I do not know whether it was the influence of that thing lying in a
corner of the barn under the cloak that Rodenard had flung over it, or
whether other influences of destiny were at work to impel me to rise
at the end of a half-hour and announce my determination to set out on
horseback and find myself quarters more congenial.
“To-morrow,” I instructed Ganymede, as I stood ready to mount, “you will
retrace your steps with the others, and, finding the road to Lavedan,
you will follow me to the chateau.”
“But you cannot hope to reach it to-night, monseigneur, through a
country that is unknown to you,” he protested.
“I do not hope to reach it to-night. I will ride south until I come upon
some hamlet that will afford me shelter and, in the morning, direction.”
I left him with that, and set out at a brisk trot. Night had now fallen,
but the sky was clear, and a crescent moon came opportunely if feebly to
dispel the gloom.
I quitted the field, and went back until I gained a crossroad, where,
turning to the right, I set my face to the Pyrenees, and rode briskly
amain. That I had chosen wisely was proved when some twenty minutes
later. I clattered into the hamlet of Mirepoix, and drew up before an
inn flaunting the sign of a peacock--as if in irony of its humbleness,
for it was no better than a wayside tavern. Neither stable-boy nor
ostler was here, and the unclean, overgrown urchin to whom I entrusted
my horse could not say whether indeed Pere Abdon the landlord would
be able to find me a room to sleep in. I thirsted, however; and so I
determined to alight, if it were only to drink a can of wine and obtain
information of my whereabouts.
As I was entering the hostelry there was a clatter of hoofs in the
street, and four dragoons headed by a sergeant rode up and halted at the
door of the Paon. They seemed to have ridden hard and some distance, for
their horses were jaded almost to the last point of endurance.
Within, I called the host, and having obtained a flagon of the best
vintage--Heaven fortify those that must be content with his worst!--I
passed on to make inquiries touching my whereabouts and the way to
Lavedan. This I learnt was but some three or four miles distant. About
the other table--there were but two within the room--stood the dragoons
in a whispered consultation, of which it had been well had I taken heed,
for it concerned me more closely than I could have dreamt.
“He answers the description,” said the sergeant, and though I heard the
words I took no thought that it was of me they spoke.
“Padrieu,” swore one of his companions, “I'll wager it is our man.”
And then, just as I was noticing that Master Abdon, who had also
overheard the conversation, was eyeing me curiously, the sergeant
stepped up to me, and--
“What is your name, monsieur?” quoth he.
I vouchsafed him a stare of surprise before asking in my turn “How may
that concern you?”
“Your pardon, my master, but we are on the King's business.”
I remembered then that he had said I answered some description. With
that it flashed through my mind that they had been sent after me by
His Majesty to enforce my obedience to his wishes and to hinder me
from reaching Lavedan. At once came the dominant desire to conceal my
identity that I might go unhindered. The first name that occurred to me
was that of the poor wretch I had left in the barn half an hour ago, and
so--
“I am,” said I, “Monsieur de Lesperon, at your service.”
Too late I saw the mistake that I had made. I own it was a blunder that
no man of ordinary intelligence should have permitted himself to have
committed. Remembering the unrest of the province, I should rather have
concluded that their business was more like to be in that connection.
“He is bold, at least,” cried one of the troopers, with a burst of
laughter. Then came the sergeant's voice, cold and formal, “In the
King's name, Monsieur de Lesperon, I arrest you.”
He had whipped out his sword, and the point was within an inch of my
breast. But his arm, I observed, was stretched to its fullest extent,
which forbade his making a sudden thrust. To hamper him in the lunge
there was the table between us.
So, my mind working quickly in this desperate situation, and realizing
how dire and urgent the need to attempt an escape, I leapt suddenly back
to find myself in the arms of his followers. But in moving I had caught
up by one of its legs the stool on which I had been sitting. As I raised
it, I eluded the pinioning grip of the troopers. I twisted in their
grasp, and brought the stool down upon the head of one of them with
a force that drove him to his knees. Up went that three-legged stool
again, to descend like a thunderbolt upon the head of another. That
freed me. The sergeant was coming up behind, but another flourish of my
improvised battle-axe sent the two remaining soldiers apart to look to
their swords. Ere they could draw, I had darted like a hare between
them and out into the street. The sergeant, cursing them with horrid
volubility, followed closely upon my heels.
