CHAPTER XXXI
THE BLACK BAND
The first Commune of Aramon had fallen. Its place was taken by aCommittee of Public Safety sitting at the Riding School. Of these thechiefs were Georges Barres, the Catalan, who called himself "ofPerpignan"; Chanot, the cadet of a good house, just released from a termof imprisonment (which he described as being for political offences);Auroy, the proprietor of an hotel by no means of the highest class, andChardon, whose knowledge of the world extended as far as New Caledonia.They were a crew of desperadoes who had been employed chiefly inlabourers' work at the factories. They knew no handicraft--at least nonesufficiently well to pass the eye of such foremen as worked for DennisDeventer. And, in addition, they were lazy in working hours, given toobscene conversation and to drinking pure alcohol out of pocket flasks.So it may be well believed that they were not popular with the oversmenat the works, and when they fell under Jack Jaikes' rebuke he was apt tochastise them with whips of scorpions.
At the same time, desperate and careless though they were, and backed bythe majority of the unthinking younger men of the National Guard, theyhad some qualms as to disturbing Keller Bey in his fastness of theMairie. He had still a number of faithful defenders, and like an oldlion of the Atlas he would certainly sell his life dearly.
So Barres and the Committee of Public Safety laid aside his case for themoment. They had other matters which pressed. Their "rapine and pillage"adherents desired to begin work. On the outskirts were many villas andhouses of summer resort which promised loot. Barres had preached somuch, that (though with no great good-will) he was now driven to alittle practice. Yet he knew instinctively that in France offencesagainst property are far longer remembered and far more severely dealtwith than crimes against persons--shooting and assassination notexcluded.
Still, he had to satisfy his followers, and in the bosom of thecommittee there were already experts--the ex-political prisoner Chanotand the traveller to the coasts of Cayenne were not at their first essayin "personal expropriation."
It was clearly unsafe to cross the river. The town of Aramon le Vieuxwas a hornets' nest, all Gambetta republicans and royalists. Thedepartment, too, had a fine National Guard, mostly Protestants orcommanded by Protestants, and the Moblots or Mobiles of the departmentof Deux Rives were drilling every day. What plundering was to be donemust be on this side of the bridge, but there was abundance and to sparefor all, if the business were rightly managed.
The first step was to disarm the doubtful companies, and re-enlist onlythose who were of proper anarchist hue and ready for "expropriation."This was done in the Riding School where the Committee sat all daydevising mischief and laying out evil as on a map.
On the night of the 6th of April they were ready. The villas and countryhouses left vacant by the officers of the troops formerly quartered inAramon had remained unoccupied, and, as the soldiers went right off tothe seat of war from Aramon Junction, the furniture and personalbelongings were equally untouched. The wives and children had beendispatched to the care of parents paternal and maternal in Limousincastles and Norman apple-orchards. Only an ancient caretaker or tworemained, hiding in some niche of the ground floor and cautiouslyventuring out to make a hasty and furtive "market" in the grey of themorning.
For the adepts of "individual redistribution" these served to whet anappetite. By midnight Jack Jaikes called me up on the roof of theChateau. All along the river front houses were already flaming. Some, asI looked, climaxed their particular display by the crashing down ofroofs and the falling in of floor after floor, followed by bursts offlame many hundreds of feet high, which lit up the dim river and thewhite houses of Aramon le Vieux. I could see the ancient battlements ofthe Lycee St. Andre serrated against a velvet-black sky--nay, I couldmake out that very forehead of promenade from which we had watched, thatday in January, the tricolour give place to the Tatter of Scarlet.
The rabble were giving tongue down there like packs of wolves, and atthe sound Jack Jaikes stamped and cursed as men swear only in Clydesideship-building yards.
"Whist now, Jackie," said the voice of Dennis Deventer at my elbow,"what's the use of using all the Lord's fine big words that are meant toembellish Scripture on the like of them? Is it not tempting Providenceto be cursing fools who are sprinting hot-foot to damnation bythemselves?"
"Wait--oh, wait," growled Jack Jaikes, jerking his joints till theycreaked in a way he had when he was excited; "I shall make them sing toa different tune. Listen to them baying. Chief" (he turned suddenly toDennis) "could I not just lob over half a dozen shrapnel among thesecattle? They seem to be having it all their own way. Let me remind themthat there's a God left in the universe."
