CHAPTER VIII: BALAOO DEFENDS HIMSELF
For two nights, Coriolis had not left his tower.
He had built a sort of belvedere up there, where he loved to spend his time in contemplation. On level ground, in spite of his protecting walls, he did not feel far enough removed from the men whom he despised.
Here, Coriolis had passed two horrible nights and a hideous day. No one will ever know what he suffered, though he was not inclined to exaggerate the importance of a Herment de Meyrentin's disappearance from the face of the earth. When you are first cousin to a gentleman who has written all the nonsense, on the subject of Darwinism and the theory of evolution, with which that pretentious bookworm had filled the learned reviews for twenty years past, you need not expect to be mourned by an old eccentric who has studied nature at first hand, in every latitude, and who has taken her in at a glance, considering her one and indivisible and prepared to prove his views with his pithecanthrope.
When all was said, what had Meyrentin the magistrate wanted with him? As likely as not, he had been sent by the cousin at the Institute, who might have got wind of the pithecanthrope!
It was obvious that this pithecanthrope was going to annoy a lot of people. So much the worse for them! So much the worse for the idiots who do not believe in the doctrine of the evolution of species. Who ever heard of such stupidity! To think that the different species had never been developed on earth! Had the earth itself developed, yes or no, from the iron age to that of the old fossils of the Institute? So their contention was that the earth, which is constantly being transformed and constantly shifting, is covered with species which do not change, do not improve, do not decay with the worlds! . . .
Oh, how angry Coriolis was, in his belvedere! . . . Luckily, he was there! Just so! And that prodigious chain of life, arrogantly broken by man, who refuses to know anything of his brothers the animals, he was going to weld for good and all to that rebel's leg! With his pithecanthrope — now that he had turned the pithecanthrope into. . . a man! — he would say to man:
"Animal yourself!"
But, alas, what a catastrophe!
At the very moment when, after all those years of patient work, he was proposing to make known his masterpiece and to introduce it, as a matter of right, into the great human family, the human child of his genius and his nocturnal studies had behaved like any old wild beast in the Forest of Bandong! For there was no denying it: his dear Balaoo's murderous deed was as unconscious an act of impulse as the closing of any wild animal's jaws upon its prey, in the jungle. What a catastrophe! What a catastrophe!"
Yes, Coriolis was having the bad time of his life. Buthe was incapable of vulgar despair. Possessed as he was by his fixed idea of making men out of monkeys and believing that he had succeeded, not an anxious thought as to the dangers involved had ever entered his brain; and his heart had no feeling of pity for the victim. He experienced neither remorse nor indignation. Not for a moment did he reflect:
"What have I done? The murderer is myself! "In his heart of hearts — and who will ever know the heart of hearts of scientific men? — he was not wholly sorry, since there had to be a victim and since you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, that this victim happened to be the near relation of a scientist who had never grasped the principles of evolution and who, for years, had horrified sensible men by maintaining his theory of the non-mutability of species!
The thing was quite simple: all the man's grief was due to the fact that he was afraid lest his crime should be discovered and his pithecanthrope taken from him. And I am in a position to add a few words that can only redound to his advantage and his credit: Coriolis suffered untold agonies not merely because it would mean the end of his work, if men learnt what had happened, but also and above all because he was less afraid of prison as a punishment for himself than he dreaded a cage for Balaoo, in which the poor orphan from the Forest of Bandong would have died of a broken heart. Coriolis loved Balaoo with the love of a father for his child.
Besides, to know Balaoo was to love him: so gentle was he, so simple, charming and natural. It was certain that, if Balaoo had only given him time, M. Herment de Meyrentin would have been attracted by him like everybody else; but Balaoo had not given him time.
After this, it will be understood why Coriolis sat weeping up in his tower; and why Madeleine, vainly trying to sew by the lamp in the dining-room , cried into the little basket in which she kept her needles and thread; and why old Gertrude, in her kitchen, wetted the knife-board with her tears.
The door between the dining-room and the kitchen was open. Gertrude did not know of the misfortune that had befallen her dear Noël's distinguished visitor; but, as Balaoo had not been seen for five days, she had little doubt that he had been guilty of some villainy. As a rule, when Balaoo took a day off in the forest, the escapade did not last longer than twenty-four hours and Coriolis and Madeleine showed no particular anxiety. But, during the last three days, there was no talking to the master, who had locked himself up in his tower; and Madeleine went about mopping her eyes in every corner of the house. Another extraordinary thing was that, for three days, Gertrude had been forbidden to go into the village on any excuse whatever. Not only that, but all the doors of the house had been barred and bolted. And, on the top of this, they had heard the sound of fire-arms, one night, in the village; and a great light had shot up from behind the Place de la Mairie.
