BERAK THE LIGHTNING AND TOAH HIS DOG
The blue midland sea, the clear blue of heaven just turning to opal, and
the glint of mother-of-pearl coming up with the gloaming! A beach, not
flattened out and ribbed by the passage of daily tides, but with the
sand and pebbles built steeply up by the lashing waves and the furious
wind Euroclydon.
On different planes, far out at sea, were the sails of fishing-boats,
set this way and that, for all the world like butterflies in the act of
alighting. It was early spring--the spring of Roussillon, where it is
never winter. Already the purple flowers of the wild Provencal mustard
stood out from the white and yellow rocks, on which was perched a little
town, flat-roofed and Moorish. Their leaves, grey-green like her own
northern seas, of which she had all but lost the memory, drew Claire's
attention. She bit absent-mindedly, and was immediately informed as to
the species of the plant, without any previous knowledge of botany.
She kicked a strand of the long binding sea-grass, and then, after
looking a moment resentfully at the wild mustard, she threw the plant
pettishly away. Our once sedate Claire had begun to allow herself these
ebullitions with the Professor. They annoyed the Abbe John so much--and
it was practice. Also, they made the Professor spoil her. He had never
watched from so near the sweet, semi-conscious coquetry of a pretty
maid. So now he studied Claire like a newly-found fragment of
Demosthenes, of which the Greek text has become a little fragmentary and
wilful during the centuries.
"This will serve you better, if you must take to eating grass like an
ox," said the Professor of Eloquence, reaching out his hand and plucking
a sprig of sweet alison, which grew everywhere about.
Claire stretched out hers also and took the honey-scented plant, on
which the tiny white flowers and the shining fruit were to be found
together.
"Buzz-uzz-uzz!" said half-a-dozen indignant bees, following the sprig.
For at that dead season of the year, sweet alison was almost their only
joy.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Claire, letting it go. She loved none of the
sting-accoutred tribe--unless it were the big, heavy, lurching
bumble-bees, which entered a room with such blundering pomp that you had
always time to get out before they made up their mind about you.
The Professor watched her with some pride. For in the quiet of Rousillon
Claire had quickly recovered her peace of mind, and with it the light in
the eye and the rose-flush on the cheek.
But quite suddenly she put her hands to her face and began to sob.
If it had been the Abbe John, he might have divined the reason, but the
Professor was not a man advised upon such matters.
"What is it?" he said, stupidly enough; "are you ill?"
"Oh, no--no!" sobbed Claire; "it is so good to be here. It is so
peaceful. You are so good to me--too good--your mother--your
brothers--what have I done to deserve it?"
"Very likely nothing," said the Professor, meaning to be consoling; "I
have always noticed that those who deserve least, are commonly best
served!"
"That is not at all a nice thing to say," cried Claire; "they did not
teach you polite speeches at your school--or else you have forgotten
them at your dull old Sorbonne. Do you call that eloquence?"
"I only profess eloquence," said Doctor Anatole, with due meekness; "it
is not required by any statute that I should also practise it!"
"Well," said Claire, "I can do without your sweet speeches. I cannot
expect a Sorbonnist to have the sugared comfits of a king's mignon!"
"Who speaks so loud of sugared comfits?" said a voice from the other
side of the weather-stained rock, beneath which the Professor and Claire
Agnew were sitting looking out over the sea.
A tall shepherd appeared, wrapped in the cloak of the true Pyrenean
herdsman, brown ochre striped with red, and fringed with the blue
woollen tassels which here took the place of the silver bells of Bearn.
A tiny shiver, not of distaste, but caused by some feeling of faint,
instinctive aversion, ran through Claire.
Jean-aux-Choux did not notice. His eyes were far out on the sea, where,
as in a vision, he seemed to see strange things. His countenance, once
twisted and comical, now appeared somehow ennobled. A stern glory, as of
an angry ocean seen in the twilight, gloating over the destruction it
has wrought during the day, illumined his face. His bent back seemed
somehow straighter. And, though he still halted in his gait, he could
take the hills in his stride with any man. And none could better "wear
the sheep" or call an erring ewe to heel than Jean-aux-Choux. For in
these semi-eastern lands the sheep still follow the shepherd and are
known of him.
"Who speaks of sugared comfits?" demanded Jean-aux-Choux for the second
time.
