Monsieur Lecoq Émile Gaboriau (popular books of all time .txt) 📖

food. He was on the outskirts of the village, when he heard the rolling of a drum. Instinctively he hid behind a wall. But it was only a town-crier beating his drum to call the people together.

And soon a voice rose so clear and penetrating that each word it uttered fell distinctly on Lacheneur’s ears.

It said:

“This is to inform you that the authorities of Montaignac promise to give a reward of twenty thousand francs⁠—two thousand pistoles, you understand⁠—to him who will deliver up the man known as Lacheneur, dead or alive. Dead or alive, you understand. If he is dead, the compensation will be the same; twenty thousand francs! It will be paid in gold.”

With a bound, Lacheneur had risen, wild with despair and horror. Though he had believed himself utterly exhausted, he found superhuman strength to flee.

A price had been set upon his head. This frightful thought awakened in his breast the frenzy that renders a hunted wild beast so dangerous.

In all the villages around him he fancied he could hear the rolling of drums, and the voice of the criers proclaiming this infamous edict.

Go where he would now, he was a tempting bait offered to treason and cupidity. In what human creature could he confide? Under what roof could he ask shelter?

And even if he were dead, he would still be worth a fortune.

Though he died from lack of nourishment and exhaustion under a bush by the wayside, his emaciated body would still be worth twenty thousand francs.

And the man who found his corpse would not give it burial. He would place it on his cart and bear it to Montaignac. He would go to the authorities and say: “Here is Lacheneur’s body⁠—give me the reward!”

How long and by what paths he pursued his flight, he could not tell.

But several hours after, as he traversed the wooded hills of Charves, he saw two men, who sprang up and fled at his approach. In a terrible voice, he called after them:

“Eh! you men! do each of you desire a thousand pistoles? I am Lacheneur.”

They paused when they recognized him, and Lacheneur saw that they were two of his followers. They were well-to-do farmers, and it had been very difficult to induce them to take part in the revolt.

These men had part of a loaf of bread and a little brandy. They gave both to the famished man.

They sat down beside him on the grass, and while he was eating they related their misfortunes. Their connection with the conspiracy had been discovered; their houses were full of soldiers, who were hunting for them, but they hoped to reach Italy by the aid of a guide who was waiting for them at an appointed place.

Lacheneur extended his hand to them.

“Then I am saved,” said he. “Weak and wounded as I am, I should perish if I were left alone.”

But the two farmers did not accept the hand he offered.

“We should leave you,” said the younger man, gloomily, “for you are the cause of our misfortunes. You deceived us, Monsieur Lacheneur.”

He dared not protest, so just was the reproach.

“Nonsense! let him come all the same,” said the other, with a peculiar glance at his companion.

So they walked on, and that same evening, after nine hours of travelling on the mountains, they crossed the frontier.

But this long journey was not made without bitter reproaches, and even more bitter recriminations.

Closely questioned by his companions, Lacheneur, exhausted both in mind and body, finally admitted the insincerity of the promises with which he had inflamed the zeal of his followers. He acknowledged that he had spread the report that Marie-Louise and the young King of Rome were concealed in Montaignac, and that this report was a gross falsehood. He confessed that he had given the signal for the revolt without any chance of success, and without means of action, leaving everything to chance. In short, he confessed that nothing was real save his hatred, his implacable hatred of the Sairmeuse family.

A dozen times, at least, during this terrible avowal, the peasants who accompanied him were on the point of hurling him down the precipices upon whose verge they were walking.

“So it was to gratify his own spite,” they thought, quivering with rage, “that he sets everybody to fighting and killing one another⁠—that he ruins us, and drives us into exile. We will see.”

The fugitives went to the nearest house after crossing the frontier.

It was a lonely inn, about a league from the little village of Saint-Jean-de-Coche, and was kept by a man named Balstain.

They rapped, in spite of the lateness of the hour⁠—it was past midnight. They were admitted, and they ordered supper.

But Lacheneur, weak from loss of blood, and exhausted by his long tramp, declared that he would eat no supper.

He threw himself upon a bed in an adjoining room, and was soon asleep.

This was the first time since their meeting with Lacheneur that his companions had found an opportunity to talk together in private.

The same idea had occurred to both of them.

They believed that by delivering up Lacheneur to the authorities, they might obtain pardon for themselves.

Neither of these men would have consented to receive a single sou of the money promised to the betrayer; but to exchange their life and liberty for the life and liberty of Lacheneur did not seem to them a culpable act, under the circumstances.

“For did he not deceive us?” they said to themselves.

They decided, at last, that as soon as they had finished their supper, they would go to Saint-Jean-de-Coche and inform the Piedmontese guards.

But they reckoned without their host.

They had spoken loud enough to be overheard by Balstain, the innkeeper, who had learned, during the day, of the magnificent reward which had been promised to Lacheneur’s captor.

When he heard the name of the guest who was sleeping quietly under his roof, a thirst for gold seized him. He whispered a word to his wife, then escaped through the window to run and summon the gendarmes.

He had been