All this mystery was quite enough to make a body tremble. Gertrude dreaded the worst for Balaoo. Nor did her anguish know any bounds when, on the afternoon of the next day, going up to her young mistress' bedroom, she saw the roads black with people and the country filled with soldiers marching towards the forest. In her terror, she called Madeleine, who gave her but little comfort by telling her that she had asked her father what all that crowd and that movement of troops meant and that Coriolis had said that it had to do with the manœuvres.
All this was very far from, clear; but one fact was certain, which was that Balaoo did not return.
Gertrude, while cleaning her knives, tried to obtain some little light from the few remarks vouchsafed by Madeleine. But Madeleine hardly answered her questions. And the old servant began to speak of Balaoo with a funereal sadness, as of one whom she was destined never to see again, enumerating his pretty ways, his oddities and all the tricks which he loved to play upon her in her kitchen, hiding the most useful articles and spilling all the salt into the soup when she was making a soup which Balaoo did not like. Gertrude had more than once seen Balaoo's foothands and was acquainted with the great mystery. She loved Balaoo, therefore, not as a human being, but as a dear little pet of her own, that is to say, with all an old woman's immeasurable fondness. Madeleine, on the other hand, cherished the pithecanthrope as she would a wayward and mischievous brother, whom an elder sister loves to correct and protect; and Balaoo returned every atom of her affection.
The two women could easily have communicated their common sorrow through the open door; and yet they hesitated to do so, especially as they could only expect to intensify their grief. Gertrude was the first to break silence, by speaking of the wedding:
"Have you heard from M. Patrice?" she asked.
Madeleine replied by merely shaking her head. She did not care a straw for M. Patrice at that moment, nor for any sweetheart in the wide world.
"When shall we see him again?" the old woman continued, more or less indifferently.
No reply.
"Will the wedding be here or in Paris?"
A dead silence.
"Balaoo doesn't like it when M. Patrice comes," Gertrude said, more timidly.
This time, she got an answer with a vengeance:
"How do you know, you silly old fool? Has Balaoo spoken to you of Patrice?"
"No, but he becomes unbearable when M. Patrice is here. . . Oh, where can he be now? . . When I think," she moaned, "that, only last Saturday, he was sitting there, on that chair, peeling my leeks for me and telling me his stories of the Forest of Bandong, I feel as if I could die of misery! I am sure that something has happened to him!"
She could not understand why Madeleine did not go out to call him, as she always did when he stayed out too late.
"He must please himself," sighed Madeleine. "If he keeps away for so long, it's because he's lost his affection for us. Papa is right: he is big enough to be a man. He must know his own mind. If he prefers the society of the forest to ours, that's his affair: he will never be anything but a Balaoo of the forest and we must give up the hope, at his age, of making a proper man of him."
"You take it very easily, miss," Gertrude retorted, "and I don't think that's natural. You're keeping something from me, here. You've lost confidence in me. If I'm in the way, you had better say so."
"You're talking like the dear old stupid that you are. No one's keeping anything from you. Balaoo doesn't care about us any more; and I don't see why I should upset myself: he's only a monkey, after all!"
"You break my heart when you talk like that," said Gertrude, who had a sensitive heart and who once nearly died of grief at the death of a little crook-backed cat which she had shut up in a drawer by accident. "You didn't always say so. You used to say, 'That fellow is extraordinarily clever. He understands all we say and he guesses the rest. He knows more than the mayor and the priest rolled into one.' Did you say that or did you not?"
"Evil instincts always regain the upper hand in the children of wicked parents," replied Madeleine, her little nose all red with weeping and despair.
"He didn't know them long enough to learn their wicked ways," rejoined Gertrude, defending Balaoo inch by inch.
"Oh, he was twelve months old when he left them: that's a lot for a little monkey, my dear Gertrude, a great deal more than you think!"
"I know, of course, that he couldn't talk. He learnt that here; and all his ways are just like yours and the master's. He walks like the master, with a little stoop in his back and his feet turned out. And, when he laughs, he mimics you so exactly, miss, that, if one weren't to see him, one would think it was you!"
