I was impatient to learn who had come, and what was their errand with
me; and being still in that state of exaltation in which we seem to hear
and see more than at other times, I remarked a peculiar lagging in
the ascending footsteps, and a lack of buoyancy, which was quick to
communicate itself to my mind. A vague dread fell upon me as I stood
listening. Before the door opened I had already conceived a score of
disasters. I wondered that I had not inquired earlier concerning the
king’s safety, and en fin I experienced in a moment that complete
reaction of the spirits which is too frequently consequent upon an
excessive flow of gaiety.
I was prepared, therefore, for heavy looks, but not for the persons who
wore them nor the strange bearing the latter displayed on entering. My
visitors proved to be M. d’Agen and Simon Fleix. And so far well. But
the former, instead of coming forward to greet me with the punctilious
politeness which always characterised him, and which I had thought to
be proof against every kind of surprise and peril, met me with downcast
eyes and a countenance so gloomy as to augment my fears a hundredfold;
since it suggested all those vague and formidable pains which M. de
Rambouillet had hinted might await me in a prison. I thought nothing
more probable than the entrance after them of a gaoler laden with gyves
and handcuffs; and saluting M. Francois with a face which, do what I
would, fashioned itself upon his, I had scarce composure sufficient to
place the poor accommodation of my room at his disposal.
He thanked me; but he did it with so much gloom and so little
naturalness that I grew more impatient with each laboured syllable.
Simon Fleix had slunk to the window and turned his back on us. Neither
seemed to have anything to say. But a state of suspense was one which I
could least endure to suffer; and impatient of the constraint which
my friend’s manner was fast imparting to mine, I asked him at once and
abruptly if his uncle had returned.
‘He rode in about midnight,’ he answered, tracing a pattern on the floor
with the point of his riding-switch.
I felt some surprise on hearing this, since d’Agen was still dressed
and armed for the road, and was without all those prettinesses
which commonly marked his attire. But as he volunteered no further
information, and did not even refer to the place in which he found me,
or question me as to the adventures which had lodged me there, I let it
pass, and asked him if his party had overtaken the deserters.
‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘with no result.’
‘And the king?’
‘M. de Rambouillet is with him now,’ he rejoined, still bending over his
tracing.
This answer relieved the worst of my anxieties, but the manner of
the speaker was so distrait and so much at variance with the studied
INSOUCIANCE which he usually, affected, that I only grew more alarmed. I
glanced at Simon Fleix, but he kept his face averted, and I could gather
nothing from it; though I observed that he, too, was dressed for the
road, and wore his arms. I listened, but I could hear no sounds which
indicated that the Provost-Marshal was approaching. Then on a sudden I
thought of Mademoiselle de la Vire. Could it be that Maignan had proved
unequal to his task?
I started impetuously from my stool under the influence of the emotion
which this thought naturally aroused, and seized M. d’Agen by the arm.
‘What has happened?’ I exclaimed. ‘Is it Bruhl? Did he break into my
lodgings last night? What!’ I continued, staggering back as I read the
confirmation of my fears in his face. ‘He did?’
M. d’Agen, who had risen also, pressed my hand with convulsive energy.
Gazing into my face, he held me a moment thus embraced, His manner a
strange mixture of fierceness and emotion. ‘Alas, yes,’ he answered, ‘he
did, and took away those whom he found there! Those whom he found there,
you understand! But M. de Rambouillet is on his way here, and in a
few minutes you will be free. We will follow together. If we overtake
them--well. If not, it will be time to talk.’
He broke off, and I stood looking at him, stunned by the blow, yet in
the midst of my own horror and surprise retaining sense enough to wonder
at the gloom on his brow and the passion which trembled in his words.
What had this to do with him? ‘But Bruhl?’ I said at last, recovering
myself with an effort--‘how did he gain access to the room? I left it
guarded.’
‘By a ruse, while Maignan and his men were away,’ was the answer. ‘Only
this lad of yours was there. Bruhl’s men overpowered him.’
‘Which way has Bruhl gone?’ I muttered, my throat dry, my heart beating
wildly.
