The Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869)/Chapter 70
CHAPTER IV.
URSUS PLAYS THE SPY ON THE POLICE.
AS we have already said, according to the very severe laws of those days, a summons to follow the wapentake, addressed to an individual, implied to all other persons present an order not to stir. Some curious idlers, however, were stubborn, and followed from afar off the cortége which had taken Gwynplaine into custody.
Ursus was one of the number. He had been petrified with astonishment, as one certainly had reason to be. But Ursus, so often assailed by the surprises incident to a wandering life, and by all sorts of mischances, was prepared for immediate action, like a ship-of-war, and could call to the post of danger the whole crew,—that is to say, the aid of all his faculties. He flung off his stupor, and began to think. He strove not to give way to emotion, but to meet the danger calmly and thoughtfully. To look facts in the face is the duty of every sensible person.
Presently he asked himself: What could he do? Gwynplaine being taken, Ursus was tortured by a twofold fear,—a fear for Gwynplaine, which instigated him to follow his protégé, 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 sensitive plant. His agitation was indescribable. Nevertheless, he heroically decided to brave the law, and to follow the wapentake, 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 fear drive even a hare! The chamois in despair jumps a precipice. To be terrified into imprudence is one of the forms of fear.
Gwynplaine had been kidnapped rather than arrested. The operation of the police had been executed so rapidly that the denizens of the fair-ground, which was little frequented at that hour of the morning, were scarcely aware of the circumstance. Scarcely any one in the caravans had any idea that the wapentake had come to arrest Gwynplaine. Hence, the smallness of the crowd. Gwynplaine, thanks to his cloak and his hat, which nearly concealed his face, could not be recognized by the passers-by.
Before he went out to follow Gwynplaine, Ursus took a precaution. He spoke to Master Nicless, to the boy Govicum, and to Fibi and Vinos, and insisted that they should keep absolute silence before Dea, who was ignorant of everything; that they should not utter a syllable that could make her suspect what had occurred; that they should make her understand that the cares of the management of the Green Box necessitated the absence of Gwynplaine and Ursus; that, besides, it would soon be the time of her daily siesta, and that before she awoke he and Gwynplaine would have returned; that all that had taken place had arisen from a mistake; that it would be very easy for Gwynplaine and himself to clear themselves before the magistrate and police; that a touch of the finger would put the matter straight, after which they should both return; above all, that no one should say a word on the subject to Dea. Having given these directions, he departed.
Ursus was able to follow Gwynplaine without being noticed. Though he kept at the greatest possible distance, he so managed as not to lose sight 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 some unimportant infraction of the law. Ursus assured himself that the question would be decided at once.
The mystery would be solved under his very eyes by the direction taken by the cortége when it reached the entrance to the street leading into the Little Strand. If it turned to the left, it would conduct Gwynplaine to the justice hall in Southwark. In that case there would be little to fear. Some trifling municipal offence, an admonition from the magistrate, two or three shillings to pay, and Gwynplaine would be set at liberty, and the performance of "Chaos Vanquished" would take place in the evening as usual. In that case no one would know that anything unusual had happened. If the cortége turned to the right, matters would look more serious. There were frightful places in that direction.
When the wapentake, leading the file of guards between whom Gwynplaine walked, reached the small streets, Ursus watched him 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, leaned against a wall for support. There is no hypocrisy greater than the words we often say to ourselves, "I wish to know the worst!" At heart we do not wish it at all. We have a dreadful dread of knowing it. Agony is mingled with a dim effort not to see the end. We do not own it to ourselves, but we would draw back if we dared; and when we have advanced, we reproach ourselves for having done so.
Thus did Ursus. He shuddered as he thought: "Things are indeed 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, he increased his pace, and hastened to get nearer the cortége, so as not to lose sight of Gwynplaine in the labyrinth of small streets.
The cortége of police could not move quickly on account of its solemnity. 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 the quorum. His costume held a middle place between the splendid robe of a doctor of music of Oxford, and the sober black habiliments of a doctor of divinity of Cambridge. He wore the dress of a gentleman under a long godebert, which is a mantle trimmed with the fur of the Norwegian hare. He was half Goth and half fop in his attire, wearing a wig like Lamoignon, and sleeves like Tristan l'Hermite. His great round eye watched Gwynplaine with the fixity of an owl's. He walked with measured tread. Never did honest man look fiercer.
Ursus, who had lost his way for a moment in the tangled skein of streets, overtook, close to Saint Mary Overy, the cortége, which had fortunately been retarded in the churchyard by a fight between children and dogs,—a common incident in the streets in those days. "Dogs and boys," says the old registers of police, placing the dogs before the boys. A man being taken before a magistrate by the police was, after all, an everyday affair, and each one having his own business to attend to, the few followers soon dispersed. There remained but Ursus on the track of Gwynplaine.
They passed two chapels opposite each other, belonging the one to the Recreative Religionists, the other to the Hallelujah League,—sects which flourished then, and which still exist at the present day. Then the cortége wound from street to street, making a zig-zag, choosing by preference lanes not yet built on, roads where the grass grew, and deserted alleys.
At length the cortége stopped in a narrow lane with no houses except two or three hovels. This narrow alley was bordered with two walls, the one on the left, low; the other, high. The high wall was black, and built in the Saxon style with narrow holes, scorpions, and large square gratings over narrow loop-holes. There was no window on it, but here and there slits, old embrasures for cross bows and long bows. At the foot of this high wall, like the hole at the bottom of a rat-trap, was a small wicket gate. This small door, encased in a full, heavy girding of stone, had a grated peep-hole, a heavy knocker, a large lock, hinges thick and knotted, a bristling of nails, an armour of plates, and hinges, so that altogether it was more of iron than of wood. There was no one in the lane,—no shops, no pedestrians; but in it there was a continual uproar, as if the lane ran parallel with a torrent. There was a tumult of voices and of carriages. It seemed as if on the other side of the black edifice there must be a great street, doubtless the principal street of Southwark, one end of which ran into the Canterbury road, and the other on to London Bridge.
All the length of the lane, except the cortége which surrounded Gwynplaine, a watcher would have seen no human face save that of Ursus peering out from the shadow of the corner of the wall; looking, yet fearing to see. He had posted himself behind the wall at a turn of the lane.
The constables grouped themselves before the wicket. Gwynplaine was in the centre, the wapentake and his baton of iron being now behind him. The justice of the quorum raised the knocker and struck the door three times. The loop-hole opened. The justice of the quorum said, "By order of her Majesty." The heavy door of oak and iron turned on its hinges, revealing a dark opening, like the mouth of a cave. A grim vault yawned in the shadow. Ursus saw Gwynplaine disappear within it.