"Thank you, Gertrude."
"I'm not saying it to annoy you: there was a time when you would have been pleased to hear it. But you don't care for Balaoo any more; and I can't think what's happened!"
Suddenly, old Gertrude stopped cleaning her knives and ran into the dining-room, for Madeleine had burst into a fit of crying. She sat sobbing, with her elbows on the table and her fair-haired little head between her hands, while her shoulders shook spasmodically.
"Oh, what is it, miss, what is it? Lord above, is it I who've upset you? . . . Do say something! . . . You frighten me! . . ."
"Let me be, Gertrude, let me be! . . ."
"I see myself letting you be, in such a state! I'll go and call the master."
"No, no, Gertrude, don't do anything of the sort. . . . There. . . .I'm all right now. . . ."
"I feel certain that something has happened!"
"I wish you would stop talking your nonsense! What do you think can have happened? Nothing's happened at all, do you hear, you old fool?"
"I'm sure I beg your pardon, miss," said Gertrude, wounded in her pride and returning to her kitchen.
They sat without exchanging another word. The night wore on.
Gertrude lit her lantern and prepared to go up to her garret. She said good-night, in a tearful voice, to Madeleine, who raised her head and begged her not to leave her:
"You've frightened me with your jeremiads, Gertrude! Come and sleep in my room. We'll put you a mattress on the floor."
"But what's happening? Lord above, miss, I've never seen you like this before! . . . Aren't you going to say good-night to your father?"
"No, he doesn't want to be disturbed: he's working."
"He's no more working than we are: he's waiting for Balaoo to come back, miss. You can't deceive old Gertrude."
They both lay down in Madeleine's room; but neither Gertrude, on the floor, nor Madeleine, in her bed, was able to sleep. And it was quite two o'clock in the morning when, as though moved by a common spring, they both sat up, with ears on the alert:
"Did you hear, miss?"
"Yes, Gertrude, I heard. . . . I believe it's he, isn't it?"
"It came from the forest. It's as if the forest were sighing."
"That's a bad sign," said Madeleine, in a choking voice. "Those sighs always frightened me."
They were silent. . . and then, when the sighs in the forest were renewed, they got up, huddled on a few things and opened the window.
And they at once whispered:
"It's he! . . . It's he! . . ."
They could see the skirt of the forest, at no great distance, in the moonlight; and, from that near, mysterious, ominous horizon, the sound reached them of a strange growling breath.
The growling increased and became a rolling, like the incipient noise of thunder trying its voice before it becomes a storm. The forest stood poised like an immense, black, tempest-laden cloud upon the earth, upon the fields, which already shook under the as yet distant voice of the thunder. And, suddenly, the thunder burst [1] so furiously that Madeleine almost fainted away as she moaned:
"Oh dear, what are they doing to him? Balaoo never thundered so loud as that before!"
And, when, at the same moment, shots were heard amid shouting, in the woods, the two women flung themselves into each other's arms, stammering in their fright:
"Balaoo! Balaoo!"
A fresh report of fire-arms electrified them and sent them rushing madly out of the room, across the house and up the tower. They climbed its shaky stairs, screaming for the doctor. The men were killing Balaoo! They were killing Balaoo!
The two women burst into the belvedere, to find the old eccentric fretting like a wild beast in its cage, tearing from window to window, with fists clenched and mouth afire. Coriolis, who was stifling, had unfastened his neck-tie, his collar and his shirt; and, at intervals, when the shots rang out anew, his nails dug into his bare chest, drawing the blood., With his eyes starting from his sockets, he gurgled:
"They'll kill him! . . . They'll kill him! . . . Oh, the scoundrels! The murderers! . . . The men! . . ."
His overpowering rage could find no stronger expression, nor did it seek one. It was satisfied with that:
"The men! The men!"
Was it possible, was it possible that they were going to destroy his handiwork, to kill his child?
There was not a doubt left in his mind but that they had surprised Balaoo with Meyrentin's body, that they had tried to arrest him and that, in his madness, the pithecanthrope, forgetting all his acquired human prudence, had revealed himself the monster! This explained both the array of troops and the curiosity displayed throughout the day by all the people of the country-side. Coriolis had reassured Madeleine not long ago, but he himself knew that the thing was certain and that the whole crowd were there for the purpose of storming the forest.