He shook his head. ‘All we know is that he passed through the south gate
with eleven horsemen, two women, and six led horses, at daybreak this
morning,’ he answered. ‘Maignan came to my uncle with the news, and M.
de Rambouillet went at once, early as it was, to the king to procure
your release. He should be here now.’
I looked at the barred window, the most horrible fears at my heart;
from it to Simon Fleix, who stood beside it, his attitude expressing
the utmost dejection. I went towards him. ‘You hound!’ I said in a low
voice, ‘how did it happen?’
To my surprise he fell in a moment on his knees, and raised his arm as
though to ward off a blow. ‘They imitated Maignan’s voice,’ he muttered
hoarsely. ‘We opened.’
‘And you dare to come here and tell me!’ I cried, scarcely restraining
my passion. ‘You, to whom I entrusted her. You, whom I thought devoted
to her. You have destroyed her, man!’
He rose as suddenly as he had cowered down. His thin, nervous face
underwent a startling change; growing on a sudden hard and rigid, while
his eyes began to glitter with excitement. ‘I--I have destroyed her?
Ay, mon dieu! I HAVE,’ he cried, speaking to my face, and no longer
flinching or avoiding my eye. ‘You may kill me, if you like. You do not
know all. It was I who stole the favour she gave you from your doublet,
and then said M. de Rosny had taken it! It was I who told her you had
given it away! It was I who brought her to the Little Sisters’, that she
might see you with Madame de Bruhl! It was I who did all, and destroyed
her! Now you know! Do with me what you like!’
He opened his arms as though to receive a blow, while I stood before
him astounded beyond measure by a disclosure so unexpected; full of
righteous wrath and indignation, and yet uncertain what I ought to do.
‘Did you also let Bruhl into the room on purpose?’ I cried at last.
‘I?’ he exclaimed, with a sudden flash of rage in his eyes. ‘I would
have died first!’
I do not know how I might have taken this confession; but at the moment
there was a trampling of horses outside, and before I could answer him
I heard M. de Rambouillet speaking in haughty tones, at the door below.
The Provost-Marshal was with him, but his lower notes were lost in the
ring of bridles and the stamping of impatient hoofs. I looked towards
the door of my room, which stood ajar, and presently the two entered,
the Marquis listening with an air of contemptuous indifference to the
apologies which the other, who attended at his elbow, was pouring forth.
M. de Rambouillet’s face reflected none of the gloom and despondency
which M. d’Agen’s exhibited in so marked a degree. He seemed, on the
contrary, full of gaiety and good-humour, and, coming forward and seeing
me, embraced me with the utmost kindness and condescension.
‘Ha! my friend,’ he said cheerfully, ‘so I find you here after all!
But never fear. I am this moment from the king with an order for your
release. His Majesty has told me all, making me thereby your lasting
friend and debtor. As for this gentleman,’ he continued, turning with
a cold smile to the Provost-Marshal, who seemed to be trembling in his
boots, ‘he may expect an immediate order also. M. de Villequier has
wisely gone a-hunting, and will not be back for a day or two.’
Racked as I was by suspense and anxiety, I could not assail him with
immediate petitions. It behoved me first to thank him for his prompt
intervention, and this in terms as warm as I could invent. Nor could
I in justice fail to commend the Provost; to him, representing the
officer’s conduct to me, and lauding his ability. All this, though
my heart was sick with thought and fear and disappointment, and every
minute seemed an age.
‘Well, well,’ the Marquis said with stately good-nature, ‘We will lay
the blame on Villequier then. He is an old fox, however, and ten to one
he will go scot-free. It is not the first time he has played this trick.
But I have not yet come to the end of my commission,’ he continued
pleasantly. ‘His Majesty sends you this, M. de Marsac, and bade me say
that he had loaded it for you.’
