Читать книгу A Fire of Driftwood: A Collection of Short Stories (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - D. K. Broster - Страница 19

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Twenty minutes later it was all over, and Hervé came up the avenue in the midst of his men, giving a word of praise to one, of enquiry to another, and with so much of unusual and but half-contained exultation in his manner, that the words rippled from mouth to mouth: “L’Invincible is pleased with us!” That would have been reward enough for the bloodiest combat; it was more than enough for a momentary brush with an enemy whom they had so easily beaten off.

When they reached the house Saint-Armel made his way to the front, and, running up the steps, lifted his hand. In the other he still carried the remains of his sword, which a Republican bullet had shivered.

“My children, you have done very well. But remember that the night is not yet over. Monsieur le Charron, send the wounded up to the château. Mes gars, I am pleased with you. – Dismiss!”

He saluted them with a smile, and stood there, as he had stood some hours earlier, watching them filing off. When the last man had disappeared he stood there still. The approach of night was filling the air with impalpable incense; a thin slip of a moon, almost lightless, hung timidly over the dark mass of the forest. Down at the foot of the steps old Yves stood motionless, leaning on his musket, and at a little distance de Lage was giving low-voiced orders to a Chouan. The candle-light streamed out from the dining-room, and threw up Madame de Rocquigny’s figure against the window. From the distance the hoot of an owl, that sound almost sacred to the ear of a Chouan, brought a smile to the face of Yves, and, turning his head, he looked up at the figure of his young leader on the steps. Hervé, who understood perfectly what was in his mind, nodded to him, and, lifting the hilt of his broken sword as if in salute to the distant bird, turned to go in. But his eyes, as he moved, were caught by his scabbard, lying where he had thrown it on the steps, and he stooped to pick it up.

Even as he bent a bullet came whizzing over his head and smacked into the woodwork of the half-open door behind him.

Saint-Armel had leapt down in an instant from his exposed position. “Somewhere in the shrubbery on the other side!” he shouted coolly to Yves, whose musket was already at his shoulder. “Lend me your sword, de Lage!” But de Lage and the Chouan had already begun to run towards the bushes, rendered by the deceptive dusk a fit hiding-place for any straggler, and, pulling a pistol from his belt, Hervé followed them. The calm of a moment ago was transformed into a palpitating tension. Yet there was nothing to be seen or heard. The great over-grown laurels round the drive were thick, shadowy and mocking; but it was in them, somewhere, that death was lurking. De Lage was hacking at them desperately and rather aimlessly, the Chouan had plunged into their fastnesses, and Hervé, pistol in hand, was giving him directions. All three were on one side of the drive.

“For God’s sake come away!” shouted Yves. “Come away, Monsieur Hervé; it’s you he wants!” Saint-Armel’s disdainful little laugh was all the answer he got ere, frantic with apprehension, and careless whether he killed the Chouan or no, the old man fired at a venture into the laurels, and, lowering his musket, ran forward.

A man in the uniform of a grenadier instantly slipped out of the bushes on the other side of the drive, in the shade of a large arbor vitæ, and, dropping on one knee, took deliberate aim. . . . Yves, the only one who could see the assassin, was the fraction of a second too late.

“He’s the other side!” he yelled, and fired.

The two shots rang out simultaneously, and as Jean Delorme sank forward in a huddled heap, Hervé threw out his arms, spun half round, and fell on the weed-grown gravel, shot through the heart. In an instant Yves had caught him to his breast. L’Invincible, opening his eyes, looked up at him with a faint and fleeting smile, and the old man thought to catch the word “Dieu!” or “Adieu!” he could not tell which. . . .

And in a few moments the two women in the lighted room saw a tall old Breton standing in the doorway with the tears running down his face, and his foster-son once more inert in his arms. But this time l’Invincible would not wake again.