Leaping as far into the roadway as I could, I turned to meet the
fellow's onslaught. Using the stool as a buckler, I caught his thrust
upon it. So violently was it delivered that the point buried itself in
the wood and the blade snapped, leaving him a hilt and a stump of steel.
I wasted no time in thought. Charging him wildly, I knocked him over
just as the two unhurt dragoons came stumbling out of the tavern.
I gained my horse and vaulted into the saddle. Tearing the reins from
the urchin that held them, and driving my spurs into the beast's flanks,
I went careering down the street at a gallop, gripping tightly with my
knees, whilst the stirrups, which I had had no time to step into, flew
wildly about my legs.
A pistol cracked behind me; then another, and a sharp, stinging pain in
the shoulder warned me that I was hit. But I took no heed of it then.
The wound could not be serious, else I had already been out of
the saddle, and it would be time enough to look to it when I had
outdistanced my pursuers. I say my pursuers, for already there were
hoofbeats behind me, and I knew that those gentlemen had taken to their
horses. But, as you may recall, I had on their arrival noted the
jaded condition of their cattle, whilst I bestrode a horse that was
comparatively fresh, so that pursuit had but small terrors for me.
Nevertheless, they held out longer, and gave me more to do than I had
imagined would be the case. For nigh upon a half-hour I rode, before I
could be said to have got clear of them, and then for aught I knew
they were still following, resolved to hound me down by the aid of such
information as they might cull upon their way.
I was come by then to the Garonne. I drew rein beside the swiftly
flowing stream, winding itself like a flood of glittering silver between
the black shadows of its banks. A little while I sat there listening,
and surveying the stately, turreted chateau that loomed, a grey, noble
pile, beyond the water. I speculated what demesne this might be, and I
realized that it was probably Lavedan.
I pondered what I had best do, and in the end I took the resolve to swim
the river and knock at the gates. If it were indeed Lavedan, I had but
to announce myself, and to one of my name surely its hospitalities would
be spread. If it were some other household, even then the name of Marcel
de Bardelys should suffice to ensure me a welcome.
By spurring and coaxing, I lured my steed into the river. There is a
proverb having it that though you may lead a horse to the water you
cannot make him drink. It would have now applied to my case, for
although I had brought mine to the water I could not make him swim; or,
at least, I could not make him breast the rush of the stream. Vainly
did I urge him and try to hold him; he plunged frantically, snorted,
coughed, and struggled gamely, but the current was bearing us swiftly
away, and his efforts brought us no nearer to the opposite shore. At
last I slipped from his back, and set myself to swim beside him, leading
him by the bridle. But even thus he proved unequal to the task of
resisting the current, so that in the end I let him go, and swam ashore
alone, hoping that he would land farther down, and that I might then
recapture him. When, however, I had reached the opposite bank, and stood
under the shadow of the chateau, I discovered that the cowardly beast
had turned back, and, having scrambled out, was now trotting away
along the path by which we had come. Having no mind to go after him, I
resigned myself to the loss, and turned my attention to the mansion now
before me.
Some two hundred yards from the river it raised its great square bulk
against the background of black, star-flecked sky. From the facade
before me down to the spot where I stood by the water, came a flight
of half a dozen terraces, each balustraded in white marble, ending in
square, flat-topped pillars of Florentine design. What moon there was
revealed the quaint architecture of that stately edifice and glittered
upon the mullioned windows. But within nothing stirred; no yellow
glimmer came to clash with the white purity of the moonlight; no sound
of man or beast broke the stillness of the night, for all that the hour
was early. The air of the place was as that of some gigantic sepulchre.
A little daunted by this all-enveloping stillness, I skirted the
terraces and approached the house on the eastern side. Here I found an
old-world drawbridge--now naturally in disuse--spanning a ditch fed
from the main river for the erstwhile purposes of a moat. I crossed the
bridge, and entered an imposing courtyard. Within this quadrangle the
same silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the windows that
overlooked it. I paused, at a loss how to proceed, and I leaned against
a buttress of the portcullis, what time I considered.
I was weak from fasting, worn with hard riding, and faint from the wound
in my shoulder, which had been the cause at least of my losing some
blood. In addition to all this, I was shivering with the cold of my wet
garments, and generally I must have looked as little like that Bardelys
they called the Magnificent as you might well conceive. How, then, if I
were to knock, should I prevail in persuading these people--whoever they
might be--of my identity? Infinitely more had I the air of some fugitive
rebel, and it was more than probable that I should be kept in durance
to be handed over to my friends the dragoons, if later they came to
ride that way. I was separated from those who knew me, and as things now
stood--unless this were, indeed, Lavedan--it might be days before they
found me again.
