"When nothing remains of an adventure," writes some one, "it is always possible to consider it a dream." As yet I could not realize this, though frequently asking of myself, Is all this sudden calamity a truth?—for I thought, spoke, and acted as one who dreamed.
But three hours—they seemed so many ages—but three hours ago, I had been seated in yonder garden-bower with Jacqueline, listening to her voice, while her cheek reclined upon my shoulder, fearing nothing save the shadowy future, thinking of ourselves and of our love alone.
Now how all was changed!
I had been discovered, and all but expelled from the chateau, while she had been abducted, and by such an abductor! Now I was riding side by side with a French officer—his comrade for the time—and he was that Chevalier de Boisguiller, who had been so long my bête noire.
At the very moment I was thinking of all these things, what might be the peril, the suffering, the desperate extremity of Jacqueline! Where was she, and how circumstanced in the power of a brutal galley-slave? Might we not be riding in the wrong direction, and thus, perhaps, abandoning her to the very fate from which we sought to save her? The stars that looked so brightly down on us looked also down on her; but where was she? Every thought and fear was maddening!
When contrasted with my own keen anxiety, the sang-froid of the French officer piqued and annoyed me. It was well for me, however, that he was ignorant of the relation that existed between his cousin and me, as, apart from any fancy he might himself have had for her, in the extreme ideas of difference of rank, religion, and so forth, cherished by the French noblesse, he would have thought no more of quietly pistolling me, on the score of presumption, than of shooting a weasel. Thus my ill-concealed emotions he put down in his own mind as the result of humanity and gratitude.
"Mon ami, I rather like you," said he, as we rode on together; "I can see that you are courageous, and that is better than to be merely brave."
"Merely brave—what do you mean, chevalier?"
"We French make a distinction in this matter. A soldier may be very brave, and yet on some occasions may not have courage to manifest his bravery."
"I confess that this paradox is too subtle for me, especially at such a time. But tell me, chevalier, was this wretch of whom we are in pursuit ever in the French service?"
"I regret to say that he was, until discharged with a cartouche jaune as an incorrigible rogue."
He referred to the discharge printed on yellow paper and given to those men of the French army who were dismissed under sentence of degradation.
For a few miles we diverged into every cross path, but always returned to the main road; and we questioned closely the few persons, chiefly charcoal-burners, whom in that sequestered region we met abroad at such an hour, but questioned them in vain.
Thus the short night of August was soon spent. The clear stars still shone brightly in the blue sky; but already there were indications of the dawn that was at hand, for a warm flush was stealing over the east when we found ourselves at Fougères, a little town situated on the river Nanson, having some leather manufactories and a strong old castle wherein the lords of that Seigneurie resided.
There we turned our horses without prosecuting our inquiries, as it was by no means likely that those of whom we were in search would be found in a busy town.
So the night had passed away—a night without tidings of Jacqueline!
Broader and deeper grew the light of morning, and clouds of sombre grey or purple that overhung the mountains and seemed to roll along their distant ridges, became lighted up and edged with saffron and gold.
We were returning at a canter along the highway to Bourgneuf, in the hope that on reaching that place we might find that some of our searchers had returned with happy tidings and better success than ourselves; but we had scarcely proceeded two miles when we met Urbain the gardener and Bertrand the porter, each armed with a musket. They were accompanied by an old peasant, whose head was bound about with a cloth to conceal a wound, which seemed to have bled profusely.
They had been scouting in the woodlands which bordered the highway, and had there met this peasant, who was a woodcutter, and who informed them that he had seen a man dragging a woman towards the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier, and that when attempting to interfere when she claimed his succour and protection, her captor struck him down with the butt of a heavy pistol. This rencontre occurred about three miles from the place where we were then speaking.
"Pardieu! this is valuable intelligence," exclaimed Boisguiller; "but how shall we track them through these dense thickets?"
"Monsieur, you cannot do it on horseback," replied the peasant; "but as my hut is close by, you may leave your horses there, and then, as I should like to repay that cowardly rascal for the tap he gave me on the head, I shall give you sure means of tracking him, for I have in keeping a Spanish bloodhound belonging to Monseigneur the Count of Fougères, and it is completely at your service."
"I thank you for this great aid, mon ami," said my companion; "the count knows me well—I am the Chevalier de Boisguiller, son of the Governor of St. Malo."
On hearing this the peasant made a succession of low bows, scraping the turf with his sabots at each.
The reader may imagine the haste and satisfaction with which we availed ourselves of the offer of the old woodman, and as we proceeded to his humble hut, which was situated close to a bend of the Nanson, I questioned him closely and anxiously about the appearance of the persons he had seen. The tall, powerful man in a common blouse and fur cap, with a girdle and couteau de chasse, was as certainly Theophile Hautois as the poor pale girl with torn dress and dishevelled hair, whose hands he had tied with a cord, and whose mouth he had gagged with a handkerchief, was certainly our Jacqueline.
