It was not until some minutes had elapsed that I became fully conscious the fierce struggle was over, and that Jacqueline was avenged; but there lay on the floor the pistols, the knife, and the blood of him whose body was now whirling along the chasms and amid the eddies of that subterranean stream whose source and outlet are alike unknown.
Tossing a stool upon the fire to feed the sinking flame, and heedless of the danger of being found in what was doubtless the haunt, the abode of an outlaw and robber, perhaps the rendezvous of his partners in crime, I sank upon the floor, to reflect and to rest. It was only then that I felt how weak, how weary I was in body, how sick and ill at heart.
I was trembling from head to foot, and bathed in a cold perspiration; so much had I undergone within the last four-and-twenty hours that a kind of stupor came upon me.
And Jacqueline—my soul was full of her! Her voice seemed ever in my ear—her name upon my tongue—her image before me. The contour of her head, with every soft feature and familiar expression of eye; glances that were filled with affection and susceptibility; her smiling lip. Ah, the pale mask which lay at the foot of yonder tree in the forest—could it be the face of her I loved so well?
If I am to live, thought I, oh for the whirl and excitement of war—a storm, siege, wreck, battle, anything that will lure me from myself and from thoughts that are maddening. To have loved her and have lost her thus! Every pulsation was a pang, for I endured all the keen misery of knowing that I had been loved tenderly, truly, and deeply in return, and yet had lost her.
The images I drew of her endurance and death, they indeed were too much to think of long, so happily crushed by my own reflections, overcome by toil, and lulled by the ceaseless murmur of the subterranean stream that poured beneath the chaumière I fell asleep at last on the hard floor where I lay.
I must have lain thus for some hours when voices roused me, and I started up to find that day had broken and several men were about me.
I had a "splitting headache" (as Charters used to say), a burning thirst, and bloodshot eyes, the result of all I had undergone; but on staggering up, I recognised the Chevalier de Boisguiller, Urbain the gardener, and Bertrand, with several others, who followed the track I had pursued, and who thus succeeded in discovering the wretched chaumière which had formed the lair of Hautois, whom they clamorously inquired if I had seen.
"Yes," said I; "and moreover I have seen the last of him."
"How—what has happened?" they asked together, while the chevalier added—
"These pistols and this knife lying here—the blood on the floor, and the broken stool, bear evidence of a conflict. What has taken place?"
I briefly related all, and Boisguiller on lifting the trap-door, gazed with a shrinking aspect on the black torrent that rushed far down below; and it would appear that for dark purposes the chaumière certainly had been built immediately over one of the few open chasms in the rocks, through which this torrent of water traverses the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier.
"Your vengeance has indeed been ample—only perhaps too sudden," said he, after a pause; "and now let us return, but first, Urbain, we shall set fire to this den, lest it find an occupant similar to the last. Then, monsieur, what are we to do with you?"
"It matters little," said I, wearily, and sick at heart.
"You are probably unaware that the British have landed again, and set fire to Cherbourg?"
"Indeed, chevalier!" I exclaimed, interested in spite of myself, and remembering that the blaze I had seen in the sky to the north-west was now accounted for.
"Yes; a strong force, we know not how many, have disembarked at Bay des Maries."
"Under the Duke of Marlborough?"
"No; the commander is a general named Bligh."
"Pardi! cet officier est un homme d'expédition!" muttered the old grenadier, Bertrand; "he has already fired all the coast."
"Yes, and he is a man of courage and daring, too," added the chevalier. "Peste! he shall not stay long in France, for all that. But we have no time to lose; our sorrowful chase has come to an end, and I must rejoin my troop, as all our forces are closing towards Cherbourg to succour the Comte de Raymond. I repeat but the words of my friend Madame de Bourgneuf, when I say, monsieur, that I wish you every success in life, now when bidding you, it may be, farewell for ever. But horses are here, and Bertrand the porter, who has been an old soldier, shall accompany you within sight of your outposts at Cherbourg; so let us at once be gone."
Perceiving that I was so faint that I could scarcely reply, the chevalier kindly said that if I wished to rejoin my countrymen it was necessary to repair my strength, so he insisted upon me imbibing the contents of his flask, which were pure cognac, and Urbain gave me from his pouch a galette or pancake, made of buckwheat and butter.
We separated soon after, and on looking back from the road that led to Avranches, old Bertrand and I saw a column of smoke ascending into the clear blue sky from the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier. It was from the burning hut wherein I had passed a night so terrible.
Riding at a quick pace we travelled together the whole day, frequently passing for miles through dense forests and apple-orchards; but after leaving Coutances behind, old Bertrand began to gnaw his wiry moustache, to make grimaces and mutter "Sacré Dieu!" "Morbleu!" and so forth; for now the roads became covered by people hastening inland with their children and valuables, and by waggons laden with furniture, sick and aged; the panic being great in that corner of Normandy; where the strength, object, and ultimate end of the new British expedition were quite unknown.
At last, after the sun had set, and the moon arisen in splendour, we saw from the heights, about seven miles off, the town and fortifications of Cherbourg, with the stately fleet of Commodore Howe riding quietly at anchor in the bay, which shone like a vast but rippling sheet of silver, from Fort Querqueville on the west, to the Isle Pelee on the east.
The way was clear before me now. I bade a kind farewell to Bertrand, dismounted, and handing to him the bridle of the chevalier's horse, walked hastily in one direction, while he rode off in the other. Scarcely had we separated, when a mounted patrol of ten dragoons in scarlet cloaks, riding slowly, each with carbine on thigh, came past.
"Who goes there?" challenged the leader, in English.
"A friend!" I replied, mechanically.
"English, by Jove!" exclaimed the officer in command, as the whole patrol simultaneously checked their horses to listen; "who or what are you, my man?"
"One of the Light Troop of the Scots Greys, left wounded in the rear, after the army abandoned Paramé," said I, stepping forward and saluting.
"Zounds! and you have been in France all this time?"
"Yes, sir, since the beginning of June."
"All right," replied the officer, shortening his reins; "remain with us. We are a party of the 11th Light Dragoons, and shall pass you on to headquarters.”