A Tatter of Scarlet: Adventurous Episodes of the Commune in the Midi 1871

I saw the letter as Rhoda Polly turned it over, and noted that not a word of inquiry was wasted upon myself. My name was not once mentioned. The Lady Alida had taken dire offence at my flight, and this was in spite of the fact that Rhoda Polly had mentioned that I was with Keller Bey in the city of Aramon.

CHAPTER XXVIII

STORM GATHERING

On my return I was, as I had expected, put to the question, with lenience by Keller Bey, but with biting irony and something like personal dislike by the Procureur Raoux. Then stood apparent all the man's bitter nature, mordantly distilled from years of poverty and hatred of the well-to-do.

The name of Dennis Deventer set his eyes ablaze, and the idea of his family sitting down to a comfortable meal in spite of their isolation from markets was to him gall and wormwood. He would hardly believe the tale of the National Guards that they had seen me come down the steps of the Château already blindfolded and under escort, and that I had so continued till I was pushed out of the main entrance of the works by Jack Jaikes.

How many guns had I seen? The little man shot out the question at me.

"Only those on the roof," I answered readily, "those which had been used in January. They were hooded and protected from rain by waterproof jackets."

"How did you know that?"

"Because I went up there to take the air after dinner, and I leaned my back against one while I smoked."

"Was it a big gun? Three – four-pounder?"

I could not say exactly, but I should think four. I knew nothing about any defensive works within the square of the factory. I had traversed all that part blindfold.

The fierce little man grunted disbelievingly, but desisted when it was obvious that he could make nothing more of me.

"Let Dennis Deventer take care," he snarled, "he speaks smooth words now. Oh, the great things he will do for the workmen, but not for all his promises does he stop that Jacques Jaikes from fortifying and placing guns. Oh, I know more than you or Keller Bey are aware of. I do not go about with my eyes blindfolded. What is the use of a tower of Saint Crispin if a shoemaker may not climb it and spy out the works of his enemy?"

"That will do, Raoux," said Keller Bey, somewhat impatiently. "I shall send for you again when I need you."

He went out slowly, with a lingering, backward look, full of spite and malice, his words and face distilling hatred like the poison-fangs of a viper. I heard him mutter as he passed:

"You will send for me when you want me – take care I do not come when you want me least!"

It was indeed time to get away – the Commune of Aramon stood on the verge of a volcano which might blow us into the air any day.

Yet, how could I leave Keller Bey to his fate, and, if I did, how could I face Linn and Alida?

* * * * *

The days passed heavily in Aramon, yet with a kind of feverish excitement too – an undercurrent of danger which thrills a swimmer cutting his way through smooth upper waters when he feels the swirl of the undertow. The Commune of Aramon met daily for discussion, and reports of its meetings are still to be found in the little red-covered, tri-weekly sheet, Le Flambeau du Midi, of which I possess a set.

They appear to have discussed the most anodyne matters. They gabbled of drainage and water supplies, the suspension of rents and pawnbrokers' pledges for six months. They came to sharp words, almost to blows – "Moderates" and "Mountain," as in the old days of 1793 – while outside the companies of the Avengers of Marat, the dark young men of the wolf-like prowl, kept their watch and took their sullen counsel.

Provisions showed no visible stoppage. The country about Aramon was an early one – the great market for primeurs being Château Renard, only ten miles away. Thither Père Félix, learned in the arts of restaurant supply, sent a little permanent guard to direct the provisioning of Aramon city.

I think the only man outside Château Schneider who saw what was coming upon the new Government was my Hugolâtre of a station-master up at the junction. I went to see him every day and he never ceased to urge me to clear out of the town lest worse should befall me.

"They are arming," he said one day in early April, "they are coming nearer. Put your eye to that telescope – no, don't alter it – tell me what you see. A signal post on the railway – semaphore you call it! Yes, but did you ever see such a semaphore on a railway? With us the stiff arm drops and all is clear. It rises half-way – 'go slowly!' It stands at right angles to the post – 'stop—the way is barred!' But what do you see yonder? The stiff arms are moving this way and that. You who can Morse out a message on the telegraph apparatus, why cannot you read something infinitely more simple? That is on the other side of the river and tells me that the Government engineers are creeping nearer. There is no railway line where the semaphore is. They are signalling to their comrades on this side. The storm is gathering – be very sure. For the present there is no great hurry. Little Dictator Thiers has many irons in the fire. He has no time to read Hugo like me, nor has he time to give much thought to Aramon. But yonder are those who are preparing a path for his feet, and for the feet of his little Breton Moblots when the time comes."

