‘You!’ she cried, in a voice which pierced my heart. ‘You are M. de
Berault? It is impossible!’ But, glancing askance at her--I could not
face her I saw that the blood had left her cheeks.
‘Yes, Mademoiselle,’ I answered in a low tone. ‘De Barthe was my
mother’s name. When I came here, a stranger, I took it that I might
not be known; that I might again speak to a good woman, and not see
her shrink. That, and--but why trouble you with all this?’ I continued
rebelling, against her silence, her turned shoulder, her averted face.
‘You asked me, Mademoiselle, how I could take a blow and let the striker
go. I have answered. It is the one privilege M. de Berault possesses.’
‘Then,’ she replied almost in a whisper, ‘if I were M. de Berault, I
would avail myself of it, and never fight again.’
‘In that event, Mademoiselle,’ I answered coldly, ‘I should lose my men
friends as well as my women friends. Like Monseigneur the Cardinal, rule
by fear.’
She shuddered, either at the name or at the idea my words called up;
and, for a moment, we stood awkwardly silent. The shadow of the sundial
fell between us; the garden was still; here and there a leaf fluttered
slowly down. With each instant of that silence, of that aversion, I
felt the gulf between us growing wider, I felt myself growing harder;
I mocked at her past which was so unlike mine; I mocked at mine, and
called it fate. I was on the point of turning from her with a bow--and
with a furnace in my breast--when she spoke.
‘There is a last rose lingering there,’ she said, a slight tremor in her
voice. ‘I cannot reach it. Will you pluck it for me, M. de Berault?’
I obeyed her, my hand trembling, my face on fire. She took the rose from
me, and placed it in the bosom of her dress, And I saw that her hand
trembled too, and that her cheek was dark with blushes.
She turned without more ado, and began to walk towards the house.
‘Heaven forbid that I should misjudge you a second time!’ she said in a
low voice. ‘And, after all, who am I, that I should judge you at all? An
hour ago I would have killed that man had I possessed the power.’
‘You repented, Mademoiselle,’ I said huskily. I could scarcely speak.
‘Do you never repent?’ she said.
‘Yes. But too late, Mademoiselle.’
‘Perhaps it is never too late,’ she answered softly.
‘Alas, when a man is dead--’
‘You may rob a man of worse than life!’ she replied with energy,
stopping me by a gesture. ‘If you have never robbed a man--or a
woman--of honour! If you have never ruined boy or girl, M. de Berault!
If you have never pushed another into the pit and gone by it yourself!
If--but, for murder? Listen. You are a Romanist, but I am a Huguenot,
and have read. “Thou shall not kill!” it is written; and the penalty,
“By man shall thy blood be shed!” But, “If you cause one of these little
ones to offend, it were better for you that a mill-stone were hanged
about your neck, and that you were cast into the depths of the sea.”’
‘Mademoiselle, you are merciful,’ I muttered.
‘I need mercy myself,’ she answered, sighing. ‘And I have had few
temptations. How do I know what you have suffered?’
‘Or done!’ I said, almost rudely.
‘Where a man has not lied, nor betrayed, nor sold himself or others,’
she answered in a low tone, ‘I think I can forgive all else. I can
better put up with force,’ she added smiling sadly, ‘than with fraud.’
Ah, Dieu! I turned away my face that she might not see how pale it grew;
that she might not guess how her words, meant in mercy, stabbed me to
the heart. And yet, then, for the first time, while viewing in all its
depth and width the gulf which separated us, I was not hardened; I
was not cast back upon myself. Her gentleness, her pity, her humility
softened me, while they convicted me. My God, how, after this, could I
do that which I had come to do? How could I stab her in the tenderest
part, how could I inflict on her that rending pang, how could I meet her
eyes, and stand before her, a Caliban, a Judas, the vilest, lowest thing
she could conceive?
I stood, a moment, speechless and disordered; overcome by her words,
by my thoughts. I have seen a man so stand when he has lost all at the
tables. Then I turned to her; and for an instant I thought that my tale
was told already, I thought that she had pierced my disguise. For her
face was changed--stricken as with fear. The next moment, I saw that
she was not looking at me, but beyond me; and I turned quickly and saw
a servant hurrying from the house to us. It was Louis. His eyes were
staring, his hair waved, his cheeks were flabby with dismay, He breathed
as if he had been running.