He drew from under his cloak as he spoke the pistol which I had left
with the king, and which happened to be the same M. de Rosny had given
me. I took it, marvelling impatiently at the careful manner in which he
handled it; but in a moment I understood for I found it loaded to the
muzzle with gold-pieces, of which two or three fell and rolled upon the
floor. Much moved by this substantial mark of the king’s gratitude,
I was nevertheless for pocketing them in haste; but the Marquis, to
satisfy a little curiosity on his part, would have me count them, and
brought the tale to a little over two thousand livres, without counting
a ring set with precious stones which I found among them. This handsome
present diverted my thoughts from Simon Fleix, but could not relieve the
anxiety I felt on mademoiselle’s account. The thought of her position so
tortured me that M. de Rambouillet began to perceive my state of mind,
and hastened to assure me that before going to the Court he had already
issued orders calculated to assist me.
‘You desire to follow this lady, I understand?’ he said. ‘What with the
king who is enraged beyond the ordinary by this outrage, and Francois
there, who seemed beside himself when he heard the news, I have not got
any very clear idea of the position.’
‘She was entrusted to me by--by one, sir, well known to you,’ I answered
hoarsely. ‘My honour is engaged to him and to her. If I follow on my
feet and alone, I must follow. If I cannot save her, I can at least
punish the villains who have wronged her.’
‘But the man’s wife is with them,’ he said in some wonder.
‘That goes for nothing,’ I answered.
He saw the strong emotion under which I laboured, and which scarcely
suffered me to answer him with patience; and he looked at me curiously,
but not unkindly. ‘The sooner you are off, the better then,’ he said,
nodding. ‘I gathered as much. The man Maignan will have his fellows
at the south gate an hour before noon, I understand. Francois has two
lackeys, and he is wild to go. With yourself and the lad there you will
muster nine swords. I will lend you two. I can spare no more, for we may
have an EMEUTE at any moment. You will take the road, therefore, eleven
in all, and should overtake them some time to-night if your horses are
in condition.’
I thanked him warmly, without regarding his kindly statement that my
conduct on the previous day had laid him under lasting obligations to
me. We went down together, and he transferred two of his fellows to me
there and then, bidding them change their horses for fresh ones and
meet me at the south gate. He sent also a man to my stable--Simon Fleix
having disappeared in the confusion--for the Cid, and was in the act of
inquiring whether I needed anything else, when a woman slipped through
the knot of horsemen who surrounded us as we stood in the doorway of
the house, and, throwing herself upon me, grasped me by the arm. It was
Fanchette. Her harsh features were distorted with grief, her cheeks
were mottled with the violent weeping in which such persons vent their
sorrow. Her hair hung in long wisps on her neck. Her dress was torn and
draggled, and there was a great bruise over her eye. She had the air of
one frantic with despair and misery.
She caught me by the cloak, and shook me so that I staggered. ‘I have
found you at last!’ she cried joyfully. ‘You will take me with you! You
will take me to her!’
Though her words tried my composure, and my heart went out to her,
I strove to answer her according to the sense of the matter. ‘It is
impossible, I said sternly. ‘This is a man’s errand. We shall have to
ride day and night, my good woman.’
‘But I will ride day and night too!’ she replied passionately, flinging
the hair from her eyes, and looking wildly from me to M. Rambouillet.
‘What would I not do for her? I am as strong as a man, and stronger.
Take me, take me, I say, and when I meet that villain I will tear him
limb for limb!’
I shuddered, listening to her; but remembering that, being country
bred, she was really as strong as she said, and that likely enough some
advantage might accrue to us from her perfect fidelity and devotion
to her mistress, I gave a reluctant consent. I sent one of M. de
Rambouillet’s men to the stable where the deaf man’s bay was standing,
bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and bring the horse to
the south gate; my intention being to mount one of my men on it, and
furnish the woman with a less tricky steed.
The briskness of these and the like preparations, which even for one
of my age and in my state of anxiety were not devoid, of pleasure,
prevented my thoughts dwelling on the future. Content to have M.
Francois’ assistance without following up too keenly the train of ideas
which his readiness suggested, I was satisfied also to make use of Simon
without calling him to instant account for his treachery. The bustle of
the streets, which the confirmation of the king’s speedy departure had
filled with surly, murmuring crowds, tended still further to keep my
fears at bay; while the contrast between my present circumstances, as I
rode through them well-appointed and well-attended, with the Marquis by
my side, and the poor appearance I had exhibited on my first arrival in
Blois, could not fail to inspire me with hope that I might surmount this
danger, also, and in the event find Mademoiselle safe and uninjured. I
took leave of M. de Rambouillet with many expressions of esteem on both
sides, and a few minutes before eleven reached the rendezvous outside
the south gate.
