Chapter X: The Fugitive

Father Ravennes turned to face the congregation. His joined hands separated:

"_Ite, missa est._..."

In the cool, dark chapel his gesture of benediction seemed to spread, bowing the heads of the worshipers.

And while the missionary once more facing the tabernacle recited the closing gospel, "_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God_ ..." the converts one by one left the chapel.

Wanda and Lursac came out last. Above them, the sonorous voice of the bell shed abroad its solemn rhythmic cadences. Torn, as it were, by long tremblings, the transparent atmosphere vibrated, throbbing slowly across the little Christian settlement, as the warm earth reflected the dazzling light of the sun and the shadow of the trees and the clear outline of the buildings stood rigid and heavy against the glare.

Father Ravennes, coming out in his turn, joined the young folk who were waiting for him before the door of the chapel.

Wanda immediately took his arm.

"Your courier has got back from Post 28, I hear. Now what?"

They were walking across the court towards the priest's house. The bell had ceased to sound. A vast silence, soft and peaceful, once more covered everything.

The missionary, saying nothing, made a slight movement with his head. Wanda noticed his air of constraint.

"There is no news, I suppose?"

Her trembling voice, slightly hoarse and heavy with anxiety, moved the priest. He made no direct answer, avoiding her question with strategy:

"They believe, back there, that Redeski must have turned off towards the west in order to strike for the Post by the southern route. The idea is not unlikely; it even seems to fit in very well with the information which I got from the last of the messengers I sent to enquire in that neighborhood...."

Pierre watched him carefully, trying to read in his expression the whole truth of which his words suggested only a small portion. He caught the swift, imperceptible sign that the priest flung him. His uneasiness grew. He understood that the missionary considered the situation grave, and that under his apparent calm was concealed real anxiety.

"Think of it, Father Ravennes, it is now nearly three weeks since Michael ought to have been back among us," said Wanda. "We must decide something, do something, we cannot go on like this in uncertainty...."

The missionary flung a glance sideways towards the mountain.

"I know someone," said he, "who could clear up our doubt, if only we could get at her and hold her!"

Pierre, who had followed his glance, immediately guessed.

"Jieng!" he exclaimed.

"Jieng? But we saw her the day before yesterday," said Wanda.

The missionary stopped abruptly:

"You caught sight of Jieng?" he asked curtly. "Where, and when?"

"No," said she, "not caught sight of her, but actually saw her. I even talked to her, the day before yesterday, in her village in the midst of her warriors."

Astounded, the priest murmured:

"It was madness to dare to do that all by yourself."

The girl, between her half-closed lids, shot a curious look at him.

"Pierre was with me," she said simply.

Then, relating her arrival at the village, she described the assembly of men, sketched the portrait of the old woman in agony upon her bench, pictured the hut with its walls hung with skins of wild beasts and furs, and finally portrayed the strange altar in its corner dedicated to prehistoric arms and surmounted with its human skull.

The missionary became excited:

"A skull!" said he, "a skull? Did you examine it?"

"We didn't think of that," said Lursac, "we were too much interested in trying to make Jieng talk. You see, we had more or less the same idea as you."

Father Ravennes started forward:

"Ah!" said he, excitedly, "did you manage it?"

Wanda answered him:

"No. And in any case she is by no means the imperious and tyrannizing priestess we have imagined her, but a very old woman, exhausted, dying."

"Just that," agreed Lursac, "an old beggar whom they no doubt show respect to because of her age." And he gave a short laugh. "When I think that we took her for this mysterious and maleficent power which holds the countryside in terror! Ah! What an idea!..."

The missionary remained silent.

They had resumed their walk. Before the house where the converts lived in common they stopped for an instant. Sheltered under the floor of the hut, to which the piles which supported it gave the air of a huge pigeon-cote, women were grinding rice in a mortar and the heavy sound of the pestle kept time with the chant with which they lightened their labor. About them a group of youngsters, crouched in a circle, were playing at knuckle-bones. As the missionary came up, they stopped their game and ran to meet him. Hanging on to his tunic with their heads raised towards him, they surrounded him. Their thin faces, unused to smiling, were spread with joyous grins.

Father Ravennes tapped them softly on the head.

"Good morning, children!" said he.

His voice, usually piercing and imperious, became caressing. He took one of the youngsters and held him up.

"It's nicer here than in the forest, eh! little scamp?" said he, tenderly.

The child laughed as he swung his legs happily, stretching out his hands and plunging them into the missionary's gray beard. His eyes lighted up with kindness, the priest smiled on him; then putting him on the ground he cried:

"Attention! Who wants to win a piece of sugar?"

Immediately the court resounded with the children's cries.

Father Ravennes bent his long back.

"Now, listen," he explained, "do you see this key?"

And at the same time taking from his girdle the key of the chapel, he flung it in front of him. It flew up sideways, fell, bounced, and came to rest finally close to the gate, some thirty yards away.

"The one that brings me that will have the reward."

Already, the children were starting to dash after it....

The priest stopped them.

"Gently! ... gently!... Little ones in front, now ... the big ones here.... Good. Everybody ready? Now.... Go!..."

