And at the recollection of those hours of agony, Lieutenant Godet wiped the perspiration from his streaming brow.
“Well?” Chauvelin queried dryly, “and the others, the Englishmen?”
“They marched along at a swinging pace,” Godet replied, smothering a savage oath. “Without turning a hair. They kicked up no dust. They did not sweat. They just marched. No doubt their bellies were well filled.”
“And the prisoners?”
“They set to with a will. And I make no doubt but they had fed and drunk while they sat in the wagon. At any rate they showed no fatigue.”
“How long did you continue on the march?”
“Till one by one we—my comrades and I—fell out by the roadside.”
“And those who fell out were left, while the others went on?”
“Yes! We had gone through the second village, and were marching along the edge of a stream, when the first lot of us dropped out. Three of my men. They just rolled down the bank of the stream; and there lay on their stomachs trying to drink. The captain—or whatever he was, curse him!—called ‘Halt!’ and one of his men ran down the bank and had a look at those three poor fellows who lay there striving to slake their hunger as well as their thirst in the cool mountain stream. But, nom de nom! They—the miscreants!—had no bowels of compassion. I believe—for in truth I was too tired to see anything clearly—that one of them did leave a hunk of bread by the side of the stream: perhaps he was afraid that those poor fellows would die of inanition and then their death would be upon his conscience.”
“Well! And did all the men fall out that way?”
“Yes! We were marching three abreast: and three by three we all fell out. Always beside the stream, for we suffered from thirst as much as from hunger. The stream seemed to draw us, and three of us, as if by common understanding, would just roll down the bank and lie on our stomachs and try to drink. The captain no longer called a halt when that happened. One of his own men would just throw pieces of bread down to the edge of the stream, just as they would to a dog.”
“And you were the last to fall out?”
“The very last. I verily believe, when I rolled down the bank and felt the cool stream against my face, that I had died and reached the Elysian fields. A piece of bread was thrown to me, and I fell on it like a starved beast.”
“And then what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean? Nothing?”
“Nothing as far as we were concerned. The bank of the stream, for a length of two kilometres or more, was strewn with our dead—that is not dead, you understand, but fatigued, and only half-conscious with hunger: while those miscreants, those limbs of Satan, marched off without as much as a last look at us! Gaily they marched away singing. Yes, singing, some awful gibberish, in a tongue I did not understand. That is,” poor Godet went on ruefully, “when first I had an inkling of the awful truth. That strange tongue gave it away. You understand?”
The others nodded.
“And then, by chance, I put my hand in the back pocket of my tunic, and felt that piece of paper.”
With finger that quivered slightly, he pointed to Chauvelin’s hand; between the clenched claw-like fingers there protruded the corner of a scrap of paper. Chauvelin failed to suppress the exclamation of rage which rose to his lips.
“Nom de nom!” he muttered savagely through his teeth, and with his handkerchief he wiped the beads of moisture that had risen to the roots of his hair.
“And so they marched away,” one of the others remarked dryly. “In which direction?”
“Straight on,” the soldier replied laconically.
“On the way to Nyons, I suppose, and Walreas?”
“I suppose so. I don’t know the neighbourhood.”
“You do not seem to have known much, Lieutenant Godet,” Chauvelin put in with a sneer.
“I come from the other side of the Drac,” Godet retorted. “I could not—”
But Chauvelin broke in with an oath:
“Wherever you come from, citizen,” he said sternly, “it was your duty to become acquainted with the country through which you were ordered to march your men.”
“I had no orders to take them through mountain passes,” Godet remarked sullenly. “We came through here a month ago and have kept to the high road. At Sisteron I had my orders to arrest the ci-devant Frontenacs. You, Citizen Chauvelin, must know how conscientiously I did my duty. All the orders you gave me I fulfilled. After Sisteron you ordered me to go to Laragne, and thence to Serres. It was you ordered me to halt at Laragne for the night.”
“All this is beside the point,” one of the others broke in roughly. “All we can gather from this confused tale is that all traces of the English spies have completely vanished.”
“For the moment,” Chauvelin assented dryly. “It is for Lieutenant Godet to find those traces again.”
He spoke now with extreme bitterness, and the glances which he levelled at Godet were both hostile and threatening. It would be curious to try and follow the mental processes which had given rise to this hostility. Godet, after all said and done, had only failed in the same manner as he himself, Chauvelin, had so often done. He had been hoodwinked by a particularly astute and daring adventurer who was an avowed enemy of France: and if being thus hoodwinked was a crime against the State, then the powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety and the humble lieutenant of infantry were fellow-criminals. This, of course, Godet did not know. Not yet: or he would not have been in such dread of this man with the pale eyes and the talon-like hands. The others he did not fear nearly so much. No doubt they too were cruel and vengeful these days. Strike or the blow will fall on you, was the rule