M. d’Agen and Maignan advanced to meet me, the former still presenting
an exterior so stern and grave that I wondered to see him, and could
scarcely believe he was the same gay spark whose elegant affectations
had more than once caused me to smile. He saluted me in silence; Maignan
with a sheepish air, which ill-concealed the savage temper defeat had
roused in him. Counting my men, I found we mustered ten only, but the
equerry explained that he had despatched a rider ahead to make inquiries
and leave word for us at convenient points; to the end that we might
follow the trail with as few delays as possible. Highly commending
Maignan for his forethought in this, I gave the word to start, and
crossing the river by the St. Gervais Bridge, we took the road for
Selles at a smart trot.
The weather had changed much in the last twenty-four hours. The sun
shone brightly, with a warm west wind, and the country already showed
signs of the early spring which marked that year. If, the first hurry of
departure over, I had now leisure to feel the gnawing of anxiety and the
tortures inflicted by an imagination which, far outstripping us, rode
with those whom we pursued and shared their perils, I found two sources
of comfort still open to me. No man who has seen service can look on a
little band of well-appointed horsemen without pleasure. I reviewed the
stalwart forms and stern faces which moved beside me and comparing their
decent order and sound equipments with the scurvy foulness of the men
who had ridden north with me, thanked God, and, ceased to wonder at the
indignation which Matthew and his fellows had aroused in mademoiselle’s
mind. My other source of satisfaction, the regular beat of hoofs and
ring of bridles continually augmented. Every step took us farther from
Blois--farther from the close town and reeking streets and the Court;
which, if it no longer seemed to me a shambles, befouled by one great
deed of blood--experience had removed that impression--retained an
appearance infinitely mean and miserable in my eyes. I hated and loathed
its intrigues and its jealousies, the folly which trifled in a closet
while rebellion mastered France, and the pettiness which recognised no
wisdom save that of balancing party and party. I thanked God that my
work there was done, and could have welcomed any other occasion that
forced me to turn my back on it, and sent me at large over the pure
heaths, through the woods, and under the wide heaven, speckled with
moving clouds.
But such springs of comfort soon ran dry. M. d’Agen’s gloomy rage and
the fiery gleam in Maignan’s eye would have reminded me, had I been
in any danger of forgetting the errand on which we were bound, and the
need, exceeding all other needs, which compelled us to lose no moment
that might be used. Those whom we followed had five hours’ start. The
thought of what might; happen in those five hours to the two helpless
women whom I had sworn to protect burned itself into my mind; so that
to refrain from putting spurs to my horse and riding recklessly forward
taxed at times all my self-control. The horses seemed to crawl. The men
rising and falling listlessly in their saddles maddened me. Though I
could not hope to come upon any trace of our quarry for many hours,
perhaps for days, I scanned the long, flat heaths unceasingly, searched
every marshy bottom before we descended into it, and panted for the
moment when the next low ridge should expose to our view a fresh track
of wood and waste. The rosy visions of the past night, and those fancies
in particular which had made the dawn memorable, recurred to me, as his
deeds in the body (so men say) to a hopeless drowning wretch. I grew to
think of nothing but Bruhl and revenge. Even the absurd care with which
Simon avoided the neighbourhood of Fanchette, riding anywhere so long
as he might ride at a distance from the angry woman’s tongue and
hand--which provoked many a laugh from the men, and came to be the joke
of the company--failed to draw a smile from me.
We passed through Contres, four leagues from Blois, an hour after noon,
and three hours later crossed the Cher at Selles, where we stayed
awhile to bait our horses. Here we had news of the party before us, and
henceforth had little doubt that Bruhl was making for the Limousin; a
district in which he might rest secure under the protection of Turenne,
and safely defy alike the King of France and the King of Navarre. The
greater the necessity, it was plain, for speed; but the roads in
that neighbourhood, and forward as far as Valancy, proved heavy and,
foundrous, and it was all we could do to reach Levroux with jaded
horses three hours after sunset. The probability that Bruhl would lie
at Chateauroux, five leagues farther on--for I could not conceive that
under the circumstances he would spare the women--would have led me to
push forward had it been possible; but the darkness and the difficulty
of finding a guide who would venture deterred me from the hopeless
attempt, and we stayed the night where we were.
