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V

The Comte de Saint-Armel had walked, at varying rates of progression, for nearly two hours; he had eluded the vigilance of his hosts, who, to be sure, expected nothing less than to see him out of doors, and he had, by circuitous routes, covered a good part of the distance between himself and the hiding-place he had in mind. Many things now warned him that he could not accomplish the impossible; nothing indeed but his indomitable will had carried him so far. In the brilliant, merciless sunshine he now stood at the top of a small eminence, and knew that he could go no further. After all, it was as good a place to stop as any. The gorse bushes which covered the gentle slope were thick, tangled, and in many places of the height of a man; in the middle, round a few stunted firs, there stretched a small clearing. Hervé crossed it. His head ached consumedly; his legs seemed to be made alternately of lead and of paper, and it was with almost a cessation of consciousness that he sank down under the shadow of a large gorse bush. The clearing stretched away on his left, and what instinct still remained to him warned him that it was far safer to lie down, cramped though he might be, in among the bushes rather than on their edge, but he was too spent at the moment to care for safety. He stretched himself out at full length; “I will move in a few moments,” he thought . . . and in less than five minutes had sunk into the deep slumber of fatigue and convalescence.

The insects hummed over the gorse; the air vibrated with heat; dry pods exploded; a rabbit ran across the opening. Nothing of these did l’Invincible hear, as, tired to death, he lay slackly with outspread arms near the great gorse bush. Nor did he even hear the slight crackle of sticks and rustle of the gorse as two men in the blue and white uniform pressed cautiously through it on the other side of the clearing. They stopped dead like pointers when they saw him, and while one brought his musket to his shoulder and covered the sleeping man, the other turned and signed to his comrades behind. . . .

Hence Saint-Armel came back to waking life to find himself pinned down as he lay, with a grenadier clutching each arm and wrist and an officer standing over him sword in hand.

“Don’t move, Chouan!” said the latter grimly, and put his point on Hervé’s breast.

The Royalist did not attempt to move, but looked steadily up at his captors and cursed, not fate, but his own choice of a resting-place. But it was too late now for self-recrimination.

“What is your name?”

“I do not understand,” replied Hervé in Breton.

“What does he say?” demanded the officer.

“He says he doesn’t understand, mon lieutenant,” replied one of the soldiers.

“Cursed patois! Ask him then in his own language who he is, and if he knows where l’Invincible is.”

To these questions Hervé, still lying helpless, replied that his name was Fleur d’Epine and that he knew nothing of l’Invincible’s whereabouts.

“I suppose I shall get nothing out of him,” remarked the officer angrily. “The obstinacy of these Bretons is incredible. I dare wager that all the time he knows French as well as I do. Make him get up, Lenormant, and search him. If he makes the least movement to escape shoot him down.”

The two soldiers pulled Hervé to his feet, and under the levelled muskets of a couple more he submitted with a fine outward indifference to a systematic search. There was nothing in his pockets except a hunch of bread, half a sheet of assignats for five livres, and Marie’s little medal of Notre Dame du Folgoët. The man who had his coat searched the lining without success and threw it angrily down, while the medal passed contemptuously from hand to hand.

“Tie him up,” said the lieutenant briefly at the conclusion of the operation, and Saint-Armel’s arms were firmly lashed behind him with belts. His great object being to conceal his identity, he thanked Fate that he was not wearing, as his custom was, a fine cambric shirt beneath his peasant’s attire, for as he was now stripped to that garment the anomaly would have been patent to the eye. The lieutenant, running his gaze over his figure, studied his impassive face for a moment longer.

“I believe,” he said suddenly, “that you know quite well where l’Invincible is. If you tell me you shall go free; if you do not tell me, I shall shoot you at once.”

But Hervé was not to be caught thus. Once more he shook his head, and said dully in his patient Breton: “I do not understand.”

The pronouncement being translated to him, he returned his old answer that he knew nothing about l’Invincible. An angry flush mounted to the forehead of the officer, and Hervé saw that his threat was not going to be an idle one.

“I can’t waste time over this fool,” snapped the Republican, “while l’Invincible is probably getting away. Sergeant, draw up six men – over there by the fir-tree will do. Take him over there, Lenormant.”

He turned away, and a grenadier, who had evidently been waiting his opportunity, instantly thrust something under the captive’s gaze. It was Marie le Guerric’s parting gift.

“Where did you get that medal? Answer me!” he demanded, in an almost suffocated voice.

