THE FLIGHT
It was a settled rule of the German
staff that every Frenchman, not belonging to the regular
army, taken with arms in his hands should be shot.
The militia companies themselves were not recognized
as belligerents. By thus making terrible examples
of the peasants who defended their homes, the Germans
hoped to prevent the levy en masse, which
they feared.
The officer, a tall, lean man of fifty,
briefly questioned Dominique. Although he spoke
remarkably pure French he had a stiffness altogether
Prussian.
“Do you belong to this district?” he asked.
“No; I am a Belgian,” answered the young
man.
“Why then did you take up arms? The fighting
did not concern you!”
Dominique made no reply. At that
moment the officer saw Francoise who was standing
by, very pale, listening; upon her white forehead her
slight wound had put a red bar. He looked at the
young folks, one after the other, seemed to understand
matters and contented himself with adding:
“You do not deny having fired, do you?”
“I fired as often as I could!” responded
Dominique tranquilly.
This confession was useless, for he
was black with powder, covered with sweat and stained
with a few drops of blood which had flowed from the
scratch on his shoulder.
“Very well,” said the officer. “You
will be shot in two hours!”
Francoise did not cry out. She
clasped her hands and raised them with a gesture of
mute despair. The officer noticed this gesture.
Two soldiers had taken Dominique to a neighboring
apartment, where they were to keep watch over him.
The young girl had fallen upon a chair, totally overcome;
she could not weep; she was suffocating. The officer
had continued to examine her. At last he spoke
to her.
“Is that young man your brother?” he demanded.
She shook her head negatively.
The German stood stiffly on his feet with out a smile.
Then after a short silence he again asked:
“Has he lived long in the district?”
She nodded affirmatively.
“In that case, he ought to be
thoroughly acquainted with the neighboring forests.”
This time she spoke.
“He is thoroughly acquainted
with them, monsieur,” she said, looking at him
with considerable surprise.
He said nothing further to her but
turned upon his heel, demanding that the mayor of
the village should be brought to him. But Francoise
had arisen with a slight blush on her countenance;
thinking that she had seized the aim of the officer’s
questions, she had recovered hope. She herself
ran to find her father.
Pere Merlier, as soon as the firing
had ceased, had quickly descended to the wooden gallery
to examine his wheel. He adored his daughter;
he had a solid friendship for Dominique, his future
son-in-law, but his wheel also held a large place
in his heart. Since the two young ones, as he
called them, had come safe and sound out of the fight,
he thought of his other tenderness, which had suffered
greatly. Bent over the huge wooden carcass, he
was studying its wounds with a sad air. Five buckets
were shattered to pieces; the central framework was
riddled. He thrust his fingers in the bullet
holes to measure their depth; he thought how he could
repair all these injuries. Francoise found him
already stopping up the clefts with rubbish and moss.
“Father,” she said, “you are wanted.”
And she wept at last as she told him
what she had just heard. Pere Merlier tossed
his head. People were not shot in such a summary
fashion. The matter must be looked after.
He re-entered the mill with his silent and tranquil
air. When the officer demanded of him provisions
for his men he replied that the inhabitants of Rocreuse
were not accustomed to be treated roughly and that
nothing would be obtained from them if violence were
employed. He would see to everything but on condition
that he was not interfered with. The officer
at first seemed irritated by his calm tone; then he
gave way before the old man’s short and clear
words. He even called him back and asked him:
“What is the name of that wood opposite?”
“The forest of Sauval.”
“What is its extent?”
The miller looked at him fixedly.
“I do not know,” he answered.
And he went away. An hour later
the contribution of war in provisions and money, demanded
by the officer, was in the courtyard of the mill.
Night came on. Francoise watched with anxiety
the movements of the soldiers. She hung about
the room in which Dominique was imprisoned. Toward
seven o’clock she experienced a poignant emotion.
She saw the officer enter the prisoner’s apartment
and for a quarter of an hour heard their voices in
loud conversation. For an instant the officer
reappeared upon the threshold to give an order in German,
which she did not understand, but when twelve men
ranged themselves in the courtyard, their guns on
their shoulders, she trembled and felt as if about
to faint. All then was over: the execution
was going to take place. The twelve men stood
there ten minutes, Dominique’s voice continuing
to be raised in a tone of violent refusal. Finally
the officer came out, saying, as he roughly shut the
door:
“Very well; reflect. I give you until tomorrow
morning.”
And with a gesture he ordered the
twelve men to break ranks. Francoise was stupefied.
Pere Merlier, who had been smoking his pipe and looking
at the platoon simply with an air of curiosity, took
her by the arm with paternal gentleness. He led
her to her chamber.
