"What casket?" asked Catherine.
"Why, you know well enough."
"What! Doctor Gilbert's casket?" inquired Madame Billot, who always, in matters of transcendent importance, allowed others to speak and act.
"Yes, Doctor Gilbert's casket!" cried Billot, plunging his fingers into his thick hair; "that casket which was so precious to him."
"You terrify me, my dear father," said Catherine.
"Unfortunate man that I am!" cried Billot, with furious anger; "and I, who had not in the slightest imagined such a thing,—I, who did not even for a moment think of that casket! Oh, what will the doctor say? What will he think of me? That I am a traitor, a coward, a miserable wretch!"
"But, good heaven! what did this casket contain, Father?"
"I do not know; but this I know, that I had engaged, even at the hazard of my life, to keep it safe; and I ought to have allowed myself to be killed in order to defend it."
And Billot made a gesture of such despair, that his wife and daughter started back with terror.
"Oh God! oh God! are you losing your reason, my poor father " said Catherine.
And she burst into tears.
"Answer me, then," she cried; "for the love of Heaven, answer me!"
"Pierre, my friend," said Madame Billot, "answer your daughter; answer your wife."
"My horse! my horse!" cried the farmer; "bring out my horse!"
"Where are you going, Father?"
"To let the doctor know. The doctor must be informed of this."
"But where will you find him?"
"At Paris. Did you not read in the letter he wrote to us that he was going to Paris? He must be there by this time. I will go to Paris. My horse! my horse!"
"And you will leave us thus, my dear father? You will leave us in such a moment as this? You will leave us full of anxiety and anguish?"
"It must be so, my child; it must be so," said the farmer, taking his daughter's face between his hands and convulsively fixing his lips upon it. "'If ever you should lose this casket,' said the doctor to me, 'or rather, should it ever be surreptitiously taken from you, the instant you discover the robbery, set off at once, Billot, and inform me of it, wherever I may be. Let nothing stop you, not even the life of a man.'"
"Good Lord! what can this casket contain?"
"Of that I know nothing; all that I know is, that it was placed under my care, and that I have allowed it to be taken from me. Ah, here is my horse! From the son, who is at college, I shall learn where to find the father."
And kissing his wife and daughter for the last time, the farmer jumped into his saddle, and galloped across the country, in the direction of the high-road to Paris.
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Chapter IX
The Road to Paris
LET us return to Pitou.
Pitou was urged onwards by the two most powerful stimulants known in this great world,—Fear and Love.
Fear whispered to him in direct terms:—
"You may be either arrested or beaten; take care of yourself, Pitou!"
And that sufficed to make him run as swiftly as a roebuck.
Love had said to him, in the voice of Catherine:—
"Escape quickly, my dear Pitou!"
And Pitou had escaped.
These two stimulants combined, as we have said, had such an effect upon him, that Pitou did not merely run: Pitou absolutely flew.
How useful did Pitou's long legs, which appeared to be knotted to him, and his enormous knees, which looked so ungainly in a ballroom, prove to him in the open country, when his heart, enlarged with terror, beat three pulsations in a second.
Monsieur de Charny, with his small feet, his elegantly formed knees, and his symmetrically shaped calves, could not have run at such a rate as that.
Pitou recalled to his mind that pretty fable, in which a stag is represented weeping over his slim shanks, reflected in a fountain; and although he did not bear on his forehead the ornament which the quadruped deemed some compensation for his slender legs, he reproached himself for having so much despised his stilts.
For such was the appellation which Madame Billot gave to Pitou's legs when Pitou looked at them standing before a looking-glass.
Pitou, therefore, continued making his way through the wood, leaving Cayolles on his right and Yvors on his left, turning round at every corner of a bush, to see, or rather to listen; for it was long since he had seen anything of his persecutors, who had been distanced at the outset by the brilliant proof of swiftness Pitou had given, in placing a space of at least a thousand yards between them and himself,—a distance which he was increasing every moment.
Why was Atalanta married? Pitou would have entered the lists with her; and to have excelled Hippomenes he would not assuredly have needed to employ, as he did, the subterfuge of the three golden apples.
It is true, as we have already said, that Monsieur Wolfsfoot's agents, delighted at having possession of their booty, cared not a fig as to what became of Pitou; but Pitou knew not this.
Ceasing to be pursued by the reality, he continued to be pursued by the shadows.
As to the black-clothed gentlemen, they had that confidence in themselves which renders human beings lazy.
"Run! run!" cried they, thrusting their hands into their pockets, and making the reward which Monsieur Wolfsfoot had given them jingle in them: "run, good fellow, run; we can always find you again, should we want you."
Which, we may say in passing, far from being a vain boast, was the precise truth.
And Pitou continued to run as if he had heard the aside of Monsieur Wolfsfoot's agents.
When he had, by scientifically altering his course, and turning and twisting as do the wild denizens of the forest to throw the hounds off scent, when he had doubled and turned so as to form such a maze that Nimrod himself would not have been able to unravel it, he at once made up his mind as to his route, and taking a sharp turn to the right, went in a direct line to the high road which leads from Villers-Cotterets to Paris, from the hill near Gondreville Heaths.
