The Frontier by Maurice LeBlanc

Bare-headed, tangle-haired, his clothes torn, no collar, blood on his shirt, on his hands, on his face, blood everywhere, a wound in his neck, another on his lip, unrecognizable, horrible to look at, but magnificent in energy, heroic and triumphant: such was the appearance presented by old Morestal.

He chortled:

"Here! " he shouted.

An enormous laugh rolled from under his moustache:

"Morestal? Here! . Morestal, for the second time, a prisoner of the Teuton. and, for the second time, free!"

Philippe stared at him in dismay, as though at an apparition.

"Well, sonny? Is that the way you welcome me home?"

He caught hold of a napkin and wiped his face with a great, wide gesture. Then he drew his wife to him:

"Kiss me, mother! . And you, Philippe! And you, Marthe! . And you too, my pretty Suzanne: once for myself and once for your father! . Don't cry, my child. Daddy's all right. They're coddling him like an emperor, over there. until they let him go. And that's not far off. By Heaven, no! I hope the French government."

He was talking like a drunken man, too fast and in an unsteady voice. His wife tried to make him sit down. He protested:

"Rest? Quite unnecessary, mother. A Morestal never rests. My wounds? Scratches! What? The doctor? If he sets foot in this house, I'll chuck him out of the window!"

"Still, you ought to take something."

"Take something? A glass of wine, if you like. a glass of good French wine. That's it, uncork a bottle. We'll have a glass all round. Your health, Weisslicht! . Oh, what a joke! . When I think of the face of Weisslicht, the special commissary of the imperial government! . The prisoner's gone! The bird's flown!"

He laughed loudly and, after drinking two glasses of wine, one on top of the other, he kissed the three women once more, kissed Philippe, called in Victor, Catherine, the gardener, shook hands with them, sent them away again and began to walk up and down the room, saying:

"No time to be lost, children! I met the sergeant of gendarmes on the Saint-Elophe road. The authorities have been informed. They can be here within half an hour. I want to present a report. Take a pen, Philippe."

"What's much more important," protested his wife, "is that you should not excite yourself like this. Here, tell us all about it instead, quite calmly."

Old Morestal was never known to refuse to talk. He therefore began his story, in short, slow sentences, as she wished, describing all the details of attack and all the incidents of the journey to Boersweilen. But, carried away once more, he raised his voice, grew indignant, worked himself into a rage, burst into sarcasm:

"Oh, they showed no lack of civility! . It was, 'Monsieur le commissaire special! . Monsieur le conseiller d'arrondissement! '. Weisslicht had his mouth crammed with our titles! . All the same, at one o'clock in the morning, we were safely locked up in two nice little rooms in the town-hall at Boersweilen. In quod, what! . With a probable indictment for complicity, espionage, high treason and the devil knows what hanging over our heads! . Only, in that case, gentlemen, you should not carry politeness so far as to release your captives from their handcuffs; and the windows of your cells ought not to be closed with bars too slight to be of any use; and you ought not to let one of your prisoners keep his pocket-knife. If you do, as long as that prisoner has any grit in him -- and a file to his knife, by Jove! -- he will try what he can do. And I did try, by Jingo! At four o'clock in the morning, after cutting the window-pane and filing or loosening four of the bars, old Morestal let himself down by a waste-pipe and took to his heels. Kind friends, farewell! . It was now only a question of getting home. The Col du Diable? The Albern Woods? The Butte-aux-Loups? No such fool! The vermin were bound to be swarming on that side. And, in fact, I heard the drums beating and the trumpets sounding the alarm and the horses galloping. They were hunting for me, of course! . But how could they have thought of hunting for me six miles away, in the Val de Sainte-Marie, right in the middle of the Forest of Arzance? And I trotted. I trotted until I was simply done. I crossed the border at eight o'clock, unseen and unknown. Morestal's foot was on his native heath! At ten o'clock, I saw the steeple of Saint-Elophe from the Cote-Blanche and I cut straight across, so as to get home quicker. And here I am! A bit tired, I admit, but quite presentable. Well, what do you say to old Morestal now, eh?"

He had stood up and, forgetting all about the fatigue of the night, was enlivening his discourse with a savage display of gesture which alarmed his wife.

"And my poor father was not able to escape? " asked Suzanne.