The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Events proved Mattingley right. Three days after, it was announced that
he had broken prison. It is probable that the fury of the Royal Court at
the news was not quite sincere, for it was notable that the night of his
evasion, suave and uncrestfallen, they dined in state at the Tres
Pigeons. The escape gave them happy issue from a quandary.

The Vicomte officially explained that Mattingley had got out by the
dungeon window. People came to see the window, and there, ba su, the bars
were gone! But that did not prove the case, and the mystery was deepened
by the fact that Jean Touzel, whose head was too small for Elie's hat,
could not get that same head through the dungeon window. Having proved so
much, Jean left the mystery there, and returned to his Hardi Biaou.

This happened on the morning after the dark night when Mattingley,
Carterette, and Alixandre hurried from the Vier Prison, through the Rue
des Sablons to the sea, and there boarded Ranulph's boat, wherein was
Olivier Delagarde the traitor.

Accompanying Carterette to the shore was a little figure that moved along
beside them like a shadow, a little grey figure that carried a
gold-headed cane. At the shore this same little grey figure bade
Mattingley good-bye with a quavering voice. Whereupon Carterette, her
face all wet with tears, kissed him upon both cheeks, and sobbed so that
she could scarcely speak. For now when it was all done--all the horrible
ordeal over--the woman in her broke down before the little old gentleman,
who had been like a benediction in the house where the ten commandments
were imperfectly upheld. But she choked down her sobs, and thinking of
another more than of herself, she said:

"Dear Chevalier, do not forget the book--that register--I gave you
to-night. Read it--read the last writing in it, and then you will
know--ah, bidemme--but you will know that her we love--ah, but you must
read it and tell nobody till--till the right time comes! She hasn't held
her tongue for naught, and it's only fair to do as she's done all along,
and hold ours. Pardingue, but my heart hurts me!" she added suddenly, and
catching the hand that held the little gold cane she kissed it with
impulsive ardour. "You have been so good to me--oui-gia!" she said with a
gulp, and then she dropped the hand and turned and fled to the boat
rocking in the surf.

The little Chevalier watched the boat glide out into the gloom of night,
and waited till he knew that they must all be aboard Ranulph's schooner
and making for the sea. Then he turned and went back to the empty house
in the Rue d'Egypte.

Opening the book Carterette had placed in his hands before they left the
house, he turned up and scanned closely the last written page. A moment
after, he started violently, his eyes dilating, first with wonder, then
with a bewildered joy; and then, Protestant though he was, with the
instinct of long-gone forefathers, he made the sacred gesture, and said:

"Now I have not lived and loved in vain, thanks be to God!"

Even as joy opened wide the eyes of the Chevalier, who had been sorely
smitten through the friends of his heart, out at sea Night and Death were
closing the eyes of another wan old man who had been a traitor to his
country.

For the boat of the fugitives had scarcely cleared reefs and rocks, and
reached the open Channel, when Olivier Delagarde, uttering the same cry
as when Ranulph and the soldiers had found him wounded in the Grouville
road sixteen years before, suddenly started up from where he had lain
mumbling, and whispering incoherently, "Ranulph--they've killed me!" fell
back dead.

True to the instinct which had kept him faithful to one idea for sixteen
years, and in spite of the protests of Mattingley and Carterette--of the
despairing Carterette who felt the last thread of her hopes snap with his
going--Ranulph made ready to leave them. Bidding them good-bye, he placed
his father's body in the rowboat, and pulling back to the shore of St.
Aubin's Bay with his pale freight, carried it on his shoulders up to the
little house where he had lived so many years. There he kept the
death-watch alone.

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