Here we first heard of the plague; which was said to be ravaging
Chateauroux and all the country farther south. The landlord of the inn
would have regaled us with many stories of it, and particularly of the
swiftness with which men and even cattle succumbed to its attacks. But
we had other things to think of, and between anxiety and weariness had
clean forgotten the matter when we rose next morning.
We started shortly after daybreak, and for three leagues pressed on at
tolerable speed. Then, for no reason stated, our guide gave us the slip
as we passed through a wood, and was seen no more. We lost the road,
and had to retrace our steps. We strayed into a slough, and extracted
ourselves with difficulty. The man who was riding the bay I had
purchased forgot the secret which I had imparted to him, and got an ugly
fall. En fin, after all these mishaps it wanted little of noon,
and less to exhaust our patience, when at length we came in sight of
Chateauroux.
Before entering the town we had still an adventure; for we came at
a turn in the road on a scene as surprising as it was at first
inexplicable. A little north of the town, in a coppice of box facing the
south and west, we happed suddenly on a rude encampment, consisting of
a dozen huts and booths, set back from the road and formed, some of
branches of evergreen trees laid clumsily together, and some of sacking
stretched over poles. A number of men and women of decent appearance lay
on the short grass before the booths, idly sunning themselves; or moved
about, cooking and tending fires, while a score of children raced to and
fro with noisy shouts and laughter. The appearance of our party on the
scene caused an instant panic. The women and children fled screaming
into the wood, spreading the sound of breaking branches farther and
farther as they retreated; while the men, a miserable pale-faced set,
drew together, and seeming half-inclined to fly also, regarded us with
glances of fear and suspicion.
Remarking that their appearance and dress were not those of vagrants,
while the booths seemed to indicate little skill or experience in the
builders, I bade my companions halt, and advanced alone.
‘What is the meaning of this, my men?’ I said, addressing the first
group I reached. ‘You seem to have come a-Maying before the time. Whence
are you?’
‘From Chateauroux,’ the foremost answered sullenly. His dress, now I saw
him nearer, seemed to be that of a respectable townsman.
‘Why?’ I replied. ‘Have you no homes?’
‘Ay, we have homes,’ he answered with the same brevity.
‘Then why, in God’s name, are you here?’ I retorted, marking the gloomy
air and downcast faces of the group. ‘Have you been harried?’
‘Ay, harried by the Plague!’ he answered bitterly. ‘Do you mean to say
you have not heard? In Chateauroux there is one man dead in three. Take
my advice, sir--you are a brave company--turn, and go home again.’
‘Is it as bad as that?’ I exclaimed. I had forgotten the landlord’s
gossip, and the explanation struck me with the force of surprise.
‘Ay, is it! Do you see the blue haze?’ he continued, pointing with a
sudden gesture to the lower ground before us, over which a light pall
of summery vapour hung still and motionless. ‘Do you see it? Well, under
that there is death! You may find food in Chateauroux, and stalls for
your horses, and a man to take money; for there are still men there.
But cross the Indre, and you will see sights worse than a battle-field a
week old! You will find no living soul in house or stable or church, but
corpses plenty. The land is cursed! cursed for heresy, some say! Half
are dead, and half are fled to the woods! And if you do not die of the
plague, you will starve.’
‘God forbid!’ I muttered, thinking with a shudder of those before
us. This led me to ask him if a party resembling ours in number, and
including two women, had passed that way. He answered, Yes, after sunset
the evening before; that their horses were stumbling with fatigue
and the men swearing in pure weariness. He believed that they had not
entered the town, but had made a rude encampment half a mile beyond it;
and had again broken this up, and ridden southwards two or three hours
before our arrival.
‘Then we may overtake them to-day?’ I said.