Having formed this resolution, he bounded through the copse, and after running for a little more than a quarter of an hour, he perceived the road enclosed by its yellow sand and bordered with its green trees.
An hour after his departure from the farm he was on the king's highway.
He had run about four leagues and a half during that hour; as much as any rider could expect from an active horse, going a good round trot.
He cast a glance behind him. There was nothing on the road.
He cast a glance before him. There were two women upon asses.
Pitou had got hold of a small work on mythology, with engravings, belonging to young Gilbert; mythology was much studied in those days.
The history of the gods and goddesses of the Grecian Olympus formed part of the education of young persons. By dint of looking at the engravings Pitou had become acquainted with mythology. He had seen Jupiter metamorphose himself into a bull, to carry off Europa; into a swan, that he might approach and make love to the daughter of King Tyndarus. He had, in short, seen other gods transforming themselves into forms more or less picturesque; but that one of his Majesty's police-officers should have transformed himself into an ass had never come within the scope of his erudition. King Midas himself had never had anything of the animal but the ears,—and he was a king,—he made gold at will,—he had therefore money enough to purchase the whole skin of the quadruped.
Somewhat reassured by what he saw, or rather by what he did not see, Pitou threw himself down on the grassy bank of the roadside, wiped with his sleeve his broad red face, and thus luxuriously reclining on the fresh clover, he yielded himself up to the satisfaction of perspiring in tranquillity.
But the sweet emanations from the clover and marjoram could not make Pitou forget the pickled pork made by Madame Billot, and the quarter of a six-pound loaf which Catherine allotted to him at every meal,—that is to say, three times a day.
/> This bread at that time cost four sous and a half a pound, a most exorbitant price, equivalent at least to nine sous in our days, and was so scarce throughout France that when it was eatable, it passed for the fabulous brioche,1which the Duchess of Polignac advised the Parisians to feed upon when flour should altogether fail them.
Pitou therefore said to himself philosophically that Mademoiselle Catherine was the most generous princess in the world, and that Father Billot's farm was the most sumptuous palace in the universe.
Then, as the Israelites on the banks of the Jordan, he turned a dying eye towards the east, that is to say,
in the direction of that thrice happy farm, and sighed heavily.
But sighing is not so disagreeable an operation to a man who stands in need of taking breath after a violent race.
Pitou breathed more freely when sighing, and he felt his ideas, which for a time had been much confused and agitated, return to him gradually with his breath.
"Why is it," reasoned he with himself, "that so many extraordinary events have happened to me in so short a space of time? Why should I have met with more accidents within the last three days than during the whole course of my previous life?
"It is because I dreamed of a cat that wanted to fly at me," continued Pitou.
And he made a gesture signifying that the source of all his misfortunes had been thus already pointed out to him.
"Yes," added he, after a moment's reflection, "but this is not the logic of my venerable friend the Abbé Fortier. It is not because I dreamed of an irritated cat that all these adventures have happened to me. Dreams are only given to a man as a sort of warning, and this is why an author said, 'Thou hast been dreaming, beware!—Cave, somniasti!'
"Somniasti," said Pitou, doubtingly, and with somewhat of alarm; "am I then again committing a barbarism? Oh, no; I am only making an elision; it was somniavisti which I should have said, in grammatical language.
"It is astonishing," cried Pitou, considering himself admiringly, "how well I understand Latin since I no longer study it!"
And after this glorification of himself, Pitou resumed his journey.
Pitou walked on very quickly, though he was much tranquillized. His pace was somewhere about two leagues an hour.
The result of this was that two hours after he had recommenced his walk Pitou had got beyond Nanteuil, and was getting on towards Dammartin.
Suddenly the ears of Pitou, as acute as those of an Osage Indian, were struck with the distant sound of a horse's feet upon the paved road.
"Oh," cried Pitou, scanning the celebrated verse of Virgil,—
"'Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.'"
And he looked behind him.
But he saw nothing.
Could it be the asses which he had passed at Levignon, and which had now come on at a gallop? No: for the iron hoof, as the poet calls it, rang upon the paved road; and Pitou, whether at Haramont or at Villers-Cotterets, had never known an ass, excepting that of Mother Sabot, that was shod, and even this was because Mother Sabot performed the duty of letter-carrier between Villers-Cotterets and Crespy.
He therefore momentarily forgot the noise he had heard, to return to his reflections.
Who could these men in black be who had questioned him about Doctor Gilbert, who had tied his hands, who had pursued him, and whom he had at length so completely distanced?
Where could these men have sprung from, for they were altogether unknown in the district?
What could they have in particular to do with Pitou,—he who had never seen them, and who, consequently, did not know them?
How then was it, as he did not know them, that they had known him? Why had Mademoiselle Catherine told him to set off for Paris; and why, in order to facilitate his journey, had she given him a louis of forty-eight francs,—that is to say, two hundred and forty pounds of bread, at four sous a pound. Why, it was enough to supply him with food for eighty days, or three months, if he would stint his rations somewhat.
Could Mademoiselle Catherine suppose that Pitou was to remain eighty days absent from the farm?
