THE SMUGGLERS

Some centuries ago the windows of my house abandoned on the marsh looked out upon a bay gay with the ships of Spanish pirates, for in those days Pont du Sable served them as a secret refuge for repairs. Hauled up to the tawny marsh were strange craft with sails of apple-green, rose, vermilion and sinister black; there were high sterns pierced by carved cabin-windows some of them iron-barred, to imprison ladies of high or low degree and unfortunate gentlemen who fought bravely to defend them. From oaken gunwales glistened slim cannon, their throats swabbed clean after some wholesale murder on the open seas. Yes, it must have been a lively enough bay some centuries ago!

To-day Pont du Sable goes to bed without even turning the key in the lock. This is because of a vast army of simple men whose word, in France, is law.

To begin with, there are the President of the Republique and the Ministers of War and Agriculture, and Monsieur the Chief of Police a kind little man in Paris whom it is better to agree with and the prefet and the sous-prefet all the way down the line of authority to the red-faced, blustering chef de gare at Pont du Sable and Pierre.

On off-duty days Pierre is my gardener at eleven sous an hour. On these occasions he wears voluminous working trousers of faded green corduroy gathered at the ankles; a gray flannel shirt and a scarlet cravat. On other days his short, wiry body is encased in a carefully brushed uniform of dark blue with a double row of gold buttons gleaming down his solid chest. When on active duty in the Customs Coast Patrol of the Republique Francaise at Pont du Sable, he carries a neatly folded cape with a hood, a bayonet, a heavy calibred six-shooter and a trusty field-glass, useful in locating suspicious-looking objects on marsh or sea.

On this particular morning Pierre was late! I had been leaning over the lichen-stained wall of my wild garden waiting to catch sight of him as he left the ragged end of the straggling village. Had I mistaken the day? Impossible! It was Thursday and I knew he was free. Finally I caught sight of him hurrying toward me down the road not in his working clothes of faded green corduroy, but in the full majesty of his law-enforcing uniform. What had happened? I wondered. Had his stern brigadier refused to give him leave?

“Bonjour, Pierre!” I called to him as he came within hailing distance.

He touched the vizor of his cap in military salute, and a moment later entered my garden.

“A thousand pardons, monsieur,” he apologized excitedly, labouring to catch his breath.

“My artichokes have been waiting for you,” I laughed; “they are nearly strangled with weeds. I expected you yesterday.” He followed me through a lane of yellow roses leading to the artichoke bed. “What has kept you, Pierre?”

He stopped, looked me squarely in the eyes, placed his finger in the middle of his spiked moustache, and raised his eyebrows mysteriously.

“Monsieur must not ask me,” he replied. “I have been on duty for forty-eight hours; there was not even time to change my uniform.”

“A little matter for headquarters?” I ventured indiscreetly, with a nod in the direction of Paris.

Pierre shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Monsieur must ask the semaphore; my lips are sealed.”

Had he been the chief of the Secret Service just in possession of the whereabouts of an international criminal, he could not have been more uncommunicative.

“And monsieur’s artichokes?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

Further inquiry I knew was useless even dangerous. Indeed I swallowed my curiosity whole, for I was aware that this simple gardener of mine, in his official capacity, could put me in irons, drag me before my friend the ruddy little mayor, and cast me in jail at Bar la Rose, had I given him cause. Then indeed, as Pompanet said, I would be “A sacre vagabond from Pont du Sable.”

Was it not only the other day a well-dressed stranger hanging about my lost village had been called for by two gendarmes, owing to Pierre’s watchful eye? And did not the farmer Milon pay dearly enough for the applejack he distilled one dark night? I recalled, too, a certain morning when, a stranger on the marsh, I had lighted Pierre’s cigarette with an honest wax-match from England. He recognized the brand instantly.

“They are the best in the world,” I had remarked bravely.

“Yes,” he had replied, “but dear, monsieur. The fine is a franc apiece in France.”

We had reached the artichokes.

