CHAPTER VI—THE JAWS OF THE TRAP

VOLEUR! Thief! Murder! Murder!”—it rose a high, piercing shriek, and the wind seemed to catch up the words and eddy them around, and toss them hither and thither until the storm and the night and the woods were full of ghouls chanting and screaming and gibbering their hideous melody: “Voleur! Thief! Murder! Murder!”

The girl, from the other side of the prostrate priest, rose in quick alarm to her feet, and lifted the lantern high above her head to peer down the road.

“Listen!” she cried. “What does it mean? See the lights there! Listen!”

The lantern lifted now, Raymond could no longer see the priest's face. He slipped his hand in desperately under the man's vest. He had felt there once before for the heart beat when he had first stumbled upon the other. In God's name, where was his nerve! He needed it now more than he had ever needed it in all his dare-devil career before. He had thought the priest had moved. If the man were alive, he, Raymond, was not only in a thousandfold worse case than if he had run for it and taken his chances—he had forfeited whatever chance there might have been. The mere fact that he had attempted to disguise himself, to assume the priest's garments as a means of escape, damned him utterly, irrevocably upon the spot. His hand pressed hard against the other's body. Yes, there was life there, a faint fluttering of the heart. No—no, it was only himself—a tremor in his own fingers. And then a miserable sense of disaster fell upon him. The wind howled, those shrieks still rang out, there came hoarse shouts and the pound of running feet, but above it all, distinct, like a knell of doom, came a low moan from the priest upon the ground.

Sharply, as though it were being suddenly seared and burned, Raymond snatched away his hand; and his hand struck against something hard, and mechanically he gripped at it. The man was alive! The glare of lanterns, many of them, flashed from the turn of the road. The village was upon the scene. The impulse seized him to run. There was the horse and wagon standing there. His lips tightened. Madness! That would be but the act of a fool! It was his wits, his brain, his nerve that was his only hope now—that cool, callous nerve that had never failed him in a crisis before.

A form, unkempt, with gray, streaming, dishevelled hair, rushed upon him and the priest, and thrust a lantern into the faces of them both. It was the old hag, old Mother Blondin.

“Here he is! Here he is!” she screamed. “It is he!”—her voice kept rising until, in a torrent of blasphemous invective, it attained an ear-splitting falsetto.

It seemed to Raymond that a hundred voices were all talking at once; that the villagers now, as they closed in and clustered around him, were as a multitude in their numbers; and there was light now, a blaze of it, from a host of accursed lanterns jiggling up and down, each striving to thrust itself a little further forward than its fellow. And then upon Raymond settled a sort of grim, cold, ironical composure. The stakes were very high.

“If you want your life, play for it!” urged a voice within him.

The old hag, in an abandoned paroxysm of grief, rage and fury, was cursing, and shaking her lantern and her doubled fist at the priest; and, not content with that, she now began to kick viciously at the unconscious form.

Raymond rose from his knees, and laid one hand quietly upon her arm.

“Peace, my daughter!” he said softly. “You are in the presence of Holy Church, and in the presence perhaps of death.”

She whirled upon him, her wrinkled old face, if possible, contorted more furiously than before.

“Holy Church!” she raved. “Holy Church! Ha, ha! What have I to do with Holy Church that kicked me from its doors! Will Holy Church give me back my son? And what have you to do with this, you smooth-faced hypocrite! It is the law I want, not you to stand there and mumble while you smugly paw your crucifix!”

It came quick and sharp—an angry sibilant murmur from the crowd, a threatening forward movement. Mechanically, Raymond's fingers fell away from the crucifix. It was the crucifix, dangling from his neck, that he had unconsciously grasped as he had snatched away his hand from the priest's body—and it was the crucifix that, equally unconscious of it, he had been grasping ever since. Strange that in his agitation he should have grasped at a crucifix! Strange that the act and his unconscious poise, as he held the crucifix, should have lent verisimilitude to the part he played, the rôle in which he sought sanctuary from death!

His hand raised again. The murmuring ceased; the threatening stir was instantly checked. And then Raymond took the old woman by the shoulders, and with kindly force placed her in the arms of the two nearest men.

“She does not know what she is saying,” he said gently. “The poor woman is distraught. Take her home. I do not understand, but she speaks of her son being given back to her, and——”

“It is a murder, mon père,” broke in one of the men excitedly. “She came running to the village a few minutes ago to tell us that her son had been killed. It is this man here in the road who did it. She recognises him, you see. There is the wound in his head, and she said she struck him there with a piece of wood while he was struggling with her son.”

The old woman was in hysteria now, alternately sobbing and laughing, but no longer struggling.

“Murdered! Her son—murdered!” Raymond gasped in a startled way. “Ah, then, be very good to her! It is no wonder that she is beside herself.”

They led her laughing and crying away.

