CHAPTER XXV.
ON THE GREAT ROAD.
“Look in my face; my name is Might-Have-Been. I am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell,”
“This,” said the captain of the Jane, the Baron de Mélide’s yacht, “isthe bay of St. Florent. We anchor a little further in.”
“Yes,” answered Lory, who stood on the bridge beside the sailor, “I knowit. I am glad to see it again--to smell the smell of Corsica again.”
“Monsieur le Comte is attached to his native country?” suggested thecaptain, consulting the chart which he held folded in his hand.
De Vasselot was looking through a pair of marine glasses across the hillsto where the Perucca rock jutted out of the mountain side.
“No; I hate it. But I am glad to come back,” he said.
“Monsieur will be welcomed by his people. It is a great power, the voiceof the people.” For the captain was a Republican.
“It is the bleating of sheep, mon capitaine,” returned de Vasselot, witha laugh.
They stood side by side in silence while the steamer crept steadilyforward into the shallow bay. Already a boat had left the town wall, andwas sailing out leisurely on the evening breeze towards them. It camealongside. De Vasselot gave some last instructions to the captain, saidfarewell, and left the ship. It was a soldier’s breeze, and the boat ranfree. In a few minutes de Vasselot stepped ashore. The abbé was waitingfor him at the steps. It was almost dark, but de Vasselot could see thepriest’s black eyes flashing with some new excitement. De Vasselot heldout his hand, but Susini made a movement, of which the new-comerrecognized the significance in his quick way. He took a step forward, andthey embraced after the manner of the French.
“Voilà!” said the abbé, “we are friends at last.”
“I have always known that you were mine,” answered Lory.
“Good. And now I have bad news for you. A friend’s privilege, Monsieur leComte.”
“Ah,” said Lory, looking sharply at him.
“Your father. I have found him and lost him again. I found him where Iknew he would be, in the macquis, living the life that they live there,with perfect tranquillity. Jean was with him. By some means or other Jeangot wind of a proposed investigation of the château. The Peruccas peoplehave been stirred up lately; but that is a long story which I cannot tellyou now. At all events, they quitted the château a few hours before thehouse was mysteriously burnt down. To-day I received a message from Jean.Your father left their camp before daybreak to-day. All night he had beenrestless. He was in a panic that the Peruccas are seeking him. He is nolonger responsible, mon ami; his mind is gone. From his muttered talk ofthe last few days, they conclude that he is making his way south toBonifacio, in order to cross the straits from there to Sardinia. He is onfoot, alone, and deranged. There is my news.”
“And Jean?” asked de Vasselot, curtly; for he was quick in decision andin action.
“Jean has but half recovered from an accident. The small bone of his legwas broken by a fall. He is following on the back of an old horse whichcannot trot, the only one he could procure. I have ready for you a goodhorse. You have but to follow the track over the mountains due south--youknow the stars, you, who are a cavalry officer--until you join the Corteroad at Ponte Alle Leccia, then there is but the one road to Bocognano.If you overtake your poor father, you have but to detain him until Jeancomes up. You may trust Jean to bring him safely back to the yacht hereas arranged. But you must be at Bastia at the Hotel Clément at teno’clock on Wednesday morning. That is absolutely necessary. Youunderstand--life or death, you must be there. I and a woman, who isclever enough, are mixing a salad for some one at Bastia on Wednesdaymorning, and it is you who are the vinegar.”
“Where is the horse?” asked Lory.
“It is a few paces away. Come, I will show you.”
“Ah!” cried Lory, whose voice had a ring of excitement in it that alwayscame when action was imminent. “But I cannot go at that pace. It is notonly Jean who has but one leg. Your arm--thank you. Now we can go.”
And he limped by the side of Susini through the dark alleys of St.Florent. The horse was waiting for them beneath an archway which deVasselot remembered. It was the entry to the stable where he had left hishorse on the occasion of his first arrival in Corsica.
“Aha!” he said, with a sort of glee as he settled himself in the saddle.“It is good to be across a horse again. Pity you are a priest; you mightcome with me. It will be a fine night for a ride. What a pity you are apriest! You were not meant for one, you know.”
“I am as the good God made me, and a little worse,” returned Susini.“That is your road.”