Nevertheless, until two o'clock in the morning, Coriolis did not cease to hope that Balaoo, who was an integral part of the forest, would manage to extricate himself by trickery and silence. A pithecanthrope has more than one trick up his sleeve! Every tree is his friend; and he knows how to "move" in the branches!
Alas, the thunder was soon to teach Coriolis otherwise! Balaoo sometimes thundered to amuse himself, but that was always quite evident and Coriolis then knew that the pithecanthrope was making fun of men. Now the thunder of that night was something different, was positively alarming. Never had one of the higher quadrumanes, attacked by a band of hunters in the bush, made the depths of the equatorial jungle ring with a more gigantic anger. And then there were the shots. Balaoo had been discovered! They were giving him a dose of platoon-firing!
Coriolis tore out his hair by handfuls. He took no notice of the women when they entered. Leaning from the tower, he shouted into the night:
"Have at them, Balaoo, have at them! . . . Defend yourself! . . . The cowards! . . . There's a thousand of them to one of you, the cowards! . . . Have at them, Balaoo! . . . Kill them! Kill them! . . ."
Madeleine, seeing his wild condition, tried to silence him, but in vain. He repelled her with the utmost violence. He shook his fist at heaven and earth. He cursed the universe.
Such a work as his! They were murdering his work, the work of a god! For he had proved himself God's equal, that old eccentric, with his pithecanthrope! He had created man; and in less time than it had occupied Him! Where God had taken perhaps five hundred thousand years, he, the old eccentric, had taken ten: ten years and a couple of touches with the scalpel under the tongue! And all that to end. . . how? In their daring to destroy his masterpiece in the corner of a forest! . . . O misery! And he wept. . . .
He wept, for the sounds had ceased. . . . The thing must be over. . . . Nothing remained of Balaoo.
Madeleine took her father's head in her lap and petted and consoled him like an old, white-haired child.
He did not reply.
He certainly did not hear her. From time to time, he repeated:
"It's over! . . . It's all over! . . . We shall never see Balaoo again, we shall never see him again!"
The scene told Gertrude much that she did not know before. Through her master's ravings, she at last learnt the nature of the "dirty trick" of which Balaoo had been guilty. The dear darling had killed a gentleman visitor! She could not get over it. He who had always seemed to her so gentle. . . and who certainly would never have hurt a fly! . . .
Daylight found them all three in the belvedere: they were still there at the hour when nature seems to rise from the mists of the dawn, when thick grey tints enshroud the beauty of the woods, while, far away, on the clearer horizon, the leafless tops of the great trees gleam and sparkle in the light.
With terrified hearts, they assisted at nature's awakening. It was the moment when the earth reeks, when the wind falls, when wild things suck the breath of the earth that makes them strong. . . . Ah, how Balaoo used to love that hour! . . . And how often Coriolis had caught him, with his nose in the cool grass, sniffing the pungent smell of the morning; how often he had almost to drag him to the schoolroom where his lessons awaited him! . . . Poor Balaoo, who was so fond of playing truant! . . . How could they grow accustomed to the thought that he was now probably nothing more than a torn and mutilated corpse, which those brutes of men, who fought a thousand to one, would carry back on a litter of branches, little suspecting the miraculous nature of the game which they had killed!
But the idea in Coriolis' mind suddenly found utterance on Madeleine's lips:
"If they have killed him," she said, "they will certainly know. They will recognize M. Noël."
"Why, of course! Why, of course! There would be hundreds of people to recognize him; and Coriolis would soon be asked for explanations. . . .
Well, what did that matter? He would furnish the explanations. He would call to witness everybody who had spoken to M. Noël: Mme. Boche, Mme. Mûre, the small tradesmen in the Rue Neuve and even those rascals the brothers Vautrin, in their prison, for Dr. Coriolis did not yet know of their escape. And people would learn what they had killed, what they had silenced for ever: human speech in a monkey's throat!
When Coriolis reached this second stage of his despair, he saw groups of men emerging from the forest and walking in front of something which he could not yet distinguish, but which resembled a load thrown over a litter of boughs; and he had not a doubt that it was the remains of Balaoo being carried back to the village. Soon he recognized the mayor and the prefect walking ahead: he had seen them, at a distance, on the day before, when already their curious behaviour had caused him no little anxiety. They both seemed now to be talking very excitedly, with gestures expressive of immense distress. Soldiers and peasants followed, making similar gesticulations. And all these people were escorting that sort of bier, over which a long military cloak was thrown. As the procession approached, the occupants of the tower distinguished the details more plainly; and, when it passed the foot of the tower, Madeleine and Gertrude burst into loud sobs, while Coriolis, pale as death, nearly fell over, in his attempt to see. But he saw nothing, except the cloak beneath which lay outlined a human shape that could only be the shape of Balaoo.
