III

MEETING BY MOONLIGHT

Now granting that a soldier should be free to spend his leave where he will, unchallenged, it remained true that the last of the A.E.F. had long since said farewell to the sh.o.r.es of France, while the Tarn country seemed a far cry from the banks of the Rhine, in those days still under occupation by forces of the United States Regular Army.

Then, too, it was a fact within the knowledge of Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin that the uniform of the Americans had more than frequently been used by those ancient acquaintances of his, the Apaches of Paris, as a cloak for their own misdoings. So it didn't need the air of stealth that marked this business to persuade him there was mischief in the brew.

But indeed he got in motion to investigate without stopping to debate an excuse for so doing, and several seconds before he heard the woman's cries.

Of these the first sounded, shrill with alarm, as d.u.c.h.emin turned the corner where the prowlers had gone from sight. But a high wall of rock alone met his vision, and he broke into a run that carried him round still another corner and then plumped him headlong into the theatre of villainy.

This was open ground, a breadth of turf bordering on one of the great cirques--a rudely oval pit at a guess little less than seven hundred feet in its narrowest diameter and something like four hundred in depth, a vast black well against whose darkness the blue-white moonglare etched a strange grouping of figures, seven in all.

On his one hand d.u.c.h.emin saw a woman in mourning clasping to her bosom a terrified young girl, the author of the screams; on the other, three men close-locked in grimmest combat, one defending himself against two with indifferent success; while in between stood a third woman with her back to and perilously near the chasm, shrinking from the threat of a pistol in the hands of the fourth man.

This last was the one nearest d.u.c.h.emin, who was upon him so suddenly that it would be difficult to say which was the more surprised when d.u.c.h.emin's stick struck down the pistol hand of the other with such force as must have broken his wrist. The weapon fell, he uttered an oath as he swung round, clutching the maimed member; and then, seeing his a.s.sailant for the first time, he swooped down to recover the weapon so swiftly that it was in his left hand and spitting vicious tongues of orange flame before d.u.c.h.emin was able to get in a second blow.

But there was the abrupt end of that pa.s.sage. Smitten cruelly between the eyes, the fellow grunted thickly and went over backwards like a bundle of rags, head and shoulders jutting out over the brink of the precipice so far that, though his body checked perceptibly as it struck the ground, his own weight carried him on, he shot out into s.p.a.ce and vanished as though some unseen hand had lifted up from these dark depths and plucked him down to annihilation.

The young girl shrieked again, the woman gave a gasp of horror, d.u.c.h.emin himself knew a sickish qualm. But he had no time to spare for that: it was going ill with the man contending against two. The adventurer's stick might have been bewitched that night, so magical was its work; a single blow on the nearest head (but believe it was selected with care!) and instantaneously that knot of contention was resolved into its three several parts.

The smitten clapped hands to his hurt, moaning. His brother scoundrel started back with staring eyes in which rage gave place to dismay as he grasped the change in the situation and saw the stick swinging for his head in turn. He ducked neatly; the stick whistled through thin air; and before d.u.c.h.emin could recover the other had turned and was running for dear life.

d.u.c.h.emin delayed a bare instant; but manifestly his a.s.sistance was no more needed here. In a breath he who had been so recently outmatched recollected his wits and took the initiative with admirable address.

d.u.c.h.emin saw him fly furiously at his late opponent, trip and lay him on his back; then turned and gave chase to the fugitive.

This was the masquerader in the American uniform; and an amazingly fleet pair of heels he showed, taking into account his heaviness of body. Already he had a fair lead; and had he maintained for long the pace he set in the first few hundred yards he must have won away scot-free. But whether he lacked staying powers or confidence, he made the mistake of adopting another and less fatiguing means of locomotion.

d.u.c.h.emin saw him swerve from his first course and steer for a vehicle standing at some distance--evidently the conveyance which had brought the sightseers to view the spectacle of Montpellier-le-Vieux by moonlight.

Waiting in the middle of a broad avenue of misshapen obelisks, a dilapidated barouche with a low body sagging the lower for debilitated springs, on either side its pole drooped two sorry specimens of crowbait. And their pained amazement was so unfeigned that d.u.c.h.emin laughed aloud when the fat rogue bounded to the box, s.n.a.t.c.hed up reins and whip and curled a cruel lash round their bony flanks. From this one inferred that he was indifferently acquainted with the animals, certainly not their accustomed driver. And since it took them some moments to come to their senses and appreciate that all this was not an evil dream, d.u.c.h.emin's hands were clutching for the back of the carriage when the horses broke suddenly into an awkward, lumbering gallop and whisked it out of reach.

But not for long. Extending himself, d.u.c.h.emin caught the folded top, jumped, and began to clamber in.

The man on the box was tugging fretfully at something wedged in the hip-pocket of his breeches; proof enough that he was not the original tenant of the uniform, since it fitted too snugly to permit ready extraction of a pistol in an emergency.

But he got no chance whatever to use the weapon; for the moment d.u.c.h.emin found his own feet in the swaying vehicle he leaped on the shoulders of the other and dragged him backwards from the box.

What followed was not very clear to him, a melange of impressions. The mock-American fought like a devil unchained, cursing d.u.c.h.emin fluently in the purest and foulest argot of Belleville--which is not in the French vocabulary of the doughboy. The animals at the pole caught fire of this madness and ran away in good earnest, that wretched barouche rolled and pitched like a rudderless sh.e.l.l in a crazy sea, the two men floundered in its well like fish in a pail.

