The Companions of Jehu - Alexandre Dumas (best biographies to read txt) 📗

architect; “if, for example, we were carrying government money, we would surely be stopped, or rather we would have been already.”

“Do you think so?” queried the watchmaker.

“That has never failed. I don’t know how those devils of Companions of Jehu manage to keep so well posted; but they never miss an opportunity.”

The doctor nodded affirmatively.

“Ah!” exclaimed the watchmaker, addressing the doctor; “do you think so, too?”

“I do.”

“And if you knew there was government money in the coach, would you be so imprudent as to take passage in it?”

“I must admit,” replied the doctor, “that I should think twice about it.”

“And you, sir?” said the questioner to the architect.

“Oh, I,” replied the latter—“as I am on important business, I should have started anyway.”

“I am tempted,” said the watchmaker “to take off my valise and my oases, and wait for tomorrow’s diligence, because my boxes are filled with watches worth something like twenty thousand francs. We’ve been lucky so far, but there’s no use tempting Providence.”

“Did you not hear these gentlemen say,” remarked the lady, joining in the conversation for the first time, “that we run the risk of being stopped only when the coach carries government money?”

“That’s exactly it,” replied the watchmaker, looking anxiously around. “We are carrying it.”

The mother blanched visibly and looked at her son. Before fearing for herself every mother fears for her child.

“What! we are carrying it?” asked the doctor and the architect in varying tones of excitement. “Are you sure of what you are saying?”

“Perfectly sure, gentlemen.”

“Then you should either have told us before, or have told us in a whisper now.”

“But perhaps,” said the doctor, “the gentleman is not quite sure of what he says.”

“Or perhaps he is joking,” added the architect.

“Heaven forbid!”

“The Genevese are very fond of a laugh,” persisted the doctor.

“Sir,” replied the Genevese, much hurt that any one should think he liked to laugh, “I saw it put on the coach myself.”

“What?”

“The money.”

“Was there much?”

“A good many bags.”

“But where does the money come from?”

“The treasury of the bears of Berne. You know, of course, that the bears of Berne received an income of fifty or even sixty thousand francs.”

The doctor burst out laughing.

“Decidedly, sir, you are trying to frighten us,” said he.

“Gentlemen,” said the watchmaker, “I give you my word of honor—”

“Take your places gentlemen,” shouted the conductor, opening the door. “Take your places! We are three-quarters of an hour late.”

“One moment, conductor, one moment,” Said the architect; “we are consulting.”

“About what?”

“Close the door, conductor, and come over here.”

“Drink a glass of wine with us, conductor.”

“With pleasure, gentlemen; a glass of wine is never to be refused.”

The conductor held out his glass, and the three travellers touched it; but just as he was lifting it to his lips the doctor stopped his arm.

“Come, conductor, frankly, is it true?”

“What?”

“What this gentleman says?” And he pointed to the Genevese.

“Monsieur Féraud?”

“I don’t know if that is his name.”

“Yes, sir, that is my name—Féraud & Company, No. 6 Rue du Rempart, Geneva, at your service,” replied the watchmaker, bowing.

“Gentlemen,” repeated the conductor, “take your places!”

“But you haven’t answered.”

“What the devil shall I answer? You haven’t asked me anything.”

“Yes, we asked you if it is true that you are carrying a large sum of money belonging to the French Government?”

“Blabber!” said the conductor to watchmaker, “did you tell that?”

“Confound it, my worthy fellow—”

“Come, gentlemen, your places.”

“But before getting in we want to know—”

“What? Whether I have government money? Yes I have. Now, if we are stopped, say nothing and all will be well.”

“Are you sure?”

“Leave me to arrange matters with these gentry.”

“What will you do if we are stopped?” the doctor asked the architect.

“Faith! I shall follow the conductor’s advice.”

“That’s the best thing to do,” observed the latter.

“Well, I shall keep quiet,” repeated the architect.

“And so shall I,” added the watchmaker.

“Come, gentlemen, take your seats, and let us make haste.”

The boy had listened to this conversation with frowning brow and clinched teeth.

“Well,” he said to his mother, “if we are stopped, I know what I’ll do.”

“What will you do?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

“What does this little boy say?” asked the watchmaker.

“I say you are all cowards,” replied the child unhesitatingly.

“Edouard!” exclaimed his mother, “what do you mean?”

“I wish they’d stop the diligence, that I do!” cried the boy, his eye sparkling with determination.

“Come, come, gentlemen, in Heaven’s name, take your places,” called the conductor once more.

“Conductor,” said the doctor, “I presume you have no weapons!”

“Yes, I have my pistols.”

“Unfortunate!”

The conductor stooped to the doctor’s ear and whispered: “Don’t be alarmed, doctor; they’re only loaded with powder.”

“Good!”

“Forward, postilion, forward!” shouted the conductor, closing the door of the interior. Then, while the postilion snapped his whip and started the heavy vehicle, he also closed that of the coupé.

“Are you not coming with us, conductor?” asked the lady.

“Thank you, no, Madame de Montrevel,” replied the conductor; “I have something to do on the imperial.” Then, looking into the window, he added: “Take care the Monsieur Edouard does not touch the pistols in the pocket of the carriage; he might hurt himself.”

