"Escort me? _Me?_ What have I got to do with it, I'd like to know?" I cried, springing to my feet. "I wish to explain--to make clear to you--_clear_. I want you to understand that I stumbled here by the merest chance; that I never spoke to this man in my life until to-night, that I accepted his hospitality purely because I did not wish to offend him, although I had shot late and was in a hurry to get home."

He smiled quietly.

"Please do not worry," he returned, "we know all about you. You are the American. Your house is the old one by the marsh in Pont du Sable. I called on you this afternoon, but you were absent. I am really indebted to you if you do but know it. By following your tracks, monsieur, we stumbled on the nest we have so long been looking for. Permit me to hand you my card. My name is Guinard--Sous Chief of the Paris Police."

I breathed easier--things were clearing up.

"And may I ask, monsieur, how you knew I had gone in the direction of La Poche?" I inquired. That was still a mystery.

"You have a little maid," he replied; "and little maids can sometimes be made to talk."

He paused and then said slowly, weighing each word.

"Yes, that no doubt surprises you, but we follow every clue. You were both sportsmen; that, as you know, monsieur, is always a bond, and we had not long to wait, although it was too dark for us to be quite sure when you both pa.s.sed me. It was the bolting of the door that clinched the matter for me. But for the absence of two of my men on another scent we should have disturbed you earlier. I must compliment you, monsieur, on your knowledge of chartreuse as well as your taste for good cigars; permit me to offer you another." Here he slipped his hand into his pocket and handed me a duplicate of the one I had been smoking.

"Twelve boxes, Maceio, were there not? Not expensive, eh, when purchased with these?" and he spread out the identical bank-notes with which his prisoner had paid for them in the Government store on the boulevard.

"As for you, monsieur, it is only necessary that one of my men take your statement at your house; after that you are free.

"Come, Maceio," and he shook the prisoner by the shoulder, "you take the midnight train with me back to Paris--you too, madame."

And so I say again, and this time you must agree with me, that strange happenings, often with a note of terror in them, occur now and then in my lost village by the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: cigar]

[Ill.u.s.tration: soldiers]

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE HORRORS OF WAR

At the very beginning of the straggling fis.h.i.+ng-village of Pont du Sable and close by the tawny marsh stands the little stone house of the mayor.

The house, like Monsieur le Maire himself, is short and st.u.r.dy. Its modest facade is half hidden under a coverlet of yellow roses that have spread at random over the tiled roof as high as the chimney. In front, edging the road, is a tidy strip of garden with more roses, a wood-pile, and an ancient well whose stone roof shelters a worn windla.s.s that groans in protest whenever its chain and bucket are disturbed.

I heard the windla.s.s complaining this sunny morning as I pa.s.sed on my way through the village and caught sight of the ruddy mayor in his blue blouse lowering the bucket. The chain snapped taut, the bucket gulped its fill, and Monsieur le Maire caught sight of me.

"_Ah bigre!_" he exclaimed as he left the bucket where it hung and came forward with both hands outstretched in welcome, a smile wrinkling his genial face, clean-shaven to the edges of his short, cropped gray side-whiskers, reaching well beneath his chin. "Come in, come in," he insisted, laying a persuasive hand on my shoulder, as he unlatched his gate.

It is almost impossible for a friend to pa.s.s the mayor's without being stopped by just such a welcome. The twinkle in his eyes and the hearty genuineness of his greeting are irresistible. The next moment you have crossed his threshold and entered a square, low-ceiled room that for over forty years has served Monsieur le Maire as living room, kitchen, and executive chamber.

He had left me for a moment, as he always does when he welcomes a friend. I could hear from the pantry cupboard beyond the s.h.i.+very tinkle of gla.s.ses as they settled on a tray. He had again insisted, as he always does, upon my occupying the armchair in the small parlour adjoining, with its wax flowers and its steel engraving of Napoleon at Waterloo; but I had protested as I always do, for I prefer the kitchen.

I like its cavernous fireplace with its crane and spit, and the low ceiling upheld by great beams of rough-hewn oak, and the tall clock in the corner, and the hanging copper saucepans, kettles and ladles, kept as bright as polished gold. Here, too, is a generous Norman armoire with carved oaken doors swung on bar-hinges of s.h.i.+ning steel, and a centre-table provided with a small bottle of violet ink, a scratchy pen and an iron seal worked by a lever--a seal that has grown dull from long service in the stamping of certain doc.u.ments relative to plain justice, marriage, the official recognition of the recently departed and the newly born. Above the fireplace hangs a faded photograph of a prize bull, for you must know that Monsieur le Maire has been for half a generation a dealer in Norman cattle.