Pitou suddenly started.
"Oh! oh!" he exclaimed, "again that horse's hoofs."
"This time," said Pitou, all on the alert, "I am not mistaken. The noise I hear is positively that of a horse galloping. I shall see it when he gets to the top of yon hill."
Pitou had scarcely spoken when a horse appeared at the top of a hill he had just left behind him, that is to say, at the distance of about four hundred yards from the spot on which he stood.
Pitou, who would not allow that a police agent could have transmogrified himself into an ass, admitted at once that he might have got on horseback to regain the prey that had escaped him.
Terror, from which he had been for some time relieved, again seized on Pitou, and immediately his legs became even longer and more intrepid than when he had made such marvellous good use of them some two hours previously.
Therefore, without reflecting, without looking behind, without even endeavoring to conceal his flight, calculating on the excellence of his steel-like sinews, Pitou, with a tremendous leap, sprang across the ditch which ran by the roadside, and began a rapid course across the country in the direction of Ermenonville. Pitou did not know anything of Ermenonville, he only saw upon the horizon the summits of some tall trees, and he said to himself,—
"If I reach those trees, which are undoubtedly on the border of some forest, I am saved."
And he ran toward Ermenonville.
On this occasion he had to outvie a horse in running. Pitou had no longer legs, but wings.
And his rapidity was increased after having run some hundred yards, for Pitou had cast a glance behind him, and had seen the horseman oblige his horse to take the same immense leap which he had taken over the ditch by the roadside.
From that moment there could be no longer a doubt in the mind of the fugitive that the horseman was, in reality, in pursuit of him, and consequently the fugitive had increased his speed, never again turning his head, for fear of losing time. What most urged him on at that moment was not the clattering on the paved road,—that noise was deadened by the clover and the fallow fields; what most urged him on was a sort of cry which pursued him, the last syllable of his name pronounced by the horseman, a sort of hou! hou! which appeared to be uttered angrily, and which reached him on the wings of the wind, which he was endeavoring to outstrip.
But after having maintained this sharp race during ten minutes, Pitou began to feel that his chest became oppressed,—the blood rushed to his head,—his eyes began to wander. It seemed to him that his knees became more and more developed,—that his loins were filling with small pebbles. From time to time he stumbled over the furrows,—he who usually raised his feet so high, when running, that every nail in the soles of his shoes was visible.
At last the horse, created superior to man in the art of running, gained on the biped Pitou, and at the same time he heard the voice of the horseman, who no longer cried "Hou! hou!" but clearly and distinctly, "Pitou! Pitou!"
All was over. All was lost.
However, Pitou endeavored to continue the race. It had become a sort of mechanical movement; he rushed on, impelled by the power of repulsion. Suddenly, his knees failed him; he staggered and fell at full length, with his face to the ground.
But at the same time that he thus fell, fully resolved not to get up again,—at all events, of his own free will,—he received a lash from a horsewhip which wound round his loins.
With a tremendous oath, which was not unfamiliar to his ears, a well-known voice cried out to him,—
"How now, you stupid fellow! how now, you simpleton! have you sworn to founder Cadet?"
The name of Cadet at once dispelled all Pitou's suspense.
"Ah!" cried he, turning himself round, so that instead of lying upon his face he lay upon his back,—"Ah! I hear the voice of Monsieur Billot!"
It was in fact Goodman Billot. When Pitou was
well assured of his identity, he assumed a sitting posture.
The farmer, on his side, had pulled up Cadet, covered with flakes of foam.
"Ah! dear Monsieur Billot," exclaimed Pitou, "how kind it is of you to ride in this way after me! I swear to you I should have returned to the farm after having expended the double louis Mademoiselle Catherine gave me. But since you are here, take back your double louis,—for of course it must be yours,—and let us return to the farm."
"A thousand devils!" exclaimed Billot; "who was thinking of the farm? Where are the mouchards?"
"The mouchards?" inquired Pitou, who did not comprehend the meaning of this word, which had only just been admitted into the vocabulary of our language.
"Yes, the mouchards,"2 rejoined Billot; "the men in black. Do you not understand me?"
"Ah! the men in black! You will readily understand, my dear Monsieur Billot, that I did not amuse myself by waiting for them."
"Bravo! You have left them behind, then?"
"Why, I flatter myself I have; after the race I have run, it was to be expected, as it appears to me."
"Then, if you were so sure of your affair, what the devil made you run at such a rate?"
"Because I thought it was their chief, who, not to be outwitted, was pursuing me on horseback."
"Well, well! You are not quite so simple as I thought you. Then, as the road is clear, up up! and away for Dammartin!"
"What do you mean by 'up, up'?"
"Yes, get up and come with me."
"We are going, then, to Dammartin?"
"Yes. I will borrow a horse, there, of old Lefranc. I will leave Cadet with him, for he can go no farther; and to-night we will push on to Paris."
"Be it so, Monsieur Billot; be it so."
"Well, then, up!—up!"
Pitou made an effort to obey him.
"I should much wish to do as you desire," said he, "but, my dear Monsieur Billot, I cannot."
"How,—you cannot get up?"