"You've got your business to attend to, young man. Be good enough toleave your Maker's alone. He can manage His own affairs, Jack Jaikes,and has been doing so for quite a while."
Yet I understood the haste of the senior lieutenant and gangforeman.Apart from the uncompromising temperament of the Strathclyde man, it wasdifficult even for me to stand idle and listen to the shrieks ofdemoniac mirth as each new villa was attacked. In the silence of thenight we could hear the crash of doors beaten in, the splintering ofwood and the jangle of glass. Then came the dull rumble of many feetbeating irregularly on wooden floors, the rush upstairs, the windowsflung open, their green outer _volets_ clattering against the walls, tolet in the clear shining of a moon which had been full only the nightbefore.
"What could not a score of us be doing with plenty of ammunition and ourDeventer rifles?" I whispered to Jack Jaikes. He hardly looked at me. Hewas in the mood for anything except disobedience. He merely heaved aprotesting sigh in the direction of his Chief, a sigh which was eloquentof all that he could do if he were not controlled by a higher power.
"Will our turn never come?" I asked him, as he stood and gazed, his eyesred and as if injected in the glowing of the burning buildings.
"I fear not to-night," he said, "the beasts will slink back to theirlairs to deposit their loot. To-morrow night we may expect somethingserious for ourselves. But in any case I can't stand here hopping aboutlike a hen on a hot plate. Let us go and see that the posts are all onthe look-out."
I did not go out with him, however, instead I remained with Rhoda Polly,whom I had run downstairs to find. She told me the names of the burninghouses and to whom they belonged--the Villa Mireille, built recently bya great Paris grocer--Sans Souci, that of a local sausage-maker, and soforth. All these people had long left the district, and, as I said, thesmaller houses had been let to the officers of the former Imperialgarrison.
Presently Dennis Deventer came and sat down beside us. Said Rhoda Polly,"Father, I never knew that we harboured such wretches among our men.Surely they do not come from the Works?"
"No," said Dennis, settling himself with his back to the chimney pots,"I rather judge we have to thank your friend Gaston Cremieux for most ofthese. His experience as Gambetta's Procureur made him intimatelyacquainted with all bad characters in Marseilles. So when he becamedictator, a few executions along the Old Port, and the posting up of awarning proclamation set the whole hive of cosmopolitan ill-doersscattering northwards. I think Aramon got the cream of them, and theyare now acting after their kind, sure of an immunity which they couldnot hope for under the rule of Gaston Cremieux."
"But Keller Bey?" said Rhoda Polly, astonishment in her accent, "whyshould he allow it? He is a soldier. Alida told me of his campaigns inthe Atlas."
"Yes, Rhoda Polly," her father answered, "but though they let Keller Beyalone in the Mairie, he has no more power in Aramon. The party of theReprise Individuelle, that is to say of plump and plain robbery, is infull possession, and I doubt not but that before long we shall have sucha siege of Chateau Schneider as will make us forget the otheraltogether. Only remember this, Miss Rhoda Polly Deventer, we about theYard and Works do not wish your assistance or countenance on anypretext."
"I do not see why," said Rhoda Polly, pouting, "I know I am at least ofas much use as Hugh."
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"He is a man--my son!"
"Well, if it is _that_ you are thinking of," snapped Rhoda Polly, "youcan afford better to lose a daughter than a son. You've got three of us,Dennis, don't forget! Take my advice. Risk a daughter, and send Hughdown cellar with the Mater!"
"Not one like you, little spitfire!" Her father spoke more tenderly thanI had ever heard him, and before going away he let his hand lie for aninstant on the vaporous curls about her brow.
We kept awake most of the night, while the moon sailed overhead and thetall chimney stalks of the factories were made picturesque by the redglow from the entire riverside quarter of Aramon. The shouting and thetumult died down with the incendiary fires. The river, sometime ofmolten copper, was again grey, unpolished silver under the moon, savewhere the webbed and delicate shadow of the great suspension bridgeslept on the water.
At the dawning of the day mighty sleep passed upon the two of us sittingthere, and there Jack Jaikes found us sitting hand in hand, my head onRhoda Polly's shoulder, shamelessly slumbering under the risen sun.