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Pierre, glancing at the riot of weeds as he stripped off his coat and, unbuckling his belt with the bayonet, the six-shooter and the field-glass, hung them in the shade upon a convenient limb of a pear tree. He measured the area of the unruly patch with a military stride, stood thinking for a moment, and then, as if a happy thought had struck him, returned to me with a gesture of enthusiasm.

“If monsieur will permit me to offer a suggestion that is, if monsieur approves I should like to make a fresh planting. Ah! I will explain what I mean to monsieur, so monsieur may see clearly my ideas. Voila!” he exclaimed. “It is to have the new artichokes planted in three circles in three circles, monsieur,” he went on excitedly, “crossed with the star of the compass,” he continued, as the idea rapidly developed in his peasant brain. “Then in the centre of the star to plant monsieur’s initials in blue and red flowers. Voila! It will be something for monsieur’s friends to admire, eh?”

He stood waiting tensely for my reply, for I shivered inwardly at the thought of the prospective chromo.

“Excellent, my good Pierre,” I returned, not wishing to hurt his feelings. “Excellent for the gardens of the Tuileries, but my garden is such a simple one.”

“Pardon, monsieur,” he said, with a touch of mingled disappointment and embarrassment, “they shall be replanted, of course, just as monsieur wishes.” And Pierre went to digging weeds with a will while I went back to my own work.

At noon Pierre knocked gently at my study door.

“I must breakfast, monsieur,” he apologized, “and get a little sleep. I have promised my brigadier to get back at three.”

“And to-morrow?” I asked.

Again the shoulders shrugged under the uniform.

“Ah, monsieur!” he exclaimed helplessly. “Malheureusement, to-morrow I am not free; nor the day after. Parbleu! I cannot tell monsieur when I shall be free.”

“I understand, Pierre,” said I.

Before sundown the next afternoon I was after a hare through a maze of thicket running back of the dunes fronting the open sea. I kept on through a labyrinth of narrow trails crossing and recrossing each other the private by-ways of sleek old hares in time of trouble, for the dunes were honeycombed with their burrows. Now and then I came across a tent-shaped thatched hut lined with a bed of straw, serving as snug shelters for the coast patrol in tough weather.

I had just turned into a tangle of scrub-brush, and could hear the breakers pound and hiss as they swept up upon the hard smooth beach beyond the dunes, when a low whistle brought me to a leisurely halt, and I saw Pierre spring up from a thicket a rod ahead of me a Government carbine nestled in the hollow of his arm.

I could scarcely believe it was the genial and ever-willing Pierre of my garden. He was the hard-disciplined soldier now, under orders. I was thankful he had not sent a bullet through me for not halting more promptly than I did.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, coming briskly toward me along a trail no wider than his feet.

Instantly my free hand went to my hunting-cap in salute.

“After a hare!” I stammered innocently.

“Not so loud,” he whispered. “Mon Dieu! If the brigadier should hear you! Come with me,” he commanded, laying his hand firmly upon my arm. “There are six of us hidden between here and the fortress. It is well that you stumbled upon me first. They must know who you are. It is not safe for you to be hunting to-day.”

I had not followed him more than a dozen rods before one of his companions was at my side. “The American,” said Pierre in explanation, and we passed on down through a riot of stunted growth that choked the sides of a hollow.

Beyond this rose the top of a low circular fort overgrown with wire-grass the riot of tangle ceasing as we reached the bottom of the hollow and stood in an open patch before an ancient iron gate piercing the rear of the fort.

Pierre lifted the latch and we passed through a wall some sixteen feet thick and into a stone-paved courtyard with a broad flight of steps at its farther end sweeping to the top of the circular defence. Flanking the sunken courtyard itself were a dozen low vaultlike compartments, some of them sealed by heavy doors. At one of these, containing a narrow window, Pierre knocked. The door opened and I stood in the presence of the Brigadier Bompard.

“The American gentleman,” announced Pierre, relieving me of my gun.

The brigadier bowed, looked me over sharply, and bade me enter.

“At your service, monsieur,” he said coldly, waving his big freckled hand toward a chair drawn up to a fat little stove blushing under a forced draft.

“At yours, monsieur,” I returned, bowed, and took my seat.