And so they parted. Lory rode on, happy in that he was called upon toact without too much thought. For those who think most, laugh least. DeVasselot’s life had been empty enough until the outbreak of the war,and now it was full to overflowing. And though France had fallen, and hehimself, it would appear, must be a pauper; though his father mustinevitably be a living sorrow, which one who tasted it has told us isworse than a dead one; though Denise would have nothing to say tohim,--yet he was happier than he had ever been. He was wise enough not tosift his happiness. He had never spoken of it to others. It is wise notto confide one’s happiness to another; he may pull it to pieces in hisendeavour to find out how it is made.
The onlooker may only guess at the inner parts of another’s life; but attimes one may catch a glimpse of the light that another sees. And it is,therefore, to be safely presumed that Lory de Vasselot found a certainhappiness in the unswerving execution of his duty. Not only as a soldier,but as a man, he rejoiced in a strict sense of duty, which, in soberearnest, is one of the best gifts that a man may possess. He had notinherited it from father or mother. He had not acquired it at St. Cyr.He had merely received it at second-hand from Mademoiselle Brun, atthird-hand from that fat old General Lange who fell at Solferino. For theschoolgirl in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was quite right when she hadpounced upon Mademoiselle Brun’s secret, which, however, lay safely deadand buried on that battlefield. And Mademoiselle Brun had taught, hadshaped Henri de Mélide; and Henri de Mélide had always been Lory deVasselot’s best friend. So the thin silver thread of good had been woventhrough the web of more lives than the little woman ever dreamt. Whoshall say what good or what evil the meanest of us may thus accomplish?
De Vasselot never thought of these things. He was content to go straightahead without looking down those side paths into which so many immaturethinkers stray. He had fought at Sedan, had thrown his life with noniggard hand into the balance. When wounded he had cunningly escaped theattentions of the official field hospitals. He might easily have sent inhis name to Prussian head-quarters as that of a wounded officer beggingto be released on _parole_. But he cherished the idea of living to fightanother day. Denise, with word and glance, and, more potent still, withsilence, had tempted him a hundred times to abandon the idea of furtherservice to France. “She does not understand,” he concluded; and he threwDenise into the balance. She made it clear to him that he must choosebetween her and France. Without hesitation he threw his happiness intothe balance. For this Corsican--this dapper sportsman of the Bois deBoulogne and Longchamps--was, after all, that creation of which the worldhas need to be most proud--a man.
Duty had been his guiding light, though he himself would have laughed thegayest denial to such an accusation. Duty had brought him to Corsica.And--for there is no human happiness that is not spiced by duty--he hadthe hope of seeing Denise.
He rode up the valley of the Guadelle blithely enough, despite the factthat his leg pained him and his left arm ached abominably. Of course, hewould find his father--he knew that; and the peace and quiet of somerural home in France would restore the wandering reason. And all was forthe best in the best possible world! For Lory was a Frenchman, and intothe French nature there has assuredly filtered some of the light of thatsunny land.
At more than one turn of the road he looked up towards Perucca. Once
hesaw a light in one of the windows of the old house. Slowly he climbed tothe level of the tableland; and Denise, sitting at the open window, heardthe sound of his horse’s feet, and wondered who might be abroad at thathour. He glanced at the ruined chapel that towers above the Château deVasselot on its rocky promontory, and peered curiously down into theblack valley, where the charred remains of his ancestral home are to befound to this day. Murato was asleep--a silent group of stone-roofedhouses, one of which, however, had seen the birth of a man notoriousenough in his day--Fieschi, the would-be assassin of Louis Philippe.Every village in this island has, it would seem, the odour of blood.
The road now mounted steadily, and presently led through the rocky defilewhere Susini had turned back on a similar errand scarce a week earlier.The rider now emerged into the open, and made his careful way along theface of a mountain. The chill air bespoke a great altitude, which wasconfirmed by that waiting, throbbing silence which is of the summits.Far down on the right, across rolling ranges of lower hills, a steadypin-point of light twinkled like a star. It was the lighthouse ofPunta-Revellata, by Calvi, twenty miles away.
