CHAPTER IV: THE ALBINO
I don't know what you mean, Patrice," she said. "It's a heat-storm," she added, "for there are no clouds in sight. Perhaps we had better go indoors."
"You remember the last time I came," he said. "I was saying good-bye in the porch. Your father said, 'Come, give her a kiss.' I stooped to kiss you, when bang! — there came a clap of thunder as though the house had been struck by lightning. And I never gave you that kiss. Your father literally flung me out, shouting, 'Quick! Quick!... There's a storm coming . . . Run to the station!' And he slammed the front door in my face. . . . Outside, there was no storm at all!. . ."
"Oh," said Madeleine, toying with a flower which she had picked, "we never mind that here! It often thunders, just like that, in the Black Woods. It's the forest that causes it. Papa says that it's 'forest electricity'"
"Forest electricity? I never heard of that sort of electricity."
"Papa tried to explain it to me, but I couldn't understand. It seems that, in Java, the forests thunder like that all the time. . . . Listen, the storm is passing away. Can you hear it, Patrice?"
A very distant rolling was now coming from the forest, whereas, a little while ago, they could have almost thought that a thunderbolt had fallen close to where they stood. And they turned their heads towards the gate, through the railings of which they could see the edge of the Black Woods.
At that moment, they saw an unusually fair-haired face pressed against the railings, a face covered with patches of light-red hair, a motionless face with two pink eyes that stared at them with indecent persistency. The young man made an angry movement towards the gate, when the albino's voice rooted him to the spot:
"Don't move any nearer, M. Patrice!"
These words and the way in which his name was pronounced sounded fearsomely in the, young man's ears. He stopped, with a beating heart and the blood throbbing at his temples. Madeleine had taken his hand and did not move either, but stood watching the albino.
The man quietly inserted the barrel of his gun through the railings of the gate and fired in their direction. The two young people uttered a cry of terror. A thrush fell dead at their feet.
"Well, what's the matter?" asked the sportsman, coolly. "You're not hurt, are you?"
"No, but whoever heard of shooting like that under people's noses?" said Madeleine, angrily.
"Eh, I never missed my shot yet, Mlle. Madeleine. So what are you afraid of?"
Patrice, still trembling all over his body, had stooped to pick up the bird.
"Poor thing!" he muttered.
"I'll give it to you two sweethearts for your lunch. . . .Good-bye, Mlle. Madeleine; good-bye, M. Patrice."
And, when Patrice made as though to fling the bird through the railings, the girl prudently stopped his violent impulse.
"Good-bye, M. Élie, and thank you!" she said, in a husky voice.
The albino had already disappeared behind the gate. Patrice was on the point of speaking, but Madeleine put her little hand on his mouth, a little hand that shook most terribly. She did not remove it until she no longer heard the other's footsteps on the pebbles of the path. The she said:
"Oh, how he frightened me with his gun!"
"And with the words he said!" whispered Patrice.
"I can still see his gun passing through the railings," said Madeleine. "You know, darling, if he had shot at us, he would have hit me first: I put myself in front of you. . . ."
It was quite true. Patrice had not noticed this movement of heroism at the time. He took Madeleine in his arms. Some one gave a cough, behind them. It was Noël, whom Coriolis had sent for them.
"The master wants you," he said, in his rather hoarse voice.
And he turned back, with his hands in his pockets and bent mopishly. They followed him to the orchard.
"What a life for you!" said Patrice. "Between your monomaniac of a father, that stupid old Gertrude and that lad whom I have never seen laugh." And he pointed to Noël's stooping figure. "The natives of Haï-Nan are a melancholy lot; and cultivating the bread-plant does not seem to raise this one's spirits."
"You don't know Noël," said Madeleine. "When he likes, he can be the best of company: ask Gertrude. There are days when he makes us laugh like mad."
"That's all right. But I've always seen him fit to die of weeping."
"He's like that when we have people here. He is shy."
"He is very fond of you. . . ."
"Yes. He's particularly frightened of papa. . . ."
"Does your father treat him harshly?"