Then there ensued a dead silence, Pierre standing rigid behind my chair, the brigadier reseated back of a desk littered with official papers.

For some moments he sat writing, his savage gray eyes scanning the page, the ends of his ferocious moustache twitching nervously as his pen scratched on. Back of his heavy shoulders ran a shelf supporting a row of musty ledgers, and above a stout chest in one corner was a rack of gleaming carbines.

The silence became embarrassing. Still the pen scratched on. Was he writing my death-warrant, I wondered nervously, or only a milder order for my arrest? It was a relief when he finally sifted a spoonful of fine blue sand over the document, poured the remaining grains back into their receptacle, puffed out his coarse red jowls, emitted a grunt of approval, and raised his keen eyes to mine.

“A thousand pardons, monsieur,” I began, “for being where I assure you I would not have been had I known exactly where I was.”

“So monsieur is fond of the chase of the hare?” he asked, with a grim smile.

“So fond, Monsieur le Brigadier,” I replied, “that my enthusiasm has, as you see, led me thoughtlessly into your private territory. I beg of you to accept my sincere apologies.”

He reached back of him, took down one of the musty ledgers, and began to turn the leaves methodically. From where I sat I saw his coarse forefinger stop under a head-line.

“Smeeth, Berkelek,” he muttered, and read on down the page. “Citizen of Amerique du Nord.

“Height medium.

“Age forty-one.

“Hair auburn.

“Eyes brown.

“Chin and frontal square.

“No scars.”

“Would your excellency like to see my hunting permit and description?” I ventured.

“Unnecessary it is in duplicate here,” he returned curtly, and his eyes again reverted to the ledger. Then he closed the book, rose, and drawing his chair to the stove planted his big fists on his knees.

I began to breathe normally.

“So you are a painter?” said he.

“Yes,” I confessed, “but I do not make a specialty of fortresses, your excellency, even in the most distant landscapes.”

I was grateful he understood, for I saw a gleam of merriment flash in his eyes.

“Bon!” he exclaimed briskly evidently the title of “excellency” helped. “It is not the best day, however, for you to be hunting hares. Are you a good shot, monsieur?”

“That is an embarrassing question,” I returned. “If I do not miss I generally kill.”

Pierre, who, during the interview, had been standing mute in attention, now stepped up to him and bending with a hurried “Pardon,” whispered something in his coarse red ear.

The brigadier raised his shaggy eyebrows and nodded in assent.

“Ah! So you are a friend of Monsieur le Cure!” he exclaimed. “You would not be Monsieur le Cure’s friend if you were not a good shot. Sapristi!” He paused, ran his hand over his rough jowls, and resumed bluntly: “It is something to kill the wild duck; another to kill a man.”

“Has war been suddenly declared?” I asked in astonishment.

A gutteral laugh escaped his throat, he shook his grizzled head in the negative.

“A little war of my own,” said he, “a serious business, parbleu!”

“Contraband?” I ventured.

The coarse mouth under the bristling moustache, four times the size of Pierre’s, closed with a snap, then opened with a growl.

“Sacre mille tonnerres!” he thundered, slamming his fist down on the desk within reach of him. “They are the devil, those Belgians! It is for them my good fellows lose their sleep.” Then he stopped, and eyeing me shrewdly added: “Monsieur, you are an outsider and a gentleman. I can trust you. Three nights ago a strange sloop, evidently Belgian, from the cut of her, tried to sneak in here, but our semaphore on the point held her up and she had to run back to the open sea. Bah! Those sacre Belgians have the patience of a fox!”

“She was painted like one of our fishing-smacks,” interposed Pierre, now too excited to hold his tongue, “but she did not know the channel.”

“Aye, and she’ll try it again,” growled the brigadier, “if the night be dark. She’ll find it clear sailing in, but a hot road out.”

“Tobacco?” I asked, now fully alive to the situation.

The brigadier spat.

“Of course, as full as she’ll float,” he answered. He leaned forward and touched me good-humouredly on the shoulder. “I’m short of men,” he said hurriedly.

