At last the innkeeper cried with an oath, "I am going back. This must be known down yonder. Give me your pieces, man, and do you go on with Antoine. It will be all right."
But Clon, waving a sc.r.a.p of the stuff in either hand, and thrusting his ghastly mask into the other"s face, shook his head in pa.s.sionate denial.
He could not speak, but he made it as clear as daylight that if anyone went back with the news, he was the man to go.
"Nonsense!" the landlord rejoined fiercely, "We cannot leave Antoine to go on alone with him. Give me the stuff."
But Clon would not. He had no thought of resigning the credit of the discovery; and I began to think that the two would really come to blows.
But there was an alternative--an alternative in which I was concerned; and first one and then the other looked at me. It was a moment of peril, and I knew it. My stratagem might react on myself, and the two, to put an end to their difficulty, agree to put an end to me. But I faced them so coolly, and showed so bold a front, and the ground where we stood was so open, that the idea took no root. They fell to wrangling again more viciously than before. One tapped his gun and the other his pistols. The landlord scolded, the dumb man gurgled. At last their difference ended as I had hoped it would.
"Very well then, we will both go back!" the innkeeper cried in a rage.
"And Antoine must see him on. But the blame be on your head. Do you give the lad your pistols."
Clon took one pistol, and gave it to the shock-headed man.
"The other!" the innkeeper said impatiently.
But Clon shook his head with a grim smile, and pointed to the arquebuss.
By a sudden movement, the landlord s.n.a.t.c.hed the pistol, and averted Clon"s vengeance by placing both it and the gun in the shock-headed man"s hands.
"There!" he said, addressing the latter, "now can you do? If Monsieur tries to escape or turn back, shoot him! But four hours" riding should bring you to the Roca Blanca. You will find the men there, and will have no more to do with it."
Antoine did not see things quite in that light, however. He looked at me, and then at the wild track in front of us; and he muttered an oath and said he would die if he would.
But the landlord, who was in a frenzy of impatience, drew him aside and talked to him, and in the end seemed to persuade him; for in a few minutes the matter was settled.
Antoine came back, and said sullenly, "Forward, Monsieur," the two others stood on one side, I shrugged my shoulders and kicked up my horse, and in a twinkling we two were riding on together--man to man.
I turned once or twice to see what those we had left behind were doing, and always found them standing in apparent debate; but my guard showed so much jealousy of these movements that I presently shrugged my shoulders again and desisted.
I had racked my brains to bring about this state of things. Strange to say, now I had succeeded, I found it less satisfactory than I had hoped.
I had reduced the odds and got rid of my most dangerous antagonists; but Antoine, left to himself, proved to be as full of suspicion as an egg of meat. He rode a little behind me, with his gun across his saddlebow, and a pistol near his hand; and at the slightest pause on my part, or if I turned to look at him, he muttered his constant "Forward, Monsieur!"
in a tone which warned me that his finger was on the trigger. At such a distance he could not miss; and I saw nothing for it but to go on meekly before him to the Roca Blanca--and my fate.
What was to be done? The road presently reached the end of the valley and entered a narrow pine-clad defile, strewn with rocks and boulders, over which the torrent plunged and eddied with a deafening roar. In front the white gleam of waterfalls broke the sombre ranks of climbing trunks. The snow line lay less than half a mile away on either hand; and crowning all--at the end of the pa.s.s, as it seemed to the eye--rose the pure white pillar of the Pic du Midi shooting up six thousand feet into the blue of heaven. Such a scene so suddenly disclosed, was enough to drive the sense of danger from my mind; and for a moment I reined in my horse. But "Forward, Monsieur!" came the grating order. I fell to earth again, and went on. What was to be done?
I was at my wits" end to know. The man refused to talk, refused to ride abreast of me, would have no dismounting, no halting, no communication at all. He would have nothing but this silent, lonely procession of two, with the muzzle of his gun at my back. And meanwhile we were fast climbing the pa.s.s. We had left the others an hour--nearly two. The sun was declining; the time, I supposed, about half-past three.
If he would only let me come within reach of him! Or if anything would fall out to take his attention! When the pa.s.s presently widened into a bare and dreary valley, strewn with huge boulders and with snow lying here and there in the hollows, I looked desperately before me, and scanned even the vast snow-fields that overhung us and stretched away to the base of the ice-peak. But I saw nothing. No bear swung across the path, no izard showed itself on the cliffs. The keen, sharp air cut our cheeks and warned me that we were approaching the summit of the ridge.
On all sides were silence and desolation.
MON DIEU! And the ruffians on whose tender mercies I was to be thrown might come to meet us! They might appear at any moment. In my despair I loosened my hat on my head, and let the first gust carry it to the ground, and then with an oath of annoyance tossed my feet from the stirrups to go after it. But the rascal roared to me to keep my seat.
"Forward, Monsieur!" he shouted brutally. "Go on!"
"But my hat!" I cried. "MILLE TONNERRES, man! I must--"
"Forward, Monsieur, or I shoot!" he replied inexorably raising his gun.
