The Companions of Jehu, Alexandre Dumas [great books of all time .txt] 📗

CHAPTER XXXIX THE GROTTO OF CEYZERIAT

The two young men plunged into the shadow of the trees. Morgan guided his companion, less familiar than he with the windings of the park, until they reached the exact spot where he was in the habit of scaling the wall. It took but an instant for both of them to accomplish that feat. The next moment they were on the banks of the Reissouse.

A boat was fastened to the foot of a willow; they jumped into it, and three strokes of the oar brought them to the other side. There a path led along the bank of the river to a little wood which extends from Ceyzeriat to Etrez, a distance of about nine miles, and thus forms, on the other side of the river, a pendant to the forest of Seillon.

On reaching the edge of the wood they stopped. Until then they had been walking as rapidly as it was possible to do without running, and neither of them had uttered a word. The whole way was deserted; it was probable, in fact certain, that no one had seen them. They could breathe freely.

“Where are the Companions?” asked Morgan.

“In the grotto,” replied Montbar.

“Why don’t we go there at once?”

“Because we shall find one of them at the foot of that beech, who will tell us if we can go further without danger.”

“Which one?”

“D’Assas.”

A shadow came from behind the tree.

“Here I am,” it said.

“Ah! there you are,” exclaimed the two young men.

“Anything new?” inquired Montbar.

“Nothing; they are waiting for you to come to a decision.”

“In that case, let us hurry.”

The three young men continued on their way. After going about three hundred yards, Montbar stopped again, and said softly: “Armand!”

The dry leaves rustled at the call, and a fourth shadow stepped from behind a clump of trees, and approached his companions.

“Anything new?” asked Montbar.

“Yes; a messenger from Cadoudal.”

“The same one who came before?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“With the brothers, in the grotto.”

“Come.”

Montbar rushed on ahead; the path had grown so narrow that the four young men could only walk in single file. It rose for about five hundred paces with an easy but winding slope. Coming to an opening, Montbar stopped and gave, three times, the same owl’s cry with which he had called Morgan. A single hoot answered him; then a man slid down from the branches of a bushy oak. It was the sentinel who guarded the entrance to the grotto, which was not more than thirty feet from the oak. The position of the trees surrounding it made it almost impossible of detection.

The sentinel exchanged a few whispered words with Montbar, who seemed, by fulfilling the duties of leader, desirous of leaving Morgan entirely to his thoughts. Then, as his watch was probably not over, the bandit climbed the oak again, and was soon so completely blended with the body of the tree that those he had left might have looked for him in vain in that aerial bastion.

The glade became narrower as they neared the entrance to the grotto. Montbar reached it first, and from a hiding-place known to him he took a flint, a steel, some tinder, matches, and a torch. The sparks flew, the tinder caught fire, the match cast a quivering bluish flame, to which succeeded the crackling, resinous flames of the torch.

Three or four paths were then visible. Montbar took one without hesitation. The path sank, winding into the earth, and turned back upon itself, as if the young men were retracing their steps underground, along the path that had brought them. It was evident that they were following the windings of an ancient quarry, probably the one from which were built, nineteen hundred years earlier, the three Roman towns which are now mere villages, and Cæsar’s camp which overlooked them.

At intervals this subterraneous path was cut entirely across by a deep ditch, impassable except with the aid of a plank, that could, with a kick, be precipitated into the hollow beneath. Also, from place to place, breastworks could still be seen, behind which men could intrench themselves and fire without exposing their persons to the sight or fire of the enemy. Finally, at five hundred yards from the entrance, a barricade of the height of a man presented a final obstacle to those who sought to enter a circular space in which ten or a dozen men were now seated or lying around, some reading, others playing cards.

Neither the readers nor the players moved at the noise made by the new-comers, or at the gleam of their light playing upon the walls of the quarry, so certain were they that none but friends could reach this spot, guarded as it was.

For the rest, the scene of this encampment was extremely picturesque; wax candles were burning in profusion (the Companions of Jehu were too aristocratic to make use of any other light) and cast their reflection upon stands of arms of all kinds, among which double-barrelled muskets and pistols held first place. Foils and masks were hanging here and there upon the walls; several musical instruments were lying about, and a few mirrors in gilt frames proclaimed the fact that dress was a pastime by no means unappreciated by the strange inhabitants of that subterranean dwelling.

They all seemed as tranquil as though the news which had drawn Morgan from Amélie’s arms was unknown to them, or considered of no importance.

Nevertheless, when the little group from outside approached, and the words: “The captain! the captain!” were heard, all rose, not with the servility of soldiers toward their approaching chief, but with the affectionate deference of strong and intelligent men for one stronger and more intelligent than they.

Then Morgan shook his head, raised his eyes, and, passing before Montbar, advanced to the centre of the circle which had formed at his appearance, and said:

“Well, friends, it seems you have had some news.”

