Yvon for having prolonged his own and the sufferings of his family with their lives.
Such was the prostration of these wretched beings that, without turning their heads to Yvon, or even addressing a single word to him, they let him carry out the corpse of the deceased child.
An hour later Yvon re-entered his hut. It was pitch dark; the hearth was cold. None had even the spirit to light a resin torch. Hollow and spasmodic rattlings were heard from the throats of those within.
Suddenly Gervaise jumped up and groped her way in the dark towards Yvon crying: "I smell roast meat ... just as last night ... we shall not die!... Den-Brao, your father has brought some more meat!... Come, children, come for your share.... A light quick!"
"No, no! We want no light!" Yvon cried in a tremulous voice. "Take!"
said he to Gervaise, who was tugging at the bag on his shoulders.
"Take!... Divide this venison among yourselves, and eat in the dark!"
The wretched family devoured the meat in the dark; their hunger and feebleness did not allow them to ask what kind of meat it was. But Yvon fled from the hut almost crazed with horror. Abomination! His family was again feeding upon human flesh!
CHAPTER VI.
THE FLIGHT TO ANJOU.
Long, aimless, distracted, Yvon wandered about the forest. A severe frost had succeeded the fall of snow that covered every inch of the ground. The moon shone brilliantly in the crisp air. The forester felt chilled; in despair he threw himself down at the foot of a tree, determined there to await death.
The torpor of death by freezing was creeping upon the mind of the heart-broken serf when, suddenly, the crackling of branches that announce the pa.s.sage of game fell upon his ears and revived him with the promise of life. The animal could not be more than fifty paces away.
Unfortunately Yvon had left his bow and arrows in his hut. "It is the buck! Oh, this time I shall kill him!" he murmured to himself. His revived will-power now dominated the exhaustion of his forces, and it was strong enough to cause him to lose no time in vain regrets at not having his hunting arms with him, now when the prey would be certain.
The crackling of the branches drew nearer. Yvon found himself under a clump of large and old oaks, a little distance away was the thick copse through which the animal was then pa.s.sing. He rose up and planted himself motionless close to and along the trunk of the tree at the foot of which he had thrown himself down. Covered by the tree"s thickness and the shadow that it threw, with his neck extended, his eyes and ears on the alert, the serf took his long forester"s knife between his teeth and waited. After several minutes of mortal suspense--the buck might get the wind of him or come from cover beyond his reach--Yvon heard the animal approach, then stop an instant close behind the tree against which he had glued his back. The tree concealed Yvon from the eyes of the animal, but it also prevented him from seeing the prey that he breathlessly lay in wait for. Presently, six feet from Yvon and to the right, he saw plainly sketched upon the snow, that the light of the moon rendered brilliant, the shape of the buck and the wide antlers that crowned his head. Yvon stopped breathing and remained motionless so long as the shadow stood still. A moment later the shadow began to steal towards him, and with a prodigious bound Yvon rushed at and seized the animal by the horns. The buck was large and struggled vigorously; but clambering himself around the horns with his left arm, Yvon plunged his knife with his right hand into the animal"s throat. The buck rolled over him and expired, while Yvon, with his mouth fastened to the wound, pumped up and swallowed the blood that flowed in a thick stream.
The warm and healthy blood strengthened and revivified the serf.... He had not eaten since the previous night.