Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/71

Rh He turned again to look at La Pèlerine.

"Stay," he cried; "look there!"

Far away as they were from the unlucky plateau by this time, the practised eyes of the three officers easily made out Marche-à-Terre and others in possession of the place.

"Quick march!" cried Hulot to his troop. "Stir your shanks and make those horses move on faster than that. Are their legs frozen? Have the beasts also been sent over by Pitt and Cobourg?" The pace of the little troop was quickened by the words.

"I hope to Heaven we shall not have to clear up this mystery at Ernée with powder and ball," he said to the two officers; "it is too dark a business for me to see through readily. I am afraid we shall be told that the king's subjects have cut off our communications with Mayenne."

The very strategical problem which made Hulot's moustache bristle, gave anxiety, no whit less keen, to the men whom he had discovered upon the summit of La Pèlerine. The drum of the National Guard from Fougères was hardly out of earshot, the Blues had only reached the bottom of the long steep road below, when Marche-à-Terre cheerfully gave the cry of the screech owl again, and the Chouans reappeared, but in smaller numbers. Some of them must have been occupied in bandaging the wounded at the village of La Pèlerine, on the side of the hills overlooking the valley of the CouësnonTwo or three Chasseurs du Roi came up to Marche-à-Terre.

Four paces away the young noble sat musing on a granite boulder, absorbed by the numerous thoughts to which his difficult enterprise gave rise in him. Marche-à-Terre shaded the sun from his eyes with his hand as he dejectedly followed the progress of the Republicans down the valley of La Pèlerine. His small keen black eyes were trying to discover what was passing on the horizon where the road left the valley for the opposite side.

"The Blues will intercept the mail," said one of the chiefs sullenly, who stood nearest to Marche-à-Terre.