Shouting and pushing, the tiny troop rushed off. Wanda followed them with her eyes.

"How pretty they are!" she cried.

Across the court, blazing with light, the little naked bodies, clad only with loin-cloths, shone agile and supple in the sun.

"Yes," said Father Ravennes, "true, they are beautiful! With all the grace and all the bubbling joy of childhood. And it is of them that I am thinking when I pardon their parents all their deceits and all their weaknesses. Poor little mites!... Who would have the courage to throw them back into the moral misery and the physical degeneracy of the forest? Yes, ... my real work is there, and this strength and health that I have brought into being around me for the little ones, for...."

Sharp cries interrupted him. Their dash suddenly cut short, the children had come to a full stop several yards from their goal. In a group before the gate, they gesticulated. One of them made a few steps, bent over, and then quickly ran back and immediately with a single impulse the whole band rushed back to the priest.

They encircled him, out of breath, crying:

"Ah! ... a woman ... a dead woman!"

Lursac caught one of them by the arm.

"What? What are you telling us? A woman!... Where?"

"There before the gate ... dead, dead...."

Wanda and the missionary hurried off. Pierre came up with them before the heavy entrance gate, now blocked by a doubled-up body with the legs bent under it and the arms stretched wide.

Father Ravennes, on his knees, lifted the head gently. Between the tangled locks of hair a woman's face was visible, covered with dust, as with a red mask, her eyes closed and lips bloodless. From a wound on the forehead, near the temple, a narrow streak of blood trickled round the corner of the eye, down the cheek and chin, towards the throat. She was almost naked, only the loins and the upper part of the thighs being covered with a wide kilt of brilliant-colored cloth.

The missionary, seeing it, remarked:

"A wild Stieng.[9] It is the only tribe whose women do not wear a tunic. But how the devil did she get here?"

[Footnote 9: An independent tribe of Upper Laos.]

"Dead?" asked Wanda.

"No. In a faint. We'll try and bring her to."

He signed to Lursac and to one of his converts:

"Please bring her to my house: I'll go and get what's necessary."

The faithful who had run up were crowding round in order to see better. The missionary waved them away with a gesture. Lursac and the man took the body and lifted it; they crossed the court again and climbed up to the priest's house and took their burden into "the Cave." Stretched out on the bench, the woman was seen to be tall and thin, very young, her chest furrowed with scratches and her legs stained with black mud.

Wanda had dropped to her knees at her side. With her handkerchief she stanched the blood, which was trickling from the temple down to the lips. The woman gave a slight shiver, her chin trembled, her fingers contracted and a gentle moan came from her throat.

Father Ravennes bent over her and bathed her forehead. The moaning ceased; a long groan, broken and gasping, followed which fretted the silence of the room with hoarse sound.

"Ah!" said Wanda, "listen, she is trying to talk."

They gathered round her, bending over, the better to catch her fragmentary and uncertain words.

"No ... no ... not to the temple.... Thanks! Drink ... drink!..."

Wanda moistened her lips and dropped between the clenched teeth a few drops of alcohol.

The voice begged:

"More! ... more!..."

A short silence followed, during which, with her face relaxed she eagerly swallowed a little water flavored with rum.

Then she opened her eyes. Her glance wandered around her, vague and anxious, then meeting the face of Father Ravennes it fixed itself. In the depths of her dark eyes a light came and went, grew, and slowly took on the appearance of intelligence and life.

Suddenly, she pulled herself up:

"Father! ... Father! ... save me! They want to take me away to the mountain ... they want to take me ... they are coming...."

And, her face distorted by fear, she went off into delirium.

"The Bo-Jaous.... There they are, waiting for me.... Look.... Look.... their hands are making signs to me and their faces are grinning at me...."

Then, with her arms stretched out towards the bay, opening to the plains, she shrieked:

"There ... there ... see Jieng, coming to fetch me for tonight ... tonight ... the pilgrimage of the sixth month!"

With her clenched fingers she had seized the tunic of the missionary, who was trying to calm her; panting, mad with terror, her bloodshot eyes fixed on the sunlit square, she clutched the black cloth.

"No ... no ... I will not go! You can try and take me, I won't go!... Off with you! Off with you! or I will kill you with my nails ... with my teeth.... Not me ... not me.... You already have the white officer--the sahib with the two stripes."

Wanda, flinging herself on the woman, shook her wildly:

"The white officer? What white officer? Speak ... speak...."

Father Ravennes and Lursac looked at each other, their faces suddenly pale. The missionary, pulling the young woman away, leant over the Stieng. He took her hands and looked into her eyes. The gaze of the savage meeting that of the priest became fixed; her lids fluttered. The priest bent still closer to her, bringing his face down till it almost touched that of the girl. They remained thus for a moment.

In a calm decided tone the missionary asked:

"Do you mean the sahib with two stripes? Is it the one who was here, and who set out towards the north three months ago?"

The woman started and shivered. Her lips moved, but she remained silent. The look of the priest became more insistent. With all his will power concentrated, he dominated her.

"Speak!" he said. "Is it he?"