Presently he returned with the tray, placing it upon the table within reach of our chairs while I stood admiring the bull.

He stopped as he half drew the cork from a fat brown jug, and looked at me curiously, his voice sinking almost to a whisper.

"You never were a dealer in beef?" he ventured timidly.

I shook my head sadly.

"_Helas! Helas!_ Never mind," said he. "One cannot be everything.

There's my brother-in-law, Pequin; he does not know a yearling from a three-year-old. It is he who keeps the little store at Saint Philippe."

The cork squeaked out. He filled the thimble gla.s.ses with rare old applejack so skilfully that another drop would have flushed over their worn gilt rims. What a gracious old gentleman he is! If it be a question of clipping a rose from his tidy garden and presenting it to a lady, he does it with such a gentle courtliness that the rose smells the sweeter for it--almost a lost art nowadays.

"I saw the cure this morning," he remarked, as we settled ourselves for a chat. "He could not stop, but he waved me an _au revoir_, for he was in a hurry to catch his train. He had been all night in his duck-blind--I doubt if he had much luck, for the wind is from the south.

There is a fellow for you who loves to shoot," chuckled the mayor.

"Some news for him of game?" I inquired.

The small eyes of the mayor twinkled knowingly. "_Entre nous_," he confided, "he has gone to Bonvilette to spray the sick roses of a friend with sulphate of iron--he borrowed my squirt-gun yesterday."

"And how far is it to Bonvilette?"

"_Eh ben!_ One must go by the little train to Nivelle," explained Monsieur le Maire, "and from Nivelle to Bonvilette there lies a good twenty kilometres for a horse. Let us say he will be back in three days."

"And the ma.s.s meanwhile?" I ventured.

"_Mon Dieu!_ What will you have? The roses of his old friend are sick.

It is the duty of a cure to tend the sick. Besides----"

Here Monsieur le Maire leaned forward within reach of my ear, and I caught in whispers something relative to a chateau and one of the best cellars of Bordeaux in France.

"Naturally," I replied, with a wink, and again my eyes reverted to the prize bull. It is not wise to raise one's voice in so small a village as Pont du Sable, even indoors.

"A pretty beast!" affirmed the mayor, noticing my continued interest in live stock. "And let me tell you that I took him to England in 'eighty-two. _Ah, mais oui! Helas! Helas!_ What a trip!" he sighed.

"Monsieur Toupinet--he that has the big farm at Saint Philippe--and I sailed together the third of October, in 1882, with forty steers. Our s.h.i.+p was called _The Souvenir_, and I want to tell you, my friend, it wasn't gay, that voyage. _Ah, mais non!_ Toupinet was sea-sick--I was sea-sick--the steers were sea-sick--all except that _sacre_ brute up there, and he roared all the way from Calais to London. _Eh ben!_ And would you believe it?" At the approaching statement Monsieur le Maire's countenance a.s.sumed a look of righteous indignation. He raised his fist and brought it down savagely on the table as he declared: "Would you believe it? We were _thirty-four hours_ without eating and _twenty-nine hours, mon Dieu!_ without drinking!"

I looked up in pained astonishment.

"And that wasn't all," continued the mayor. "A hurricane struck us three hours out, and we rolled all night in a dog's sea. The steers were up to their bellies in water. Aye, but she did blow, and _The Souvenir_ had all she could do to keep afloat. The captain was lashed to the bridge all night and most of the next day. Neither Toupinet nor myself ever expected to see land again, and there we were like calves in a pen on the floor of the cabin full of tobacco-smoke and English, and not a word of English could we speak except 'yes' and 'good morning.'" Here Monsieur le Maire stopped and choked. Finally he dried his eyes on the sleeve of his blouse, for he was wheezing with laughter, took a sip from his gla.s.s, and resumed:

"Well, the saints did not desert us. _Ah, mais non!_ For about four o'clock in the afternoon the captain sighted Su-Tum-Tum."

"Sighted what?" I exclaimed.