Lord Tonys Wife | Page 4

now that the
supreme hour had come, now that they saw Pierre -- torch in hand--
prepared to give the signal which would set ablaze the seething revolt
of the country-side, their heart seemed to stop its beating within their
body; they held their breath, their toil-worn hands went up to their
throats as if to repress that awful choking sensation which was so like
fear.
But Pierre had no such hesitations; if his breath seemed to choke him as
it reached his throat, if it escaped through his set teeth with a strange
whistling sound, it was because his excitement was that of a hungry
beast who has sighted his prey and is ready to spring and devour. His
hand did not shake, his step was firm: the gusts of wind caught the
flame of his torch till the sparks flew in every direction and scorched
his hair and his hands, and while the others recoiled he strode on, to the
straw-rick that was nearest.

For one moment he held the torch aloft. There was triumph now in his
eyes, in his whole attitude. He looked out into the darkness far away
which seemed all the more impenetrable beyond the restricted circle of
flickering torch-light. It seemed as if he would wrest from that inky
blackness all the secrets which it hid-- all the enthusiasm, the
excitement, the passions, the hatred which he would have liked to set
ablaze as he would the straw-ricks anon.
'Are you ready, mes amis?' he called.
'Aye! aye!' they replied-- not gaily, not lustily, but calmly and under
their breath.
One touch of the torch and the dry straw began to crackle; a gust of
wind caught the flame and whipped it into energy; it crept up the side
of the little rick like a glowing python that wraps its prey in its embrace.
Another gust of wind and the flame leapt joyously up to the pinnacle of
the rick, and sent forth other tongues to lick and to lick, to enfold the
straw, to devour, to consume.
But Pierre did not wait to see the consummation of his work of
destruction. Already with a few rapid strides he had reached his father's
second straw-rick and this too he set alight, and then another and
another, until six blazing furnaces sent their lurid tongues of flames,
twisting and twirling, writhing and hissing through the stormy night.
Within the space of two minutes the whole summit of the hillock
seemed to be ablaze and Pierre, like a god of fire, torch in hand seemed
to preside over and command a multitude of ever-spreading flames to
his will. Excitement had overmastered him now, the lust to destroy was
upon him, and excitement had seized all the others too.
There was shouting and cursing, and laughter that sounded mirthless
and forced, and calls to Pierre, and oaths of revenge. Memory like an
evil-intentioned witch was riding invisibily in the darkness and she
touched each seething brain with her fever-giving wand. Every man
had an outrage to remember, an injustice to recall, and strong, brown
fists were shaken aloft in the direction of the château de Kernogan

whose lights glimmered feebly in the distance beyond the Loire.
'Death to the tyrant! A la lanterne les aristos! The people's hour has
come at last! No more starvation! No more injustice! Equality! Liberty!
A mort les aristos!'
The shouts, the curses, the crackling flames, the howling of the wind,
the soughing of the trees made up a confusion of sounds which seemed
hardly of this earth; the blazing ricks, the flickering, red light of the
flames had finally transformed the little hillock behind the mill into
another Brocken on whose summit witches and devils do of a truth hold
their revels.
'A moi!' shouted Pierre again, and he threw his torch down upon the
ground and once more made for the barn. The others followed him. In
the barn were such weapons as these wretched penniless peasants had
managed to collect -- scythes, poles, axes, saws, anything that would
prove useful for the destruction of the château de Kernogan and the
proposed brow-beating of M. le duc and his family. All the men
trooped in in the wake of Pierre. The entire hillock was now a blaze of
light-- lurid and red and flickering-- alternately teased and fanned and
subdued by the gale, so that at times every object stood out clearly cut,
every blade of grass, every stone in bold relief, and in the ruts and
fissures, every tiny pool of muddy water shimmered like strings of
fire-opals: whilst at others a pall of inky darkness, smoke-laden and
impenetrable would lie over the ground and erase the outline of
farm-buildings and distant mill and of the pushing and struggling mass