‘What is it?’ Mademoiselle cried, while he was still some way off.
‘Speak, man. My sister? Is she--’
‘Clon,’ he gasped.
The name changed her to stone.
‘Clon? What of him?’ she muttered.
‘In the village!’ Louis panted, his tongue stuttering with terror. ‘They
are flogging him. They are killing him! To make him tell!’
Mademoiselle grasped the sundial and leant against it, her face
colourless; and, for an instant, I thought that she was fainting.
‘Tell?’ I said mechanically. ‘But he cannot tell. He is dumb, man.’
‘They will make him guide them,’ Louis groaned, covering his ears with
his shaking hands, his face the colour of paper. ‘And his cries! Oh,
Monsieur, go, go!’ he continued, in a thrilling tone. ‘Save him. All
through tie wood I heard his cries. It was horrible! horrible!’
Mademoiselle uttered a moan of pain; and I turned to support her,
thinking each second to see her fall. But with a sudden movement she
straightened herself, and, quickly slipping by me, with eyes that seemed
to see nothing, she set off swiftly down the walk towards the meadow
gate.
I ran after her; but, taken by surprise as I was, it was only by a great
effort I reached the gate before her, and thrusting myself in the road,
barred the way.
‘Let me pass!’ she panted, striving to thrust me on one side. ‘Out of my
way, sir! I am going to the village.’
‘You are not going to the village,’ I said sternly. ‘Go back; to the
house, Mademoiselle, and at once.’
‘My servant!’ she wailed. ‘Let me go! Let me go! Do you think I can rest
here while they torture him? He cannot speak, and they--they--’
‘Go back, Mademoiselle,’ I said, with decision. ‘Your presence would
only make matters worse! I will go myself, and what one man can do
against many, I will! Louis, give your mistress your arm and take her to
the house. Take her to Madame.’
‘But you will go?’ she cried. And before I could stay her--I swear I
would have stopped her if I could--she raised my hand and carried it
to her trembling lips. ‘You will go! Go and stop them! Stop them, and
Heaven reward you, Monsieur!’
I did not answer; nay, I did not once look back, as I crossed the
meadow; but I did not look forward either. Doubtless it was grass I
trod, and the wood was before me with the sun shining aslant on it;
doubtless the house rose behind me with a flame here and there in the
windows. But I went in a dream, among shadows; with a racing pulse, in
a glow from head to heel; conscious of nothing but the touch of
Mademoiselle’s warm lips on my hand, seeing neither meadow nor house,
nor even the dark fringe of wood before me, but only Mademoiselle’s
passionate face. For the moment I was drunk: drunk with that to which I
had been so long a stranger, with that which a man may scorn for years,
to find it at last beyond his reach drunk with the touch of a good
woman’s lips.
I passed the bridge in this state; and my feet were among the brushwood
before the heat and fervour in which I moved found on a sudden their
direction. Something began to penetrate to my veiled senses--a hoarse
inarticulate cry, now deep, now shrilling horribly, that of itself
seemed to fill the wood. It came at intervals of half a minute or so,
and made the flesh creep, it rang so full of dumb pain, of impotent
wrestling, of unspeakable agony. I am a man and have seen things. I
saw the Concini beheaded, and Chalais ten years later--they gave him
thirty-four blows; and when I was a boy I escaped from the college and
viewed from a great distance Ravaillac torn by horses--that was in the
year ten. But the horrible cries I now heard, filled me, perhaps because
I was alone and fresh from the sight of Mademoiselle, with loathing
inexpressible. The very wood, though the sun had not yet set, seemed to
grow dark. I ran on through it, cursing, until the hovels of the village
came in sight. Again the shriek rose, a pulsing horror, and this time I
could hear the lash fall on the sodden flesh, I could see in fancy the
dumb man, trembling, quivering, straining against his bonds. And then,
in a moment, I was in the street, and, as the scream once more tore the
air, I dashed round the corner by the inn, and came upon them.
