Part 58 (1/2)

”Oh,” I said, ”before night? Why before night?”

”Wait and see then,” he muttered. ”Anyway, get out of my house--d'

ye hear?”

”We are going to give that performance at two o'clock this afternoon,” I said. ”After that, another to-morrow at the same hour, and on every day at the same hour, as long as it pays. Do you understand?”

”Perfectly,” sneered the mayor.

”And,” I continued, ”if the governor of Lorient sends gendarmes to conduct us to the steams.h.i.+p in Lorient harbor, they'll take with them somebody besides the circus folk.”

”You mean me?” he inquired.

”I do.”

”What do I care?” he bawled in a fury. ”You had better go to Lorient, I tell you. What do you know about the commune? What do you know about universal brotherhood? Everybody's everybody's brother, whether you like it or not! I'm your brother, and if it doesn't suit you you may go to the devil!”

Watching the infuriated magistrate, I said in English to Speed: ”This is interesting. Buckhurst has learned we are here, and has paid this fellow heavily to have us expelled. What sense do you make of all this?--for I can make none.”

”Nor can I,” muttered Speed; ”there's a link gone; we'll find it soon, I fancy. Without that link there's no logic in this matter.”

”Look here,” I said, sharply, to the mayor, who had waddled toward the door, which was guarded by Kelly Eyre.

”Well, I'm looking,” he snarled.

Then I patiently pointed out to him his folly, and he listened with ill-grace, obstinate, mute, dull cunning gleaming from his half-closed eyes.

Then I asked him what he would do if the cruiser began dropping sh.e.l.ls into Paradise; he deliberately winked at me and thrust his tongue into his cheek.

”So you know that the cruiser has gone?” I asked.

He grinned.

”Do you suppose Buckhurst's men hold the semaph.o.r.e? If they do, they sent that cruiser on a fool's errand,” whispered Speed.

Here was a nice plot! I stepped to the window. Outside in the square Buckhurst was still speaking to a spellbound, gaping throng. A few men cheered him. They were strangers in Paradise.

”What's he doing it for?” I asked, utterly at a loss to account for proceedings which seemed to me the acme of folly. ”He must know that the commune cannot be started here in Brittany! Speed, what is that man up to?”

Behind us the mayor was angrily demanding that we leave his house; and after a while we did so, skirting the crowd once more to where, in a cleared s.p.a.ce near the fountain, Buckhurst stood, red flag in hand, ranging a dozen peasants in line. The peasants were not Paradise men; they wore the costumes of the interior, and somebody had already armed them with scythes, rusty boarding-pikes, stable-forks, and one or two flintlock muskets. An evil-looking crew, if ever I saw one; wild-eyed, long-haired, bare of knee and ankle, loutish faces turned toward the slim, gray, pale-faced orator who confronted them, flag in hand. They were the sc.u.m of Morbihan.

He told them that they were his guard of honor, the glory of their race--a sacred battalion whose names should s.h.i.+ne high on the imperishable battlements of freedom.

Around them the calm-eyed peasants stared at them stupidly; women gazed fascinated when Buckhurst, raising his flag, pointed in silence to the mayor's house, where that official stood in his doorway, observing the scene:

”Forward!” said Buckhurst, and the grotesque escort started with a clatter of heavy sabots and a rattle of scythes. The crowd fell back to give them way, then closed in behind like a herd of sheep, following to the mayor's house, where Buckhurst set his sentinels and then entered, closing the door behind him.

”Well!” muttered Speed, in amazement.

After a long silence, Kelly Eyre looked at his watch. ”It's time we were in the tent,” he observed, dryly; and we turned away without a word. At the bridge we stopped and looked back. The red flag was flying from the mayor's house.

”Speed,” I said, ”there's one thing certain: Byram can't stay if there's going to be fighting here. I heard guns at sea this morning; I don't know what that may indicate. And here's this idiotic revolution started in Paradise! That means the troops from Lorient, and a wretched lot of bushwhacking and guerrilla work. Those Faouet Bretons that Buckhurst has recruited are a bad lot; there is going to be trouble, I tell you.”