"Fear? Yes, that's it, /fear/," returned the commandant."I have always had a fear of being shot like a dog at the edge of a wood, without a chance of crying out 'Who goes there?'""Pooh!" said Merle, laughing, "'Who goes there' is all humbug.""Are we in any real danger?" asked Gerard, as much surprised by Hulot's coolness as he was by his evident alarm.
"Hush!" said the commandant, in a low voice."We are in the jaws of the wolf; it is as dark as a pocket; and we must get some light.
Luckily, we've got the upper end of the slope!"So saying, he moved, with his two officers, in a way to surround Marche-a-Terre, who rose quickly, pretending to think himself in the way.
"Stay where you are, vagabond!" said Hulot, keeping his eye on the apparently indifferent face of the Breton, and giving him a push which threw him back on the place where he had been sitting.
"Friends," continued Hulot, in a low voice, speaking to the two officers."It is time I should tell you that it is all up with the army in Paris.The Directory, in consequence of a disturbance in the Assembly, has made another clean sweep of our affairs.Those pentarchs,--puppets, I call them,--those directors have just lost a good blade; Bernadotte has abandoned them.""Who will take his place?" asked Gerard, eagerly.
"Milet-Mureau, an old blockhead.A pretty time to choose to let fools sail the ship! English rockets from all the headlands, and those cursed Chouan cockchafers in the air! You may rely upon it that some one behind those puppets pulled the wire when they saw we were getting the worst of it.""How getting the worst of it?"
"Our armies are beaten at all points," replied Hulot, sinking his voice still lower."The Chouans have intercepted two couriers; I only received my despatches and last orders by a private messenger sent by Bernadotte just as he was leaving the ministry.Luckily, friends have written me confidentially about this crisis.Fouche has discovered that the tyrant Louis XVIII.has been advised by traitors in Paris to send a leader to his followers in La Vendee.It is thought that Barras is betraying the Republic.At any rate, Pitt and the princes have sent a man, a /ci-devant/, vigorous, daring, full of talent, who intends, by uniting the Chouans with the Vendeans, to pluck the cap of liberty from the head of the Republic.The fellow has lately landed in the Morbihan; I was the first to hear of it, and I sent the news to those knaves in Paris.'The Gars' is the name he goes by.All those beasts,"he added, pointing to Marche-a-Terre, "stick on names which would give a stomach-ache to honest patriots if they bore them.The Gars is now in this district.The presence of that fellow"--and again he signed to Marche-a-Terre--"as good as tells me he is on our back.But they can't teach an old monkey to make faces; and you've got to help me to get my birds safe into their cage, and as quick as a flash too.A pretty fool I should be if I allowed that /ci-devant/, who dares to come from London with his British gold, to trap me like a crow!"On learning these secret circumstances, and being well aware that their leader was never unnecessarily alarmed, the two officers saw the dangers of the position.Gerard was about to ask some questions on the political state of Paris, some details of which Hulot had evidently passed over in silence, but a sign from his commander stopped him, and once more drew the eyes of all three to the Chouan.Marche-a-Terre gave no sign of disturbance at being watched.The curiosity of the two officers, who were new to this species of warfare, was greatly excited by this beginning of an affair which seemed to have an almost romantic interest, and they began to joke about it.But Hulot stopped them at once.
"God's thunder!" he cried."Don't smoke upon the powder-cask; wasting courage for nothing is like carrying water in a basket.Gerard," he added, in the ear of his adjutant, "get nearer, by degrees, to that fellow, and watch him; at the first suspicious action put your sword through him.As for me, I must take measures to carry on the ball if our unseen adversaries choose to open it."The Chouan paid no attention to the movements of the young officer, and continued to play with his whip, and fling out the lash of it as though he were fishing in the ditch.
Meantime the commandant was saying to Merle, in a low voice: "Give ten picked men to a sergeant, and post them yourself above us on the summit of this slope, just where the path widens to a ledge; there you ought to see the whole length of the route to Ernee.Choose a position where the road is not flanked by woods, and where the sergeant can overlook the country.Take Clef-des-Coeurs; he is very intelligent.