‘By your leave, sir,’ he answered, with grave meaning. ‘I think you are
more likely to meet them.’
Shrugging my shoulders, I thanked him shortly and left him; the full
importance of preventing my men hearing what I had heard--lest the
panic which possessed these townspeople should seize on them also--being
already in my mind. Nevertheless the thought came too late, for on
turning my horse I found one of the foremost, a long, solemn-faced man,
had already found his way to Maignan’s stirrup; where he was dilating
so eloquently upon the enemy which awaited us southwards that the
countenances of half the troopers were as long as his own, and I saw
nothing for it but to interrupt his oration by a smart application of my
switch to his shoulders. Having thus stopped him, and rated him back to
his fellows, I gave the word to march. The men obeyed mechanically, we
swung into a canter, and for a moment the danger was over.
But I knew that it would recur again and again. Stealthily marking the
faces round me, and listening to the whispered talk which went on, I saw
the terror spread from one to another. Voices which earlier in the day
had been raised in song and jest grew silent. Great reckless fellows of
Maignan’s following, who had an oath and a blow for all comers, and
to whom the deepest ford seemed to be child’s play, rode with drooping
heads and knitted brows; or scanned with ill-concealed anxiety the
strange haze before us, through which the roofs of the town, and here
and there a low hill or line of poplars, rose to plainer view. Maignan
himself, the stoutest of the stout, looked grave, and had lost his
swaggering air. Only three persons preserved their SANG-FROID entire. Of
these, M. d’Agen rode as if he had heard nothing, and Simon Fleix as if
he feared nothing; while Fanchette, gazing eagerly forward, saw, it was
plain, only one object in the mist, and that was her Mistress’s face.
‘We found the gates of the town open, and this, which proved to be the
herald of stranger sights, daunted the hearts of my men more than the
most hostile reception. As we entered, our horses’ hoofs, clattering
loudly on the pavement, awoke a hundred echoes in the empty houses to
right and left. The main street, flooded with sunshine, which made its
desolation seem a hundred times more formidable, stretched away before
us, bare and empty; or haunted only by a few slinking dogs, and prowling
wretches, who fled, affrighted at the unaccustomed sounds, or stood and
eyed us listlessly as me passed. A bell tolled; in the distance we heard
the wailing of women. The silent ways, the black cross which marked
every second door, the frightful faces which once or twice looked out
from upper windows and blasted our sight, infected my men with terror so
profound and so ungovernable that at last discipline was forgotten;
and one shoving his horse before another in narrow places, there was
a scuffle to be first. One, and then a second, began to trot. The trot
grew into a shuffling canter. The gates of the inn lay open, nay seemed
to invite us to enter; but no one turned or halted. Moved by a single
impulse we pushed breathlessly on and on, until the open country was
reached, and we who had entered the streets in silent awe, swept out and
over the bridge as if the fiend were at our heels.
That I shared in this flight causes me no shame even now, for my men
were at the time ungovernable, as the best-trained troops are when
seized by such panics; and, moreover, I could have done no good by
remaining in the town, where the strength of the contagion was probably
greater and the inn larder like to be as bare, as the hillside. Few
towns are without a hostelry outside the gates for the convenience of
knights of the road or those who would avoid the dues, and Chateauroux
proved no exception to this rule. A short half-mile from the walls we
drew rein before a second encampment raised about a wayside house.
It scarcely needed the sound of music mingled with brawling voices to
inform us that the wilder spirits of the town had taken refuge here, and
were seeking to drown in riot and debauchery, as I have seen happen in a
besieged place, the remembrance of the enemy which stalked abroad in the
sunshine. Our sudden appearance, while it put a stop to the mimicry
of mirth, brought out a score of men and women in every stage of
drunkenness and dishevelment, of whom some, with hiccoughs and loose
gestures, cried to us to join them, while others swore horridly at being
recalled to the present, which, with the future, they were endeavouring
to forget.
