The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The house of Elie Mattingley the smuggler stood in the Rue d'Egypte, not
far east of the Vier Prison. It had belonged to a jurat of repute, who
parted with it to Mattingley not long before he died. There was no doubt
as to the validity of the transfer, for the deed was duly registered au
greffe, and it said: "In consideration of one livre turnois," etc.
Possibly it was a libel against the departed jurat that he and Mattingley
had had dealings unrecognised by customs law, crystallising at last into
this legacy to the famous pirate-smuggler.

Unlike any other in the street, this house had a high stone wall in
front, enclosing a small square paved with flat stones. In one corner was
an ivy-covered well, with an antique iron gate, and the bucket, hanging
on a hook inside the fern-grown hood, was an old wine-keg--appropriate
emblem for a smuggler's house. In one corner, girdled by about five
square feet of green earth, grew a pear tree, bearing large juicy pears,
reserved for the use of a distinguished lodger, the Chevalier du
Champsavoys de Beaumanoir.

In the summer the Chevalier always had his breakfast under this tree.
Occasionally one other person breakfasted with him, even Savary dit
Detricand, whom however he met less frequently than many people of the
town, though they lived in the same house. Detricand was but a fitful
lodger, absent at times for a month or so, and running up bills for food
and wine, of which payment was never summarily demanded by Mattingley,
for some day or other he always paid. When he did, he never questioned
the bill, and, what was most important, whether he was sober or "warm as
a thrush," he always treated Carterette with respect, though she was not
unsparing with her tongue under slight temptation.

Despite their differences and the girl's tempers, when the day came for
Detricand to leave for France, Carterette was unhappy. Several things had
come at once: his going,--on whom should she lavish her good advice and
biting candour now?--yesterday's business in the Vier Marchi with Olivier
Delagarde, and the bitter change in Ranulph. Sorrowful reflections and as
sorrowful curiosity devoured her.

All day she tortured herself. The late afternoon came, and she could bear
it no longer--she would visit Guida. She was about to start, when the
door in the garden wall opened and Olivier Delagarde entered. As he
doffed his hat to her she thought she had never seen anything more
beautiful than the smooth forehead, white hair, and long beard of the
returned patriot. That was the first impression; but a closer scrutiny
detected the furtive, watery eye, the unwholesome, drooping mouth, the
vicious teeth, blackened and irregular. There was, too, something
sinister in the yellow stockings, luridly contrasting with the black
knickerbockers and rusty blue coat.

At first Carterette was inclined to run towards the prophet-like
figure--it was Ranulph's father; next she drew back with dislike--his
smile was leering malice under the guise of amiable mirth. But he was
old, and he looked feeble, so her mind instantly changed again, and she
offered him a seat on a bench beside the arched doorway with the
superscription:

       "Nor Poverty nor Riches, but Daily Bread
        Under Mine Own Fig Tree."

After the custom of the country, Carterette at once offered him
refreshment, and brought him brandy--good old brandy was always to be got
at the house of Elie Mattingley! As he drank she noticed a peculiar,
uncanny twitching of the fingers and eyelids. The old man's eyes were
continually shifting from place to place. He asked Carterette many
questions. He had known the house years before--did the deep stream still
run beneath it? Was the round hole still in the floor of the back room,
from which water used to be drawn in old days? Carterette replied that it
was M. Detricand's bedroom now, and you could plainly hear the stream
running beneath the house. Did not the noise of the water worry poor M.
Detricand then? And so it still went straight on to the sea--and, of
course, much swifter after such a heavy rain as they had had the day
before.

Carterette took him into every room in the house save her own and the
Chevalier's. In the kitchen and in Detricand's bedroom Olivier
Delagarde's eyes were very busy. He saw that the kitchen opened on the
garden, which had a gate in the rear wall. He also saw that the
lozenge-paned windows swung like doors, and were not securely fastened;
and he tried the trap-door in Detricand's bedroom to see the water
flowing beneath, just as it did when he was young--Yes, there it was
running swiftly away to the sea! Then he babbled all the way to the door
that led into the street; for now he would stay no longer.