When the procession had passed, another followed at once; and here again there were multitudes of people and soldiers around a litter bearing a human figure covered with a cloak. . . .
And then came another. . . and yet another . . . making four funeral processions. . . .
"Oho!" muttered Coriolis, who no longer had the strength to stand and who felt as though he were losing his reason for good. "Oho! So Balaoo defended himself! . . ."
But that was not all. . . . Gradually, the forest belched forth all the soldiers whom it had swallowed up yesterday. . . but in what a plight! After the dead came the wounded. Of these there were at least a score, limping along in single file, supported by their comrades, with their arms in slings and their foreheads bandaged. . . .Good old Balaoo! . . .
Yet one more procession brought up the rear. It was formed of a group of people in whose midst a figure which Coriolis seemed to know was struggling in the strangest fashion. Suddenly, he recognized it: Dr. Honorat! But such a Dr. Honorat! Coriolis could not make out the dear doctor's attitude, nor his cries. Honorat's face was covered with blood. . . and he was singing the Marseillaise!
It was really not the moment to strike up this triumphal anthem; and the others were doing their very best to make him stop, but could not. They also had the greatest difficulty in keeping him on his legs. . . .
At length, this last procession, like the others, disappeared down the Rue Neuve, towards which all the peasants around were hastening with cries and shouts and lamentations, while the bell of the little church began to toll dismally for the dead, with short, single knells that fell from the steeple slowly, one by one, like tears.
Coriolis, remembering at last that he was a member of the human race, slid to the floor at full length, lifeless, icy cold. The women thought for a moment that he was dead. No amount of attention or rubbing was able to restore the warmth to his body. At last, he opened his eyes and looked around him with a startled air:
"Where is Balaoo?" he asked.
They did not reply. He remembered and heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the dark depths of his scientist's soul, the soul that had taught a pithecanthrope to speak. He shook his head and asked:
"How many killed?"
When the others again did not reply, he gave a violent movement of impatience:
"I'm asking you, how many killed, how many killed!"
"But, papa, we don't know," said Madeleine's trembling voice, at last.
"Well, you, Gertrude, go and find out."
She went to the municipal buildings to enquire.
There were four killed and twenty-seven wounded.
The first victim was the Vicomte de la Terrenoire, who had died the death of a soldier, at the head of his troops, with his skull cracked like a nutshell. It was his body that lay under the first cloak; and he had been laid in state on the desk in the marriage-registry-office. The three others were private soldiers. Their bodies were placed in a row on the floor of the council-chamber.
In addition to these four heroes, there were a number of men suffering from fractured arms, broken legs, bruised noses; but the wordt injuries were certainly those of Colonel du Briage, who had met with an astounding adventure of which, unfortunately, he was unable to furnish particulars, for the very simple reason that he had returned with his jaws smashed to a jelly, every tooth in his head broken and his tongue torn out by the roots. Moreover, both his wrists were fractured. As for the Three Brothers, not one of them, of course, was brought back, dead or alive. More than that, they had not even been seen; and they had not fired a single shot. The soldiers had discharged their rifles at them, at random, but were unable to say if they had even driven them away. All that they found was Dr. Honorat, tied to the foot of a tree in the middle of the Moabit clearing. Throughout the fighting, he had sung the Girondins' song, Mourir pour la patrie, and, afterwards, when the others had tried to make him speak, he had struck up the Marseillaise, which he was singing still. The mayor was utterly dismayed. As for the prefect, he could think of nothing but a telegram which he had received from the government, dismissing him from his post.
From the town-hall, Gertrude went on to the Black Sun. The crowd in the street was so great that she soon saw that she would never reach the door of the Roubions' inn, where generally all the news of the district centred. However, by working her way through the kitchens, she managed to reach the large summer dining-room, now transformed into an infirmary, at the moment when Born-drunk, a sergeant in the second battalion of the 3rd, was describing the terrible, swift and incomprehensible events in which he himself had taken part. He'd had the luck, he had, to get off with a split ear. Now that it was all over, he gave you his word, he wasn't sorry that he'd been there!