“Pooh!” retorted the boy, “as if I didn’t know how to handle a pistol. I have handsomer ones than yours, that my friend Sir John had sent me from England; haven’t I, mamma?”

“Never mind, Edouard,” replied Madame de Montrevel, “I entreat you not to touch them.”

“Don’t worry, little mother.” Then he added softly, “All the same, if the Companions of Jehu stop us, I know what I shall do.”

The diligence was again rolling heavily on its way to Paris.

It was one of those fine winter days which makes those who think that nature is dead at that season admit that nature never dies but only sleeps. The man who lives to be seventy or eighty years of age has his nights of ten or twelve hours, and often complains that the length of his nights adds to the shortness of his days. Nature, which has an everlasting existence; trees, which live a thousand years; have sleeping periods of four or five months, which are winters for us but only nights for them. The poets, in their envious verse, sing the immortality of nature, which dies each autumn and revives each spring. The poets are mistaken; nature does not die each autumn, she only falls asleep; she is not resuscitated, she awakens. The day when our globe really dies, it will be dead indeed. Then it will roll into space or fall into the abysses of chaos, inert, mute, solitary, without trees, without flowers, without verdure, without poets.

But on this beautiful day of the 23d of February, 1800, sleeping nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the diligence were lowered, to give entrance to this earliest smile of the Divine, as though all hearts were saying: “Welcome back, traveller long lost in the clouds of the West, or beneath the heaving billows of Ocean!”

Suddenly, about an hour after leaving Châtillon, the diligence stopped at a bend of the river without any apparent cause. Four horsemen quietly approached, walking their horses, and one of them, a little in advance of the others, made a sign with his hand to the postilion, ordering him to draw up. The postilion obeyed.

“Oh, mamma!” cried Edouard, standing up and leaning out of the window in spite of Madame de Montrevel’s protestations; “oh, mamma, what fine horses! But why do these gentlemen wear masks? This isn’t carnival.”

Madame de Montrevel was dreaming. A woman always dreams a little; young, of the future; old, of the past. She started from her revery, put her head out of the window, and gave a little cry.

Edouard turned around hastily.

“What ails you, mother?” he asked.

Madame de Montrevel turned pale and took him in her arms without a word. Cries of terror were heard in the interior.

“But what is the matter?” demanded little Edouard, struggling to escape from his mother’s encircling arms.

“Nothing, my little man,” said one of the masked men in a gentle voice, putting his head through the window of the coupé; “nothing but an account we have to settle with the conductor, which does not in the least concern you travellers. Tell your mother to accept our respectful homage, and to pay no more heed to us than if we were not here.” Then passing to the door of the interior, he added: “Gentlemen, your servant. Fear nothing for your money or jewels, and reassure that nurse—we have not come here to turn her milk.” Then to the conductor: “Now, then, Père Jérôme, we have a hundred thousand francs on the imperial and in the boxes, haven’t we?”

“Gentlemen, I assure you—”

“That the money belongs to the government. It did belong to the bears of Berne; seventy thousand francs in gold, the rest in silver. The silver is on the top of the coach, the gold in the bottom of the coupé. Isn’t that so? You see how well informed we are.”

At the words “bottom of the coupe” Madame de Montrevel gave another cry of terror; she was about to come in contact with men who, in spite of their politeness, inspired her with the most profound terror.

“But what is the matter, mother, what is the matter?” demanded the boy impatiently.

“Be quiet, Edouard; be quiet!”

“Why must I be quiet?”

“Don’t you understand?”

“No.”

“The coach has been stopped.”

“Why? Tell me why? Ah, mother, I understand.”

“No, no,” said Madame de Montrevel, “you don’t understand.”

“Those gentlemen are robbers.”

“Take care you don’t say so.”

“What, you mean they are not robbers? Why, see they are taking the conductor’s money.”

Sure enough, one of the four was fastening to the saddle of his horse the bags of silver which the conductor threw down from the imperial.

“No,” repeated Madame de Montrevel, “no, they are not robbers.” Then lowering her voice, she added: “They are Companions of Jehu.”

“Ah!” cried the boy, “they are the ones who assassinated my friend, Sir John.”

And the child turned very pale, and his breath came hissing through his clinched teeth.

At that moment one of the masked men opened the door of the coupé, and said with exquisite politeness: “Madame la Comtesse, to our great regret we are obliged to disturb you; but we want, or rather the conductor wants, a package from the bottom of the coupé. Will you be so kind as to get out for a moment? Jérôme will get what he wants as quickly as possible.” Then, with that note of gayety which was never entirely absent from that laughing voice, he added, “Won’t you, Jérôme?”

Jérôme replied from the top of the diligence, confirming these words.

With an instinctive movement to put herself between the danger and her son, Madame de Montrevel, while complying with that request, pushed Edouard behind her. That instant sufficed for the boy to seize the conductor’s pistols.

The young man with the laughing voice assisted Madame de Montrevel from the coach with the greatest care, then signed to one of his companions to give her an arm, and returned to the coach.

But at that instant a double report