The Battle of the Strong | Page 8

so that,
as long as he might live, the smell of new-made bread would fetch back
upon him the nervous shiver and numbness of this hour of danger.
As he waited, he heard a noise outside, a clac-clac! clac-clac! which

seemed to be echoed back from the wood and stone of the houses in the
street, and then to be lifted up and carried away over the roofs and out
to sea---clac-clac! clac-clac! It was not the tap of a blind man's staff--at
first he thought it might be; it was not a donkey's foot on the cobbles; it
was not the broom-sticks of the witches of St. Clement's Bay, for the
rattle was below in the street, and the broom-stick rattle is heard only
on the roofs as the witches fly across country from Rocbert to Bonne
Nuit Bay.
This clac-clac came from the sabots of some nightfarer. Should he
make a noise and attract the attention of the passer-by? No, that would
not do. It might be some one who would wish to know whys and
wherefores. He must, of course, do his duty to his country, but he must
save his father too. Bad as the man was, he must save him, though, no
matter what happened, he must give the alarm. His reflections tortured
him. Why had he not stopped the nightfarer?
Even as these thoughts passed through the lad's mind, the clac-clac had
faded away into the murmur of the stream flowing by the Rue d'Egypte
to the sea, and almost beneath his feet. There flashed on him at that
instant what little Guida Landresse had said a few days before as she
lay down beside this very stream, and watched the water wimpling by.
Trailing her fingers through it dreamily, the child had said to him:
"Ro, won't it never come back?" She always called him "Ro," because
when beginning to talk she could not say Ranulph.
Ro, won't it never come back? But while yet he recalled the words,
another sound mingled again with the stream-clac-clac! clac-clac!
Suddenly it came to him who was the wearer of the sabots making this
peculiar clatter in the night. It was Dormy Jamais, the man who never
slept. For two years the clac-clac of Dormy Jamais's sabots had not
been heard in the streets of St. Heliers--he had been wandering in
France, a daft pilgrim. Ranulph remembered how these sabots used to
pass and repass the doorway of his own home. It was said that while
Dormy Jamais paced the streets there was no need of guard or
watchman. Many a time had Ranulph shared his supper with the poor
beganne whose origin no one knew, whose real name had long since

dropped into oblivion.
The rattle of the sabots came nearer, the footsteps were now in front of
the window. Even as Ranulph was about to knock and call the poor
vagrant's name, the clac-clac stopped, and then there came a sniffing at
the shutters as a dog sniffs at the door of a larder. Following the
sniffing came a guttural noise of emptiness and desire. Now there was
no mistake; it was the half-witted fellow beyond all doubt, and he could
help him--Dormy Jamais should help him: he should go and warn the
Governor and the soldiers at the Hospital, while he himself would
speed to Gorey in search of his father. He would alarm the regiment
there at the same time.
He knocked and shouted. Dormy Jamais, frightened, jumped back into
the street. Ranulph called again, and yet again, and now at last Dormy
recognised the voice.
With a growl of mingled reassurance and hunger, he lifted down the
iron bar from the shutters. In a moment Ranulph was outside with two
loaves of bread, which he put into Dormy Jamais's arms. The daft one
whinnied with delight.
"What's o'clock, bread-man?" he asked with a chuckle.
Ranulph gripped his shoulders. "See, Dormy Jamais, I want you to go
to the Governor's house at La Motte, and tell them that the French are
coming, that they're landing at Gorey now. Then to the Hospital and tell
the sentry there. Go, Dormy--allez kedainne!"
Dormy Jamais tore at a loaf with his teeth, and crammed a huge crust
into his mouth.
"Come, tell me, will you go, Dormy?" the lad asked impatiently.
Dormy Jamais nodded his head, grunted, and, turning on his heel with
Ranulph, clattered up the street. The lad sprang ahead of him, and ran
swiftly up the Rue d'Egypte, into the Vier Marchi, and on over the
Town Hill along the road to Grouville.

CHAPTER III
Since the days of Henry III of England the hawk of war that broods in
France has hovered along that narrow strip of sea dividing the island of
Jersey from