When he had gone, Carterette sat wondering why it was that Ranulph's
father should inspire her with such dislike. She knew that at this moment
no man in Jersey was so popular as Olivier Delagarde. The longer she
thought the more puzzled she became. No sooner had she got one theory
than another forced her to move on. In the language of her people, she
did not know on which foot to dance.

As she sat and thought, Detricand entered, loaded with parcels and
bundles. These were mostly gifts for her father and herself; and for du
Champsavoys there was a fine delft shaving-dish, shaped like a
quartermoon to fit the neck. They were distributed, and by the time
supper was over, it was quite dark. Then Detricand said his farewells,
for it was ten o'clock, and he must be away at three, when his boat was
to steal across to Brittany, and land him near to the outposts of the
Royalist army under de la Rochejaquelein. There were letters to write and
packing yet to do. He set to work gaily.

At last everything was done, and he was stooping over a bag to fasten it.
The candle was in the window. Suddenly a hand--a long, skinny
hand--reached softly out from behind a large press, and swallowed and
crushed out the flame. Detricand raised his head quickly, astonished.
There was no wind blowing--the candle had not even flickered when
burning. But then, again, he had not heard a sound; perhaps that was
because his foot was scraping the floor at the moment the light went out.
He looked out of the window, but there was only starlight, and he could
not see distinctly. Turning round he went to the door of the outer
hall-way, opened it, and stepped into the garden. As he did so, a figure
slipped from behind the press in the bedroom, swiftly raised the
trap-door in the flooring, then, shadowed by the door leading into the
hall-way, waited for him.

Presently his footstep was heard. He entered the hall, stood in the
doorway of the bedroom for a moment, while he searched in his pockets for
a light, then stepped inside.

Suddenly his attention was arrested. There was the sound of flowing water
beneath his feet. This could always be heard in his room, but now how
loud it was! Realising that the trap-door must be open, he listened for a
second and was instantly conscious of some one in the room. He made a
step towards the door, but it suddenly closed softly. He moved swiftly to
the window, for the presence was near the door.

What did it mean? Who was it? Was there one, or more? Was murder
intended? The silence, the weirdness, stopped his tongue--besides, what
was the good of crying out? Whatever was to happen would happen at once.
He struck a light, and held it up. As he did so some one or something
rushed at him. What a fool he had been--the light had revealed his
position! But at the same moment came the instinct to throw himself to
one side; which he did as the rush came. In that one flash he had seen--a
man's white beard.

Next instant there was a sharp sting in his right shoulder. The knife had
missed his breast--the sudden swerving had saved him. Even as it struck,
he threw himself on his assailant. Then came a struggle. The long fingers
of the man with the white beard clove to the knife like a dead soldier's
to the handle of a sword. Twice Detricand's hand was gashed slightly, and
then he pinioned the wrist of his enemy, and tripped him up. The
miscreant fell half across the opening in the floor. One foot, hanging
down, almost touched the running water.

Detricand had his foe at his mercy. There was the first inclination to
drop him into the stream, but that was put away as quickly as it came. He
gave the wretch a sudden twist, pulling him clear of the hole, and
wrenched the knife from his fingers at the same moment.

"Now, monsieur," said he, feeling for a light, "now we'll have a look at
you."

The figure lay quiet beneath him. The nervous strength was gone, the body
was limp, the breathing was laboured. The light flared. Detricand held it
down, and there was revealed the haggard, malicious face of Olivier
Delagarde.

"So, monsieur the traitor," said Detricand--"so you'd be a murderer
too--eh?"

The old man mumbled an oath.

"Hand of the devil," continued Detricand, "was there ever a greater beast
than you! I held my tongue about you these eleven years past, I held it
yesterday and saved your paltry life, and you'd repay me by stabbing me
in the dark--in a fine old-fashioned way too, with your trap-doors, and
blown-out candle, and Italian tricks--"

He held the candle down near the white beard as though he would singe it.

"Come, sit up against the wall there and let me look at you."

Cringing, the old man drew himself over to the wall. Detricand, seating
himself in a chair, held the candle up before him.

After a moment he said: "What I want to know is, how could a low-flying
cormorant like you beget a gull of the cliffs like Maitre Ranulph?"