The night was clear and dark. A few clouds lay on the horizon to thesouth, and all the dome of heaven was a glittering field of stars. DeVasselot’s horse was small and wiry--part Arab, part mountain pony--andattended to his own affairs with the careful and surprising intelligencepossessed by horses, mules, and donkeys that are born and bred tomountain roads. After Murato the track had descended sharply, only tomount again to the heights dividing the watersheds of the Bevinco and theGolo. And now de Vasselot could hear the Golo roaring in its rocky bed inthe valley below. He knew that he was safe now, for he had merely tofollow the river till it led him to the high-road at Ponte Alle Leccia.The country here was more fertile, and the track led through the thickestmacquis. The subtle scent of flowering bushes filled the air with a cool,soft flavour, almost to be tasted on the lips, of arbutus, myrtle,cistus, oleander, tamarisk, and a score of flowering heaths. The silencehere was broken incessantly by the stirring of the birds, which swarm inthese berry-bearing coppices.
The track crossed the narrow, flat valley, where, a hundred yearsearlier, had been fought the last great fight that finally subjugatedCorsica to France. Here de Vasselot passed through some patches ofcultivated ground--rare enough in this fertile land--noted the shadowyshape of a couple of houses, and suddenly found himself on the high-road.He had spared his horse hitherto, but now urged the willing beast to abetter pace. This took the form of an uneven, fatiguing trot, which,however, made good account of the kilometres, and de Vasselot notedmechanically the recurrence of the little square stones every five or sixminutes.
It was during that darkest hour which precedes the dawn that he skirtedthe old capital, Corte, straggling up the hillside to the toweringcitadel standing out grey and solemn against its background of greatmountains. The rider could now see dimly a snow-clad height here andthere. Halfway between Corte and Vivario, where the road climbs throughbare heights, he paused, and then hurried on again. He had heard in thisdesert stillness the beat of a horse’s feet on the road in front of him.He was not mistaken, for when he drew up to listen a second time therewas no sound. The rider had stopped, and was waiting for him. The outlineof his form could be seen against the starry sky at a turn in the roadfurther up the mountain-side.
“Is that you, Jean?” cried Lory.
“Yes,” answered the voice of the man who rarely spoke.
The two horses exchanged a low, gurgled greeting.
“Are we on the right road? What is the next village?” asked Lory.
“The next is a town--Vivario. We are on the right road. At Vivario turnto the right, where the road divides. He is going that way, throughBocognano and Bastelica to Sartene and Bonifacio. I have heard of himmany times, from one and the other.”
From one and the other! De Vasselot half turned in his saddle to glanceback at the road over which he had travelled. He had seen and heard noone all through the night.
“He procured a horse at Corte last evening,” continued Jean. “It seems agood one. What is yours?”
“I have not seen mine,” answered de Vasselot; “I can only feel him. But Ithink there are thirty kilometres in him yet.” As he spoke he had hishand in his pocket. “Here,” he said. “Take some money. Get a better horseat Vivario and follow me. It will be daylight in an hour. Tell me againthe names of the places on the road.”
“Vivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene, Bonifacio,” repeatedJean, like a lesson.
“Vivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene,” muttered de Vasselot, ashe rode on.
He was in the great forest of Vizzavona when the day broke, and he sawthrough the giant pines the rosy tints of sunrise on the summit of MonteD’Oro, from whence at dawn may be seen the coast-line of Italy and Franceand, like dots upon a map, all the islets of the sea. Still he met noone--had seen no living being but Jean since quitting St. Florent at theother extremity of the island.
It was freezingly cold at the summit of the pass where the road traversesa cleft in the mountain-range, and de Vasselot felt that weariness whichcomes to men, however strong, just before the dawn ends a sleeplessnight. The horse, as he had told Jean, was still fresh enough, and gainednew energy as the air grew lighter. The mountain town of Bocognano liesbelow the road, and the scent of burning pinewood told that the peasantswere astir. Here de Vasselot quitted the highway, and took a side-road toBastelica. As he came round the slope of Monte Mezzo, the sun climbed upinto the open sky, and flooded the broad valley of the Prunelli withlight. De Vasselot had been crossing watersheds all night, climbing outof one valley only to descend into another, crossing river after riverwith a monotony only varied by the various dangers of the bridges. Thevalley of the Prunelli seemed no different from others until he lookedacross it, and perceived his road mounting on the opposite slope. Asingle horseman was riding southward at a good pace. It was his father atlast.