I did not look at HIM, but I saw Captain Larolle and the Lieutenant,
and a ring of troopers, and one man, bare-armed, teasing out with his
fingers the thongs of a whip. The thongs dripped blood, and the sight
fired the mine. The rage I had suppressed when the Lieutenant bearded me
earlier in the afternoon, the passion with which Mademoiselle’s distress
had filled my breast, on the instant found vent. I sprang through the
line of soldiers; and striking the man with the whip a buffet between
the shoulders, which hurled him breathless to the ground, I turned on
the leaders.
‘You fiends!’ I cried. ‘Shame on you! The man is dumb! Dumb; and if I
had ten men with me, I would sweep you and your scum out of the village
with broomsticks. Lay on another lash,’ I continued recklessly, ‘and I
will see whether you or the Cardinal be the stronger.’
The Lieutenant stared at me, his grey moustache bristling, his eyes
almost starting from his head. Some of the troopers laid their hands on
their swords, but no one moved, and only the Captain spoke.
‘MILLE DIABLES!’ he swore. ‘What is all this about? Are you mad, sir?’
‘Mad or sane!’ I cried furiously. ‘Lay on another lash, and you shall
repent it.’
For an instant there was a pause of astonishment. Then, to my surprise,
the Captain laughed--laughed loudly.
‘Very heroic,’ he said. ‘Quite magnificent, M. Chevalier-errant. But you
see, unfortunately, you come too late.’
‘Too late,’ I said incredulously.
‘Yes, too late,’ he replied, with a mocking smile. And the Lieutenant
grinned too. ‘Unfortunately, you see, the man has just confessed. We
have only been giving him an extra touch or two, to impress his memory,
and save us the trouble of lashing him up again.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said bluntly--but I felt the check, and fell to
earth. ‘The man cannot speak.’
‘No, but he has managed to tell us what we want; that he will guide us
to the place we are seeking,’ the Captain answered drily. ‘The whip, if
it cannot find a man a tongue, can find him wits. What is more, I think
that he will keep his word,’ he continued, with a hideous scowl. ‘For I
warn him that if he does not, all your heroics shall not save him. He
is a rebel dog, and known to us of old; and I will flay his back to the
bones, ay, until we can see his heart beating through his ribs, but I
will have what I want--in your teeth, too, you d----d meddler.’
‘Steady, steady!’ I said, sobered. I saw that he was telling the truth.
‘Is he going to take you to M. de Cocheforet’s hiding-place?’
‘Yes, he is!’ the Captain retorted. ‘Have you any objection to that,
Master Spy?’
‘None,’ I replied. ‘Only I shall go with you. And if you live three
months, I shall kill you for that name-behind the barracks at Auch, M.
le Capitaine.’
He changed colour, but he answered me boldly enough.
‘I don’t know that you will go with us,’ he said, with a snarl. ‘That is
as we please.’
‘I have the Cardinal’s orders,’ I said sternly.
‘The Cardinal?’ he exclaimed, stung to fury by this repetition of the
name. ‘The Cardinal be--’
But the Lieutenant laid his hand on his lips and stopped him.
‘Hush!’ he said. Then more quietly, ‘Your pardon, M. le Capitaine; but
the least said the soonest mended. Shall I give orders to the men to
fall in?’
The Captain nodded sullenly.
The Lieutenant turned to his prisoner.
‘Take him down!’ he commanded in his harsh, monotonous voice. ‘Throw
his blouse over him, and tie his hands. And do you two, Paul and Lebrun,
guard him. Michel, bring the whip, or he may forget how it tastes.
Sergeant, choose four good men, and dismiss the rest to their quarters.’
‘Shall we need the horses?’ the sergeant asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the Captain answered peevishly. ‘What does the rogue
say?’
The Lieutenant stepped up to him.
‘Listen!’ he said grimly. ‘Nod if you mean yes, and shake your head if
you mean no. And have a care you answer truly. Is it more than a mile to
this place?’
They had loosened the poor wretch’s fastenings, and covered his back.
He stood leaning his shoulder against the wall, his mouth still panting,
the sweat running down his hollow cheeks. His sunken eyes were closed,
but a quiver now and again ran through his frame. The Lieutenant
repeated his question, and, getting no answer, looked round for orders.