It appeared to me that I ought to look into this myself, but in a way that would not compromise my friend the station-master. So I made my way boldly up into St. Crispin's tower and turned the long spyglass, old as the first Napoleon, upon the semaphore ridge. It was wagging away cheerfully, spelling out messages which I could not understand. I went at once to Keller Bey.

"The Government of Versailles is not so far off as you think," I said, "they are watching you from the other side of the river, and I believe talking across the water to the commanders of troops on this side."

And with that I told him of the semaphore and of what I had seen from the tower of St. Crispin. He sent instantly for someone who could read semaphore messages, and within half an hour a deserter from the engineers quartered at Avignon was brought to him – a small, brown, snippet of a man whom I christened at sight "the runt," but whose real name was Pichon – one of a clan mighty in all the southland of Languedoc.

Keller Bey came with us to witness the trial, and we had not reached the summit when we heard behind us the wheezing, asthmatic breathing of the Procureur Raoux sorely tried by the hasty ascent.

"Why, why, why?" he gasped, poking his head through the door – "who gave you the liberty? Ah, Keller Bey – I beg your pardon. I was not aware of your presence."

"This young man has brought us important information," said Keller Bey. "He has discovered a semaphore signal newly erected on a spur among the olive trees. The enemy have a post there, and are busily sending messages to corresponding bodies making an advance southward upon this side."

By this time I had the glass into position, and was moving gingerly out of the way to let in the ex-engineer of Avignon, when the little cobbler fairly rushed at the vacant seat, catching a foot on one of the legs of the tripod and, of course, entirely losing the semaphore on the opposite bank of the Rhône.

"I can see nothing – there is nothing to see!" he cried, gesticulating fiercely with fingers like claws, "it is the lies of the English. I know them. They have always lied to us. Dennis Deventer lies. There is no message – no semaphore. There is no regiment nearer than Lyons or Marseilles, and there I warrant Gaston Cremieux, Procureur-Général like myself, is giving them as much as they can think about."

With extreme difficulty Keller persuaded the acrid little man to allow me to try.

"I will send him to the Central Prison if he has been bringing us false news – and of course he has. What a blessing! I have a committal form with me."

I did not shrink from the test, and while Keller Bey maintained the cobbler-magistrate in some degree of quiet on the other side of the platform, the expert deserter quickly got his eye on the signalling apparatus.

"I have it," he cried, his brow glued to the eyepiece and his hand signalling for stillness. "Oh, do be quiet!"

Raoux's dancing feet were shaking the crazy platform.

"The devil is in the fellow's legs," said Keller Bey. "Will you be quiet, Raoux, or shall I drop you over to the glory of your patron saint?"

He held him for a moment asprawl over the edge with a drop of two hundred feet clear upon the packed causeway stones. Something of helplessness in the grip of Keller Bey for a moment took the madness out of Raoux.

He kept fairly still when Keller placed him again on the floor of the platform, and with a pair of huge hands, one on each shoulder, held him in place. Without taking his eyes from the spyglass the engineer searched and found a dirty note-book to which was attached by a string a stump of pencil. Presently he began to spell out a message from one side of the river to the other. I could see his fingers shaking with excitement as he jotted down the letters.

"Why," he exclaimed at the first pause, "it's our fellows from Avignon, and they are not even troubling to code the message – shows what they think of us."

"Tell us what they say," said Keller Bey.

"One moment – they are beginning again," and the pencil stub began to travel.

"Gun platform can be laid out on spur mountain, 250 feet above present shelter trenches. Will command bridge-head of Aramon – possibly also rebel headquarters."

I saw Keller Bey turn pale to the lips. He understood well enough. He had campaigned against those same invisible, tireless French engineers for many desperate African years, and he knew that in the long run they always made out to do the task set for them.

But Raoux the cobbler-procureur was quite unmoved.

"They are playing with levels and angle-machines as they used to do when I was at Avignon. They went out every day clean and came back dirty. The colonel could find nothing better for them to do. To-morrow we shall send half a column of ours and shoot a few. Then the rest will keep further up the river where they belong."

"As you will," said Keller Bey, "but you had better send a battalion at least with provisions for three days."

"Provisions for three days – absurd nonsense!" foamed the little man, for this was touching his tenderest spot, "our citizen soldiers are the National Guard of Aramon, and will not consent to sleep away from their houses, not for all the wig-wagging engineers and railway signalling in France! We are not slaves but freemen. No, no, a day's excursion to brush away these impudent land surveyors with a volley from our patriotic rifles – and then back again before dark with victory on our untarnished banners – that is what you can expect from the lion hearts of our young men. We defend the Commune. We do not make war outside it. And why should we when the chief strength of the enemy remains unassaulted and untaken within our walls?"

Keller Bey called off the ex-engineer. With such a war method as that which was evidently popular in Aramon, it was no use wasting time reading semaphore messages.