Toni got back to the barracks, he knew not how, stumbling along through the rain and darkness, and throwing himself on his rough bed lay awake and agonized the whole night through until the bugle call next morning. He could not eat that whole day nor sleep the next night and pined like a woman. During that day he saw Nicolas and Pierre a dozen times at least, and they always flashed him a mocking glance which he understood perfectly well and which gave him a feeling as if a red-hot iron hand were clutching his heart, for Toni was of an imaginative nature.
He did not see Denise that day, and spent another sleepless and horror-stricken night. The next morning it occurred to him, as a means of escaping Denise’s tender and searching eyes, as well as the hateful company of Pierre and Nicolas, that he might possibly sham illness and be sent to the hospital. He did not need to sham, however—he was in a high fever and the surgeon swore at him for not reporting before, so he found a temporary haven of refuge in the hospital. There he spent several days. The doctor, who was a clever young fellow, was a good deal puzzled by the case. He could not make out whether Toni was malingering or not. He evidently wished to be considered ill—at the same time there were indications about him of his being really ill. If he had not had the reputation of being an admirable soldier, the doctor would have suspected Toni had done something wrong and was in hiding, as it were, in the hospital.
The sergeant called to see him and was rather rough with him considering that nothing was the matter with Toni.
“Do you think I would lie here and take all these nasty messes if there were nothing the matter with me?” cried poor Toni.
There was indeed something very serious the matter with him, but it was a kind of suffering which not all the doctor’s instruments and medicines could reach. Denise, with her aunt, called twice to see him, but both times Toni feigned to be asleep as soon as he distinguished their voices, and it was against the rules to disturb him.
A week passed, on the second morning of which he found a long, sharp knife under his pillow, and at the end of that time the doctor turned Toni out of the hospital, much against the latter’s will. He had then to resume his duties, of course, and affect cheerfulness as well as he could. He succeeded rather better in the last respect than might have been expected, and Denise only saw in him the weakness and lassitude which she thought were due to his recent illness.
On the day fortnight after Paul Verney’s wedding, he returned with his bride—the honeymoon of a sublieutenant is inevitably brief. The very next day the practice march was to begin and Toni did not see Paul Verney until the next morning when the troop was forming in the barracks square.
The regiment marched out with colors flying to do a practice march of two days’ duration. Paul was riding at the head of his troop. He was a fine horseman and had a good military air and everything about him was spick and span as becomes an officer.
Toni, who was at the end of the file, got a good look at Paul as he cantered along by the side of the troopers and a look of affectionate intelligence flashed between the two young men. Toni saw that Paul was truly happy—he was in fact always happy when performing his military duties, because he was born a soldier, apt at obedience and ready at command. In the same file with Toni rode Nicolas and Pierre.
They passed out of the town on the dusty highroad, their helmets gleaming in the sun and the steady tramp of their horses’ hoofs sounding like thunder on the highroad and raising a great white dust like a pillar of cloud by day. Crowds of people ran out to see them, and cheered them as they passed. The day was bright and warm, but not hot enough to distress either the men or the horses. They kept on steadily until noon, when there was an hour of rest and refreshment. Again they took up the line of march. A cool breeze was blowing and it was as pleasant a June day as one could wish for marching. Towards three o’clock, as they were passing the outskirts of a wood, Toni put his hand to his head and reeled in his saddle. His horse kept on steadily in the ranks. It was very well simulated and Paul rode up and caught Toni by the arm.
“You had better drop out,” he said, “and rest a while by the roadside and rejoin when you feel better.” Toni touched his cap and said, “Thank you, sir,” and slipping out of his saddle, led his horse to a grassy place under a tree, where he sat down and mopped his face. He looked quite pale and weak, but the surgeon, when he rode up, gave him a sharp look, made him drink some wine and water out of his canteen, and said: “You will be all right in ten minutes,” and rode on.
Ten minutes passed and twenty and thirty. The regiment was out of sight. Toni’s troop was a part of the rear guard. The dull echo of thousands of hoofs still resounded afar off, but all else was quiet in that shaded woody spot, with farm-houses basking in the sun, the highroad gleaming whitely, and the railway beyond making two streaks of steel-blue light in the distance. Toni, with his helmet off, and his horse browsing quietly near him, sat on the ground under the shade with the glaring midday light around him and waited for Paul Verney, who he knew would return. No lieutenant in the regiment looked so closely after his men as he. Presently Toni heard the galloping of a horse and the rattling of a saber in its scabbard, and there was Paul riding up. He swung himself off his horse and came up to Toni and said:
“I came back to see what was the matter with you. I thought you would have rejoined by this time.”
Toni made no reply, but raised his black eyes to Paul’s blue ones and they were so full of misery that Paul involuntarily put his hand on Toni’s shoulder and asked, “What is it?”
Toni tried to speak, but the words would not come. Paul, putting his hand in his breast, drew out a small flask of brandy and poured the best part of it down Toni’s throat.
“Now,” he said, “tell me what it is.”
Toni’s vocabulary was not extensive and he hunted around in his mind for language to express the horror of what he was suffering, but he could only find the simplest words.
“Nicolas and Pierre—,” he said, “those scoundrels—have ordered me to kill you. They say if I don’t they will kill me and kill you afterward themselves.”
There was silence for a minute or two after this.
Paul knew very well that Toni was neither drunk nor crazy, and he grasped at once all that Toni meant. His face grew pale and his blond mustache twitched a little.
“So they want to put me out of the way—what for?”
“Because they think you are responsible for their being in trouble so much. They are desperate men, Paul.” Toni used Paul’s name unconsciously, but he was thinking then of Paul as he had known him years ago, an apple-cheeked boy who understood him and even understood Jacques.
Paul took his helmet off and let the cool breeze blow on his close-cropped sandy hair.
