If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 11

The pale light of false dawn revealed the tall stone houses and narrow lanes of Varennes. Here and there, on street corners, drowsy National Guardsmen leaned on their muskets, keeping guard over the sleeping nation. Then the early morning silence was broken by the hoofbeats of Mack's horse ringing out from the cobblestones and reverberating from the stone-fronted houses.

Mack rode through town at a smart trot, and came to the bridge over the Aire. It was not a large bridge.

It had a stone bed and it was buttressed from beneath by timber balks cut in the nearby Ardennes.

Below it, the Aire river flowed placidly by on its journey to the sea.

The bridge was crowded, for even at this hour there were a number of carts upon it, filled with produce and driven by snappy-tempered fellows with sharp whips. It was obvious at once that nothing could get through; certainly nothing as big and cumbersome as the king's yellow coach. Drouet or not, the bridge was blocked. Unless… Mack decided to take a high hand.

"Clear the way!" he cried. "Hot stuff coming through!"

There was a chorus of protesting cries. Mack assumed the role of traffic policeman, waving this one to go forward and that one to back up, all of the time shouting, "In the name of the Committee on Public Safety." Cursing, hooting, drinking, whistling, but also deeply impressed, the cartmen tried to obey his orders. But as fast as Mack got a cart off, more carts piled onto the bridge. They seemed to be coming from all over, carts of all sizes and shapes, carts filled with manure, apples, corn, wheat, and other products of the ingenious French and their Belgian neighbors. Cursing and sweating, Mack stood in the center of them and tried to direct traffic. But where in hell were all these carts coming from? He kicked up his horse and, with Marguerite following, pressed through the cart traffic jam and crossed the river.

On the other side, he went around a little bend and came across a tall white-clad figure with an unearthly light glowing around him even in broad daylight. This figure was directing cart traffic toward the bridge.

"Who are your Mack demanded. "And what do you think you're doing?"

"Oops," the white-clad figure said. "You weren't supposed to see me."

At that moment Mephistopheles materialized, horse and all, beside Mack. He looked at the white-clad figure and exclaimed, "Michael! What are you doing?"

"I was just sending some carts into Varennes," Michael said, his expression somewhat sulky.

"And causing a traffic jam," Mephistopheles said, "and thereby impeding our contestant. You are interfering with the contest, Michael, and this is not permitted even of an archangel."

"Nor is it allowed to a fiend," Michael said. "I'm doing no more than you've done."

Mephistopheles glared at him. "I think we had better discuss this in private."

Michael glanced at Mack and pursed his lips. "Yes. There are matters that no human should hear." The two spirits dematerialized.