She attempted to answer. The effort she made convulsed her face: deep vertical wrinkles came in her forehead; but she was unable to speak. She simply made an affirmative sign.

Wanda cried:

"Michael!"

"Be quiet!" said the priest. "Let me manage this!"

He had not let his eyes wander for an instant from those of the woman.

"And it was the sorceresses who took him prisoner? Yes, very well. A long time ago? Two weeks--less? Yes! You know where they have taken him to? No? You are sure you don't know?"

The woman twisted herself in agony and shook her head several times. And as the missionary drew back and let go her hand, she started up from her couch with a bound, dashing into the middle of the room, where, erect, with a red foam on her lips, she seemed to be struggling with some invisible presence. She gasped:

"There! ... there! ... Jieng! She has come back again ... she ... she's taking me! ... she's taking me away! No! ... no! ... I won't go!"

She made several steps as if fighting against the vision which had once more got her in its power, and her voice rose to a shriek as she called:

"Father ... Father...."

Then, suddenly crumpling up, she rolled over on the mat and lay motionless, her face crushed into the ground and the right arm stretched out, while she continued to mutter in a hoarse whisper:

"Jieng! ... Jieng!..."

The missionary and Lursac, who had run to her immediately, picked her up and laid her back on the bench.

Standing motionless at her side, Wanda watched her.

"Jieng!... Always Jieng!..." she murmured meaningly.

Father Ravennes twisted his beard and flung a glance at Lursac.

"Do you remember," said he, sarcastically, "what you said to me hardly an hour ago: 'When I think that we took her for this mysterious and maleficent power which holds the countryside in terror. Ah! what an idea!'"

Lursac and Wanda turned aside their heads.

"However," said Lursac, "we saw her just the same, bent with age and in agony...."

"In agony?" quoted the missionary, "are you so certain of that? But that is not the question; we must get to work preparing the expedition at once."

Turning to the young man, Wanda begged:

"Yes. Start at once ... immediately, Pierre. Tomorrow go to help him! Set him free!"

The missionary did not let her continue.

"Tomorrow? No chance of that!... It will take at least from eight to ten days to get together the necessary provisions, supplies, prepare the baggage and organize the escort...."

The girl cried out:

"But between this time and that they will have killed him, tortured him!"

Father Ravennes shook his head.

"I think not," said he. "This is war beginning. For the third time the people of the forest, led by their sorceresses, have made up their minds to arrest the advance of the white man, to push back the conquerors whose presence annoys them and whose knowledge perhaps renders them uncomfortable. Redeski has been taken as a hostage...."

Wanda, lifting towards him a face tortured with fear, repeated:

"They will kill him ... kill him.... You must start at once!"

The priest looked at her almost coldly.

"Above everything," he said, "we must succeed in our attempt and for that it will be necessary to make plans and act with prudence...."

Pierre interrupted with a violent gesture:

"Come! come!" he complained, "plans and prudence! That is doing too much honor to this mob of thieves and bandits! I intend simply to follow Redeski by his tracks, and every time that I meet this rabble I shall fall upon them suddenly and sweep them aside with our rifles and revolvers."

Father Ravennes shook his head thoughtfully:

"That would be simply inviting failure! What is the good of deceiving ourselves? We are face to face with a religious organization whose full power, I am afraid, we thoroughly underestimate and whose aims we are entirely ignorant of; but there is no doubt that its innumerable ramifications cover the whole of Laos in a formidable network. Think the matter over. To deliver Redeski would be a matter of force and boldness, but simple enough, if it were not for that. But as it is, you will be obliged to penetrate to the heart of this forbidden region against the will of this unknown organization, and in doing so it stands to reason that you will discover its secrets. Think of it well, Lursac; this is that great mystery which for centuries has dominated this entire country, and you are going to challenge it; and its people of the forest and their sorceresses will rise and fight against you to defend their beliefs and this power which they have decided we must at any cost know nothing of. Now do you understand what you have undertaken?"

Silence fell, and lasted some moments. Then the young girl going towards the bay leant against the side of it and stayed there motionless. Her glance, passing by the plain and the canal, fixed itself on the mountain-chain, towering above which the crest of the Pou-Kas traced a clear line against the sky.

"So," said she without turning round, "Pierre will not be able to start before eight or ten days? I...."

She broke off.

"Not earlier than that," said the priest, "you...?"

"Nothing, ..." said she.

But her eyes continued to search the distant flank of the mountain and to look for the village where she had met Jieng two evenings ago. Thinking of the rendezvous which she had arranged for this very evening, she brusquely asked:

"What time is it?"

"Six o'clock," said Pierre.

The girl turned towards the two men.

"Au revoir," said she, "I feel very tired!" And she made as if to go.

"I'll go with you," said Pierre.

She stopped in the doorway.

"No," said she, "you must discuss the details of your expedition with Father Ravennes ... your line of march."

He agreed:

"You are right. I'll rejoin you in about two hours."

She repeated slowly, as if making a calculation:

"Two hours. Very well...."

She looked at him with a troubled expression, but her voice was perfectly firm.

"In two hours," said she. "All right, I shall expect you."

And she went out quickly.