I was beginning to deplore my folly at having cut myself adrift from
my followers in the first place, and having embroiled myself with the
soldiers in the second; I was beginning to contemplate the wisdom of
seeking some outhouse of this mansion wherein to lie until morning, when
of a sudden a broad shaft of light, coming from one of the windows on
the first floor, fell athwart the courtyard. Instinctively I crouched
back into the shadow of my friendly buttress, and looked up.
That sudden shaft of light resulted from the withdrawal of the curtains
that masked a window. At this window, which opened outward on to a
balcony; I now beheld--and to me it was as the vision of Beatrice may
have been to Dante--the white figure of a woman. The moonlight bathed
her, as in her white robe she leaned upon the parapet gazing upward into
the empyrean. A sweet, delicate face I saw, not endowed, perhaps, with
that exquisite balance and proportion of feature wherein they tell us
beauty lies, but blessed with a wondrously dainty beauty all its own;
a beauty, perhaps, as much of expression as of form; for in that gentle
countenance was mirrored every tender grace of girlhood, all that is
fresh and pure and virginal.
I held my breath, I think, as I stood in ravished contemplation of that
white vision. If this were Lavedan, and that the cold Roxalanne who had
sent my bold Chatellerault back to Paris empty-handed then were my task
a very welcome one.
How little it had weighed with me that I was come to Languedoc to woo a
woman bearing the name of Roxalanne de Lavedan I have already shown. But
here in this same Languedoc I beheld to-night a woman whom it seemed I
might have loved, for not in ten years--not, indeed, in all my life--had
any face so wrought upon me and called to my nature with so strong a
voice.
I gazed at that child, and I thought of the women that I had known--the
bold, bedizened beauties of a Court said to be the first in Europe. And
then it came to me that this was no demoiselle of Lavedan, no demoiselle
at all in fact, for the noblesse of France owned no such faces. Candour
and purity were not to be looked for in the high-bred countenances
of our great families; they were sometimes found in the faces of the
children of their retainers. Yes; I had it now. This child was the
daughter of some custodian of the demesne before me.
Suddenly, as she stood there in the moonlight, a song, sung at
half-voice, floated down on the calm air. It was a ditty of old
Provence, a melody I knew and loved, and if aught had been wanting to
heighten the enchantment that already ravished me, that soft melodious
voice had done it. Singing still, she turned and reentered the room,
leaving wide the windows, so that faintly, as from a distance, her voice
still reached me after she was gone from sight.
It was in that hour that it came to me to cast myself upon this fair
creature's mercy. Surely one so sweet and saintly to behold would take
compassion on an unfortunate! Haply my wound and all the rest that I had
that night endured made me dull-witted and warped my reason.
With what strength I still possessed I went to work to scale her
balcony. The task was easy even for one in my spent condition. The
wall was thick with ivy, and, moreover, a window beneath afforded some
support, for by standing on the heavy coping I could with my fingers
touch the sill of the balcony above. Thus I hoisted myself, and
presently I threw an arm over the parapet. Already I was astride of that
same Parapet before she became aware of my presence.
The song died suddenly on her lips, and her eyes, blue as
forget-me-nots, were wide now with the fear that the sight of me
occasioned. Another second and there had been an outcry that would have
brought the house about our ears, when, stepping to the threshold of the
room, “Mademoiselle,” I entreated, “for the love of God, be silent! I
mean you no harm. I am a fugitive. I am pursued.”
This was no considered speech. There had been no preparing of words; I
had uttered them mechanically almost--perhaps by inspiration, for they
were surely the best calculated to enlist this lady's sympathy. And so
far as went the words themselves, they were rigorously true.
With eyes wide open still, she confronted me, and I now observed that
she was not so tall as from below I had imagined. She was, in fact, of a
short stature rather, but of proportions so exquisite that she conveyed
an impression of some height. In her hand she held a taper by whose
light she had been surveying herself in her mirror at the moment of
my advent. Her unbound hair of brown fell like a mantle about her
shoulders, and this fact it was drew me to notice that she was in
her night-rail, and that this room to which I had penetrated was her
chamber.
