CHAPTER XXVIII
STORM GATHERING
On my return I was, as I had expected, put to the question, withlenience by Keller Bey, but with biting irony and something likepersonal dislike by the Procureur Raoux. Then stood apparent all theman's bitter nature, mordantly distilled from years of poverty andhatred of the well-to-do.
The name of Dennis Deventer set his eyes ablaze, and the idea of hisfamily sitting down to a comfortable meal in spite of their isolationfrom markets was to him gall and wormwood. He would hardly believe thetale of the National Guards that they had seen me come down the steps ofthe Chateau already blindfolded and under escort, and that I had socontinued till I was pushed out of the main entrance of the works byJack Jaikes.
How many guns had I seen? The little man shot out the question at me.
"Only those on the roof," I answered readily, "those which had been usedin January. They were hooded and protected from rain by waterproofjackets."
"How did you know that?"
"Because I went up there to take the air after dinner, and I leaned myback against one while I smoked."
"Was it a big gun? Three--four-pounder?"
I could not say exactly, but I should think four. I knew nothing aboutany defensive works within the square of the factory. I had traversedall that part blindfold.
The fierce little man grunted disbelievingly, but desisted when it wasobvious that he could make nothing more of me.
"Let Dennis Deventer take care," he snarled, "he speaks smooth wordsnow. Oh, the great things he will do for the workmen, but not for allhis promises does he stop that Jacques Jaikes from fortifying andplacing guns. Oh, I know more than you or Keller Bey are aware of. I donot go about with my eyes blindfolded. What is the use of a tower ofSaint Crispin if a shoemaker may not climb it and spy out the works ofhis enemy?"
"That will do, Raoux," said Keller Bey, somewhat impatiently. "I shallsend for you again when I need you."
He went out slowly, with a lingering, backward look, full of spite andmalice, his words and face distilling hatred like the poison-fangs of aviper. I heard him mutter as he passed:
"You will send for me when you want me--take care I do not come when youwant me least!"
It was indeed time to get away--the Commune of Aramon stood on the vergeof a volcano which might blow us into the air any day.
Yet, how could I leave Keller Bey to his fate, and, if I did, how couldI face Linn and Alida?
* * * * *
The days passed heavily in Aramon, yet with a kind of feverishexcitement too--an undercurrent of danger which thrills a swimmercutting his way through smooth upper waters when he feels the swirl ofthe undertow. The Commune of Aramon met daily for discussion, andreports of its meetings are still to be found in the little red-covered,tri-weekly sheet, _Le Flambeau du Midi_, of which I possess a set.
They appear to have discussed the most anodyne matters. They gabbled ofdrainage and water supplies, the suspension of rents and pawnbrokers'pledges for six months. They came to sharp words, almost toblows--"Moderates" and "Mountain," as in the old days of 1793--whileoutside the companies of the Avengers of Marat, the dark young men ofthe wolf-like prowl, kept their watch and took their sullen counsel.
Provisions showed no visible stoppage. The country about Aramon was anearly one--the great market for _primeurs_ being Chateau Renard, onlyten miles away. Thither Pere Felix, learned in the arts of restaurantsupply, sent a little permanent guard to direct the provisioning ofAramon city.
I think the only man outside Chateau Schneider who saw what was comingupon the new Government was my Hugolatre of a station-master up at thejunction. I went to see him every day and he never ceased to urge me toclear out of the town lest worse should befall me.
"They are arming," he said one day in early April, "they are comingnearer. Put your eye to that telescope--no, don't alter it--tell me whatyou see. A signal post on the railway--semaphore you call it! Yes, butdid you ever see such a semaphore on a railway? With us the stiff armdrops and all is clear. It rises half-way--'_go slowly!_' It stands atright angles to the post--'_stop_--_the way is barred!_' But what do yousee yonder? The stiff arms are moving this way and that. You who canMorse out a message on the telegraph apparatus, why cannot you readsomething infinitely more simple? That is on the other side of the riverand tells me that the Government engineers are creeping nearer. There isno railway line where the semaphore is. They are signalling to theircomrades on this side. The storm is gathering--be very sure. For thepresent there is no great hurry. Little Dictator Thiers has many ironsin the fire. He has no time to read Hugo like me, nor has he time togive much thought to Aramon. But yonder are those who are preparing apath for his feet, and for the feet of his little Breton Moblots whenthe time comes."
It appeared to me that I ought to look into this myself, but in a waythat would not compromise my friend the station-master. So I made my wayboldly up into St. Crispin's tower and turned the long spyglass, old asthe first Napoleon, upon the semaphore ridge. It was wagging awaycheerfully, spelling out messages which I could not understand. I wentat once to Keller Bey.
"The Government of Versailles is not so far off as you think," I said,"they are watching you from the other side of the river, and I believetalking across the water to the commanders of troops on this side."
And with that I told him of the semaphore and of what I had seen fromthe tower of St. Crispin. He sent instantly for someone who could readsemaphore messages, and within half an hour a deserter from theengineers quartered at Avignon was brought to him--a small, brown,snippet of a man whom I christened at sight "the runt," but whose realname was Pichon--one of a clan mighty in all the southland of Languedoc.
Keller Bey came with us to witness the trial, and we had not reached thesummit when we heard behind us the wheezing, asthmatic breathing of theProcureur Raoux sorely tried by the hasty ascent.
"Why, why, why?" he gasped, poking his head through the door--"who gaveyou the liberty? Ah, Keller Bey--I beg your pardon. I was not aware ofyour presence."
"This young man has brought us important information," said Keller Bey."He has discovered a semaphore signal newly erected on a spur among theolive trees. The enemy have a post there, and are busily sendingmessages to corresponding bodies making an advance southward upon thisside."
