THE RETURN OF THE FRENCH
It was three o’clock in the
afternoon. Great black clouds, the trail of some
neighboring storm, had slowly filled the sky.
The yellow heavens, the brass covered uniforms, had
changed the valley of Rocreuse, so gay in the sunlight,
into a den of cutthroats full of sinister gloom.
The Prussian officer had contented himself with causing
Dominique to be imprisoned without announcing what
fate he reserved for him. Since noon Francoise
had been torn by terrible anguish. Despite her
father’s entreaties she would not quit the courtyard.
She was awaiting the French. But the hours sped
on; night was approaching, and she suffered the more
as all the time gained did not seem to be likely to
change the frightful denouement.
About three o’clock the Prussians
made their preparations for departure. For an
instant past the officer had, as on the previous day,
shut himself up with Dominique. Francoise realized
that the young man’s life was in balance.
She clasped her hands; she prayed. Pere Merlier,
beside her, maintained silence and the rigid attitude
of an old peasant who does not struggle against fate.
“Oh, Mon dieu!
Oh, Mon dieu!” murmured Francoise.
“They are going to kill him!”
The miller drew her to him and took
her on his knees as if she had been a child.
At that moment the officer came out,
while behind him two men brought Dominique.
“Never! Never!” cried the latter.
“I am ready to die!”
“Think well,” resumed
the officer. “The service you refuse me
another will render us. I am generous: I
offer you your life. I want you simply to guide
us through the forest to Montredon. There must
be pathways leading there.”
Dominique was silent.
“So you persist in your infatuation, do you?”
“Kill me and end all this!” replied the
young man.
Francoise, her hands clasped, supplicated
him from afar. She had forgotten everything;
she would have advised him to commit an act of cowardice.
But Pere Merlier seized her hands that the Prussians
might not see her wild gestures.
“He is right,” he whispered: “it
is better to die!”
The platoon of execution was there.
The officer awaited a sign of weakness on Dominique’s
part. He still expected to conquer him. No
one spoke. In the distance violent crashes of
thunder were heard. Oppressive heat weighed upon
the country. But suddenly, amid the silence, a
cry broke forth:
“The French! The French!”
Yes, the French were at hand.
Upon the Sauval highway, at the edge of the wood,
the line of red pantaloons could be distinguished.
In the mill there was an extraordinary agitation.
The Prussian soldiers ran hither and thither with
guttural exclamations. Not a shot had yet been
fired.
“The French! The French!” cried Francoise,
clapping her hands.
She was wild with joy. She escaped
from her father’s grasp; she laughed and tossed
her arms in the air. At last they had come and
come in time, since Dominique was still alive!
A terrible platoon fire, which burst
upon her ears like a clap of thunder, caused her to
turn. The officer muttered between his teeth:
“Before everything, let us settle this affair!”
And with his own hand pushing Dominique
against the wall of a shed he ordered his men to fire.
When Francoise looked Dominique lay upon the ground
with blood streaming from his neck and shoulders.
She did not weep; she stood stupefied.
Her eyes grew fixed, and she sat down under the shed,
a few paces from the body. She stared at it,
wringing her hands. The Prussians had seized Pere
Merlier as a hostage.
It was a stirring combat. The
officer had rapidly posted his men, comprehending
that he could not beat a retreat without being cut
to pieces. Hence he would fight to the last.
Now the Prussians defended the mill, and the French
attacked it. The fusillade began with unusual
violence. For half an hour it did not cease.
Then a hollow sound was heard, and a ball broke a
main branch of the old elm. The French had cannon.
A battery, stationed just above the ditch in which
Dominique had hidden himself, swept the wide street
of Rocreuse. The struggle could not last long.
Ah, the poor mill! Balls pierced
it in every part. Half of the roof was carried
away. Two walls were battered down. But it
was on the side of the Morelle that the destruction
was most lamentable. The ivy, torn from the tottering
edifice, hung like rags; the river was encumbered with
wrecks of all kinds, and through a breach was visible
Francoise’s chamber with its bed, the white
curtains of which were carefully closed. Shot
followed shot; the old wheel received two balls and
gave vent to an agonizing groan; the buckets were
borne off by the current; the framework was crushed.
The soul of the gay mill had left it!
Then the French began the assault.
There was a furious fight with swords and bayonets.
Beneath the rust-colored sky the valley was choked
with the dead. The broad meadows had a wild look
with their tall, isolated trees and their hedges of
poplars which stained them with shade. To the
right and to the left the forests were like the walls
of an ancient ampitheater which enclosed the fighting
gladiators, while the springs, the fountains and the
flowing brooks seemed to sob amid the panic of the
country.
Beneath the shed Francoise still sat
near Dominique’s body; she had not moved.
Pere Merlier had received a slight wound. The
Prussians were exterminated, but the ruined mill was
on fire in a dozen places. The French rushed
into the courtyard, headed by their captain. It
was his first success of the war. His face beamed
with triumph. He waved his sword, shouting:
“Victory! Victory!”
On seeing the wounded miller, who
was endeavoring to comfort Francoise, and noticing
the body of Dominique, his joyous look changed to one
of sadness. Then he knelt beside the young man
and, tearing open his blouse, put his hand to his
heart.
“Thank God!” he cried.
“It is yet beating! Send for the surgeon!”
At the captain’s words Francoise leaped to her
feet.
“There is hope!” she cried. “Oh,
tell me there is hope!”
At that moment the surgeon appeared.
He made a hasty examination and said:
“The young man is severely hurt,
but life is not extinct; he can be saved!” By
the surgeon’s orders Dominique was transported
to a neighboring cottage, where he was placed in bed.
His wounds were dressed; restoratives were administered,
and he soon recovered consciousness. When he
opened his eyes he saw Francoise sitting beside him
and through the open window caught sight of Pere Merlier
talking with the French captain. He passed his
hand over his forehead with a bewildered air and said:
“They did not kill me after all!”
“No,” replied Francoise. “The
French came, and their surgeon saved you.”
Pere Merlier turned and said through the window:
“No talking yet, my young ones!”
In due time Dominique was entirely
restored, and when peace again blessed the land he
wedded his beloved Francoise.
The mill was rebuilt, and Pere Merlier
had a new wheel upon which to bestow whatever tenderness
was not engrossed by his daughter and her husband.