The Captain met the look, and crying savagely, ‘Answer will you, you
mule!’ struck the half-swooning miserable across the back with his
switch. The effect was magical. Covered, as his shoulders were, the man
sprang erect with a shriek of pain, raising his chin, and hollowing his
back; and in that attitude stood an instant with starting eyes, gasping
for breath. Then he sank back against the wall, moving his mouth
spasmodically. His face was the colour of lead.
‘Diable! I think that we have gone too far with him!’ the Captain
muttered.
‘Bring some wine!’ the Lieutenant replied. ‘Quick with it!’
I looked on, burning with indignation, and in some excitement besides.
For if the man took them to the place, and they succeeded in seizing
Cocheforet, there was an end of the matter as far as I was concerned. It
was off my shoulders, and I might leave the village when I pleased; nor
was it likely--since he would have his man, though not through me--that
the Cardinal would refuse to grant me an amnesty. On the whole, I
thought that he would prefer that things should take this course; and
assuming the issue, I began to wonder whether it would be necessary in
that event that Madame should know the truth. I had a kind of vision of
a reformed Berault, dead to play and purging himself at a distance from
Zaton’s; winning, perhaps, a name in the Italian war, and finally--but,
pshaw! I was a fool.
However, be these things as they might, it was essential that I should
see the arrest made; and I waited patiently while they revived the
tortured man, and made their dispositions. These took some time; so
that the sun was down, and it was growing dusk when we marched out,
Clon going first, supported by his two guards, the Captain and I
following--abreast, and eyeing one another suspiciously; the Lieutenant,
with the sergeant and five troopers, bringing up the rear. Clon moved
slowly, moaning from time to time; and but for the aid given him by the
two men with him, must have sunk down again and again.
He led the way out between two houses close to the inn, and struck a
narrow track, scarcely discernible, which ran behind other houses,
and then plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A single person,
traversing the covert, might have made such a track; or pigs, or
children. But it was the first idea that occurred to us, and put us
all on the alert. The Captain carried a cocked pistol, I held my sword
drawn, and kept a watchful eye on HIM; and the deeper the dusk fell in
the wood, the more cautiously we went, until at last we came out with a
sort of jump into a wider and lighter path.
I looked up and down, and saw behind me a vista of tree-trunks, before
me a wooden bridge and an open meadow, lying cold and grey in the
twilight; and I stood in astonishment. We were in the old path to the
Chateau! I shivered at the thought that he was going to take us there,
to the house, to Mademoiselle!
The Captain also recognised the place, and swore aloud. But the dumb man
went on unheeding until he reached the wooden bridge. There he stopped
short, and looked towards the dark outline of the house, which was
just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in the west wing. As the
Captain and I pressed up behind him, he raised his hands and seemed to
wring them towards the house.
‘Have a care!’ the Captain growled. ‘Play me no tricks, or--’
He did not finish the sentence, for Clon, as if he well understood his
impatience, turned back from the bridge, and, entering the wood to the
left, began to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not gone a hundred
yards before the ground grew rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet
through all ran a kind of path which enabled us to advance, dark as
it was now growing. Very soon the bank on which we moved began to rise
above the water, and grew steep and rugged. We turned a shoulder, where
the stream swept round a curve, and saw we were in the mouth of a small
ravine, dark and sheer-sided. The water brawled along the bottom, over
boulders and through chasms. In front, the slope on which we stood
shaped itself into a low cliff; but halfway between its summit and the
water a ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the face, was dimly
visible.
‘Ten to one, a cave!’ the Captain muttered. ‘It is a likely place.’
‘And an ugly one!’ I replied with a sneer. ‘Which one against ten might
hold for hours!’
‘If the ten had no pistols--yes!’ he answered viciously. ‘But you see we
have. Is he going that way?’
He was. As soon as this was clear, Larolle turned to his comrade.
‘Lieutenant,’ he said, speaking in a low voice, though the chafing of
the stream below us covered ordinary sounds; ‘what say you? Shall we
light the lanthorns, or press on while there is still a glimmering of
day?’
‘On, I should say, M. le Capitaine,’ the Lieutenant answered. ‘Prick
him in the back if he falters. I will warrant,’ the brute added with a
chuckle, ‘he has a tender place or two.’