The old man did not answer, but sat blinking with malignant yet fearful
eyes at Detricand, who continued: "What did you come back for? Why didn't
you stay dead? Ranulph had a name as clean as a piece of paper from the
mill, and he can't write it now without turning sick, because it's the
same name as yours. You're the choice blackamoor of creation, aren't you?
Now what have you got to say?"

"Let me go," whined the old man with the white beard. "Let me go,
monsieur. Don't send me to prison."

Detricand stirred him with his foot, as one might a pile of dirt.

"Listen," said he. "In the Vier Marchi they're cutting off the ear of a
man and nailing it to a post, because he ill-used a cow. What do you
suppose they'd do to you, if I took you down there and told them it was
through you Rullecour landed, and that you'd have seen them all
murdered--eh, maitre cormorant?"

The old man crawled towards Detricand on his knees. "Let me go, let me
go," he whined. "I was mad; I didn't know what I was doing; I've not been
right in the head since I was in the Guiana prison."

At that moment it struck Detricand that the old man must have had some
awful experience in prison, for now his eyes had the most painful terror,
the most abject fear. He had never seen so craven a sight.

"What were you in prison for in Guiana, and what did they do to you
there?" asked Detricand sternly. Again the old man shivered horribly, and
tears streamed down his cheeks, as he whined piteously: "Oh no, no,
no--for the mercy of Christ, no!" He threw up his hands as if to ward off
a blow.

Detricand saw that this was not acting, that it was a supreme terror, an
awful momentary aberration; for the traitor's eyes were wildly staring,
the mouth was drawn in agony, the hands were now rigidly clutching an
imaginary something, the body stiffened where it crouched.

Detricand understood now. The old man had been tied to a triangle and
whipped--how horribly who might know? His mood towards the miserable
creature changed: he spoke to him in a firm, quiet tone.

"There, there, you're not going to be hurt. Be quiet now, and you shall
not be touched."

Then he stooped over, and quickly undoing the old man's waistcoat, he
pulled down the coat and shirt and looked at his back. As far as he could
see it was scarred as though by a red-hot iron, and the healed welts were
like whipcords on the shrivelled skin. The old man whimpered yet, but he
was growing quieter. Detricand lifted him up, and buttoning the shirt and
straightening the coat again, he said:

"Now, you're to go home and sleep the sleep of the unjust, and you're to
keep the sixth commandment, and you're to tell no more lies. You've made
a shameful mess of your son's life, and you're to die now as soon as you
can without attracting notice. You're to pray for an accident to take you
out of the world: a wind to blow you over a cliff, a roof to fall on you,
a boat to go down with you, a hole in the ground to swallow you up, a
fever or a plague to end you in a day."

He opened the door to let him go; but suddenly catching his arms held him
in a close grip. "Hark!" he said in a mysterious whisper.

There was only the weird sound of the running water through the open
trap-door of the floor. He knew how superstitious was every Jerseyman,
from highest to lowest, and he would work upon that weakness now.

"You hear that water running to the sea?" he said solemnly. "You tried to
kill and drown me to-night. You've heard how when one man has drowned
another an invisible stream follows the murderer wherever he goes, and he
hears it, hour after hour, month after month, year after year, until
suddenly one day it comes on him in a huge flood, and he is found,
whether in the road, or in his bed, or at the table, or in the field,
drowned, and dead?"

The old man shivered violently.

"You know Manon Moignard the witch? Well, if you don't do what I say--and
I shall find out, mind you--she shall bewitch the flood on you. Be still
. . . listen! That's the sound you'll hear every day of your life, if you
break the promise you've got to make to me now."

He spoke the promise with ghostly deliberation, and the old man, all the
desperado gone out of him, repeated it in a husky voice. Whereupon
Detricand led him into the garden, saw him safe out on the road and
watched him disappear. Then rubbing his fingers, as though to rid them of
pollution, with an exclamation of disgust he went back to the house.

By another evening--that is, at the hour when Guida arrived home after
her secret marriage with Philip d'Avranche--he saw the lights of the army
of de la Rochejaquelein in the valley of the Vendee.

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