“Command me,” I replied. “I’ll do my best. I shall return to-night.” And I rose to take my leave, but he instantly raised his hand in protest. “You are under arrest, monsieur,” he declared quietly, with a shrug of his shoulders.

I looked at him wide-eyed in astonishment.

“Arrest!” I gasped.

“Do not be alarmed,” he replied. “It will only be temporary, I assure you, but since you have so awkwardly stumbled among us there is no alternative but for me to detain you until this sacre affair is well over. I cannot, at all events, let you return to the village to-night.”

“But I give you my word of honour, monsieur,” I declared, “I shall not open my lips to a soul. Besides, I must dine at eight to-night with Madame de Breville. Your excellency can well understand.”

“I know you have friends, monsieur; they might be inquisitive; and those friends have servants, and those servants have friends,” was his reply. “No, it is better that you stay. Pierre, give monsieur a carbine and a place ten metres from your own at sundown; then report to me he is there. Now you may go, monsieur.”

Pierre touched me on the shoulder; then suddenly realizing I was under orders and a prisoner, I straightened, saluted the brigadier, and followed Pierre out of the fort with the best grace I could muster.

“Pierre!” I exclaimed hotly, as we stood again in the thicket. “How long since you’ve held up anything here contraband, I mean?”

For a moment he hesitated, then his voice sank to a whisper.

“They say it is all of twenty years, perhaps longer,” he confessed. “But to-night monsieur shall see. Monsieur is, of course, not exactly a prisoner or he would now be in the third vault from the right.”

“A prisoner! The devil I’m not? Didn’t he tell me I was?” I exclaimed.

“Mon Dieu! What will you have, monsieur?” returned Pierre excitedly, under his breath. “It is the brigadier’s orders. I was afraid monsieur might reply to him in anger. Ah, par exemple! Then monsieur would have seen a wild bull. Oh, la! la! When the brigadier is furious Ah, ca!” And he led the way to my appointed ambush without another word.

Despite my indignation at being thus forced into the service and made a prisoner to boot however temporary it might be I gradually began to see the humour of the situation. It was very like a comic opera, I thought, as I lay flat on the edge of the thicket and pried away a small opening in the tangle through which I could look down upon the sweep of beach below me and far out to sea. Thus I lay in wait for the smuggling crew to arrive to be blazed at and perhaps captured.

What if they outnumber us? We might all perish then, with no hope of quarter from these men whom we were lying in wait for like snakes in the grass. One thing, however, I was firmly resolved upon, and that was to shoot safely over anything that lay in range except in case of self-defence. I was never of a murderous disposition, and the thought of another’s blood on my hands sent a fresh shiver along my prostrate spine. Then again the comic-opera side of it struck me. I began to feel more like an extra super in a one-night stand than a real soldier. What, after all, if the smugglers failed us?

I was pondering upon the dangerous effect upon the brigadier of so serious a stage wait, when Pierre crawled over to me from his ambush ten metres from my own, to leave me my ration of bread and wine. He was so excited by this time that his voice trembled in my ear.

“Gaston, my comrade, the fifth down the line,” he whispered, “has just seen two men prowling on the marsh; they are, without doubt, accomplices. Gaston has gone to tell the brigadier.” He ran his hand carefully along the barrel of my carbine. “Monsieur must hold high,” he explained in another whisper, “since monsieur is unaccustomed to the gun of war. It is this little machine here that does the trick.” He bent his eyes close to the hind sight and screwed it up to its notch at one hundred and fifty metres.

I nodded my thanks, and he left me to my bread and wine and crept cautiously back to his ambush.

A black night was rapidly settling. Above me in the great unfathomable vault of sky not a star glimmered. Under the gloom of the approaching darkness the vast expanse of marsh to my left lay silent, desolate, and indistinct, save for its low edge of undulating sand dunes. Only the beach directly before me showed plainly, seemingly illumined by the breakers, that gleamed white like the bared teeth of a fighting line of wolves.

It was a sullen, cheerless sea, from which the air blew over me damp and raw; the only light visible being the intermittent flash from the distant lighthouse on Les Trois Loups, beyond the marsh.