“The law! The law! I demand the law on him!”—her voice, now guttural, now shrill, quavering, virulent, out of control, floated back. “Sacré nom de Dieu, a life for a life, he is the murderer of my son!”

And now, save for the howling of the storm, a silence fell upon the scene. Raymond glanced quickly about him. What was it now, what was it—ah, he understood! They were waiting for him. As though it were the most obvious thing in the world to do, as though no one would dream of doing anything else, the villagers, collectively and singly, laid the burden of initiative upon his clerically garbed shoulders. Raymond dropped upon his knees again beside the priest, pretending to make a further examination of the other's wound. He could gain a moment or two that way, a moment in which to think. The man, though still unconscious, was moaning constantly now. At any moment the priest might regain his senses. One thing was crucial, vital—in some way he must manouvre so that the other should not be removed from his own immediate surveillance until he could find some loophole of escape. Once the man began to talk, unless he, Raymond, were beside the other to stop the man's mouth, or at least to act as interpreter for the other's ramblings—the man was sure to ramble at first, or at least people could be made to believe so—he, Raymond, would be cornered like a rat in a trap, and, more to be feared even than the law, the villagers, in their fury at the sacrilege they would consider he had put upon them in the desecration of their priest, would show him scant ceremony and little mercy.

He was cool enough now, quite cool—with the grim coolness of a man who realises that his life depends upon his keeping his head. Still he bent over the priest. He heard a girl's voice speaking rapidly—that would be the girl with the great dark eyes who had come upon him with the lantern, for there was no other woman here now since he had got rid temporarily of that damnable old hag.

“... It is Father Aubert, the new curé. Labbée, at the station, told us he had arrived unexpectedly. We have brought his trunk that he was going to send for in the morning, and we drove fast hoping to catch up with him so that he would not have to walk all the way. We found him here kneeling beside that man there, that he had stumbled over as he came along. Labbée told us, too, of the other. He said the man seemed anxious to avoid Monsieur le Curé, and hung around the station until Father Aubert had got well started toward St. Marleau. He must have taken the path to the tavern, or he would not have been here ahead of Monsieur le Curé, and——”

Raymond reached into the open travelling bag on the ground beside him, took out the first article coming to hand that would at all serve the purpose, a shirt, and, tearing it, made pretense at binding up the priest's head.

“My thanks to you, mademoiselle!” he muttered soberly under his breath. “If it were not for the existence of that path——!” He shrugged his shoulders, and, his head lowered, a twisted smile flickered upon his lips.

The girl had ceased speaking. They were all clustered around him, watching him. Short exclamations, bearing little evidence of good will toward the unconscious man, came from first one and then another.

“... Meurtrier!... He will hang in any case! ... The better for him if he dies there!... What does it matter, the blackguard!...”

Raymond rose to his feet.

“No,” he said reprovingly. “It is not for us to think in that way. For us, there is only a very badly wounded man here who needs our help and care. We will give that first, and leave the rest in the hands of those who have the right to judge him if he lives. See now, some of you lift him as carefully as possible into the wagon. I will hold his head on my lap, and we will get to the village as quickly as we can.”

It was a strange procession then that began to wend its way toward the village of St. Marleau. The wagon proved to be a sort of buckboard, and Raymond, clambering upon it, sitting with his back propped against the seat, held the priest's head upon his knees. Upon the seat itself the girl and her uncle resumed their places. With the unconscious man stretched out at full length there was no room for the trunk; but, eager to be of service to their new curé, so kind and gentle and tender to even a criminal for whom the law held nothing in reserve but the gallows and a rope, who was tolerant even of Mother Blondin in her blasphemies, the villagers quarrelled amongst themselves for the privilege of carrying it.

They moved slowly—that the wounded man might not be too severely jarred. Constantly the numbers around the wagon were augmented. Women began to appear amongst them. The entire village was aroused. St. Marleau in all its history had known no such excitement before. A murder in St. Marleau—and the murderer caught, and dying they said, was being brought back to the village in the arms of the young curé, who had, a cause even for added excitement, arrived that evening instead of to-morrow as had been expected. Tongues clacked and wagged. It was like a furious humming accompaniment to the howling of the wind. But out of respect to the curé who held the dying man on his knees, they did not press too closely about the wagon.

They passed the “tavern,” which was lighted now in every window, and some left the wagon at this point and went to the “tavern,” and others who had collected at the “tavern” joined the wagon. They began to descend the hill. And now along the road below, to right and left, lights twinkled from every house. They met people coming up the hill. There were even children now.

