Part 70 (2/2)

But several hours after, as he traversed the wooded hills of Charves, he saw two men, who sprang up and fled at his approach. In a terrible voice, he called after them:

”Eh! you men! do each of you desire a thousand pistoles? I am Lacheneur.”

They paused when they recognized him, and Lacheneur saw that they were two of his followers. They were well-to-do farmers, and it had been very difficult to induce them to take part in the revolt.

These men had part of a loaf of bread and a little brandy. They gave both to the famished man.

They sat down beside him on the gra.s.s, and while he was eating they related their misfortunes. Their connection with the conspiracy had been discovered; their houses were full of soldiers, who were hunting for them, but they hoped to reach Italy by the aid of a guide who was waiting for them at an appointed place.

Lacheneur extended his hand to them.

”Then I am saved,” said he. ”Weak and wounded as I am, I should perish if I were left alone.”

But the two farmers did not accept the hand he offered.

”We should leave you,” said the younger man, gloomily, ”for you are the cause of our misfortunes. You deceived us, Monsieur Lacheneur.”

He dared not protest, so just was the reproach.

”Nonsense! let him come all the same,” said the other, with a peculiar glance at his companion.

So they walked on, and that same evening, after nine hours of travelling on the mountains, they crossed the frontier.

But this long journey was not made without bitter reproaches, and even more bitter recriminations.

Closely questioned by his companions, Lacheneur, exhausted both in mind and body, finally admitted the insincerity of the promises with which he had inflamed the zeal of his followers. He acknowledged that he had spread the report that Marie-Louise and the young King of Rome were concealed in Montaignac, and that this report was a gross falsehood. He confessed that he had given the signal for the revolt without any chance of success, and without means of action, leaving everything to chance.

In short, he confessed that nothing was real save his hatred, his implacable hatred of the Sairmeuse family.

A dozen times, at least, during this terrible avowal, the peasants who accompanied him were on the point of hurling him down the precipices upon whose verge they were walking.

”So it was to gratify his own spite,” they thought, quivering with rage, ”that he sets everybody to fighting and killing one another--that he ruins us, and drives us into exile. We will see.”

The fugitives went to the nearest house after crossing the frontier.

It was a lonely inn, about a league from the little village of Saint-Jean-de-Coche, and was kept by a man named Balstain.

They rapped, in spite of the lateness of the hour--it was past midnight.

They were admitted, and they ordered supper.

But Lacheneur, weak from loss of blood, and exhausted by his long tramp, declared that he would eat no supper.

He threw himself upon a bed in an adjoining room, and was soon asleep.

This was the first time since their meeting with Lacheneur that his companions had found an opportunity to talk together in private.

The same idea had occurred to both of them.

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