A NIGHT OF SURPRISES.
If the American had expected to surprise or delight his companion by
this curt announcement he was woefully disappointed, for De Catinat
approached him with a face which was full of sympathy and trouble, and
laid his hand caressingly upon his shoulder.
"My dear friend," said he, "I have been selfish and thoughtless. I have
made too much of my own little troubles and too little of what you have
gone through for me. That fall from your horse has shaken you more than
you think. Lie down upon this straw, and see if a little sleep may
not--"
"I tell you that the bishop is there!" cried Amos Green impatiently.
"Quite so. There is water in this jug, and if I dip my scarf into it
and tie it round your brow--"
"Man alive! Don't you hear me! The bishop is there."
"He is, he is," said De Catinat soothingly. "He is most certainly
there. I trust that you have no pain?"
The American waved in the air with his knotted fists. "You think that I
am crazed," he cried, "and, by the eternal, you are enough to make me
so! When I say that I sent the bishop, I mean that I saw to the job.
You remember when I stepped back to your friend the major?"
It was the soldier's turn to grow excited now. "Well?" he cried,
gripping the other's arm.
"Well, when we send a scout into the woods, if the matter is worth it,
we send a second one at another hour, and so one or other comes back
with his hair on. That's the Iroquois fashion, and a good fashion too."
"My God! I believe that you have saved me!"
"You needn't grip on to my arm like a fish-eagle on a trout! I went
back to the major, then, and I asked him when he was in Paris to pass by
the archbishop's door."
"Well? Well?"
"I showed him this lump of chalk. 'If we've been there,' said I,
'you'll see a great cross on the left side of the door-post. If there's
no cross, then pull the latch and ask the bishop if he'll come up to the
palace as quick as his horses can bring him.' The major started an hour
after us; he would be in Paris by half-past ten; the bishop would be in
his carriage by eleven, and he would reach Versailles half an hour ago,
that is to say, about half-past twelve. By the Lord, I think I've
driven him off his head!"
It was no wonder that the young woodsman was alarmed at the effect of
his own announcement. His slow and steady nature was incapable of the
quick, violent variations of the fiery Frenchman. De Catinat, who had
thrown off his bonds before he had lain down, spun round the cell now,
waving his arms and his legs, with his shadow capering up the wall
behind him, all distorted in the moonlight. Finally he threw himself
into his comrade's arms with a torrent of thanks and ejaculations and
praises and promises, patting him with his hands and hugging him to his
breast.
"Oh, if I could but do something for you!" he exclaimed. "If I could do
something for you!"
"You can, then. Lie down on that straw and go to sleep."
"And to think that I sneered at you! I! Oh, you have had your
revenge!"
"For the Lord's sake, lie down and go to sleep!" By persuasions and a
little pushing he got his delighted companion on to his couch again, and
heaped the straw over him to serve as a blanket. De Catinat was wearied
out by the excitements of the day, and this last great reaction seemed
to have absorbed all his remaining strength. His lids drooped heavily
over his eyes, his head sank deeper into the soft straw, and his last
remembrance was that the tireless American was seated cross-legged in
the moonlight, working furiously with his long knife upon one of the
billets of wood.
So weary was the young guardsman that it was long past noon, and the sun
was shining out of a cloudless blue sky, before he awoke. For a moment,
enveloped as he was in straw, and with the rude arch of the dungeon
meeting in four rough-hewn groinings above his head, he stared about him
in bewilderment. Then in an instant the doings of the day before, his
mission, the ambuscade, his imprisonment, all flashed back to him, and
he sprang to his feet. His comrade, who had been dozing in the corner,
jumped up also at the first movement, with his hand on his knife, and a
sinister glance directed towards the door.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" said he, "I thought it was the man."
"Has some one been in, then?"
"Yes; they brought those two loaves and a jug of water, just about dawn,
when I was settling down for a rest."
"And did he say anything?"
"No; it was the little black one."
"Simon, they called him."
"The same. He laid the things down and was gone. I thought that maybe
if he came again we might get him to stop."
"How, then?"