Hervé raised his eyes from that shaking hand to the livid face of a young man about his own age, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Tell me, you – – ” began the soldier still more violently, when one of the others pushed him roughly aside.

“Shut up, Delorme! – Come along, Chouan!”

The firing-party was already assembled. But as for the Comte de Saint-Armel, he could find nothing better to do at that moment than to survey with a sardonic amusement the situation in which he found himself. He was like to die to save his own life. The position demanded a few moments’ reflection. He turned his head and spoke to the man Lenormant.

“What does he say?” asked the officer hopefully.

“He asks that you will allow him five minutes to say his prayers, if you are going to shoot him.”

“Oh, he has grasped that fact, has he?” retorted the officer. “Very well; and tell him to look sharp about it. As he is so soon going to join his bonne Vierge and the rest of them, he need not send off a long petition from a distance.”

So Hervé was marched over to the fir-tree and there, his arms still bound behind him, he knelt down on the hot earth and bent his head. But he was not saying his prayers. “If I persist,” he was thinking, “I am a dead man in five minutes. If I tell them who I am I get a reprieve of a day or two, most probably, till they can take me to Auray and the guillotine. But if they shoot me now, without knowing who I am, Yves and the rest will go on fighting for some time before they guess what has happened. . . . Shall I tell them?” He had a great distaste for the prospect – absurd enough, since he was only betraying himself. He lifted his head, fantastically undecided – and descried a horseman topping the mound not a hundred yards away. He wore Republican uniform and was followed by two more riders.

The arrival of this individual appeared to cause surprise. The men drew themselves up and saluted as, stout and well set-up, he came riding towards them through the gorse.

“What’s this?” he called out as he came within ear-shot. “Prisoner?”

“Yes, mon commandant,” replied the lieutenant respectfully. “I was about to shoot him. He cannot or will not give any information, and I thought – – ”

“Oh, I have no objection on principle,” retorted his superior officer, with a sort of truculent bonhomie. “Only are you sure that you know what you are doing? Stand up, Chouan!” he commanded, urging his horse nearer.

Hervé got to his feet, and, pinioned, defiant, faced the newcomer’s increasingly triumphant scrutiny.

“So he will not say where l’Invincible has gone to! Have you thought of asking him where he got the bullet-wound under that bandage? Have you thought of looking at his hands? I do not think that you will find them a peasant’s. . . .” The stout man swung off his horse with surprising alacrity.

“Untie him,” he said curtly, and, as the prisoner’s arms fell to his sides, he advanced upon him, holding out his hand.

“You carry your reticence a trifle far, Monsieur l’Invincible,” he said, smiling pleasantly. “Or perhaps I should say, Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Armel.”

Hervé looked at him for a moment without moving.

“Oh, we have met before,” said the commandant. “This is a genuine recognition, not a trap. I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance when I was the prisoner of M. de Silz last year.”

Saint-Armel put out his hand. “You come in a good hour, Monsieur le Commandant,” he observed gaily. “That is, unless you propose to uphold M. le Lieutenant’s summary measures.”

“No,” returned the other, with meaning, “I must take you to Auray instead. But as I am dealing with a gentleman I will ask for your parole. I have no wish to tie up a wounded man.”

But l’Invincible shook his head with a smile. “I prefer material bonds.”

“You mean that they are more easily broken?” asked the officer. “I do not think that you will find it so, Monsieur le Comte. I have a carriage and an armed escort waiting for you on the road – you know that we have been hunting for you all day? – and it is kindest to tell you that you are now looking your last on the geographical features which you have utilised with so much success against the Republic.”

Hervé bowed. He did not resent the elation which pierced through his captor’s speech, but he had no mind to stand longer in the sun than was necessary. “I have small doubt that you are right, Monsieur,” he said coolly, and put his hands behind him as a hint that he was ready.

“No, not with those belts, men,” interposed the commandant. “Lieutenant, your scarf! That will be less uncomfortable and quite as efficacious, besides possessing a certain symbolism. . . . I am afraid, Monsieur l’Invincible,” he went on, as the tricolour sash tightened about Hervé’s wrists, “that you must regret our chance interview at M. de Silz’s quarters.”

A tiny half-contemptuous smile twitched at his captive’s mouth.

“I remember regretting at the time that M. de Silz had seen fit to exchange you.”

“Why, what would you have done with me, Monsieur de Saint-Armel?”

“Precisely what you are going to do with me,” answered Hervé dispassionately.