The Captain gave the word and we moved forward. It was evident now
that the cliff-path was our destination. It was possible for the eye to
follow the track all the way to it, through rough stones and brushwood;
and though Clon climbed feebly, and with many groans, two minutes saw
us step on to it. It did not prove to be, in fact, the perilous place
it looked at a distance. The ledge, grassy and terrace-like, sloped
slightly downwards and outwards, and in parts was slippery; but it was
as wide as a highway, and the fall to the water did not exceed thirty
feet. Even in such a dim light as now displayed it to us, and by
increasing the depth and unseen dangers of the gorge gave a kind of
impressiveness to our movements, a nervous woman need not have feared to
tread it, I wondered how often Mademoiselle had passed along it with her
milk-pitcher.
‘I think that we have him now,’ Captain Larolle muttered, twisting his
moustachios, and looking about to make his last dispositions. ‘Paul and
Lebrun, see that your man makes no noise. Sergeant, come forward with
your carbine, but do not fire without orders. Now, silence all, and
close up, Lieutenant. Forward!’
We advanced about a hundred paces, keeping the cliff on our left, turned
a shoulder, and saw, a few paces in front of us, a slight hollow, a
black blotch in the grey duskiness of the cliff-side. The prisoner
stopped, and, raising his bound hands, pointed to it.
‘There?’ the Captain whispered, pressing forward. ‘Is it the place?’
Clon nodded. The Captain’s voice shook with excitement.
‘Paul and Lebrun remain here with the prisoner,’ he said, in a low tone.
‘Sergeant, come forward with me. Now, are you ready? Forward!’
At the word he and the sergeant passed quickly, one on either side of
Clon and his guards. The path grew narrow here, and the Captain passed
outside. The eyes of all but one were on the black blotch, the hollow in
the cliff-side, expecting we knew not what--a sudden shot or the rush or
a desperate man; and no one saw exactly what happened. But somehow, as
the Captain passed abreast of him, the prisoner thrust back his guards,
and leaping sideways, flung his unbound arms round Larolle’s body, and
in an instant swept him, shouting, to the verge of the precipice.
It was done in a moment. By the time our startled wits and eyes were
back with them, the two were already tottering on the edge, looking in
the gloom like one dark form. The sergeant, who was the first to find
his head, levelled his carbine, but, as the wrestlers twirled and
twisted, the Captain, shrieking out oaths and threats, the mute silent
as death, it was impossible to see which was which, and the sergeant
lowered his gun again, while the men held back nervously. The ledge
sloped steeply there, the edge was vague, already the two seemed to be
wrestling in mid air; and the mute was desperate.
That moment of hesitation was fatal. Clon’s long arms were round the
other’s arms, crushing them into his ribs; Clon’s skull-like face
grinned hate into the other’s eyes; his bony limbs curled round him like
the folds of a snake. Larolle’s strength gave way.
‘Damn you all! Why don’t you come up?’ he cried. And then, ‘Ah! Mercy!
mercy!’ came in one last scream from his lips. As the Lieutenant, taken
aback before, sprang forward to his aid, the two toppled over the edge,
and in a second hurtled out of sight.
‘MON DIEU!’ the Lieutenant cried; the answer was a dull splash in the
depths below. He flung up his arms. ‘Water!’ he said. ‘Quick, men, get
down. We may save him yet.’
But there was no path, and night was come, and the men’s nerves were
shaken. The lanthorns had to be lit, and the way to be retraced; by the
time we reached the dark pool which lay below, the last bubbles were
gone from the surface, the last ripples had beaten themselves out
against the banks. The pool still rocked sullenly, and the yellow light
showed a man’s hat floating, and near it a glove three parts submerged.
But that was all. The mute’s dying grip had known no loosening, nor his
hate any fear. I heard afterwards that when they dragged the two out
next day, his fingers were in the other’s eye-sockets, his teeth in his
throat. If ever man found death sweet, it was he!
As we turned slowly from the black water, some shuddering, some crossing
themselves, the Lieutenant looked at me.
‘Curse you!’ he said passionately. ‘I believe that you are glad.’
He deserved his fate,’ I answered coldly. ‘Why should I pretend to be
sorry? It was now or in three months. And for the other poor devil’s
sake I am glad.’
He glared at me for a moment in speechless anger.
At last, ‘I should like to have you tied up!’ he said between his teeth.
