CHAPTER IV.
URSUS SPIES THE POLICE.
As we have already said, according to the very severe laws of the policeof those days, the summons to follow the wapentake, addressed to anindividual, implied to all other persons present the command not tostir.
Some curious idlers, however, were stubborn, and followed from afar offthe _cortege_ which had taken Gwynplaine into custody.
Ursus was of them. He had been as nearly petrified as any one has aright to be. But Ursus, so often assailed by the surprises incident to awandering life, and by the malice of chance, was, like a ship-of-war,prepared for action, and could call to the post of danger the wholecrew--that is to say, the aid of all his intelligence.
He flung off his stupor and began to think. He strove not to give way toemotion, but to stand face to face with circumstances.
To look fortune in the face is the duty of every one not an idiot; toseek not to understand, but to act.
Presently he asked himself, What could he do?
Gwynplaine being taken, Ursus was placed between two terrors--a fear forGwynplaine, which instigated him to follow; and a fear for himself,which urged him to remain where he was.
Ursus had the intrepidity of a fly and the impassibility of a sensitiveplant. His agitation was not to be described. However, he took hisresolution heroically, and decided to brave the law, and to follow thewapentake, so anxious was he concerning the fate of Gwynplaine.
His terror must have been great to prompt so much courage.
To what valiant acts will not fear drive a hare!
The chamois in despair jumps a precipice. To be terrified intoimprudence is one of the forms of fear.
Gwynplaine had been carried off rather than arrested. The operation ofthe police had been executed so rapidly that the Fair field, generallylittle frequented at that hour of the morning, had scarcely takencognizance of the circumstance.
Scarcely any one in the caravans had any idea that the wapentake hadcome to take Gwynplaine. Hence the smallness of the crowd.
Gwynplaine, thanks to his cloak and his hat, which nearly concealed hisface, could not be recognized by the passers-by.
Before he went out to follow Gwynplaine, Ursus took a precaution. Hespoke to Master Nicless, to the boy Govicum, and to Fibi and Vinos, andinsisted on their keeping absolute silence before Dea, who was ignorantof everything. That they should not utter a syllable that could make hersuspect what had occurred; that they should make her understand that thecares of the management of the Green Box necessitated the absence ofGwynplaine and Ursus; that, besides, it would soon be the time of herdaily siesta, and that before she awoke he and Gwynplaine would havereturned; that all that had taken place had arisen from a mistake; thatit would be very easy for Gwynplaine and himself to clear themselvesbefore the magistrate and police; that a touch of the finger would putthe matter straight, after which they should both return; above all,that no one should say a word on the subject to Dea. Having given thesedirections he departed.
Ursus was able to follow Gwynplaine without being remarked. Though hekept at the greatest possible distance, he so managed as not to losesight of him. Boldness in ambuscade is the bravery of the timid.
After all, notwithstanding the solemnity of the attendant circumstances,Gwynplaine might have been summoned before the magistrate for someunimportant infraction of the law.
Ursus assured himself that the question would be decided at once.
The solution of the mystery would be made under his very eyes by thedirection taken by the _cortege_ which took Gwynplaine from TarrinzeauField when it reached the entrance of the lanes of the Little Strand.
If it turned to the left, it would conduct Gwynplaine to the justicehall in Southwark. In that case there would be little to fear, sometrifling municipal offence, an admonition from the magistrate, two orthree shillings to pay, and Gwynplaine would be set at liberty, and therepresentation of "Chaos Vanquished" would take place in the evening asusual. In that case no one would know that anything unusual hadhappened.
If the _cortege_ turned to the right, matters would be serious.
There were frightful places in that direction.
When the wapentake, leading the file of soldiers between whom Gwynplainewalked, arrived at the small streets, Ursus watched them breathlessly.There are moments in which a man's whole being passes into his eyes.
Which way were they going to turn?
They turned to the right.
Ursus, staggering with terror, leant against a wall that he might notfall.