"Maybe if we got these stirrup leathers round his ankles he would not
get them off quite as easy as we have done."
"And what then?"
"Well, he would tell us where we are, and what is to be done with us."
"Pshaw! what does it matter since our mission is done?"
"It may not matter to you--there's no accounting for tastes--but it
matters a good deal to me. I'm not used to sitting in a hole, like a
bear in a trap, waiting for what other folks choose to do with me.
It's new to me. I found Paris a pretty close sort of place, but it's a
prairie compared to this. It don't suit a man of my habits, and I am
going to come out of it."
"There's no help but patience, my friend."
"I don't know that. I'd get more help out of a bar and a few pegs."
He opened his coat, and took out a short piece of rusted iron, and three
small thick pieces of wood, sharpened at one end.
"Where did you get those, then?"
"These are my night's work. The bar is the top one of the grate. I had
a job to loosen it, but there it is. The pegs I whittled out of that
log."
"And what are they for?"
"Well, you see, peg number one goes in here, where I have picked a hole
between the stones. Then I've made this other log into a mallet, and
with two cracks there it is firm fixed, so that you can put your weight
on it. Now these two go in the same way into the holes above here.
So! Now, you see, you can stand up there and look out of that window
without asking too much of your toe joint. Try it."
De Catinat sprang up and looked eagerly out between the bars.
"I do not know the place," said he, shaking his head.
"It may be any one of thirty castles which lie upon the south side of
Paris, and within six or seven leagues of it. Which can it be? And who
has any interest in treating us so? I would that I could see a coat of
arms, which might help us. Ah! there is one yonder in the centre of the
mullion of the window. But I can scarce read it at the distance.
I warrant that your eyes are better than mine, Amos, and that you can
read what is on yonder escutcheon."
"On what?"
"On the stone slab in the centre window."
"Yes, I see it plain enough. It looks to me like three turkey-buzzards
sitting on a barrel of molasses."
"Three allurions in chief over a tower proper, maybe. Those are the
arms of the Provence De Hautevilles. But it cannot be that. They have
no chateau within a hundred leagues. No, I cannot tell where we are."
He was dropping back to the floor, and put his weight upon the bar.
To his amazement, it came away in his hand.
"Look, Amos, look!" he cried.
"Ah, you've found it out! Well, I did that during the night."
"And how? With your knife?"
"No; I could make no way with my knife; but when I got the bar out of
the grate, I managed faster. I'll put this one back now, or some of
those folks down below may notice that we have got it loose."
"Are they all loose?"
"Only the one at present, but we'll get the other two out during the
night. You can take that bar out and work with it, while I use my own
picker at the other. You see, the stone is soft, and by grinding it you
soon make a groove along which you can slip the bar. It will be mighty
queer if we can't clear a road for ourselves before morning."
"Well, but even if we could get out into the courtyard, where could we
turn to then?"
"One thing at a time, friend. You might as well stick at the Kennebec
because you could not see how you would cross the Penobscot. Anyway,
there is more air in the yard than in here, and when the window is clear
we shall soon plan out the rest."
The two comrades did not dare to do any work during the day, for fear
they should be surprised by the jailer, or observed from without.
No one came near them, but they ate their loaves and drank their water
with the appetite of men who had often known what it was to be without
even such simple food as that. The instant that night fell they were
both up upon the pegs, grinding away at the hard stone and tugging at
the bars. It was a rainy night, and there was a sharp thunder-storm,
but they could see very well, while the shadow of the arched window
prevented their being seen. Before midnight they had loosened one bar,
and the other was just beginning to give, when some slight noise made
them turn their heads, and there was their jailer standing, open-mouthed
in the middle of the cell, staring up at them.
It was De Catinat who observed him first, and he sprang down at him in
an instant with his bar; but at his movement the man rushed for the
door, and drew it after him just as the American's tool whizzed past his
ear and down the passage. As the door slammed, the two comrades looked
at each other. The guardsman shrugged his shoulders and the other
whistled.
"It is scarce worth while to go on," said De Catinat.