“Be calm,” he said, “and
try to sleep. Tomorrow, when it is light, we
will see what can be done.”
As he withdrew he prudently locked
her in. It was his opinion that women were good
for nothing and that they spoiled everything when they
took a hand in a serious affair. But Francoise
did not retire. She sat for a long while upon
the side of her bed, listening to the noises of the
house. The German soldiers encamped in the courtyard
sang and laughed; they must have been eating and drinking
until eleven o’clock, for the racket did not
cease an instant. In the mill itself heavy footsteps
resounded from time to time, without doubt those of
the sentinels who were being relieved. But she
was interested most by the sounds she could distinguish
in the apartment beneath her chamber. Many times
she stretched herself out at full length and put her
ear to the floor. That apartment was the one
in which Dominique was confined. He must have
been walking back and forth from the window to the
wall, for she long heard the regular cadence of his
steps. Then deep silence ensued; he had doubtless
seated himself. Finally every noise ceased and
all was as if asleep. When slumber appeared to
her to have settled on the house she opened her window
as gently as possible and leaned her elbows on the
sill.
Without, the night had a warm serenity.
The slender crescent of the moon, which was sinking
behind the forest of Sauval, lit up the country with
the glimmer of a night lamp. The lengthened shadows
of the tall trees barred the meadows with black, while
the grass in uncovered spots assumed the softness
of greenish velvet. But Francoise did not pause
to admire the mysterious charms of the night.
She examined the country, searching for the sentinels
whom the Germans had posted obliquely. She clearly
saw their shadows extending like the rounds of a ladder
along the Morelle. Only one was before the mill,
on the other shore of the river, beside a willow,
the branches of which dipped in the water. Francoise
saw him plainly. He was a tall man and was standing
motionless, his face turned toward the sky with the
dreamy air of a shepherd.
When she had carefully inspected the
locality she again seated herself on her bed.
She remained there an hour, deeply absorbed. Then
she listened once more: there was not a sound
in the mill. She returned to the window and glanced
out, but doubtless one of the horns of the moon, which
was still visible behind the trees, made her uneasy,
for she resumed her waiting attitude. At last
she thought the proper time had come. The night
was as black as jet; she could no longer see the sentinel
opposite; the country spread out like a pool of ink.
She strained her ear for an instant and made her decision.
Passing near the window was an iron ladder, the bars
fastened to the wall, which mounted from the wheel
to the garret and formerly enabled the millers to reach
certain machinery; afterward the mechanism had been
altered, and for a long while the ladder had been
hidden under the thick ivy which covered that side
of the mill.
Francoise bravely climbed out of her
window and grasped one of the bars of the ladder.
She began to descend. Her skirts embarrassed her
greatly. Suddenly a stone was detached from the
wall and fell into the Morelle with a loud splash.
She stopped with an icy shiver of fear. Then she
realized that the waterfall with its continuous roar
would drown every noise she might make, and she descended
more courageously, feeling the ivy with her foot,
assuring herself that the rounds were firm. When
she was at the height of the chamber which served
as Dominique’s prison she paused. An unforeseen
difficulty nearly caused her to lose all her courage:
the window of the chamber was not directly below that
of her apartment. She hung off from the ladder,
but when she stretched out her arm her hand encountered
only the wall. Must she, then, ascend without
pushing her plan to completion? Her arms were
fatigued; the murmur of the Morelle beneath her commenced
to make her dizzy. Then she tore from the wall
little fragments of plaster and threw them against
Dominique’s window. He did not hear; he
was doubtless asleep. She crumbled more plaster
from the wall, scraping the skin off her fingers.
She was utterly exhausted; she felt herself falling
backward, when Dominique at last softly opened the
window.
“It is I!” she murmured. “Catch
me quickly; I’m falling!”
It was the first time that she had
addressed him familiarly. Leaning out, he seized
her and drew her into the chamber. There she gave
vent to a flood of tears, stifling her sobs that she
might not be heard. Then by a supreme effort
she calmed herself.
“Are you guarded?” she asked in a low
voice.
Dominique, still stupefied at seeing
her thus, nodded his head affirmatively, pointing
to the door. On the other side they heard someone
snoring; the sentinel, yielding to sleep, had thrown
himself on the floor against the door, arguing that
by disposing himself thus the prisoner could not escape.
“You must fly,” resumed
Francoise excitedly. “I have come to beg
you to do so and to bid you farewell.”
But he did not seem to hear her. He repeated:
“What? Is it you; is it
you? Oh, what fear you caused me! You might
have killed yourself!”