They fought by no rules, with no science, but bit and kicked and gouged and wrenched and struck as occasion offered and each to the best of his ability. d.u.c.h.emin caught glimpses of a face like a Chinese devil-mask, hideously distorted with working features and disfigured with smears of soot through which insane eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled and glared in the moonlight.

Then a hand like a vice gripped his windpipe, he was on his back, his head overhanging the edge of the floor, a thumb was feeling for one of his eyes. Yet it could not have been much later when he and his opponent were standing and swaying as one, locked in an embrace of wrestlers.

Still, d.u.c.h.emin knew as many tricks of hand-to-hand fighting as the other, perhaps a few more. And then he was, no doubt, in far better condition. At all events the fellow was presently at his mercy, in a hold that gave one the privilege of breaking his back at will. A man of mistaken scruples, d.u.c.h.emin failed to do so, but held the other helpless only long enough to find his hip-pocket and rip out the pistol--a deadly Luger. Then a thrust and a kick, which he enjoyed infinitely, sent the brute spinning out to land on his head.

The fall should have broken his neck. At the worst it should have stunned him. Evidently it didn't. When d.u.c.h.emin had scrambled up to the box, captured the reins and brought the nags to a stop--no great feat that; they were quite sated with the voluptuousness of running away and well content to heed the hand and voice of authority--and when, finally, he swung them round and drove back toward the cirque, he saw no sign of his Apache by the roadside.

So he congratulated himself on the forethought which had possessed him of the pistol. Otherwise the a.s.sa.s.sin, since he had retained sufficient wit and strength to crawl into hiding, could and a.s.suredly would have potted Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin with neither difficulty nor compunction.

Not five figures but four only were waiting beside the cirque when, wheeling the barouche as near the group as the lay of the ground permitted, he climbed down. A man lay at length in the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, his head pillowed in the lap of one woman. Another woman stood aside, trembling and wringing aged hands. The third knelt beside the supine man, but rose quickly as d.u.c.h.emin drew near, and came to meet him.

In this one he recognised her to whose salvation Chance had first led him, and now found time to appreciate a face of pallid loveliness, intelligent and composed, while she addressed him quietly and directly to the point in a voice whose timbre was, he fancied, out of character with the excellent accent of its French. An exquisite voice, nevertheless. English, he guessed, or possibly American, but much at home in France....

"Monsieur d'Aubrac has been wounded, a knife thrust. It will be necessary to get him to a surgeon as quickly as possible. I fancy there will be none nearer than Nant. Do you know the way?"

"One can doubtless find it," said d.u.c.h.emin modestly. "But I myself am not without knowledge of wounds. Perhaps..."

"If monsieur would be so good."

d.u.c.h.emin knelt beside the man, who welcomed him with open eyes and a wry smile that was almost as faint as his voice.

"It is nothing, monsieur--a clean cut in the arm, with some loss of blood."

"But let me see."

The young girl in whose lap rested the head of Monsieur d'Aubrac sat back and watched d.u.c.h.emin with curious, grave eyes in which traces of moisture glimmered.

"Had the animal at my mercy, I thought," d'Aubrac apologised, "when suddenly he drew that knife, stuck me and broke away."

"I understand," d.u.c.h.emin replied. "But don't talk. You'll want all your strength, my friend."

With his pocket-knife he laid open the sodden sleeves of coat and shirt, exposing an upper arm stained dark with blood that welled in ugly jets from a cut both wide and deep.

"Artery severed," he announced, and straightened up and looked about, at a loss. "My pack--?"

One's actions in moments of excitement are apt to be largely directed by the subconscious, he knew; still he found it hard to believe that he could unwittingly have unshipped and dropped his rucksack while making ready to pursue the American uniform. Nevertheless, it seemed, that was just what he had done.

The woman who had spoken to him found and fetched it from no great distance; and its contents enabled d.u.c.h.emin to improvise a tourniquet, and when the flow of blood was checked, a bandage. During the operation d'Aubrac unostentatiously fainted.

The young girl caught her breath, a fluttering hiss.

"Don't be alarmed, mademoiselle," d.u.c.h.emin soothed her. "He will come round presently, he will do splendidly now till we get him to bed; and then his convalescence will be merely the matter of a while of rest."

He slipped his arms beneath the unconscious man, gathered him up bodily and bore him to the carriage--and, thanks to man's amusing amour propre, made far less of the effort than it cost him. Then, with d'Aubrac disposed as comfortably as might be on the back seat, once again pillowed in a fashion to make any man envious, d.u.c.h.emin turned to find the other women at his elbow. To the eldest he offered a bow suited to her condition and a hand to help her into the barouche.

"Madame ..."

Her agitation had measurably subsided. The gentle inclination of the aged head which acknowledged his courtesy was as eloquent of her quality as he found the name which she gave him in quavering accents.

"Madame de Sevenie, monsieur."

"With madame's permission: I am Andre d.u.c.h.emin."

"Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin has placed us all deeply in his debt. Louise ..."

The girl in the carriage looked up and bowed, murmuring. "Mademoiselle de Montalais, monsieur: my granddaughter. And Eve ..." She turned to the third, to her whose voice of delightful accent was not in d.u.c.h.emin's notion wholly French: "Madame de Montalais, my daughter by adoption, widow of my grandson, who died gloriously for his country at La Fere-Champenoise."