Оноре де Бальзак
El Verdugo
"Is it you, commander?"
"Yes. What is it?" replied the young man, in a low voice, a sort of presentiment warning him to act mysteriously.
"Those rascals are squirming like worms," said the man; "and I have come, if you please, to tell you my little observations."
"Speak out."
"I have just followed from the chateau a man with a lantern who is coming this way. A lantern is mightily suspicious! I don't believe that Christian has any call to go and light the church tapers at this time of night. They want to murder us! said I to myself, so I followed his heels; and I've discovered, commander, close by here, on a pile of rock, a great heap of fagots – he's after lighting a beacon of some kind up here, I'll be bound – "
A terrible cry echoing suddenly through the town stopped the soldier's speech. A brilliant light illuminated the young officer. The poor orderly was shot in the head and fell. A fire of straw and dry wood blazed up like a conflagration not thirty feet distant from the young commander. The music and the laughter ceased in the ballroom. The silence of death, broken only by moans, succeeded to the joyous sounds of a festival. A single cannon-shot echoed along the plain of the ocean.
A cold sweat rolled from the officer's brow. He wore no sword. He was confident that his soldiers were murdered, and that the English were about to disembark. He saw himself dishonored if he lived, summoned before a council of war to explain his want of vigilance; then he measured with his eye the depths of the descent, and was springing towards it when Clara's hand seized his.
"Fly!" she said; "my brothers are following me to kill you. Your soldiers are killed. Escape yourself. At the foot of the rock, over there, see! you will find Juanito's barb – Go, go!"
She pushed him; but the stupefied young man looked at her, motionless, for a moment. Then, obeying the instinct of self-preservation which never abandons any man, even the strongest, he sprang through the park in the direction indicated, running among the rocks where goats alone had hitherto made their way. He heard Clara calling to her brothers to pursue him; he heard the steps of his murderers; he heard the balls of several muskets whistling about his ears; but he reached the valley, found the horse, mounted him, and disappeared with the rapidity of an arrow.
A few hours later the young officer reached the headquarters of General G – t – r, whom he found at dinner with his staff.
"I bring you my head!" cried the commander of the lost battalion as he entered, pale and overcome.
He sat down and related the horrible occurrence. An awful silence followed his tale.
"I think you were more unfortunate than criminal," replied the terrible general, when at last he spoke. "You are not responsible for the crime of those Spaniards; and, unless the marshal should think otherwise, I absolve you."
These words gave but a feeble consolation to the unhappy officer.
"But when the emperor hears of it!" he cried.
"He will want to have you shot," said the general; "but we will see about that. Now," he added in a stern tone, "not another word of this, except to turn it into a vengeance which shall impress with salutary terror a people who make war like savages."
An hour later a whole regiment, a detachment of cavalry, and a battery of artillery were on their way to Menda. The general and Victor marched at the head of the column. The soldiers, informed of the massacre of their comrades, were possessed by fury. The distance which separated the town of Menda from general headquarters, was marched with marvellous rapidity. On the way, the general found all the villages under arms. Each of the wretched hamlets was surrounded, and the inhabitants decimated.
By one of those fatalities which are inexplicable, the British ships lay to without advancing. It was known later that these vessels carried the artillery, and had outsailed the rest of the transports. Thus the town of Menda, deprived of the support it expected, and which the appearance of the British fleet in the offing had led the inhabitants to suppose was at hand, was surrounded by French troops almost without a blow being struck. The people of the town, seized with terror, offered to surrender at discretion. With a spirit of devotion not rare in the Peninsula, the slayers of the French soldiery, fearing, from the cruelty of their commander, that Menda would be given to the flames, and the whole population put to the sword, proposed to the general to denounce themselves. He accepted their offer, making a condition that the inhabitants of the chateau, from the marquis to the lowest valet, should be delivered into his hands. This condition being agreed to, the general proceeded to pardon the rest of the population, and to prevent his soldiers from pillaging the town or setting fire to it. An enormous tribute was levied, and the wealthiest inhabitants held prisoner to secure payment of it, which payment was to be made within twenty-four hours.