“Yes, captain,” answered a voice; “the police of the First Consul does us the honor to be interested in us.”

“Where is the messenger?” asked Morgan.

“Here,” replied a young man, wearing the livery of a cabinet courier, who was still covered with mud and dust.

“Have you any despatches?”

“Written, no, verbal, yes.”

“Where do they come from?”

“The private office of the minister of police.”

“Can they be trusted?”

“I’ll answer for them; they are positively official,”

(“It’s a good thing to have friends everywhere,” observed Montbar, parenthetically.)

“Especially near M. Fouché,” resumed Morgan; “let us hear the news.”

“Am I to tell it aloud, or to you privately?”

“I presume we are all interested, so tell it aloud.”

“Well, the First Consul sent for citizen Fouché at the Louvre, and lectured him on our account.”

“Capital! what next?”

“Citizen Fouché replied that we were clever scamps, very difficult to find, and still more difficult to capture when we had been found, in short, he praised us highly.”

“Very amiable of him. What next?”

“Next, the First Consul replied that that did not concern him, that we were brigands, and that it was our brigandage which maintained the war in Vendée, and that the day we ceased sending money to Brittany there would be no more Brittany.”

“Excellent reasoning, it seems to me.”

“He said the West must be fought in the East and the Midi.”

“Like England in India.”

“Consequently he gave citizen Fouché full powers, and, even if it cost a million and he had to kill five hundred men, he must have our heads.”

“Well, he knows his man when he makes his demand; remains to be seen if we let him have them.”

“So citizen Fouché went home furious, and vowed that before eight days passed there should not be a single Companion of Jehu left in France.”

“The time is short.”

“That same day couriers started for Lyons, Mâcon, Sons-le-Saulnier, Besançon and Geneva, with orders to the garrison commanders to do personally all they could for our destruction; but above all to obey unquestioningly M. Roland de Montrevel, aide-de-camp to the First Consul, and to put at his disposal as many troops as he thought needful.”

“And I can add,” said Morgan, “that M. Roland de Montrevel is already in the field. He had a conference with the captain of the gendarmerie, in the prison at Bourg, yesterday.”

“Does any one know why?” asked a voice.

“The deuce!” said another, “to engage our cells.”

“Do you still mean to protect him?” asked d’Assas.

“More than ever.”

“Ah! that’s too much!” muttered a voice.

“Why so,” retorted Morgan imperiously, “isn’t it my right as a Companion?”

“Certainly,” said two other voices.

“Then I use it; both as a Companion and as your leader.”

“But suppose in the middle of the fray a stray ball should take him?” said a voice.

“Then, it is not a right I claim, nor an order that I give, but an entreaty I make. My friends, promise me, on your honor, that the life of Roland de Montrevel will be sacred to you.”

With unanimous voice, all stretching out their hands, they replied: “We swear on our honor!”

“Now,” resumed Morgan, “let us look at our position under its true aspect, without deluding ourselves in any way. Once an intelligent police force starts out to pursue us, and makes actual war against us, it will be impossible for us to resist. We may trick them like a fox, or double like a boar, but our resistance will be merely a matter of time, that’s all. At least that is my opinion.”

Morgan questioned his companions with his eyes, and their acquiescence was unanimous, though it was with a smile on their lips that they recognized their doom. But that was the way in those strange days. Men went to their death without fear, and they dealt it to others without emotion.

“And now,” asked Montbar, “have you anything further to say?”

“Yes,” replied Morgan, “I have to add that nothing is easier than to procure horses, or even to escape on foot; we are all hunters and more or less mountaineers. It will take us six hours on horse back to get out of France, or twelve on foot. Once in Switzerland we can snap our fingers at citizen Fouché and his police. That’s all I have to say.”

“It would be very amusing to laugh at citizen Fouché,” said Montbar, “but very dull to leave France.”

“For that reason, I shall not put this extreme measure to a vote until after we have talked with Cadoudal’s messenger.”

“Ah, true,” exclaimed two or three voices; “the Breton! where is the Breton?”

“He was asleep when I left,” said Montbar.

“And he is still sleeping,” said Adler, pointing to a man lying on a heap of straw in a recess of the grotto.

They wakened the Breton, who rose to his knees, rubbing his eyes with one hand and feeling for his carbine with the other.

“You are with friends,” said a voice; “don’t be afraid.”

“Afraid!” said the Breton; “who are you, over there, who thinks I am afraid?”

“Some one who probably does not know what fear is, my dear Branched’Or,” said Morgan, who recognized in Cadoudal’s messenger the same man whom they had received at the Chartreuse the night he himself arrived from Avignon. “I ask pardon on his behalf.”

Branched’Or looked at the young men before him with an air that left no doubt of his repugnance for a certain sort of pleasantry; but as the group had evidently no offensive intention, their gayety having no insolence about it, he said, with a tolerably gracious air: “Which of you gentlemen is captain? I have a letter for him from my captain.”

Morgan advanced