Very well, he said. It is here that we say goodbye.
Some of the men stirred at those words.
Oratio! said Marie, and then ceased abruptly. She had learned the lessons of discipline.
Your lives are safe, went on Hornblower. You have all read Clausens proclamation. Tomorrowtonight if you willyou can make your way to the troops and surrender. You can go to your homes. Madame and the Count and I go on, for go on we must. And we would even if we need not.
The men were stunned into silence by his words. No one stirred, no one spoke in the darkness. The two weeks of toil and danger and hardship through which they had just passed seemed like a lifetime to most of them, and it was hard to realise that a lifetime had come to an end.
We shall return, continued Hornblower. Remember us when you are in your homes. Think of us. We shall return with a fresh call to arms. Then we shall all of us gather again in our strength to thrust down the tyrant. Remember that. And now one last cheer for the King! Vive le Roi!
They cheered, feebly enough, but Hornblower had achieved what he set out to do. He had sowed the seeds of a later rebellion; when Clausens division should move away it would be possible to set the Nivernais in a turmoil once more should a leader ariseshould he and the Count ever succeed in making their way back into the province. It was a desperate, slight hope, but it was all that remained.
In the name of God! said Fermiac. I come with you now.
I also, said another voice in the darkness.
Perhaps with these Frenchmen it might be possible now to make an hysterical appeal to them, carry them away on a wave of emotion, set them marching once more. Hornblower felt the temptation, and he had to balance the pros and cons coldly. That sort of hysteria would hardly survive the shock of the mens feeling their leg weariness. Some of the men simply could not march farther. It would not do; by dawn next day he would not have six men with him, and time would have been irretrievably lost.
Thank you, said Hornblower. I shall remember that in time to come, Fermiac, my friend. But we must ride, and ride hard. Four of us and six horses gives us the best chance. Go back to your wife, Fermiac, and try not to beat her on Saturday nights.
He even got a laugh by that, at this moment of all moments. It helped to keep the parting on a sane level, the level he was aiming at with an eye to the future. Yet he knew there was no future; he knew it in his soul, in his bones, even while he gave the order for the pack-horses to be stripped of their loads, even while he forced Brown in a bitter argument to leave Annette behind and make her life safe. He was going to die; probably Brown was going to die. And Marie, dear Mariewhile his spirit tossed on wave after wave of emotion, of remorse and self-condemnation, of fear and regret, uncertainty and despair, his love for her endured and increased, so that her name was in his mind as a constant
accompaniment to his thoughts, so that her image was in his minds eye whatever else he was picturing. Dear Marie, sweet, beloved Marie.
She was leading a spare horse, and Brown was leading the other; the four of them were mounted on the best of the six. The animals slipped and plunged over the rough surface at the waters edge until they reached the path above the river. They walked dispiritedly through the darkness. Hornblower could hardly sit in his saddle with his weariness; he felt giddy and sick, so that he had to hold on to the pommel of the saddle in front of him. He closed his eyes for a moment and instantly seemed to be swept over some vast smooth declivity, like the boat going over the cataract of the Loire four years before; he was almost out of his saddle before he recovered himself, jerking himself upright and clinging to the pommel like a drowning man. Yet at the foot of the declivity he had known that Marie was waiting for him with the brooding love in her eyes.
He shook off delirium. He had to make plans, to think how they could escape. He called up before his minds eye the map of the country, and marked on it what he knew of the situation of Clausens flying columns. They constituted a semicircular cordon, whose diameter was the river, and at whose centre he found himself at present. So far he had buoyed himself up in this danger with the hope of passing the river by Maries ford. Hard on their heels, he knew, was marching a half-battalion of the 14th Leger, which had apparently been given the duty of direct pursuit while the other columns headed him off. At nightfall that half-battalion was presumably six or seven miles behind, unlessas might easily be the caseits commanding officer forced his men to march on in the darkness. Should he try to pierce the cordon or try to pass the river?
The Counts horse in front of him fell with a crash and a clatter, and his own nearly threw him as it plunged to avoid treading on it.
Are you hurt, sir? came Browns voice in the darkness; he must have slipped down instantly from the saddle despite the handicap of a led horse.