"We may as well be doing that as anything else. If my picker had been
an inch lower I'd have had him. Well, maybe he'll get a stroke, or
break his neck down those stairs. I've nothing to work with now, but a
few rubs with your bar will finish the job. Ah, dear! You are right,
and we are fairly treed!"
A great bell had begun to ring in the chateau, and there was a loud buzz
of voices and a clatter of feet upon the stones. Hoarse orders were
shouted, and there was the sound of turning keys. All this coming
suddenly in the midst of the stillness of the night showed only too
certainly that the alarm had been given. Amos Green threw himself down
in the straw, with his hands in his pockets, and De Catinat leaned
sulkily against the wall, waiting for whatever might come to him.
Five minutes passed, however, and yet another five minutes, without
anyone appearing. The hubbub in the courtyard continued, but there was
no sound in the corridor which led to their cell.
"Well, I'll have that bar out, after all," said the American at last,
rising and stepping over to the window. "Anyhow, we'll see what all
this caterwauling is about." He climbed up on his pegs as he spoke, and
peeped out.
"Come up!" he cried excitedly to his comrade. "They've got some other
game going on here, and they are all a deal too busy to bother their
heads about us."
De Catinat clambered up beside him, and the two stood staring down into
the courtyard. A brazier had been lit at each corner, and the place was
thronged with men, many of whom carried torches. The yellow glare
played fitfully over the grim gray walls, flickering up sometimes until
the highest turrets shone golden against the black sky, and then, as the
wind caught them, dying away until they scarce threw a glow upon the
cheek of their bearer. The main gate was open, and a carriage, which
had apparently just driven in, was standing at a small door immediately
in front of their window. The wheels and sides were brown with mud, and
the two horses were reeking and heavy-headed, as though their journey
had been both swift and long. A man wearing a plumed hat and enveloped
in a riding-coat had stepped from the carriage, and then, turning round,
had dragged a second person out after him. There was a scuffle, a cry,
a push, and the two figures had vanished through the door. As it
closed, the carriage drove away, the torches and braziers were
extinguished, the main gate was closed once more, and all was as quiet
as before this sudden interruption.
"Well!" gasped De Catinat. "Is this another king's messenger they've
got?"
"There will be lodgings for two more here in a short time," said Amos
Green. "If they only leave us alone, this cell won't hold us long."
"I wonder where that jailer has gone?"
"He may go where he likes, as long as he keeps away from here. Give me
your bar again. This thing is giving. It won't take us long to have it
out." He set to work furiously, trying to deepen the groove in the
stone, through which he hoped to drag the staple. Suddenly he ceased,
and strained his ears.
"By thunder!" said he, "there's some one working on the other side."
They both stood listening. There were the thud of hammers, the rasping
of a saw, and the clatter of wood from the other side of the wall.
"What can they be doing?"
"I can't think."
"Can you see them?"
"They are too near the wall."
"I think I can manage," said De Catinat. "I am slighter than you." He
pushed his head and neck and half of one shoulder through the gap
between the bars, and there he remained until his friend thought that
perhaps he had stuck, and pulled at his legs to extricate him.
He writhed back, however, without any difficulty.
"They are building something," he whispered.
"Building!"
"Yes; there are four of them, with a lantern."
"What can they be building, then?"
"It's a shed, I think. I can see four sockets in the ground, and they
are fixing four uprights into them."
"Well, we can't get away as long as there are four men just under our
window."
"Impossible."
"But we may as well finish our work, for all that." The gentle
scrapings of his iron were drowned amid the noise which swelled ever
louder from without. The bar loosened at the end, and he drew it slowly
towards him. At that instant, however, just as he was disengaging it, a
round head appeared between him and the moonlight, a head with a great
shock of tangled hair and a woollen cap upon the top of it.
So astonished was Amos Green at the sudden apparition that he let go his
grip upon the bar, which, falling outwards, toppled over the edge of the
window-sill.
"You great fool!" shrieked a voice from below, "are your fingers ever to
be thumbs, then, that you should fumble your tools so? A thousand
thunders of heaven! You have broken my shoulder."
"What is it, then?" cried the other. "My faith, Pierre, if your fingers
went as fast as your tongue, you would be the first joiner in France."