Sergeant Born-drunk expressed himself as nimbly with gestures as with words; and often the former were the more easily understood. His hearers could see, as plainly as though they had been present, the little troop under his command, slipping through the tall ferns, noiselessly, amid the silent darkness of the forest; and this merely by the way in which he stooped, bending his body, stretching out his arms, groping with cautious fingers.
And then he pictured the whole mysterious battle, with his chest flung out, his fists cleaving the air, striking at some invisible, retreating form. And then came the firing — Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! — with his cheek on his arm, as though he were taking aim. Oh, he was there, he was there right enough! But he was no wiser for all that; for, after all, what did anyone know? Why, nothing! Not a thing! They knew that there were so many killed, that was all, and so many wounded. But how did it happen? Ah, that was the difficulty, that was the difficulty!
The colonel alone could have told. But he would never speak again! And, as for writing, they would have long to wait, for both his wrists were smashed! As for Sergeant Born-drunk, he only knew one thing and that was that the whole business had come from above! Yes, the disaster, so to speak, had dropped out of the sky! At the moment when they thought they were going to catch the Three Brothers, when they were not far from Moabit, he had seen Colonel du Briage standing in front of him, right under the moon, in the middle of a little path. Suddenly, the colonel's figure began to rise up from the ground, absolutely like the pictures of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The colonel simply ascended to heaven. Not a word! Not a cry! The "old man" said nothing, but just ascended to heaven, with his arms stretched out, as though to bless the earth!
Sergeant Born-drunk was not the only one to see that wonderful sight: all his comrades around him had seen it . . . and all were so much struck by it that they thought, at first, that, they were dreaming, that they were the victims of an illusion, an hallucination. . . . And then they had had to accept the fact that the colonel had disappeared: two officers, behind him, had also witnessed that unprecedented piece of witchcraft. And all, officers and men alike, had begun, with their heads in the air, to call out, "Colonel! Colonel!" as though they expected him to drop down from the sky. His figure had vanished through the upper branches of the tall trees. . . .
When the first moment of bewilderment was over, everybody ran forward. . . . They scrambled into the branches, they quickly beat that corner of the forest. . . . But nothing, nobody, no colonel! . . .
The news soon spread along the whole line, which was closing in upon Moabit. Sergeant Born-drunk was dispatched by his lieutenant to tell Major de la Terrenoire and arrived just in time to see the major disappear, even as he had seen the colonel. But, this time, it was something awful. The major and a few other officers were sitting on their horses under the branches of a great oak. As a matter of fact, they feared that it was coming on to rain; for, though the sky was clear and the moon as bright as a five-franc piece, they could hear the first rumblings of a storm that seemed close at hand.
Suddenly, they thought that the oak itself was struck, for there was a terrible clap of thunder in the tree and the horses shied, reared and neighed with terror. There was no holding them in. Sergeant Born-drunk, if he lived to be a hundred, would never forget the moment when Major de la Terrenoire, sitting his prancing charget, was lifted out of the saddle by something that dropped out of the tree and yet remained hanging to it. It was like a swing in which the viscount was now caught by the feet, while his head swept the ground. It was impossible quite to realize the extraordinary spectacle, in the first place, because it was dark and the moon did not shine clearly through the branches and, secondly, because everybody had lost his presence of mind.
The horses, upsetting everything in their way, bolted, carrying their riders with them or throwing them under the branches. The linesmen ran to the assistance of the officer, who began to whirl round and to come down like a club among the rash group which was trying to rescue him. It only lasted a minute. Two of them, a corporal and a private, were killed on the spot by blows of the viscount, whose own head was no more than a mass of pulp. And the viscount himself, reduced to a useless weapon, was quickly flung by "the swing" into the midst of the dead and wounded.
At the sound of this battle, of the shouts, of the moans of the wounded and dying, some officers ran up and gave orders to the men to open fire, without knowing whom or what they were firing, at the risk of shooting one another point-blank. They next rushed to Moabit, yelling like savages. All the men who were still able-bodied, wild with rage, tearing themselves in the brambles, the impenetrable bushes, leaping into the underwood, maddened by the thought that they were fighting against a mysterious force, a new forest weapon invented by the Three Brothers, had dashed forward whooping as though they were storming a battery. Oh, that assault of Moabit! Sergeant Born-drunk could still hear it ringing in his ears, with the shouts of the infantrymen and the thunder of the trees, for the trees around them growling, rumbling and roaring, as though they were the storm itself. One would have thought that the trees were defending themselves. And, from time to time terrible blows were let fly out of the trees by the Three Brothers, whom they never saw and at whom they kept on firing! . . . Blows that would fell an ox! . . . A chap by your side would go down, without so much as an "Ah!" before you knew what was happening! . . . The most awful bludgeoning blows, raining down from the trees and ending you flat to the ground, with a crash! . . .
