THE DUNGEON OF PORTILLAC.
The desperadoes were as much astonished as was De Catinat when they
found that they had recaptured in this extraordinary manner the
messenger whom they had given up for lost. A volley of oaths and
exclamations broke from them, as, on tearing off the huge red coat of
the coachman, they disclosed the sombre dress of the young American.
"A thousand thunders!" cried one. "And this is the man whom that
devil's brat Latour would make out to be dead!"
"And how came he here?"
"And where is Etienne Arnaud?"
"He has stabbed Etienne. See the great cut in the coat!"
"Ay; and see the colour of his hand! He has stabbed him, and taken his
coat and hat."
"What! while we were all within stone's cast!"
"Ay; there is no other way out of it."
"By my soul!" cried old Despard, "I had never much love for old Etienne,
but I have emptied a cup of wine with him before now, and I shall see
that he has justice. Let us cast these reins round the fellow's neck
and hang him upon this tree."
Several pairs of hands were already unbuckling the harness of the dead
horse, when De Vivonne pushed his way into the little group, and with a
few curt words checked their intended violence.
"It is as much as your lives are worth to touch him," said he.
"But he has slain Etienne Arnaud."
"That score may be settled afterwards. To-night he is the king's
messenger. Is the other all safe?"
"Yes, he is here."
"Tie this man, and put him in beside him. Unbuckle the traces of the
dead horse. So! Now, De Carnac, put your own into the harness.
You can mount the box and drive, for we have not very far to go."
The changes were rapidly made; Amos Green was thrust in beside De
Catinat, and the carriage was soon toiling up the steep incline which it
had come down so precipitately. The American had said not a word since
his capture, and had remained absolutely stolid, with his hands crossed
over his chest whilst his fate was under discussion. Now that he was
alone once more with his comrade, however, he frowned and muttered like
a man who feels that fortune has used him badly.
"Those infernal horses!" he grumbled. "Why, an American horse would
have taken to the water like a duck. Many a time have I swum my old
stallion Sagamore across the Hudson. Once over the river, we should
have had a clear lead to Paris."
"My dear friend," cried De Catinat, laying his manacled hands upon those
of his comrade, "can you forgive me for speaking as I did upon the way
from Versailles?"
"Tut, man! I never gave it a thought."
"You were right a thousand times, and I was, as you said, a fool--a
blind, obstinate fool. How nobly you have stood by me! But how came
you there? Never in my life have I been so astonished as when I saw
your face."
Amos Green chuckled to himself. "I thought that maybe it would be a
surprise to you if you knew who was driving you," said he. "When I was
thrown from my horse I lay quiet, partly because I wanted to get a grip
of my breath, and partly because it seemed to me to be more healthy to
lie than to stand with all those swords clinking in my ears. Then they
all got round you, and I rolled into the ditch, crept along it, got on
the cross-road in the shadow of the trees, and was beside the carriage
before ever they knew that I was gone. I saw in a flash that there was
only one way by which I could be of use to you. The coachman was
leaning round with his head turned to see what was going on behind him.
I out with my knife, sprang up on the front wheel, and stopped his
tongue forever."
"What! without a sound!"
"I have not lived among the Indians for nothing."
"And then?"
"I pulled him down into the ditch, and I got into his coat and his hat.
I did not scalp him."
"Scalp him? Great heavens! Such things are only done among savages."
"Ah! I thought that maybe it was not the custom of the country. I am
glad now that I did not do it. I had hardly got the reins before they
were all back and bundled you into the coach. I was not afraid of their
seeing me, but I was scared lest I should not know which road to take,
and so set them on the trail. But they made it easy to me by sending
some of their riders in front, so I did well until I saw that by-track
and made a run for it. We'd have got away, too, if that rogue hadn't
shot the horse, and if the beasts had faced the water."
The guardsman again pressed his comrade's hands. "You have been as true
to me as hilt to blade," said he. "It was a bold thought and a bold
deed."
"And what now?" asked the American.
"I do not know who these men are, and I do not know whither they are
taking us."
"To their villages, likely, to burn us."