Head bent over the priest, that twisted smile was back on Raymond's lips. The man moaned at intervals, but showed no further sign of returning consciousness. Would the other live—or die? Raymond's hands, hidden under the priest's head, were clenched. It was a question of his own life or the other's now—wasn't it? What hell-inspired ingenuity had flung him into this hideous maze in which at every twist and turn, as he sought some avenue of escape, he but found, instead, the way barred against him, his retreat cut off, and peril, like some soulless, immutable thing, closing irrevocably down upon him! He dared not leave the priest; he dared not surrender the other for an instant—lest consciousness should return. But if the man died!

Raymond's face, as a ghastly temptation came, was as white as the upturned face between his knees. If the man died it would be simple enough. For a few days, for whatever time was necessary, he could play the rôle of priest, and then in some way—his brain was not searching out details now, there was only the sure confidence in himself that he would be equal to the occasion if only the chance were his—then in some way, without attendant hue and cry, without the police of every city in America loosed upon him, since the “murderer” of the old hag's son would be dead, he could disappear from St. Marleau. But the man was not dead—yet. And why should he even think the man would die! Because he hoped for it? His lips twitched; and his hands, with a slow, curious movement, unclenched, and clenched again—and then with a sort of mental wrench, his brain, alert and keen, was coping with the immediate situation, the immediate danger.

The girl and her uncle were talking earnestly together on the seat. And now, for all that he had not thrust himself forward in what had so far transpired, the man appeared to be of some standing and authority in the neighbourhood, for, turning from the girl, he called sharply to one of the crowd. A villager hurried in response to the side of the wagon, and Raymond, listening, caught snatches of the terse, low-toned instructions that were given.

The doctor at Tournayville, and at the same time the police... yes—to-night... at once....

“Bien sur!” said the villager briskly, and disappeared in the crowd.

Then the girl spoke. Raymond could not hear very distinctly, but it was something about her mother being unprepared, and from that about a room downstairs, and he guessed that they were discussing where they would take the wounded man.

He straightened up suddenly. That was a subject which concerned him very intimately. There was only one place where the priest could go, and that was where he, Raymond, went. They were on the village street now, and, twisting his head around to look ahead, he could make out the shadowy form of the church steeple close at hand.

“Monsieur,” he called quietly to the man on the seat, “we will take this poor fellow to the presbytère, of course.”

“Oh, but, Father Aubert”—the girl turned toward him quickly—“we were just speaking of that. It would not be at all comfortable for you. You see, even your own room there will not be ready for you, since you were not expected to-night, and you will have to take Father Allard's, so that if this man went there, too, there would be no bed at all for you.”

“I hardly think I shall need any bed to-night, mademoiselle,” Raymond said gravely. “The man appears to be in a very critical condition. I know a little something of medicine, and I could not think of leaving him until—I think I heard your uncle say they were going to Tournayville for a doctor—until the doctor arrives.”

“Yes, Monsieur le Curé,” said the man, screwing around in his seat, “that is so. I have sent for the doctor, and also for the police—but it is eight miles to Tournayville, and on a night like this there will be a long while to wait, even if the doctor is to be found at once.”

“You have done well, monsieur,” commended Raymond—but under his breath, with a savage, ironical jeer at himself, he added: “And especially about the police, curse you!”

“But, Monsieur le Curé,” insisted the girl anxiously, “I am sure that——”

“Mademoiselle is very kind, and it is very thoughtful of her,” Raymond interposed gratefully; “but under the circumstances I think the presbytère will be best. Yes; I think we must decide on the presbytère.

“But, yes, certainly—if that is Monsieur le Curé's wish,” agreed the man. “Monsieur le Curé should know best. Valérie, jump down, and run on ahead to tell your mother that we are coming.”

Valérie! So that was the girl's name! It seemed a strangely incongruous thought that here, with his back against the wall, literally fighting for his life, the name should seem somehow to be so appropriate to that dark-eyed face, with its truant, wind-tossed hair, that had come upon him so suddenly out of the darkness; that face, sweet, troubled, in distress, that he had glimpsed for an instant in the lantern's light. Valérie! But what was her other name? What had her mother to do with the presbytère, that the uncle should have sent her on with that message? And who was the uncle, this man here, and what was his name? And how much of all this was he, as Father Aubert, supposed already to know? The curé of the village, Father Allard—what correspondence, for instance, had passed between him and Father Aubert? A hundred questions were on his lips. He dared not ask a single one. They had turned in off the road now and were passing by the front of the church. He lowered his head close down to the priest's. The man still moaned in that same low and, as it were, purely mechanical way. Some one in the crowd spoke:

“They are taking him to the presbytère.”

At the rear of the wagon, amongst the bobbing lanterns, surrounded by awe-struck children and no less awe-struck women, he saw the trunk being trundled along by two men, each grasping one end by the handle. The crowd took up its spokesman's lead.

... To the presbytère.... They are going to the presbytère.... The curé is taking him to the presbytère...

“Yes, damn you!” gritted Raymond between his teeth. “To the presbytère—for the devil's masquerade!”