Part 47 (1/2)

”You mean that--that I need not go to Lorient--to this war?”

”I hope so, my friend.”

He looked at me, astonished. ”If you can do that, m'sieu, you can do anything.”

”In the meanwhile,” I said, dryly, ”I want another look at Tric-Trac.”

”I could show you Tric-Trac in an hour--but to go to him direct would excite his suspicion. Besides, there are two gendarmes in Paradise to conduct the conscripts to Lorient; there are also several gardes-champetre. But I can get you there, in the open moorland, too, under everybody's noses! Shall I?” he said, with an eager ferocity that startled me.

”You are not to injure him, no matter what he does or says,” I said, sharply. ”I want to watch him, not to frighten him away. I want to see what he and Buckhurst are doing. Do you understand?”

”Yes.”

”Then strike palms!”

We struck vigorously.

”Now I am ready to start,” I said, pleasantly.

”And now I am ready to tell you something,” he said, with the fierce light burning behind his blue eyes. ”If you were already in the police I would not help you--no, not even to trap this filou who has mocked me! If you again enter the police I will desert you!”

He licked his dry lips.

”Do you know what a blood-feud is?”

”Yes,” I said.

”Then understand that a man in a high place has wronged me--and that he is of the police--the Imperial Military police!”

”Who?”

”You will know when I pa.s.s my f.a.got-knife into his throat,” he snarled--”not before.”

The Lizard picked up his fis.h.i.+ng-rod, slung a canvas bag over his stained velveteen jacket, gathered together a few coils of hair-wire, a pot of twig-lime, and other odds and ends, which he tucked into his broad-flapped coat-pocket. ”Allons,” he said, briefly, and we started.

The canvas bag on his back bulged, perhaps with provisions, although the steel point of a murderous salmon-gaff protruded from the mouth of the sack and curved over his shoulder.

The village square in Paradise was nearly deserted. The children had raced away to follow the newly arrived gendarmes as closely as they dared, and the women were in-doors hanging about their men, whom the government summoned to Lorient.

There were, however, a few people in the square, and these the Lizard was very careful to greet. Thus we pa.s.sed the mayor, waddling across the bridge, puffing with official importance over the arrival of the gendarmes. He bowed to me; the Lizard saluted him with, ”Times are hard on the fat!” to which the mayor replied morosely, and bade him go to the devil.

”Au revoir, donc,” retorted the Lizard, unabashed. The mayor bawled after him a threat of arrest unless he reported next day in the square.

At that the poacher halted. ”Don't you wish you might get me!” he said, tauntingly, probably presuming on my conditional promise.

”Do you refuse to report?” demanded the mayor, also halting.

”Et ta soeur!” replied the poacher; ”is she reporting at the caserne?”

The mayor replied angrily, and a typical Breton quarrel began, which ended in the mayor biting his thumb-nail at the Lizard and wis.h.i.+ng him ”St. Hubert's luck”--an insult tantamount to a curse.

Now St. Hubert was a mighty hunter, and his luck was proverbially marvellous. But as everything goes by contrary in Brittany, to wish a Breton hunter good luck was the very worst thing you could do him. Bad luck was certain to follow--if not that very day, certainly, inexorably, _some_ day.