Count Hannibal

He could not at first believe in their good fortune. "Mon Dieu!" he

cried, "we are crossing!" And then again in a lower tone, "We are

crossing! We are crossing!" And he looked at her.

It was impossible that she should not look back; that she who had ceased

to be angry should not feel and remember; impossible that her answering

glance should not speak to his heart. Below them, as on that day a month

earlier, when they had crossed the bridges going northward, the broad

shallow river ran its course in the sunshine, its turbid currents

gleaming and flashing about the sandbanks and osier-beds. To the eye,

the landscape, save that the vintage was farther advanced and the harvest

in part gathered in, was the same. But how changed were their relations,

their prospects, their hopes, who had then crossed the river

hand-in-hand, planning a life to be passed together.

The young man's rage boiled up at the thought. Too vividly, too sharply

it showed him the wrongs which he had suffered at the hands of the man

who rode behind him, the man who even now drove him on and ordered him

and insulted him. He forgot that he might have perished in the general

massacre if Count Hannibal had not intervened. He forgot that Count

Hannibal had spared him once and twice. He laid on his enemy's shoulders

the guilt of all, the blood of all: and, as quick on the thought of his

wrongs and his fellows' wrongs followed the reflection that with every

league they rode southwards the chance of requital grew, he cried again,

and this time joyously-"We are crossing! A little, and we shall be in our own land!"

The tears filled the Countess's eyes as she looked westwards and

southwards.

"Vrillac is there!" she cried; and she pointed. "I smell the sea!"

"Ay!" he answered, almost under his breath. "It lies there! And no more

than thirty leagues from us! With fresh horses we might see it in two

days!"

Badelon's voice broke in on them. "Forward!" he cried, as the party

reached the southern bank. "En avant!" And, obedient to the word, the

little company, refreshed by the short respite, took the road out of

Ponts de Ce at a steady trot. Nor was the Countess the only one whose

face glowed, being set southwards, or whose heart pulsed to the rhythm of

the horses' hoofs that beat out "Home!" Carlat's and Madame Carlat's

also. Javette even, hearing from her neighbour that they were over the

Loire, plucked up courage; while La Tribe, gazing before him with

moistened eyes, cried "Comfort" to the scared and weeping girl who clung

to his belt. It was singular to see how all sniffed the air as if

already it smacked of the sea and of the south; and how they of Poitou

sat their horses as if they asked nothing better than to ride on and on

and on until the scenes of home arose about them. For them the sky had

already a deeper blue, the air a softer fragrance, the sunshine a purity

long unknown.