His description made me tremble with anguish and rage, and Boisguiller to gnaw the ends of his moustaches. We quitted our saddles, stuck our pistols in our girdles, and had the bloodhound brought forth.
"Messieurs," said the woodman, as he led forward the dog by a strong steel chain, "there is not in France, and certainly not in Bretagne or Normandy, a limier with a finer nose than this; and set him but once upon the track of those we seek—let the distance between us be ever so great, and let it be through the thickest woods and by the most covert paths—ay, pardieu, by the Blackwater of St. Aubin du Cormier, this dog will trace them."
"To the proof, without delay!" exclaimed the chevalier, while I examined attentively the ferocious brute on whose instincts our hopes depended.
Its back was about thirty inches high, its limbs exhibited vast muscle, and its chaps were long, pendulous, and frothy. It was of a deep dark-brown hue, and was of that breed which the Spaniards once used with such terrible effect on the continent and adjacent isles of South America.
Leaving our horses at the hut, we retraced our steps, and entering the wild forest, which more or less covers all that part of the country, an hour's walk brought us to the place where the woodman had encountered Hautois and his victim about seven hours before—at midnight, in fact, and he assured us of the place by showing on the grass traces of the blood which had flowed from the wound inflicted by the outlaw's pistol-butt.
The fierce hound inserted his square muzzle among the grass and sniffed up blood, on which the peasant gave him a kick, saying,
"Voila, mon ami!—come, come, 'tis not my blood we wish you to sniff at so pleasantly, but the blood of another."
"True," said Boisguiller, "but how are we to give him the scent of Hautois, or of the lady?"
"Morbleu!" grumbled the woodman; "I did not think of that."
"Had we but a piece of mademoiselle's dress!" said Urbain.
"Here are what we require," said I, in a voice all but breathless with emotion, while drawing from my breast the kid glove and fragment of lace which we had found near the garden-bower. The chevalier gave me a keen glance, and snatching the relics almost abruptly from my hand, pressed them against the black nostrils of the dog, patting him soothingly the while. The glove was perfumed fortunately, and thus, in a minute or less, the dog, after sniffing and snorting about among the grass, with his head bent low and ears drooping, began to run rapidly through the forest, straining on his collar and chain, and dragging after him the peasant who grasped the other end of it.
"Parbleu, messieurs! he is on the track now! See how he follows the scent!" exclaimed the old man, who was compelled to run fast to keep up with the dog and with us. "Oh! by St. Malo! See, here are the footsteps, the crushed leaves, the broken twigs! 'Tis this way they have passed, messieurs. Ah! sacré coquin! That tap on the head shall cost thee dear. Look to your pistols, monsieur le chevalier, for he has a pair, and I know not the moment we may come upon him."
Thus surely guided by the searching instinct and unflinching pertinacity of the hound, we hastened through the forest in silence, and with hearts full of intense anxiety and hope.
The dog was sometimes at fault when runnels of water crossed our path, but the peasant, who was an acute old fellow, with a face of the true Breton type—eyes that were deeply set and thoughtful, a high nose and square forehead—soon set him right again.
What must poor Jacqueline, so delicate and so tenderly nurtured, have suffered while forced to pursue such paths as these? We were now at least eight miles distant from Bourgneuf, and for her to have been dragged through a forest at midnight, and by such hands!
The idea was too dreadful to embody in fancy, so let me hasten over what follows.
At a part of the forest which was so dense that the intertwined branches of the trees almost excluded the light of the sun, the dog stopped at the root of a large elm, and began to bay loudly over some tufts of grass, leaves, and branches that were freshly heaped up there. He snorted, growled savagely, and then proceeded to tear up the little mound with his nose and forepaws.
"The scent ends here," said the peasant, looking somewhat bewildered and alarmed.
"There must be some mistake," said the chevalier, with annoyance in his tone; "we have been in pursuit of the wrong person. But some mystery may be concealed here. Urbain, Bertrand, scrape aside this heap, and let us see what the dog's nose has discovered."
They readily plied their musket-butts, and then their hands, while I stood by, feeling more dead than alive, for the horror of anticipation overcame me.
A bit of an orange silk dress appeared. Let me endeavour to write briefly and calmly of what followed.
In a hollow, a hasty grave, half dug and half heaped up, about three feet deep in all, we found the body of Jacqueline, covered by leaves, branches, and tufts of grass.
She lay upon her back; her right hand, so small and beautiful, clutched a tuft of grass; the teeth were clenched—there was no relaxation of the jaw—clenched as if with agony, and foam was plainly discernible on the white and parted lips; yet she was lovely like a dead angel, and all the divine serenity of innocence was there.
Standing aloof like one transfixed or petrified, I saw them raise her up, and saw her head drooping pendulously backward with its long dishevelled hair clotted with blood, the bare bosom and the tattered dress.
Then I heard Boisguiller exclaim in accents of horror,
"She is dead now; but that mere wound could never have killed her—she has been, stunned and buried alive! Poor Jacqueline! What she has endured ere death released her, her lips can never tell us now.”