"What is it, you ape! You have dropped your tool upon me."
"I! I have dropped nothing."
"Idiot! Would you have me believe that iron falls from the sky? I say
that you have struck me, you foolish, clumsy-fingered lout."
"I have not struck you yet," cried the other, "but, by the Virgin, if I
have more of this I will come down the ladder to you!"
"Silence, you good-for-naughts!" said a third voice sternly. "If the
work be not done by daybreak, there will be a heavy reckoning for
somebody."
And again the steady hammering and sawing went forward. The head still
passed and repassed, its owner walking apparently upon some platform
which they had constructed beneath their window, but never giving a
glance or a thought to the black square opening beside him. It was
early morning, and the first cold light was beginning to steal over the
courtyard, before the work was at last finished and the workmen had
left. Then at last the prisoners dared to climb up and to see what it
was which had been constructed during the night. It gave them a catch
of the breath as they looked at it. It was a scaffold.
There it lay, the ill-omened platform of dark greasy boards newly
fastened together, but evidently used often before for the same purpose.
It was buttressed up against their wall, and extended a clear twenty
feet out, with a broad wooden stair leading down from the further side.
In the centre stood a headsman's block, all haggled at the top, and
smeared with rust-coloured stains.
"I think it is time that we left," said Amos Green.
"Our work is all in vain, Amos," said De Catinat sadly.
"Whatever our fate may be--and this looks ill enough--we can but submit
to it like brave men."
"Tut, man; the window is clear! Let us make a rush for it."
"It is useless. I can see a line of armed men along the further side
of the yard."
"A line! At this hour!"
"Yes; and here come more. See, at the centre gate! Now what in the
name of heaven is this?"
As he spoke the door which faced them opened and a singular procession
filed out. First came two dozen footmen, walking in pairs, all carrying
halberds, and clad in the same maroon-coloured liveries. After them a
huge bearded man, with his tunic off, and the sleeves of his coarse
shirt rolled up over his elbows, strode along with a great axe over his
left shoulder. Behind him, a priest with an open missal pattered forth
prayers, and in his shadow was a woman, clad in black, her neck bared,
and a black shawl cast over her head and drooping in front of her bowed
face. Within grip of her walked a tall, thin, fierce-faced man, with
harsh red features, and a great jutting nose. He wore a flat velvet cap
with a single eagle feather fastened into it by a diamond clasp, which
gleamed in the morning light. But bright as was his gem, his dark eyes
were brighter still, and sparkled from under his bushy brows with a mad
brilliancy which bore with it something of menace and of terror.
His limbs jerked as he walked, his features twisted, and he carried
himself like a man who strives hard to hold himself in when his whole
soul is aflame with exultation. Behind him again twelve more
maroon-clad retainers brought up the rear of this singular procession.
The woman had faltered at the foot of the scaffold, but the man behind
her had thrust her forward with such force that she stumbled over the
lower step, and would have fallen had she not clutched at the arm of the
priest. At the top of the ladder her eyes met the dreadful block, and
she burst into a scream, and shrunk backwards. But again the man thrust
her on, and two of the followers caught her by either wrist and dragged
her forwards.
"Oh, Maurice! Maurice!" she screamed. "I am not fit to die!
Oh, forgive me, Maurice, as you hope for forgiveness yourself! Maurice!
Maurice!" She strove to get towards him, to clutch at his wrist, at his
sleeve, but he stood with his hand on his sword, gazing at her with a
face which was all wreathed and contorted with merriment. At the sight
of that dreadful mocking face the prayers froze upon her lips. As well
pray for mercy to the dropping stone or to the rushing stream. She
turned away, and threw back the mantle which had shrouded her features.
"Ah, sire!" she cried. "Sire! If you could see me now!"
And at the cry and at the sight of that fair pale face, De Catinat,
looking down from the window, was stricken as though by a dagger; for
there, standing beside the headsman's block, was she who had been the
most powerful, as well as the wittiest and the fairest, of the women of
France--none other than Francoise de Montespan, so lately the favourite
of the king.