“Come, now,” he said, “tell me all about it—how it happened.”
“It is about Count Delorme,” said Toni, gasping between his sentences. “You know, Paul, I always was a coward about most things.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And when I was in the circus those two rascals used to take me with them sometimes on their robbing expeditions and make me keep watch and help to carry off the stolen things. I was frightened to death at what they made me do—too frightened to refuse to go with them. I never knew of their killing anybody, except Count Delorme, but that night they waylaid him in the dark, I swear to you—oh! God, I swear to you a million times—I never touched Count Delorme. I thought they were going to rob him only—I did not dream they were going to kill him. But he resisted when they tried to get his money, and Nicolas struck him a blow and he fell over. And they put a twenty-franc piece in my pocket and swore that I had killed him and robbed him. Then I determined to get away from them and so, when I was conscripted, I could have got off because I was the only son of a widow, but I thought if I were in the army I might escape them and I meant then to hunt for you and to tell you all about it. And I thought I had escaped them—oh! how happy I was—but they turned up as you know and I have not had a moment’s peace since. Two weeks ago they forced me to go with them—”
“‘Forced you to go with them!’” said Paul indignantly. “Toni, you are the greatest coward.”
“I know it,” replied Toni. “I always was. And they told me that they meant to kill you and we played a game of cards to determine whether they should do it or I—I—think of it! Of course I lost, and they promised me if I didn’t kill you that I should be killed. And they told me to drop out of the ranks and that you would come after me, and they put this knife where I could find it.” Toni drew it from his bosom. It was an ordinary table knife, but of well-tempered steel and as sharp as a razor. “And I was to kill you and leave your body here where it could not be found for several hours—and make the best of my way off. Of course, I should have been caught and guillotined, but what did they care about that?”
Toni turned and threw the knife as far as he could into the bosky thicket behind him. Paul Verney, who was as quiet as a lamb and as brave as a lion, looked at Toni sorrowfully.
“I think I can get rid of those two rapscallions in time,” he said, “get them sent to Algiers. But they will have to come back sometime.”
“That’s what I know,” said Toni. “We are under sentence of death, Paul, and it is all my fault.”
The ghost of a smile came into Paul Verney’s face.
“No,” he answered, “not exactly your fault, Toni. You were born that way, so you can’t help yourself.”
“And we are both so happy,” cried Toni, and at this he burst into a passion of tears, sobbing as he had not sobbed since he was a small boy and his mother had the rheumatism and he thought she was going to die. Paul turned his back and walked up and down in front of Toni for a minute or two, and when he spoke his voice was husky.
“Yes,” he said, “we are both very happy, or would be except for those wretches. But, Toni, you must keep every hint of this from Denise and I shall certainly keep it from my wife.”
“You may be able to,” replied poor Toni, “because you are brave and self-possessed, but you know how I am. I am likely to let it out any time.”
“If you do,” said Paul sternly, “you may look to hear from me. Toni, have you no shame at being such a coward?”
“Not a bit,” replied Toni. “As you say, I was born that way. I am not afraid of horses nor of guns nor of anything that other people are afraid of.”
Paul inspected Toni in wrath and sorrow. He was the identical Toni that had enjoyed a ride on the runaway horse, and was cowed and terrified by the laughs and jeers of a couple of the tailor Clery’s boys, either of whom he was perfectly well able to thrash if he had wished. Paul Verney was not, physically, half the man that Toni was, but not all the five Clery boys, with their father at their head, could have frightened him when he was a very small boy himself. Paul would have taken a thrashing from them one day and be ready to repeat it the next, but the mere thought of a thrashing frightened Toni out of his wits.
How much more, then, did the thought of being murdered scare him! Yet if Toni had been driven into the forlorn hope—“the last children” as the French picturesquely put it—he would have behaved as well as any man in it.
Paul Verney looked around him at the smiling, peaceful landscape basking in the afternoon light, and thought of Lucie at the château. She was probably practising her music at that hour, and then she would go for her afternoon ride with only a groom to accompany her. He would be absent from her for two whole days, and Lucie had spent a week in devising schemes for getting rid of the time. Paul was as much in love with her as she was with him, but it never occurred to him that there was any difficulty in getting rid of the time during his absence from her—he had his work to do and he meant to do it well, nor did he let the thought of Lucie interfere in the least with his duty. He had cheerfully given that promise demanded of all lovers, that he would tell Lucie everything. As he had nothing to tell her of the least harm, or of the least consequence, he had laughingly made the promise. But now there was something he must conceal from her; something, the mere thought of which would blight that merry, beautiful, rose-in-bloom life that Lucie was leading; something which, if it ever came to pass, would blight it altogether.
Paul pulled himself together and turned his mind, as he had the power to do, resolutely away from the grisly probability presented to him.
“Toni,” said he, “don’t think about this thing. I believe I can get those two scoundrels out of the way, and I will; so take another pull out of this brandy flask and get on your horse and follow me.”
Toni did as he was told and was soon galloping at Paul Verney’s heels. The thought of Denise was before him. He knew that sometime he should tell her—he could not keep it from her—and what would Denise say, and what would she do?—be scared as he was? Presently they found themselves in the cloud of dust which enveloped the regiment and Toni made his way to his place at the end of the file, Paul Verney cantering past. As Toni reined up he looked around the file and saw the red mustache and ferret-like eyes of Nicolas peering out along the line of mustached and helmeted heads. Nicolas gave him an indescribable look—a look with murder in it. Toni had had his chance, and Paul Verney had come back unharmed. That night in the bivouac Nicolas and Pierre came up to Toni and Nicolas whispered in his ear:
“You have two more chances—we will give you three opportunities all together.”
Toni said not a word in reply. He only wondered dumbly, how much of life that meant for him.