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

gone half an hour before the peasants left the house; for to muster up courage for the act they were about to commit they had been obliged to drink heavily.

They closed the door so violently on going out that Lacheneur was awakened by the noise. He sprang up, and came out into the adjoining room.

The wife of the innkeeper was there alone.

“Where are my friends?” he asked, anxiously. “Where is your husband?”

Moved by sympathy, the woman tried to falter some excuse, but finding none, she threw herself at his feet, crying:

“Fly, Monsieur, save yourself⁠—you are betrayed!”

Lacheneur rushed back into the other room, seeking a weapon with which he could defend himself, an issue through which he could flee!

He had thought that they might abandon him, but betray him⁠—no, never!

“Who has sold me?” he asked, in a strained, unnatural voice.

“Your friends⁠—the two men who supped there at that table.”

“Impossible, Madame, impossible!”

He did not suspect the designs and hopes of his former comrades; and he could not, he would not believe them capable of ignobly betraying him for gold.

“But,” pleaded the innkeeper’s wife, still on her knees before him, “they have just started for Saint-Jean-de-Coche, where they will denounce you. I heard them say that your life would purchase theirs. They have certainly gone to summon the gendarmes! Is this not enough, or am I obliged to endure the shame of confessing that my own husband, too, has gone to betray you.”

Lacheneur understood it all now! And this supreme misfortune, after all the misery he had endured, broke him down completely.

Great tears gushed from his eyes, and sinking down into a chair, he murmured:

“Let them come; I am ready for them. No, I will not stir from here. My miserable life is not worth such a struggle.”

But the wife of the traitor rose, and grasping the unfortunate man’s clothing, she shook him, she dragged him to the door⁠—she would have carried him had she possessed sufficient strength.

“You shall not remain here,” said she, with extraordinary vehemence. “Fly, save yourself. You shall not be taken here; it will bring misfortune upon our house!”

Bewildered by these violent adjurations, and urged on by the instinct of self-preservation, so powerful in every human heart, Lacheneur stepped out upon the threshold.

The night was very dark, and a chilling fog intensified the gloom.

“See, Madame,” said the poor fugitive gently, “how can I find my way through these mountains, which I do not know, and where there are no roads⁠—where the footpaths are scarcely discernible.”

With a quick movement Balstain’s wife pushed Lacheneur out, and turning him as one does a blind man to set him on the right track:

“Walk straight before you,” said she, “always against the wind. God will protect you. Farewell!”

He turned to ask further directions, but she had re-entered the house and closed the door.

Upheld by a feverish excitement, he walked for long hours. He soon lost his way, and wandered on through the mountains, benumbed with cold, stumbling over rocks, sometimes falling.

Why he was not precipitated to the depths of some chasm it is difficult to explain.

He lost all idea of his whereabouts, and the sun was high in the heavens when he at last met a human being of whom he could inquire his way.

It was a little shepherd-boy, in pursuit of some stray goats, whom he encountered; but the lad, frightened by the wild and haggard appearance of the stranger, at first refused to approach.

The offer of a piece of money induced him to come a little nearer.

“You are on the summit of the mountain, Monsieur,” said he; “and exactly on the boundary line. Here is France; there is Savoy.”

“And what is the nearest village?”

“On the Savoyard side, Saint-Jean-de-Coche; on the French side, Saint-Pavin.”

So after all his terrible exertions, Lacheneur was not a league from the inn.

Appalled by this discovery, he remained for a moment undecided which course to pursue.

What did it matter? Why should the doomed hesitate? Do not all roads lead to the abyss into which they must sink?

He remembered the gendarmes that the innkeeper’s wife had warned him against, and slowly and with great difficulty descended the steep mountainside leading down to France.

He was near Saint-Pavin, when, before an isolated cottage, he saw a pretty peasant woman spinning in the sunshine.

He dragged himself toward her, and in weak tones begged her hospitality.

On seeing this man, whose face was ghastly pale, and whose clothing was torn and soiled with dust and blood, the woman rose, evidently more surprised than alarmed.

She looked at him closely, and saw that his age, his stature, and his features corresponded with the descriptions of Lacheneur, which had been scattered thickly about the frontier.

“You are the conspirator they are hunting for, and for whom they promise a reward of twenty thousand francs,” she said.

Lacheneur trembled.

“Yes, I am Lacheneur,” he replied, after a moment’s hesitation; “I am Lacheneur. Betray me, if you will, but in charity’s name give me a morsel of bread, and allow me to rest a little.”

At the words “betray me,” the young woman made a gesture of horror and disgust.

“We betray you, sir!” said she. “Ah! you do not know the Antoines! Enter our house, and lie down upon the bed while I prepare some refreshments for you. When my husband comes home, we will see what can be done.”

It was nearly sunset when the master of the house, a robust mountaineer, with a frank face, returned.

On beholding the stranger seated at his fireside he turned frightfully pale.

“Unfortunate woman!” he whispered to his wife, “do you not know that any man who shelters this fugitive will be shot, and his house levelled to the ground?”

Lacheneur rose with a shudder.

He had not known this. He knew the infamous reward which had been promised to his betrayer; but he had not known the danger his presence brought upon these worthy people. “I will go at once, sir,” said he, gently.

But the peasant placed his large hand kindly upon his guest’s shoulder, and forced him to resume