style="font-size:15px;"> “To those who can answer me,” said Thibault; and he gave a howl. Twenty or more howls responded, some from close at hand, some from farther off.
“H’m!” said one of the gendarmes, “what are these beasts that are following us? this good-for-nothing seems to understand their language?”
“What!” said the shoe-maker, “you take Thibault the wolf-master prisoner, you carry him through the forest at night, and then you ask what are the lights and the howls that follow him!... Do you hear, friends?” cried Thibault, “these gentlemen are asking who you are. Answer them, all of you together, that they may have no further doubt on the matter.”
The wolves, obedient to their master’s voice, gave one prolonged, unanimous howl. The horses panted and shivered, and one or two of them reared. The gendarmes endeavoured to calm their animals, patting and gentling them.
“That is nothing,” said Thibault, “wait till you see each horse with two wolves hanging on to its hind-quarters and another at its throat.”
The wolves now came in between the horses’ legs, and began caressing Thibault; one of them stood up, and put its front paws on Thibault’s chest, as if asking for orders.
“Presently, presently,” said Thibault, “there is plenty of time; do not be selfish, give your comrades time to come up.”
The men could no longer control their horses, which were rearing and shying, and although going at a foot’s pace, were streaming with sweat.
“Do you not think,” said Thibault, “you would do best now to come to terms with me? That is, if you were to let me free on condition that you all sleep in your beds to-night.”
“Go at a walking pace,” said one of the gendarmes, “as long as we do that, we have nothing to fear.”
Another one drew his sword. A second or two later there was a howl of pain; one of the wolves had seized hold of this gendarme’s boot, and the latter had pierced him through with his weapon.
“I call that a very imprudent thing to do,” said Thibault; “the wolves eat each other, whatever the proverb may say, and once having tasted blood, I do not know that even I shall have the power to hold them back.”
The wolves threw themselves in a body on their wounded comrade, and in five minutes there was nothing left of its carcase but the bare bones. The gendarmes had profited by this respite to get on ahead, but without releasing Thibault, whom they obliged to run alongside of them; what he had foreseen, however, happened. There was a sudden sound as of an approaching hurricane—the whole pack was in pursuit, following them up at full gallop. The horses, having once started trotting, refused to go at a walking pace again, and frightened by the stamping, the smell, and the howls, now set off galloping, in spite of their riders’ efforts to hold them in. The man who had hold of the rope, now requiring both hands to master his horse, let go of Thibault; and the wolves leaped on to the horses, clinging desperately to the cruppers and withers and throats of the terrified animals. No sooner had the latter felt the sharp teeth of their assailants, than they scattered, rushing in every direction.
“Hurrah, wolves! hurrah!” cried Thibault. But the fierce animals had no need of encouragement, and soon each horse had six or seven more wolves in pursuit of him.
Horses and wolves disappeared, some one way some the other, and the men’s cries of distress, the agonised neighings of the horses, and the furious howls of the wolves became gradually fainter and fainter as they travelled farther away.
Thibault was left free once more, and alone. His hands however were still bound, and his feet fettered. First he tried to undo the cord with his teeth, but this he found impossible. Then he tried to wrench his bonds apart by the power of his muscles, but that too was unavailing; the only result of his efforts was to make the cord cut into his flesh. It was his turn to bellow with pain and anger. At last, tired of trying to wrest his hands free, he lifted them, bound as they were, to heaven, and cried:
“Oh! black wolf! friend, let these cords that bind me be loosened; thou knowest well that it is only to do evil that I wish for my hands to be free.”
And at the same moment his fetters were broken and fell to the ground, and Thibault beat his hands together with another roar, this time of joy.
CHAPTER XXI
THE GENIUS OF EVIL
The next evening, about nine o’clock, a man might be seen walking along the Puits-Sarrasin road and making for the Osiéres forest-path.
It was Thibault, on his way to pay a last visit to the hut, and to see if any remains of it had been left by the fire. A heap of smoking cinders alone marked the place where it had stood; and as Thibault came in sight of it, he saw the wolves, as if he had appointed them to meet him there, forming an immense circle round the ruins, and looking upon them with an expression of mournful anger. They seemed to understand that by destroying this poor hut, made of earth and branches, the one who, by the compact with the black wolf, had been given them for master, had been made a victim. As Thibault entered the circle, all the wolves gave simultaneously a long and sinister sounding howl, as if to make him understand that they were ready to help in avenging him.
Thibault went and sat down on the spot where the hearth had stood; it was recognisable from a few blackened stones still remaining, which were otherwise uninjured, and by a higher heap of cinders just at that spot. He stayed there some minutes, absorbed in his unhappy thoughts. But he was not reflecting that the ruin which he saw around him was the consequence and the punishment of his jealous and covetous desires, which had gone on gathering strength. He felt neither repentance nor regret. That which dominated all other feeling in him was his satisfaction at the thought of being henceforth able to render to his fellow-creatures evil for evil, his pride in having, thanks to his terrible auxiliaries, the power to fight against those who persecuted him.
And as the wolves continued their melancholy howling: “Yes, my friends,” said Thibault, “yes, your howls answer to the cry of my heart.... My fellow-creatures have destroyed my hut, they have cast to the winds the ashes of the tools wherewith I earned my daily bread; their hatred pursues me as it pursues you, I expect from them neither mercy nor pity. We are their enemies as they are ours; and I will have neither mercy nor compassion on them. Come then, let us go from this hut to the Castle, and carry thither the desolation which they have brought home to me.”
And then the master of the wolves, like a chief of banditti followed by his desperadoes, set off with his pack in quest of pillage and carnage.
This time it was neither red-deer, nor fallow-deer, nor any timid game of which they were in pursuit. Sheltered by the darkness of the night Thibault first directed his course to the Château of Vez, for there was lodged his chief enemy. The Baron had three farms belonging to the estate, stables filled with horses, and others filled with cows, and the park was full of sheep. All these places were attacked the first night, and on the morrow two horses, four cows, and ten sheep were found killed.
The Baron was doubtful at first if this could be the work of the beasts against which he waged so fierce a warfare; there seemed something partaking rather of intelligence and revenge in it than of the mere unreasoning attacks of a pack of wild animals. Still it seemed manifest that the wolves must have been the aggressors, judging by the marks of teeth on the carcases and the footprints left