“Who are you?” she asked breathlessly, as though in such a pass my
identity were a thing that signified.
I had almost answered her, as I had answered the troopers at Mirepoix,
that I was Lesperon. Then, bethinking me that there was no need for such
equivocation here, I was on the point of giving her my name. But noting
my hesitation, and misconstruing it, she forestalled me.
“I understand, monsieur,” said she more composedly. “And you need have
no fear. You are among friends.”
Her eyes had travelled over my sodden clothes, the haggard pallor of my
face, and the blood that stained my doublet from the shoulder downward.
From all this she had drawn her conclusions that I was a hunted rebel.
She drew me into the room, and, closing the window, she dragged the
heavy curtain across it, thereby giving me a proof of confidence that
smote me hard--impostor that I was.
“I crave your pardon, mademoiselle, for having startled you by the rude
manner of my coming,” said I, and never in my life had I felt less at
ease than then. “But I was exhausted and desperate. I am wounded, I have
ridden hard, and I swam the river.”
The latter piece of information was vastly unnecessary, seeing that the
water from my clothes was forming a pool about my feet. “I saw you from
below; mademoiselle, and surely, I thought, so sweet a lady would have
pity on an unfortunate.” She observed that my eyes were upon her, and
in an act of instinctive maidenliness she bore her hand to her throat to
draw the draperies together and screen the beauties of her neck from my
unwarranted glance, as though her daily gown did not reveal as much and
more of them.
That act, however, served to arouse me to a sense of my position. What
did I there? It was a profanity--a defiling, I swore; from which you'll
see, that Bardelys was grown of a sudden very nice.
“Monsieur,” she was saying, “you are exhausted.”
“But that I rode hard,” I laughed, “it is likely they had taken me to
Toulouse, were I might have lost my head before my friends could have
found and claimed me. I hope you'll see it is too comely a head to be so
lightly parted with.”
“For that,” said she, half seriously, half whimsically, “the ugliest
head would be too comely.”
I laughed softly, amusedly; then of a sudden, without warning, a
faintness took me, and I was forced to brace myself against the wall,
breathing heavily the while. At that she gave a little cry of alarm.
“Monsieur, I beseech you to be seated. I will summon my father, and we
will find a bed for you. You must not retain those clothes.”
“Angel of goodness!” I muttered gratefully, and being still half dazed,
I brought some of my Court tricks into that chamber by taking her hand
and carrying it towards my lips. But ere I had imprinted the intended
kiss upon her fingers--and by some miracle they were not withdrawn--my
eyes encountered hers again. I paused as one may pause who contemplates
a sacrilege. For a moment she held my glance with hers; then I fell
abashed, and released her hand.
The innocence peeping out of that child's eyes it was that had in that
moment daunted me, and made me tremble to think of being found there,
and of the vile thing it would be to have her name coupled with mine.
That thought lent me strength. I cast my weariness from me as though it
were a garment, and, straightening myself, I stepped of a sudden to the
window. Without a word, I made shift to draw back the curtain when her
hand, falling on my sodden sleeve, arrested me.
“What will you do, monsieur?” she cried in alarm. “You may be seen.”
My mind was now possessed by the thing I should have thought of before.
I climbed to her balcony, and my one resolve was to get me thence as
quickly as might be.
“I had not the right to enter here,” I muttered. “I--” I stopped short;
to explain would only be to sully, and so, “Good-night! Adieu!” I ended
brusquely.
“But, monsieur--” she began.
“Let me go,” I commanded almost roughly, as I shook my arm free of her
grasp.
“Bethink you that you are exhausted. If you go forth now, monsieur, you
will assuredly be taken. You must not go.”
I laughed softly, and with some bitterness, too, for I was angry with
myself.
“Hush, child,” I said. “Better so, if it is to be.”
And with that I drew aside the curtains and pushed the leaves of the
window apart. She remained standing in the room, watching me, her face
pale, and hex eyes pained and puzzled.
One last glance I gave her as I bestrode the rail of her balcony. Then
I lowered myself as I had ascended. I was hanging by my hands, seeking
with my foot for the coping of the window beneath me, when, suddenly,
there came a buzzing in my ears. I had a fleeting vision of a white
figure leaning on the balcony above me; then a veil seemed drawn over
my eyes; there came a sense of falling; a rush as of a tempestuous wind;
then--nothing.