He himself, Sergeant Born-drunk, was grazed by one of those blows, only grazed, fortunately, but enough to split his ear and make him sit on the ground, like a baby, and see stars!
But there were others who wouldn't stir a limb for many a long day and some who would never stir at all. . . . Oh, they would remember the Three Brothers and the siege of the Black Woods! . . . And nobody would ever know how the forest had managed to defend itself like that! . . . Not to speak of the animals, which also had fought like mad: animals by the hundred, which seemed to have taken refuge in Moabit as in a fortress and which delivered sallies, rushing upon the soldiers, coming from every side; wild-boars, wolves, running in every direction, spreading disorder in the ranks; herds rushing blindly before them, knocking down and trampling on all that stood in their way.
The colonel was found, at daybreak, in the condition described, at the very spot from which he had vanished. Then they picked up the dead and wounded and came home.
Sergeant Born-drunk finished his story, while the passing-bell continued to bewail this ill-fated and, from every point of view, deplorable expedition.
Gertrude went away, but did not go straight back, first calling on Mme. Mûre and Mme. Bache and on Mme. Valentin's cook, whom she found in tears because of "that poor M. de la Terrenoire, who was so fond of the mistress." And, in this way, she learnt all the events of yesterday and the day before.
Greatly relieved, she returned to Coriolis' tower with a glad heart.
"Well?" asked Coriolis, as soon as he caught sight of her, while Madeleine prepared herself to hear the worst.
"Well, it's nothing."
"How do you mean, it's nothing?"
"Why, it has nothing to do with him. They've been in the forest hunting the Three Brothers, who have escaped from prison and who have hanged the examining-magistrate, just as they hanged Camus and Lombard and that poor M. Blondel! The Three Brothers defended themselves and knocked thirty of them on the head. There are four killed."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Coriolis, returning to life, while his heart began to beat with an immense delight. "You don't mean it! And what about Balaoo?"
"Balaoo? Who's talking of Balaoo? Don't I tell you that he was out of it?"
"Oh!" cried Madeleine, in gratitude to Providence. "Oh, can it be possible?"
"It's as I tell you, sure as I hope to be saved!" rejoined the old woman, with amazing effrontery, for she knew quite well what to think of the mysterious defence of the forest and the battle of the trees.
Coriolis and Madeleine embraced. Then Madeleine, hesitatingly, said:
"All the same, he was thundering in the forest last night."
"The soldiers must have frightened him," said Gertrude.
"And then perhaps he is sad," said Coriolis, in a significant tone. "He has been away too long and he dares not come in. You ought to go and fetch him, Madeleine."
Madeleine did not wait to be told a second time. Fifteen minutes later, she was walking, with short steps, through the paths in the forest, calling; in her softest, voice:
"Balaoo! . . . Balaoo! . . . Balaoo! . . ."
And it was not long before she saw Balaoo come timidly towards her, his clothes in disorder, hanging his head, with a repentant face. Sniffing and moaning, he fell on his knees, muttering, as in the days of the Forest of Bandong, when, after perpetrating some piece of mischief, he returned to the maternal hut, where a good beating awaited him:
"Woonoup brout! . . . Woonoup brout! . . . Brout! Brout!"[2]
"Talk like a Christian, you savage!" said she, with tears in her eyes.
"Mercy!" he sighed, in his gentle, gong-like voice.
She took him by the ear and brought him home.
All the same, he had hanged M. Herment de Meyrentin.
He was given seven days in the black hole, which he fully deserved.
- ↑ In the opinion of every traveller who has heard the orang-utan in the virgin forest, its thunderous voice can be compared only with that of the thunder itself. An angry orang-utan sends the sound of a storm for many miles around, creating a noise that has deceived more than one inexperienced hunter at the first hearing. — Author's Note
- ↑ Woonoup brout, in the language of the larger apes, means "mercy," as Professor Garner tells us — Author's Note