There is no hypocrisy so great as the words which we say to ourselves,"_I wish to know the worst_!" At heart we do not wish it at all. We havea dreadful fear of knowing it. Agony is mingled with a dim effort not tosee the end. We do not own it to ourselves, but we would draw back if wedared; and when we have advanced, we reproach ourselves for having doneso.
Thus did Ursus. He shuddered as he thought,--
"Here are things going wrong. I should have found it out soon enough.What business had I to follow Gwynplaine?"
Having made this reflection, man being but self-contradiction, heincreased his pace, and, mastering his anxiety, hastened to get nearerthe _cortege_, so as not to break, in the maze of small streets, thethread between Gwynplaine and himself.
The _cortege_ of police could not move quickly, on account of itssolemnity.
The wapentake led it.
The justice of the quorum closed it.
This order compelled a certain deliberation of movement.
All the majesty possible in an official shone in the justice of thequorum. His costume held a middle place between the splendid robe of adoctor of music of Oxford and the sober black habiliments of a doctor ofdivinity of Cambridge. He wore the dress of a gentleman under a long_godebert_, which is a mantle trimmed with the fur of the Norwegianhare. He was half Gothic and half modern, wearing a wig like Lamoignon,and sleeves like Tristan l'Hermite. His great round eye watchedGwynplaine with the fixedness of an owl's.
He walked with a cadence. Never did honest man look fiercer.
Ursus, for a moment thrown out of his way in the tangled skein ofstreets, overtook, close to Saint Mary Overy, the _cortege_, which hadfortunately been retarded in the churchyard by a fight between childrenand dogs--a common incident in the streets in those days. "_Dogs andboys_," say the old registers of police, placing the dogs before theboys.
A man being taken before a magistrate by the police was, after all, aneveryday affair, and each one having his own business to attend to, thefew who had followed soon dispersed. There remained but Ursus on thetrack of Gwynplaine.
They passed before two chapels opposite to each other, belonging the oneto the Recreative Religionists, the other to the HallelujahLeague--sects which flourished then, and which exist to the present day.
Then the _cortege_ wound from street to street, making a zigzag,choosing by preference lanes not yet built on, roads where the grassgrew, and deserted alleys.
At length it stopped.
It was in a little lane with no houses except two or three hovels. Thisnarrow alley was composed of two walls--one on the left, low; the otheron the right, high. The high wall was black, and built in the Saxonstyle with narrow holes, scorpions, and large square gratings overnarrow loopholes. There was no window on it, but here and there slits,old embrasures of _pierriers_ and archegayes. At the foot of this highwall was seen, like the hole at the bottom of a rat-trap, a littlewicket gate, very elliptical in its arch.
This small door, encased in a full, heavy girding of stone, had a gratedpeephole, a heavy knocker, a large lock, hinges thick and knotted, abristling of nails, an armour of plates, and hinges, so that altogetherit was more of iron than of wood.
There was no one in the lane--no shops, no passengers; but in it therewas heard a continual noise, as if the lane ran parallel to a torrent.There was a tumult of voices and of carriages. It seemed as if on theother side of the black edifice there must be a great street, doubt
lessthe principal street of Southwark, one end of which ran into theCanterbury road, and the other on to London Bridge.
All the length of the lane, except the _cortege_ which surroundedGwynplaine, a watcher would have seen no other human face than the paleprofile of Ursus, hazarding a hall advance from the shadow of the cornerof the wall--looking, yet fearing to see. He had posted himself behindthe wall at a turn of the lane.
The constables grouped themselves before the wicket. Gwynplaine was inthe centre, the wapentake and his baton of iron being now behind him.
The justice of the quorum raised the knocker, and struck the door threetimes. The loophole opened.
The justice of the quorum said,--
"By order of her Majesty."
The heavy door of oak and iron turned on its hinges, making a chillyopening, like the mouth of a cavern. A hideous depth yawned in theshadow.
Ursus saw Gwynplaine disappear within it.