One hour passed two hours during which I saw nothing alive and moving save a hare foraging timidly on the beach for his own rations. After a while he hopped back to his burrow in the thicket, a thicket of silence from which I knew at any moment might break forth a murderous fire. It grew colder and colder, I had to breathe lustily into the collar of my jersey to keep out the chill. I began to envy the hare snug in his burrow. Thus I held my vigil, and the night wore on.

Ah! my friend the cure! I mused. Was there ever such an indefatigable sportsman? Lucky cure! He was not a prisoner, neither had he been pressed into the customs patrol like a hired assassin. At that moment I knew Monsieur le Cure was snug in his duck-blind for the night, a long two miles from where I lay; warm, and comfortable, with every chance on such a night to kill a dozen fat mallards before his daylight mass. What would my friend Madame Alice de Breville, and that whole-souled fellow Tanrade, think when I did not appear as I had promised, at madame’s chateau, to dine at eight? Cold as I was, I could not help chuckling over the fact that it was no fault of mine.

I was a prisoner. Alice and Tanrade would dine together. It would be then a dinner for two. I have never known a woman as discreet as Alice. She had insisted that I dine with them. In Paris Alice might not have insisted, but in the lost village, with so many old women with nothing to talk about save other peoples’ affairs! Lucky Tanrade!

I could see from where I lay the distant mass of trees screening her chateau, and picture to myself my two dear friends alone. Their chairs now that my vacant one was the only witness drawn close together; he holding her soft, responsive little hand between the soup and the fish, between the duck and the salad; then continuously over their dessert and Burgundy she whom he had held close to his big heart that night after dinner in that once abandoned house of mine, when they had gone out together into my courtyard and disappeared in the shadows of the moonlight.

Dining alone! The very thing I had tried to bring about. But for the stern brigadier we should have been that wretched number three to-night at the chateau. Ah, you dear human children, are you conscious and grateful that I am lying out like a vagabond, a prisoner, that you may be alone?

I began to wonder, too, what the Essence of Selfishness, that spoiled and adorable cat of mine, would think when it came her bedtime hour. Would Suzette, in her anxiety over my absence, remember to give her the saucer of warm milk? Yet I knew the Essence of Selfishness would take care of herself; she would sleep with Suzette. Catch her lying out on the bare ground like her master when she could curl herself up at the foot of two fuzzy blankets in a tiny room next to the warm kitchen.

It was after midnight when Pierre crawled over to me again, and pointed to a black patch of mussel rocks below.

“There are the two men Gaston saw,” he whispered. “They are waiting to signal the channel to their comrades.”

I strained my eyes in the direction he indicated.

“I cannot see,” I confessed.

“Here, take the glass,” said he. “Those two humps behind the big one are the backs of men. They have a lantern well hidden you can see its glow when the glass is steady.”

I could see it all quite clearly now, and occasionally one of the humps lift a head cautiously above the rock.

“She must be lying off close by,” muttered Pierre, hoarse with excitement. Again he hurriedly ran his hand over the breech of my carbine. “The trigger pulls light,” he breathed. “Courage, monsieur! We have not long to wait now.” And again he was gone.

I felt like a hired assassin weakening on the verge of a crime. The next instant I saw the lantern hidden on the mussel rocks raised and lowered thrice.

It was the signal!

Again all was darkness save the gleaming line of surf. My heart thumped in my ears. Ten minutes passed; then again the lantern was raised, the figures of the two men standing in silhouette against its steady rays.

I saw now a small sloop rear itself from the breakers, a short, squat little craft with a ghostly sail and a flapping jib. On she came, leaping and dropping broadside among the combers. The lantern now shone as clearly as a beacon. A sea broke over the sloop, but she staggered up bravely, and with a plunge was swept nearer and nearer the jagged point of rocks awash with spume. Braced against the tiller was a man in drenched tarpaulins; two other men were holding on to the shrouds like grim death. On the narrow deck between them I made out a bale-like bundle wrapped in tarpaulin and heavily roped, ready to be cast ashore.