‘I should think that you had had enough of tying up for one day!’ I
retorted. ‘But there,’ I went on contemptuously, ‘it comes of making
officers out of the canaille. Dogs love blood. The teamster must lash
something if he can no longer lash his horses.’
We were back, a sombre little procession, at the wooden bridge when I
said this. He stopped.
‘Very well,’ he replied, nodding viciously. ‘That decides me. Sergeant,
light me this way with a lanthorn. The rest of you to the village. Now,
Master Spy,’ he continued, glancing at me with gloomy spite, ‘Your road
is my road. I think I know how to spoil your game.’
I shrugged my shoulders in disdain, and together, the sergeant leading
the way with the light, we crossed the dim meadow, and passed through
the gate where Mademoiselle had kissed my hand, and up the ghostly walk
between the rose bushes. I wondered uneasily what the Lieutenant would
be at, and what he intended; but the lanthorn-light which now fell on
the ground at our feet, and now showed one of us to the other, high-lit
in a frame of blackness, discovered nothing in his grizzled face but
settled hostility. He wheeled at the end of the walk to go to the main
door, but as he did so I saw the flutter of a white skirt by the stone
seat against the house, and I stepped that way.
‘Mademoiselle?’ I said softly. ‘Is it you?’
‘Clon?’ she muttered, her voice quivering. ‘What of him?’
‘He is past pain,’ I answered gently. ‘He is dead--yes, dead,
Mademoiselle, but in his own way. Take comfort.’
She stifled a sob; then before I could say more, the Lieutenant, with
his sergeant and light, were at my elbow. He saluted Mademoiselle
roughly. She looked at him with shuddering abhorrence.
‘Are you come to flog me too, sir?’ she said passionately. ‘Is it not
enough that you have murdered my servant?’
‘On the contrary, it was he who killed my Captain,’ the Lieutenant
answered, in another tone than I had expected. ‘If your servant is dead
so is my comrade.’
‘Captain Larolle?’ she murmured, gazing with startled eyes, not at him
but at me.
I nodded.
‘How?’ she asked.
‘Clon flung the Captain and himself--into the river pool above the
bridge,’ I said.
She uttered a low cry of awe and stood silent; but her lips moved and I
think that she prayed for Clon, though she was a Huguenot. Meanwhile,
I had a fright. The lanthorn, swinging in the sergeant’s hand, and
throwing its smoky light now on the stone seat, now on the rough
wall above it, showed me something else. On the seat, doubtless where
Mademoiselle’s hand had lain as she sat in the dark, listening and
watching and shivering, stood a pitcher of food. Beside her, in that
place, it was damning evidence, and I trembled least the Lieutenant’s
eye should fall upon it, lest the sergeant should see it; and then, in a
moment, I forgot all about it. The Lieutenant was speaking and his voice
was doom. My throat grew dry as I listened; my tongue stuck to my mouth
I tried to look at Mademoiselle, but I could not.
‘It is true that the Captain is gone,’ he said stiffly, ‘but others
are alive, and about one of them a word with you, by your leave,
Mademoiselle. I have listened to a good deal of talk from this fine
gentleman friend of yours. He has spent the last twenty-four hours
saying “You shall!” and “You shall not!” He came from you and took a
very high tone because we laid a little whip-lash about that dumb devil
of yours. He called us brutes and beasts, and but for him I am not sure
that my friend would not now be alive. But when he said a few minutes
ago that he was glad--glad of it, d--him!--then I fixed it in my mind
that I would be even with him. And I am going to be!’
‘What do you mean?’ Mademoiselle asked, wearily interrupting him. ‘If
you think that you can prejudice me against this gentleman--’
‘That is precisely what I am going to do! And a little more than that!’
he answered.
‘You will be only wasting your breath!’ she retorted.
‘Wait! Wait, Mademoiselle---until you have heard,’ he said. ‘For I swear
to you that if ever a black-hearted scoundrel, a dastardly sneaking spy
trod the earth, it is this fellow! And I am going to expose him. Your
own eyes and your own ears shall persuade you. I am not particular, but
I would not eat, I would not drink, I would not sit down with him! I
would rather be beholden to the meanest trooper in my squadron than to
him! Ay, I would, so help me Heaven!’
And the Lieutenant, turning squarely on his heel, spat on the ground.