Page:Weird Tales v15n01 1930-01.djvu/102

of Mirail close to the plantation of Jean Labat. The mother lived there still. Then came silence, and the cause of it was Labat, whose plantation lay near the village. He was both disliked and feared. I could tell that at once by the faces and the shrugs and the drawing back as if from the very name. He grew cocoa and sugar and had a distillery—rhommerie—but people did not visit that plantation.

"Would anyone lead me to the house of Finotte's mother? No; it was close to the plantation and Jean Labat had dogs.

"I might have started out myself despite the dogs and made an attempt to find the place, feeling sure that Finotte's mother would be able to put me on the traces of Baidaux—but things turned out differently.

"It was the second evening of my stay at Grande Anse and I had gone for a walk on the black sands to watch the waves coming in under the last of the sunset; then, turning at dark, I began to climb the stiff path that leads up from the beach along the side of the great swell of ground that forms the side of the Pointe du Rochet.

"The night was moonless but alight with stars, and it was my idea to reach the top of the bluff, have a look at the starlit world from there and then return to Grande Anse by the track the goats have trodden out in the basalt. The lights had gone out in the little town, where everybody turns in at dark, but I was sure of the inn being open.

"More than half-way up I paused. On the sky-line just above I saw two men. A man of vast stature and a man of ordinary size, they were walking in single file and the latter was leading. Then they stopped. I thought they had seen me, but that was not so. They stopped only for a moment and then the smaller man pointed straight ahead; that is to say, where the bluff ended at the cliff edge and a fall of four hundred feet sheer with nothing but the waves below.

"At the pointing the tall man went straight ahead in the direction indicated, but I had never seen a man walk like that before, the way he raised his feet, the way he held himself—why, he seemed a mechanical figure, not a man; a thing wound up to go, not a thing going of its own volition.

"He kept on till he reached the cliff edge, but he did not stop—he stepped over and in an instant there was nothing but the night, the stars and the roar of the sea—and the other man. The other man was Baidaux. I could see that now as he came closer along the sky-line. He came to the cliff edge and looked down; then he stood with arms folded looking at the sea.

"I had found him—but heavens, what was all this?

"I am a man nervous by nature, but still I have courage if the cause is good or if a certain thing has to be done.

"I had to find out about this and I continued climbing till I reached the top of the bluff just as he was turning from the sea and coming back toward me.

"He did not stop on seeing me; he seemed quite indifferent to this new person the night had sprung on him. Close up he recognized me.

"'Baidaux,' I said. 'What is this?'

"He stood for a moment without speaking; then he heaved a great sigh as though awakened from sleep. 'It is I, Baidaux,' said he; 'you have seen him. It is long since we parted, and it is right that you should know about him and about her.'

"He was no longer a servant or an ex-servant, just a being level in station with myself but with a feeling from the past that it was right that I should know his affairs. He who had told me of his girl and his plans for the future had now to tell me what had happened to him, culminating in