By this time I had the glass into position, and was moving gingerly outof the way to let in the ex-engineer of Avignon, when the little cobblerfairly rushed at the vacant seat, catching a foot on one of the legs ofthe tripod and, of course, entirely losing the semaphore on the oppositebank of the Rhone.
"I can see nothing--there is nothing to see!" he cried, gesticulatingfiercely with fingers like claws, "it is the lies of the English. I knowthem. They have always lied to us. Dennis Deventer lies. There is nomessage--no semaphore. There is no regiment nearer than Lyons orMarseilles, and there I warrant Gaston Cremieux, Procureur-General likemyself, is giving them as much as they can think about."
With extreme difficulty Keller persuaded the acrid little man to allowme to try.
"I will send him to the Central Prison if he has been bringing us falsenews--and of course he has. What a blessing! I have a committal formwith me."
I did not shrink from the test, and while Keller Bey maintained thecobbler-magistrate in some degree of quiet on the other side of theplatform, the expert deserter quickly got his eye on the signallingapparatus.
"I have it," he cried, his brow glued to the eyepiece and his handsignalling for stillness. "Oh, do be quiet!"
Raoux's dancing feet were shaking the crazy platform.
"The devil is in the fellow's legs," said Keller Bey. "Will you bequiet, Raoux, or shall I drop you over to the glory of your patronsaint?"
He held him for a moment asprawl over the edge with a drop of twohundred feet clear upon the packed causeway stones. Something ofhelplessness in the grip of Keller Bey for a moment took the madness outof Raoux.
He kept fairly still
when Keller placed him again on the floor of theplatform, and with a pair of huge hands, one on each shoulder, held himin place. Without taking his eyes from the spyglass the engineersearched and found a dirty note-book to which was attached by a string astump of pencil. Presently he began to spell out a message from one sideof the river to the other. I could see his fingers shaking withexcitement as he jotted down the letters.
"Why," he exclaimed at the first pause, "it's our fellows from Avignon,and they are not even troubling to code the message--shows what theythink of us."
"Tell us what they say," said Keller Bey.
"One moment--they are beginning again," and the pencil stub began totravel.
"_Gun platform can be laid out on spur mountain, 250 feet above presentshelter trenches. Will command bridge-head of Aramon--possibly alsorebel headquarters._"
I saw Keller Bey turn pale to the lips. He understood well enough. Hehad campaigned against those same invisible, tireless French engineersfor many desperate African years, and he knew that in the long run theyalways made out to do the task set for them.
But Raoux the cobbler-procureur was quite unmoved.
"They are playing with levels and angle-machines as they used to do whenI was at Avignon. They went out every day clean and came back dirty. Thecolonel could find nothing better for them to do. To-morrow we shallsend half a column of ours and shoot a few. Then the rest will keepfurther up the river where they belong."
"As you will," said Keller Bey, "but you had better send a battalion atleast with provisions for three days."
"Provisions for three days--absurd nonsense!" foamed the little man, forthis was touching his tenderest spot, "our citizen soldiers are theNational Guard of Aramon, and will not consent to sleep away from theirhouses, not for all the wig-wagging engineers and railway signalling inFrance! We are not slaves but freemen. No, no, a day's excursion tobrush away these impudent land surveyors with a volley from ourpatriotic rifles--and then back again before dark with victory on ouruntarnished banners--that is what you can expect from the lion hearts ofour young men. We defend the Commune. We do not make war outside it. Andwhy should we when the chief strength of the enemy remains unassaultedand untaken within our walls?"
Keller Bey called off the ex-engineer. With such a war method as thatwhich was evidently popular in Aramon, it was no use wasting timereading semaphore messages.
The Chief and I returned very mournfully to the Mairie. I could see thathis reflections were bitter.
"They do not understand the Commune or what it means--they do not knowthe spirit of the Internationale here. They care nothing except fortheir little municipal quarrels. They cherish wild, vague hopes aboutthe works, and would attack the man upon whose charity they are living.But of the fact that France will one day speak to them with a voice ofauthority--nay, is now speaking in warning--to that they will pay noheed. At the Commune meeting to-day a whole day was wasted arguing foror against an extra duty on potatoes when brought across the bridge fromthe Protestant department of the Deux Rives. Protestant potatoes,Catholic and Roman potatoes! What irony, when the dusky signal-men arecrawling from hill to hill ever nearer, and any day may bring our doomupon us!"
I let it sink well in, for I could see that Keller Bey was at lastconscious of the mistake he had made.
"You must go," he said, "I cannot fairly keep you longer. Go to yourfriends and advise the good women of them to accept a safe conductacross the river. I have still enough authority for that, if I promisean ultimatum and an assault on the works to follow. It would make mehappy to think of these kind folk who welcomed Alida and Linn so warmly,safely lodged under your father's roof as in a city of refuge."
He paused and looked pensively out on the uniformed groups of NationalGuard lounging and smoking in the white courtyard of Fontveille stone.
"As for me," he said, "there is no room for any going back. TheGovernment would accept no resignation or belated repentance. I havedreamed my dream. I thought (as thought Carl Marx) that these workingmen were ready for an ideal reform, for government over themselves. Isaw other cities joining themselves to us, the good seed sown over thecountry from department to department, till all should work for all andno man only for himself. Now I see that the nature of man cannot bechanged by a theory or a form of government. Go, young man, to yourfriends. I, Keller Bey, bid you! Be kind to Linn and to Alida, mymaster's daughter. Perhaps all this has come because I disobeyed him forthe first time when he sent the prince of the house of Ali to bring homehis daughter. I may be justly punished, yet, nevertheless, the will ofAlida is nearer to my heart than that of the Emir Abd-el-Kader in hishouse at Brousse!"