"I did," said Claire, a little tremulously. "I only wished I had some,
Jean, to while away the time. For this law-learned Professor will say
nothing but rude things to me!"
Jean looked from one to the other, to make sure that the girl was
jesting. His brow cleared. Then again a gleam of fierce joy passed
momently over his face.
"_He_ had comfits in his hand in a silver box," he said, "jeweller's
work of a cunning artificer. And he entered among us like the Lord of
All. But it was given to me--to me, Jean-aux-Choux, to bring low the
haughty head. 'Guise, the good Guise!' Ha! ha! But I sent him to Hattil,
the place of an howling for sin--he that had thought to walk in Ahara,
the sweet savouring meadows!"
"I hated Guise and all his works," said the Professor, looking at the
ex-fool boldly, "yet will I never call his death aught but a murder most
foul."
"It may be--it may be," said Jean-aux-Choux indifferently; "I did my
Lord's work for an unworthy master. I would as soon have set the steel
to the throat of Henry of Valois himself. He and that mother of his, now
also gone to the Place of Howling to hob-nob with her friend of
Guise--they planned the killing. I did it. I give thanks! Michaeiah--who
is like the Lord? Jedaiah--the hand of the Lord hath wrought it.
Jehoash-Berak--the fire of the Lord falls in the thunderbolt! Amen!"
The Professor started to his feet.
"What is that you say? The Queen-Mother dead? And you----?"
He looked at the long dagger Jean-aux-Choux carried at his side, which,
every time he shifted his cloak, drew the unwilling gaze of Claire Agnew
like a fascination.
"The Mother of Witchcrafts is indeed dead," said Jean-aux-Choux. "But
that the world owes not to me. The hand of God, and not mine, sent her
to her own place. Yet I saw in a vision the Woman drunken with the blood
of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."
Then he, who had once been called the King's fool, became, as it were,
transported. His eyes, directed at something unseen across the blue and
sleeping sea, were terrible to behold. Faint greyish flecks of foam
appeared on his lips. He cast his cloak on the ground and trod upon it,
crying, "Even thus is it to-day with Great Babylon, the mystery, the
mother of the abominations of the earth."
After a moment's pause he took up his prophecy.
"There was One who came and bade me listen, and I gave him no heed, for
he blessed when I would have cursed; he cried 'Preserve' when I cried
'Cut off'; he cried 'Plant' when I would have burned up, root and
branch. But when I heard that Catherine of the Medici was indeed dead, I
shouted for joy; I said, 'She was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and
gilded with gold and precious stones and pearls! I saw her glory. But
now Babylon the Great is fallen--is fallen. And they that worshipped her
throw dust on their heads--all they that have thriven on the abundance
of her pleasures. For in one hour her judgment is come!'"
Then, all in a moment, he came down from the height of his vision. The
light of satisfied vengeance faded from his face.
"But I forget--I must go to the herd. It is my duty--till the God, whose
arm of flesh I am, finds fitter work for me to do. Then will I do it. I
care not whether the reward be heaven or hell, so that the work be done.
The cripple and the fool is not like other men. He is not holden by
human laws or codes of honour, nor by the lust of land, nor wealth, nor
power, nor the love of woman. He is free--free--free as Berak, the
lightning of God is free--to strike where he wills--to fall where he is
sent!"
The two watched him, and listened, marvelling.
And the Professor muttered to himself, "Before I lecture again, I must
read that Genevan book of his. Our poor Vulgate is to that torrent as
the waters of Siloah that flow softly!"
The voice of Jean-aux-Choux had ceased. That is, his lips moved without
words. But presently he turned to Claire and said, almost in his old
tones, "I am a fool. I fright you, that are but a child. I do great
wrong. But now I will go to the flock. They await me. I am, you say, a
careless shepherd to have left them so long. Not so! I have a dog in a
thousand--Toah the dart. And, indeed, I myself am no hireling--no
Iscariot. For your good cousin, Don Raphael Llorient, of Collioure, hath
as yet paid me no wages--neither gold Ferdinand nor silver Philip of the
Indies. A good day to you, Professor! Sleep in peace, little Claire
Agnew! For the sake of one Francis, late my master, we will watch over
you--even I, Berak the lightning, and Toah my dog!"