5 Denouement
Lamontaine, climbing through the broken window, saw what had happened and increased his speed. As he reached Le Front, the little constable pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for the gun on the ground. Lamontaine seized it and emptied its contents after the fleeing man.
Kronk chuckled derisively as he leaped into his boat and pushed it out into the blackness of the swamp.
Lamontaine returned to the house, the crestfallen little constable at his heels. Hastily mixing a potion, he raised the sick man’s head and forced a few drops between his lips. Pelletier stirred weakly, then opened his eyes.
“Did it—come?” he asked finally.
Lamontaine nodded.
The dominie winced as he straightened himself in bed.
“Mon Dieu!” he gasped. “My entire body aches.” Then he noticed for the first time the mark of the pentagon on his breast. “That?” he exclaimed, “What is it?”
“The brand of a man who was willing to go through hell for the sake of the woman he loved,” Lamontaine answered. “Your worries are over, my friend. Evelyn l’Brest will live—to make you a good wife. The horror is ended.
“It is easily explained, once we understand,” Lamontaine said enigmatically, stretching forth his hand for the rum-jug and filling the battered cup. He waited until the constable had poured a libation. The two men touched cups silently and drank.
“You gave me the idea,” he continued. “In N’Orleans today I confirmed my suspicion. A man answering the description of Kronk has secured title to the whole of the swamp. It is wanted for a paddy by the rice corporation. Kronk—or Koshier, as he is known there—stands to make a cool million if the swamp can be drained.
“Unfortunately—for him—the natural watercourse leads through the site of the village and thence to the creek which empties into the peninsula. There is no other way. It was necessary, therefore, for him to get rid of the village. But you La Foubellites are stubborn and superstitious. You would never leave your homes, nor sell them, knowing that the dead in your cemetery would be disturbed——”
“Tout au contraire!” Le Front interrupted excitedly.
“Exactly. Therefore he took this method of frightening you to a point where you would leave your homes.”
Le Front scratched his grizzled head wonderingly.
“Eet does not seem possible,” he said. “I can scarcely believe it.”
Lamontaine massaged his bruised throat tenderly.
“Perhaps it was all a bad dream,” he said with a wry grin. “Kronk is a mesmerist of ability. Maybe we were all hypnotized en masse.”
He jerked his thumb toward the rum-jug.
“Drink?” he queried. “Rum. Good Jamaica rum. Good liquor hurts nobody.”
The parrot opened its filmy eyes and gazed at its master languidly.
“Rum!” it croaked. “Good Jamaica rum! Hotter’n hell! Hotter’n hell!”