"One--two--"
And I went on. But, ah, I was wrathful! That I, Gil de Berault, should be outwitted, and led by the nose like a ringed bull, by this Gascon lout! That I, whom all Paris knew and feared--if it did not love--the terror of Zaton"s, should come to my end in this dismal waste of snow and rock, done to death by some pitiful smuggler or thief! It must not be. Surely in the last resort I could give an account of one man, though his belt were stuffed with pistols.
But how? Only, it seemed, by open force. My heart began to flutter as I planned it; and then grew steady again. A hundred paces before us a gully or ravine on the left ran up into the snow-field. Opposite its mouth a jumble of stones and broken rocks covered the path, I marked this for the place. The knave would need both his hands to hold up his nag over the stones, and, if I turned on him suddenly enough, he might either drop his gun or fire it harmlessly.
But, in the meantime, something happened; as, at the last moment, things do happen. While we were still fifty yards short of the place, I found his horse"s nose creeping forward on a level with my crupper; and, still advancing, still advancing, until I could see it out of the tail of my eye, and my heart gave a great bound. He was coming abreast of me: he was going to deliver himself into my hands! To cover my excitement, I began to whistle.
"Hush!" he muttered fiercely, his voice sounding so strange and unnatural, that my first thought was that he was ill; and I turned to him. But he only said again,--
"Hush! Pa.s.s by here quietly, Monsieur."
"Why?" I asked mutinously, curiosity getting the better of me. For had I been wise I had taken no notice; every second his horse was coming up with mine. Its nose was level with my stirrup already.
"Hush, man!" he said again. This time there was no mistake about the panic in his voice. "They call this the Devil"s Chapel, G.o.d send us safe by it! It is late to be here. Look at those!" he continued, pointing with a finger which visibly shook.
I looked. At the mouth of the gully, in a small s.p.a.ce partly cleared of stones, stood three broken shafts, raised on rude pedestals.
"Well?" I said in a low voice. The sun, which was near setting, flushed the great peak above to the colour of blood; but the valley was growing grey and each moment more dreary. "Well, what of those?" I said.
In spite of my peril and the excitement of the coming struggle I felt the chill of his fear. Never had I seen so grim, so desolate, so G.o.d-forsaken a place! Involuntarily I shivered.
"They were crosses," he muttered in a voice little above a whisper, while his eyes roved this way and that in terror. "The Cure of Gabas blessed the place, and set them up. But next morning they were as you see them now. Come on, Monsieur; come on!" he continued, plucking at my arm. "It is not safe here after sunset. Pray G.o.d, Satan be not at home!"
He had completely forgotten in his panic that he had anything to fear from me. His gun dropped loosely across his saddle, his leg rubbed mine.
I saw this, and I changed my plan of action. As our horses reached the stones I stooped, as if to encourage mine, and, with a sudden clutch, s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun bodily from his hand, at the same time that I backed my horse with all my strength. It was done in a moment! A second and I had him at the end of the gun, and my finger was on the trigger. Never was victory more easily gained.
He looked at me between rage and terror, his jaw fallen.
"Are you mad?" he cried, his teeth chattering as he spoke. Even in this strait his eyes left me and wandered round in alarm.
"No, sane!" I retorted fiercely. "But I do not like this place any better than you do." Which was true enough, if not quite true. "So, by your right, quick march!" I continued imperatively. "Turn your horse, my friend, or take the consequences."
He turned like a lamb, and headed down the valley again, without giving a thought to his pistols. I kept close to him, and in less than a minute we had left the Devil"s Chapel well behind us, and were moving down again as we had come up. Only now I held the gun.
When we had gone have a mile or so--until then I did not feel comfortable myself, and though I thanked heaven that the place existed, I thanked heaven also that I was out of it--I bade him halt.
"Take off your belt," I said curtly, "and throw it down. But, mark me, if you turn I fire."
The spirit was quite gone out of him, and he obeyed mechanically. I jumped down, still covering him with the gun, and picked up the belt, pistols and all. Then I remounted, and we went on. By-and-by he asked me sullenly what I was going to do.
"Go back," I said, "and take the road to Auch when I come to it."
"It will be dark in an hour," he answered sulkily.
"I know that," I retorted. "We must camp and do the best we can."
And as I said, we did. The daylight held until we gained the skirts of the pine-wood at the head of the pa.s.s. Here I chose a corner a little off the track, and well sheltered from the wind, and bade him light a fire. I tethered the horses near this and within sight. Then it remained only to sup. I had a piece of bread: he had another and an onion. We ate in silence, sitting on opposite sides of the fire.
But after supper I found myself in a dilemma; I did not see how I was to sleep. The ruddy light which gleamed on the knave"s swart face and sinewy hands showed also his eyes, black, sullen, and watchful. I knew that the man was plotting revenge; that he would not hesitate to plant his knife between my ribs should I give him the chance; and I could find only one alternative to remaining awake. Had I been b.l.o.o.d.y-minded, I should have chosen it and solved the question at once and in my favour by shooting him as he sat.