We nodded sleepily but gravely.
Byram appeared to have recovered something of his buoyancy and native optimism.
"Gentlemen," he said, "let"s kinder saunter over to the inn and have a night-cap with Kelly Eyre."
This unusual and expensive suggestion startled us wide awake, but we were only too glad to acquiesce in anything which tended to raise his spirits or ours. Dog tired but smiling we rose; Byram, in his shirt-sleeves and suspenders, wearing his silk hat on the back of his head, led the way, fanning his perspiring face with a red-and-yellow bandanna.
"Luck," said Byram, waving his cigar toward the new moon, "is bound to turn one way or t"other--like my camuel. Sometimes, resemblin" the camuel, luck will turn on you. Look out it don"t bite you. I once made up a piece about luck:
""Don"t buck Bad luck Or you"ll get stuck--"
I disremember the rest, but it went on to say a few other words to that effec"."
The lighted door of the inn hung ajar as we crossed the star-lit square; Byram entered and stood a moment in the doorway, stroking his chin. "Bong joor the company!" he said, lifting his battered hat.
The few Bretons in the wine-room returned his civility; he glanced about and his eye fell on Kelly Eyre, Speed"s a.s.sistant balloonist, seated by the window with Horan.
"Well, gents," said Byram, hopefully, "an" what aire the prospects of smilin" fortune when rosy-fingered dawn has came again to kiss us back to life?"
"Rotten," said Eyre, pushing a telegram across the oak table.
Byram"s face fell; he picked up the telegram and fumbled in his coat for his spectacles with unsteady hand.
"Let me read it, governor," said Speed, and took the blue paper from Byram"s unresisting, stubby fingers.
"O-ho!" he muttered, scanning the message; "well--well, it"s not so bad as all that--" He turned abruptly on Kelly Eyre--"What the devil are you scaring the governor for?"
"Well, he"s got to be told--I didn"t mean to worry him," said Eyre, stammering, ashamed of his thoughtlessness.
"Now see here, governor," said Speed, "let"s all have a drink first.
He ma belle!"--to the big Breton girl knitting in the corner--"four little swallows of eau-de-vie, if you please! Ah, thank you, I knew you were from Bannalec, where all the girls are as clever as they are pretty! Come, governor, touch gla.s.ses! There is no circus but the circus, and Byram is it"s prophet! Drink, gentlemen!"
But his forced gayety was ominous; we scarcely tasted the liqueur.
Byram wiped his brow and squared his bent shoulders. Speed, elbows on the table, sat musing and twirling his half-empty gla.s.s.
"Well, sir?" said Byram, in a low voice.
"Well, governor? Oh--er--the telegram?" asked Speed, like a man fighting for time.
"Yes, the telegram," said Byram, patiently.
"Well, you see they have just heard of the terrible smash-up in the north, governor. Metz has surrendered with Bazaine"s entire army. And they"re naturally frightened at Lorient.... And I rather fear that the Germans are on their way toward the coast.... And ... well ... they won"t let us pa.s.s the Lorient fortifications."
"Won"t let us in?" cried Byram, hoa.r.s.ely.
"I"m afraid not, governor."
Byram stared at us. We had counted on Lorient to pull us through as far as the frontier.
"Now don"t take it so hard, governor," said Kelly Eyre; "I was frightened myself, at first, but I"m ashamed of it now. We"ll pull through, anyhow."
"Certainly," said Speed, cheerily, "we"ll just lay up here for a few days and economize. Why can"t we try one performance here, Scarlett?"
"We can," said I. "We"ll drum up the whole district from Pontivy to Auray and from Penmarch Point to Plouharnel! Why should the Breton peasantry not come? Don"t they walk miles to the Pardons?"
A gray pallor settled on Byram"s sunken face; with it came a certain dignity which sorrow sometimes brings even to men like him.
"Young gentlemen," he said, "I"m obliged to you. These here reverses come to everybody, I guess. The Lord knows best; but if He"ll just lemme run my show a leetle longer, I"ll pay my debts an" say, "Thy will be done, amen!""
"We all must learn to say that, anyway," said Speed.
"Mebbe," muttered Byram, "but I must pay my debts."
After a painful silence he rose, steadying himself with his hand on Eyre"s broad shoulder, and shambled out across the square, muttering something about his elephant and his camuel.
Speed paid the insignificant bill, emptied his gla.s.s, and nodded at me.
"It"s all up," he said, soberly.
"Let"s come back to camp and talk it over," I said.
Together we traversed the square under the stars, and entered the field of clover. In the dim, smoky camp all lights were out except one oil-drenched torch stuck in the ground between the two tents. Byram had gone to rest, so had Kelly Eyre. But my lions were awake, moving noiselessly to and fro, eyes shining in the dusk; and the elephant, a shapeless pile of shadow against the sky, stood watching us with little, evil eyes.
Speed had some cigarettes, and he laid the pink package on the table.
I lighted one when he did.
"Do you really think there"s a chance?" he asked, presently.
"I don"t know," I said.
"Well, we can try."
"Oh yes."
Speed dropped his elbows on the table. "Poor old governor," he said.
Then he began to talk of our own prospects, which were certainly obscure if not alarming; but he soon gave up speculation as futile, and grew reminiscent, recalling our first acquaintance as discharged soldiers from the African battalions, our hand-to-mouth existence as gentlemen farmers in Algiers, our bankruptcy and desperate struggle in Ma.r.s.eilles, first as dock-workmen, then as government horse-buyers for the cavalry, then as employes of the Hippodrome in Paris, where I finally settled down as bareback rider, lion-tamer, and instructor in the haute-ecole; and he accepted a salary as aid to Monsieur Gaston Tissandier, the scientist, who was experimenting with balloons at Saint-Cloud.
He spoke, too, of our enlistment in the Imperial Police, and the hopes we had of advancement, which not only brought no response from me, but left us both brooding sullenly on our wrongs, crouched there over the rough camp-table under the stars.
"Oh, h.e.l.l!" muttered Speed, "I"m going to bed."
But he did not move. Presently he said, "How did you ever come to handle wild animals?"
"I"ve always been fond of animals; I broke colts at home; I had bear cubs and other things. Then, in Algiers, the regiment caught a couple of lions and kept them in a cage, and--well, I found I could do what I liked with them."
"They"re afraid of your eyes, aren"t they?"
"I don"t know--perhaps it"s that; I can"t explain it--or, rather, I could partly explain it by saying that I am not afraid of them. But I never trust them."