A moment more, and the sloop would be on the rocks; yet not a sound came from the thicket. The suspense was sickening. I had once experienced buck-fever, but it was nothing compared to this. The short carbine began to jump viciously under my grip.

The sloop was nearly on the rocks! At that critical moment overboard went the bundle, the two men with the lantern rushing out and dragging it clear of the swash.

Simultaneously, with a crackling roar, six tongues of flame spat from the thicket and we charged out of our ambush and over the crest of the dunes toward the smugglers’ craft and its crew, firing as we ran. The fellow next to me stumbled and fell sprawling in the sand.

In the panic that ensued I saw the sloop making a desperate effort to put to sea. Meanwhile the two accomplices were running like rabbits for the marsh. Close to the mysterious bundle their lantern lay smashed and burning luridly in its oil. The brigadier sprang past me swearing like a pirate, while his now thoroughly demoralized henchmen and myself stumbled on, firing at random with still a good hundred yards between us and the abandoned contraband.

At that instant I saw the sloop’s sail fill and then, as if by a miracle, she slowly turned back to the open sea. Above the general din the brigadier’s voice rang out, bellowing his orders. By the time the sloop had cleared the breakers his language had become unprintable. He had reached the mussel rocks and stood shaking his clenched fists at the departing craft, while the rest of us crowded about the bundle and the blazing lantern. Every one was talking and gesticulating at once as they watched the sloop plunge away in the darkness.

“Sacre mille tonnerres!” roared the brigadier, sinking down on the bundle. Then he turned and glared at me savagely. “Idiot!” he cried, labouring for his breath. “Espèce d’imbecile. Ah! Nom d’un petit bonhomme. You were on the end. Why did you not head off those devils with the lantern?”

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly in reply. He was in no condition to argue with.

And the rest of you ” He choked in his rage, unable to frame his words. They stood helplessly about, gesticulating their apologies.

He sprang to his feet, gave the bundle a sound kick, and snarled out an order. Pierre and another jumped forward, and together they shouldered it between them. Then the remainder of the valiant guard fell into single file and started back to the fort, the brigadier and myself bringing up the rear. As we trudged on through the sand together he kept muttering to himself. It only occurred to me then that nobody had been hit. By this time even the accomplices were safe.

“Monsieur,” I ventured, as we regained the trail leading to the fort, “it is with the sincerest regret of my heart that I offer you my apologies. True, I might have done better, but I did my best in my inexperience. We have the contraband at least that is something, eh?”

He grew calmer as the thought struck him.

“Yes,” he grumbled, “there are in that bundle at least ten thousand cigars. It is, after all, not so bad.”

“Might I ask,” I returned, “when your excellency intends to honour me with my liberty?”

He stopped, and to my delight held out his hand to me.

“You are free, monsieur,” he said roughly, with a touch of his good nature. “The affair is over but not a word of the manoeuvre you have witnessed in the village. Our work here is for the ears of the Government alone.”

As we reached the gate of the fort I saluted him, handed my carbine to Pierre in exchange for my shotgun, and struck home in the mist of early dawn.

The morning after, I was leaning over the lichen-stained wall of my garden caressing the white throat of the Essence of Selfishness, the events of my night of service still in my mind, when I saw the coast patrol coming across the marsh in double file. As they drew nearer I recognized Pierre and his companion, who had shouldered the contraband. The roped bundle was swung on a stout pole between them.

Presently they left the marsh and gained the road. As the double file of uniformed men came past my wall they returned my salute. Pierre shifted his end of the pole to the man behind him and stood at attention until the rest had passed. Then the procession went on to inform Monsieur the Mayor, who lived near the little square where nothing ever happened.

Pierre turned when they had left and entered my garden. What was he going to tell me now? I wondered, with sudden apprehension. Was I to serve another night?

“I’ll be hanged if I will,” I muttered.

He approached solemnly and slowly, his bayonet gleaming at his side, the warm sunlight glinting on the buttons of his uniform. When he got near enough for me to look into his eyes he stopped, raised his hand to his cap in salute, and said with a smile:

“Now, monsieur, the artichokes.”