De Catinat laughed in spite of his anxiety. "You will have it that we
are back in America again," said he. "They don't do things in that way
in France."
"They seem free enough with hanging in France. I tell you, I felt like
a smoked-out 'coon when that trace was round my neck."
"I fancy that they are taking us to some place where they can shut us up
until this business blows over."
"Well, they'll need to be smart about it."
"Why?"
"Else maybe they won't find us when they want us."
"What do you mean?"
For answer, the American, with a twist and a wriggle, drew his two hands
apart, and held them in front of his comrade's face.
"Bless you, it is the first thing they teach the papooses in an Indian
wigwam. I've got out of a Huron's thongs of raw hide before now, and it
ain't very likely that a stiff stirrup leather will hold me. Put your
hands out." With a few dexterous twists he loosened De Catinat's bonds,
until he also was able to slip his hands free. "Now for your feet, if
you'll put them up. They'll find that we are easier to catch than to
hold."
But at that moment the carriage began to slow down, and the clank of the
hoofs of the riders in front of them died suddenly away. Peeping
through the windows, the prisoners saw a huge dark building stretching
in front of them, so high and so broad that the night shrouded it in
upon every side. A great archway hung above them, and the lamps shone
on the rude wooden gate, studded with ponderous clamps and nails. In
the upper part of the door was a small square iron grating, and through
this they could catch a glimpse of the gleam of a lantern and of a
bearded face which looked out at them. De Vivonne, standing in his
stirrups, craned his neck up towards the grating, so that the two men
most interested could hear little of the conversation which followed.
They saw only that the horseman held a gold ring up in the air, and that
the face above, which had begun by shaking and frowning, was now nodding
and smiling. An instant later the head disappeared, the door swung open
upon screaming hinges, and the carriage drove on into the courtyard
beyond, leaving the escort, with the exception of De Vivonne, outside.
As the horses pulled up, a knot of rough fellows clustered round, and
the two prisoners were dragged roughly out. In the light of the torches
which flared around them they could see that they were hemmed in by high
turreted walls upon every side. A bulky man with a bearded face, the
same whom they had seen at the grating, was standing in the centre of
the group of armed men issuing his orders.
"To the upper dungeon, Simon!" he cried. "And see that they have two
bundles of straw and a loaf of bread until we learn our master's will."
"I know not who your master may be," said De Catinat, "but I would ask
you by what warrant he dares to stop two messengers of the king while
travelling in his service?"
"By St. Denis, if my master play the king a trick, it will be but tie
and tie," the stout man answered, with a grin. "But no more talk!
Away with them, Simon, and you answer to me for their safe-keeping."
It was in vain that De Catinat raved and threatened, invoking the most
terrible menaces upon all who were concerned in detaining him. Two
stout knaves thrusting him from behind and one dragging in front forced
him through a narrow gate and along a stone-flagged passage, a small man
in black buckram with a bunch of keys in one hand and a swinging lantern
in the other leading the way. Their ankles had been so tied that they
could but take steps of a foot in length. Shuffling along, they made
their way down three successive corridors and through three doors, each
of which was locked and barred behind them. Then they ascended a
winding stone stair, hollowed out in the centre by the feet of
generations of prisoners and of jailers, and finally they were thrust
into a small square dungeon, and two trusses of straw were thrown in
after them. An instant later a heavy key turned in the lock, and they
were left to their own meditations.
Very grim and dark those meditations were in the case of De Catinat.
A stroke of good luck had made him at court, and now this other of ill
fortune had destroyed him. It would be in vain that he should plead his
own powerlessness. He knew his royal master well. He was a man who was
munificent when his orders were obeyed, and inexorable when they
miscarried. No excuse availed with him. An unlucky man was as
abhorrent to him as a negligent one. In this great crisis the king had
trusted him with an all-important message, and that message had not been
delivered. What could save him now from disgrace and from ruin?
