Read Ebook: In the Name of Liberty: A Story of the Terror by Johnson Owen Castaigne J Andr Illustrator

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Ebook has 2766 lines and 58894 words, and 56 pages

All at once a familiar voice cried at her side:

"Help! help!"

The cry came from beneath the body of a Marseillais. With the aid of a fishwife she pulled away the corpse, discovering the shaken, limp form of the mountebank Cramoisin.

"Ah, mon Dieu," she cried, forgetting the rancor of the woman in the patriot, "are you wounded?"

"I--I think so."

"Where?"

"I don't know," he stammered, rising weakly to his feet. "Is it ended?"

"In thy stomach, I guess, my brave fellow!" the fishwife cried with rough scorn. "It seems to have failed thee!"

"You do not know him: he is a hero!" Nicole cried, ironically. "Wait a moment; we'll find the wound!"

With a laugh, the two sought to seize him; but Cramoisin, having recovered the use of his legs, escaped in a ludicrous, snarling flight.

Suddenly Nicole beheld Barabant stumbling forth from the vestibule. All coquetry forgot, she sprang to him with the cry:

"Barabant, you are wounded!"

He looked at his arm and saw it was covered with blood. He passed his hand over his face; a scalp-wound trickled a red stream down his forehead. He sat down while she hurriedly washed the wounds and bandaged them. When he essayed to rise, a dizziness made his step so unsteady that Nicole drew his arm over her shoulder, laughing at his feeble resistance.

"Allons, this is the hour of the women. I'll bring you back. Don't be afraid to lean on me!"

She put her arm about his waist and impelled him gently. He resisted no longer, and together slowly they moved homeward over the stricken field, amid the groaning and the silent.

He had a misty recollection of a phantasmagoric passage, of rapidly moving figures hideous with blood, of heads dancing on pikes above him, of stretchers bearing inanimate things, of rushing, floating women, of the sudden rumbling of drums, of companies swinging past him, of interminable streets, and of cliffs, mountains high, that gave forth shrieks of triumph. Then in the city, delirious with joy and sorrow, delirium, too, rushed through his brain, his head fell heavily upon Nicole's bare shoulder, and the will deserting his limbs, he slipped from her arms heavily to the ground.

THE HEART OF A WOMAN

When at last Nicole had brought Barabant to his room, she was very tired. Goursac, whom she had summoned to help her, knelt by the bed to examine the unconscious form. Every now and then he turned a questioning look upon the girl, as though to penetrate the indifferent attitude she maintained.

"Why don't you say something?" Nicole cried at last, her anxiety mastering her prudence. "Is it so serious?"

"A mere scratch," he grumbled; "nothing to make such a fuss over. If he hadn't been as weak as a woman--"

Nicole, reassured, smiled at his ill-humor, knowing the mood of old. Goursac, furious at such a reception of his sarcasm, turned on her angrily.

"You are like all the rest--just as stupid. Because a young fellow gets a scratch and you pilot him home, you call that a romance. You know well enough what that leads to!"

"That may be true; why shouldn't I have my romance as well as another?"

"You say that to plague me. You know that is not so!" he said impatiently. "Now give me a bandage."

Stooping, Nicole seized her petticoat; but finding it stained with traces of the combat, she dropped it, and calling to him to wait, passed through the window and across the gutter, swaying lithely against the roof. In a moment she returned with half of a sheet, which they quickly tore into bandages.

"There; with a little rest--a chance to recover some blood--the fever will abate!" Preparing a sling, Goursac jerked his head toward the bed and demanded: "You are not going to watch?"

"Certainly I am!"

"Then say at once," he cried point-blank, "that you imagine you are in love!"

"Goursac, my friend, you are ridiculous with your ideas," Nicole answered impatiently. "You know that the Citoyen Barabant arrived only yesterday. We are good comrades. That's all!"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

He wrinkled his lips in scornful unbelief, raised his shoulders to his ears, and disappeared, heavily, down the stairs, grumbling ironically, "A man lies to deceive others; a woman lies to deceive herself!"

A moment later he called back:

"H?, above there!"

Nicole went to the landing.

"Is that you, the comrade?"

"Yes, old cynic."

"If you need me, stamp twice on the floor."

"Agreed."

"Return now to your--acquaintance."

Nicole, laughing, returned to the bedside. She placed her hand on the heated forehead, frowned, smoothed down the covers, arranged the discarded clothes, and, after a moment's reflection, departed over the roof to her room.

When she again appeared, she had removed all traces of the battle. She pulled a chair near the bed, loosened her hair, scattering it over her shoulders, and began to comb it out, unraveling the tangle with many grimaces and an oft-wrung "A?e! a?e!"

Occasionally she consulted a pocket-mirror, then resumed the combing, humming to herself. Barabant, his forehead enveloped in white, his arm in a sling, lay with his head turned toward her, one arm escaping bare above the covers. She regarded approvingly the lithe muscles suggested under the soft skin, and, ceasing her humming, pronounced:

"He is well made!"

She leaned over the bed and opened the collar of his shirt, revealing the full throat.

"Tiens, he's as white as a woman."

She withdrew, and resumed her humming.

"But, Dieu merci, it's not a woman." She was taking up another strand when the stairs cried out and Louison entered. Nicole frowned and said curtly:

"Ah, it's you, is it? Who told you?"

"La M?re Corniche. How goes it?" she asked, indicating Barabant.

"Well."

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