WE FALL INTO AN AMBUSH

We went out over the snow in absolute silence. Meaulnes walked ahead, raying out the light from his storm lamp, like a fan. We had scarcely set foot outside the big gate when two figures in hoods sprang up like startled partridges from behind the town weighing-machine. Either to cheek us, or from pleasure at the game they were up to there, or from nervousness and fear of being caught, they spoke a few words and laughed as they ran away.

Meaulnes dropped his lantern in the snow, calling out:

‘Follow me, François!...’

And leaving behind the two elderly men who could not stand the pace, we rushed in pursuit of the two shadows, who, after skirting the lower part of the village by the Old Plank Road, deliberately went back towards the church. They ran steadily, without hurrying, and we kept up with them easily. They crossed Church Street, where all was asleep and silent, and passed into a maze of by-streets and blind alleys at the back of the churchyard.

This was the quarter of the journeymen, sempstresses, and weavers known as ‘The Nookery.’ We did not know it well and we had never been there at night. The place was deserted in the daytime: the journeymen being away, the weavers working indoors; and during this night of absolute silence it appeared even more forsaken, more asleep than other parts of the village. So there was no possible chance of any one unexpectedly coming to lend us a hand.

I knew only one way amongst these small houses, scattered about at random like cardboard boxes, and that was the one leading to the dressmaker known as the ‘Dumb Girl.’ You had to go down a rather steep slope paved here and there; then, taking two or three turns amongst weavers’ back yards and empty stables, you came to a wide blind alley closed up by a farmyard long since deserted. I used to visit the Dumb Girl with my mother, and while they talked on silently with flashing fingers and grunts common to people with her affliction, I could look out from the window at the high wall of the farm--the last house on that side of the village--and the closed gate of a disused yard destitute of straw, where nothing ever passed by....

That is exactly the way the two unknown persons took. At each turning we feared to lose them, but, to my surprise, we always reached the corner of the next alley before they had left it. I say to my surprise, because this could not possibly have been done, so short were these alleys, had they not slowed down whenever we were out of sight.

At last, without hesitating, they took the street leading to the Dumb Girl’s, and I called out to Meaulnes: ‘We’ve got them. It is a blind alley!’

The truth is, they had got us ... They had led us exactly where they wanted. When they reached the wall, they resolutely turned on us, and one of them let out that shrill whistle which we had already heard twice during the evening.

At once a dozen fellows came out of the abandoned farmyard where they had apparently been posted to await us. They had pulled their hoods over their heads and hidden their faces in their scarves.

We knew beforehand who they were, but we had decided not to tell M. Seurel, as our affairs were not his concern. There were Delouche, Denis, Giraudat, and all the others. We recognised each one during the skirmish by his way of fighting and by snatches of talk. But one worrying thing remained and seemed almost to frighten Meaulnes: some one was with them whom we did not know and who seemed to be their leader....

He never touched Meaulnes: he watched the work of his men, who, being dragged in the snow and their clothes torn, had all they could do to tackle the great breathless chap. A couple of them had gone for me, and had had a job to put me out, as I fought like a demon. I was on the ground, knees bent, sitting on my heels; they twisted my arms behind my back, and I watched it all with intense curiosity mingled with terror.

Meaulnes shook off four top-form boys by twisting violently round on himself and throwing them headlong into the snow.... And the Unknown, standing very straight, followed the fight with interest, but perfect calm, saying now and again in a clear voice: ‘Go on.... Courage.... Once more.... Go on, my boys....’

Obviously he was in command.... Where had he sprung from? Where and how had he trained them for the fight? This remained a mystery to us. His face, like the others’, was hidden in a scarf, but when Meaulnes shook off his adversaries and advanced towards him, the gesture the Unknown made to see clearly and face the position, exposed some white linen with which his head was swathed as in a bandage.

At this moment I cried out to Meaulnes: ‘Look out behind! There’s another.’

He had scarcely turned round when a lanky fellow, springing from the gate at Meaulnes’ back, cleverly twisted a scarf around my friend’s neck and threw him backward. At once the four boys who had fallen in the snow came back to the fray to pin Meaulnes down, tying his arms with a cord, his legs with a scarf, while the young man with the bandaged head searched his pockets....

The late comer, the thrower of the lasso, had lit a small candle which he protected with his hand, and at each find of some new piece of paper the leader went to this light to examine what it contained. He, at last, unfolded the kind of map covered with inscriptions at which Meaulnes had worked since his return, and exclaimed with glee: ‘This time we’ve got it! There’s the plan! That’s the guide! We are going to see if this gentleman has really been where I imagine.’

His accomplice blew out the candle. Each one picked up his cap or his belt. And all disappeared as silently as they had come, leaving me free to hasten to release my friend.

‘He won’t go far with that plan,’ said Meaulnes, rising on his feet.

And we went off slowly, as he walked rather lame. In Church Street we came upon M. Seurel and M. Pasquier.

‘You didn’t see anything, I bet!’ they said.... ‘Neither did we.’

Thanks to the pitch darkness they noticed nothing queer. The butcher left us and M. Seurel went in quickly and then to bed.

But once upstairs in our room, by the light of the lamp which Millie had left us, we both remained a long time mending our overalls and quietly discussing all that had happened, like two brothers in arms on the evening of a lost battle....