He cared nothing for the dim dungeon in which he found himself, nor for
the uncertain fate which hung over his head, but his heart turned to
lead when he thought of his blasted career, and of the triumph of those
whose jealousy had been aroused by his rapid promotion. There were his
people in Paris, too--his sweet Adele, his old uncle, who had been as
good as a father to him. What protector would they have in their
troubles now that he had lost the power that might have shielded them?
How long would it be before they were exposed once more to the
brutalities of Dalbert and his dragoons? He clenched his teeth at the
thought, and threw himself down with a groan upon the litter of straw
dimly visible in the faint light which streamed through the single
window.
But his energetic comrade had yielded to no feeling of despondency.
The instant that the clang of the prison door had assured him that he
was safe from interruption he had slipped off the bonds which held him
and had felt all round the walls and flooring to see what manner of
place this might be. His search had ended in the discovery of a small
fireplace at one corner, and of two great clumsy billets of wood, which
seemed to have been left there to serve as pillows for the prisoners.
Having satisfied himself that the chimney was so small that it was
utterly impossible to pass even his head up it, he drew the two blocks
of wood over to the window, and was able, by placing one above the other
and standing on tiptoe on the highest, to reach the bars which guarded
it. Drawing himself up, and fixing one toe in an inequality of the
wall, he managed to look out on to the courtyard which they had just
quitted. The carriage and De Vivonne were passing out through the gate
as he looked, and he heard a moment later the slam of the heavy door and
the clatter of hoofs from the troop of horsemen outside. The seneschal
and his retainers had disappeared; the torches, too, were gone, and,
save for the measured tread of a pair of sentinels in the yard twenty
feet beneath him, all was silent throughout the great castle.
And a very great castle it was. Even as he hung there with straining
hands his eyes were running in admiration and amazement over the huge
wall in front of him, with its fringe of turrets and pinnacles and
battlements all lying so still and cold in the moonlight. Strange
thoughts will slip into a man's head at the most unlikely moments. He
remembered suddenly a bright summer day over the water when first he had
come down from Albany, and how his father had met him on the wharf by
the Hudson, and had taken him through the water-gate to see Peter
Stuyvesant's house, as a sign of how great this city was which had
passed from the Dutch to the English. Why, Peter Stuyvesant's house and
Peter Stuyvesant's Bowery villa put together would not make one wing of
this huge pile, which was itself a mere dog-kennel beside the mighty
palace at Versailles. He would that his father were here now; and
then, on second thoughts, he would not, for it came back to him that he
was a prisoner in a far land, and that his sight-seeing was being done
through the bars of a dungeon window.
The window was large enough to pass his body through if it were not for
those bars. He shook them and hung his weight upon them, but they were
as thick as his thumb and firmly welded. Then, getting some strong hold
for his other foot, he supported himself by one hand while he picked
with his knife at the setting of the iron. It was cement, as smooth as
glass and as hard as marble. His knife turned when he tried to loosen
it. But there was still the stone. It was sandstone, not so very hard.
If he could cut grooves in it, he might be able to draw out bars,
cement, and all. He sprang down to the floor again, and was thinking
how he should best set to work, when a groan drew his attention to his
companion.
"You seem sick, friend," said he.
"Sick in mind," moaned the other. "Oh, the cursed fool that I have
been! It maddens me!"
"Something on your mind?" said Amos Green, sitting down upon his billets
of wood. "What was it, then?"
The guardsman made a movement of impatience. "What was it? How can you
ask me, when you know as well as I do the wretched failure of my
mission. It was the king's wish that the archbishop should marry them.
The king's wish is the law. It must be the archbishop or none.
He should have been at the palace by now. Ah, my God! I can see the
king's cabinet, I can see him waiting, I can see madame waiting, I can
hear them speak of the unhappy De Catinat--" He buried his face in his
hands once more.
"I see all that," said the American stolidly, "and I see something
more."
"What then?"
"I see the archbishop tying them up together."
"The archbishop! You are raving."
"Maybe. But I see him."
"He could not be at the palace."
"On the contrary, he reached the palace about half an hour ago."
De Catinat sprang to his feet. "At the palace!" he screamed. "Then who
gave him the message?"
"I did," said Amos Green.