He seized her hands; he kissed them.
“How I love you, Francoise!”
he murmured. “You are as courageous as
good. I had only one dread: that I should
die without seeing you again. But you are here,
and now they can shoot me. When I have passed
a quarter of an hour with you I shall be ready.”
Little by little he had drawn her
to him, and she leaned her head upon his shoulder.
The danger made them dearer to each other. They
forgot everything in that warm clasp.
“Ah, Francoise,” resumed
Dominique in a caressing voice, “this is Saint
Louis’s Day, the day, so long awaited, of our
marriage. Nothing has been able to separate us,
since we are both here alone, faithful to the appointment.
Is not this our wedding morning?”
“Yes, yes,” she repeated, “it is
our wedding morning.”
They tremblingly exchanged a kiss.
But all at once she disengaged herself from Dominique’s
arms; she remembered the terrible reality.
“You must fly; you must fly,”
she whispered. “There is not a minute to
be lost!”
And as he stretched out his arms in
the darkness to clasp her again, she said tenderly:
“Oh, I implore you to listen
to me! If you die I shall die also! In an
hour it will be light. I want you to go at once.”
Then rapidly she explained her plan.
The iron ladder descended to the mill wheel; there
he could climb down the buckets and get into the boat
which was hidden away in a nook. Afterward it
would be easy for him to reach the other bank of the
river and escape.
“But what of the sentinels?” he asked.
“There is only one, opposite, at the foot of
the first willow.”
“What if he should see me and attempt to give
an alarm?”
Francoise shivered. She placed
in his hand a knife she had brought with her.
There was a brief silence.
“What is to become of your father
and yourself?” resumed Dominique. “No,
I cannot fly! When I am gone those soldiers will,
perhaps, massacre you both! You do not know them.
They offered me my life if I would consent to guide
them through the forest of Sauval. When they discover
my escape they will be capable of anything!”
The young girl did not stop to argue.
She said simply in reply to all the reasons he advanced:
“Out of love for me, fly!
If you love me, Dominique, do not remain here another
moment!”
Then she promised to climb back to
her chamber. No one would know that she had helped
him. She finally threw her arms around him to
convince him with an embrace, with a burst of extraordinary
love. He was vanquished. He asked but one
more question:
“Can you swear to me that your
father knows what you have done and that he advises
me to fly?”
“My father sent me!” answered Francoise
boldly.
She told a falsehood. At that
moment she had only one immense need: to know
that he was safe, to escape from the abominable thought
that the sun would be the signal for his death.
When he was far away every misfortune might fall upon
her; that would seem delightful to her from the moment
he was secure. The selfishness of her tenderness
desired that he should live before everything.
“Very well,” said Dominique; “I
will do what you wish.”
They said nothing more. Dominique
reopened the window. But suddenly a sound froze
them. The door was shaken, and they thought that
it was about to be opened. Evidently a patrol
had heard their voices. Standing locked in each
other’s arms, they waited in unspeakable anguish.
The door was shaken a second time, but it did not
open. They uttered low sighs of relief; they
comprehended that the soldier who was asleep against
the door must have turned over. In fact, silence
succeeded; the snoring was resumed.
Dominique exacted that Francoise should
ascend to her chamber before he departed. He
clasped her in his arms and bade her a mute adieu.
Then he aided her to seize the ladder and clung to
it in his turn. But he refused to descend a single
round until convinced that she was in her apartment.
When Francoise had entered her window she let fall
in a voice as light as a breath:
“Au revoir, my love!”
She leaned her elbows on the sill
and strove to follow Dominique with her eyes.
The night was yet very dark. She searched for
the sentinel but could not see him; the willow alone
made a pale stain in the midst of the gloom.
For an instant she heard the sound produced by Dominique’s
body in passing along the ivy. Then the wheel
cracked, and there was a slight agitation in the water
which told her that the young man had found the boat.
A moment afterward she distinguished the somber silhouette
of the bateau on the gray surface of the Morelle.
Terrible anguish seized upon her. Each instant
she thought she heard the sentinel’s cry of
alarm; the smallest sounds scattered through the gloom
seemed to her the hurried tread of soldiers, the clatter
of weapons, the charging of guns. Nevertheless,
the seconds elapsed and the country maintained its
profound peace. Dominique must have reached the
other side of the river. Francoise saw nothing
more. The silence was majestic. She heard
a shuffling of feet, a hoarse cry and the hollow fall
of a body. Afterward the silence grew deeper.
Then as if she had felt Death pass by, she stood,
chilled through and through, staring into the thick
night.