I cursed them in return for a pack of craven wretches, and threatening
to ride down those who obstructed us, ordered my men forward; halting
eventually a quarter of a mile farther on, where a wood of groundling
oaks which still wore last year’s leaves afforded fair shelter. Afraid
to leave my men myself, lest some should stray to the inn and others
desert altogether, I requested M. d’Agen to return thither with Maignan
and Simon, and bring us what forage and food we required. This he did
with perfect success, though not until after a scuffle, in which
Maignan showed himself a match for a hundred. We watered the horses at
a neighbouring brook, and assigning two hours to rest and refreshment--a
great part of which M. d’Agen and I spent walking up and down in moody
silence, each immersed in his own thoughts--we presently took the road
again with renewed spirits.
But a panic is not easily shaken off, nor is any fear so difficult to
combat and defeat as the fear of the invisible. The terrors which food
and drink had for a time thrust out presently returned with sevenfold
force. Men looked uneasily in one another’s faces, and from them to the
haze which veiled all distant objects. They muttered of the heat,
which was sudden, strange, and abnormal at that time of the year. And
by-and-by they had other things to speak of. We met a man, who ran
beside us and begged of us, crying out in a dreadful voice that his wife
and four children lay unburied in the house. A little farther on, beside
a well, the corpse of a woman with a child at her breast lay poisoning
the water; she had crawled to it to appease her thirst, and died of the
draught. Last of all, in, a beech-wood near Lotier we came upon a lady
living in her coach, with one or two panic-stricken women for her only
attendants. Her husband was in Paris, she told me; half her servants
were dead, the rest had fled. Still she retained in a remarkable degree
both courage and courtesy, and accepting with fortitude my reasons
and excuses for perforce leaving her in such a plight, gave me a clear
account of Bruhl and his party, who had passed her some, hours before.
The picture of this lady gazing after us with perfect good-breeding,
as we rode away at speed, followed by the lamentations of her women,
remains with me to this day; filling my mind at once with admiration and
melancholy. For, as I learned later, she fell ill of the plague where we
left her in the beech-wood, and died in a night with both her servants.
The intelligence we had from her inspired us to push forward, sparing
neither spur nor horseflesh, in the hope that we might overtake Bruhl
before night should expose his captives to fresh hardships and dangers.
But the pitch to which the dismal sights and sounds I have mentioned,
and a hundred like them, had raised the fears of my following did much
to balk my endeavours. For a while, indeed, under the influence of
momentary excitement, they spurred their horses to the gallop, as if
their minds were made up to face the worst; but presently they checked
them despite all my efforts, and, lagging slowly and more slowly, seemed
to lose all spirit and energy. The desolation which met our eyes on
every side, no less than the death-like stillness which prevailed, even
the birds, as it seemed to us, being silent, chilled the most reckless
to the heart. Maignan’s face lost its colour, his voice its ring. As for
the rest, starting at a sound and wincing if a leather galled them,
they glanced backwards twice for once they looked forwards, and held
themselves ready to take to their heels and be gone at the least alarm.
Noting these signs, and doubting if I could trust even Maignan, I
thought it prudent to change my place, and falling to the rear, rode
there with a grim face and a pistol ready to my hand. It was not the
least of my annoyances that M. d’Agen appeared to be ignorant of any
cause for apprehension save such as lay before us, and riding on in the
same gloomy fit which had possessed him from the moment of starting,
neither sought my opinion nor gave his own, but seemed to have undergone
so complete and mysterious a change that I could think of one thing only
that could have power to effect so marvellous a transformation. I felt
his presence a trial rather than a help, and reviewing the course of our
short friendship, which a day or two before had been so great a delight
to me--as the friendship of a young man commonly is to one growing
old--I puzzled myself with much wondering whether there could be rivalry
between us.
Sunset, which was welcome to my company, since it removed the haze,
which they regarded with superstitious dread, found us still plodding
through a country of low ridges and shallow valleys, both clothed in
oak-woods. Its short brightness died away, and with it my last hope of
surprising Bruhl before I slept. Darkness fell upon us as we wended
our way slowly down a steep hillside where the path was so narrow and
difficult as to permit only one to descend at a time. A stream of some
size, if we might judge from the noise it made, poured through the
ravine below us, and presently, at the point where we believed the
crossing to be, we espied a solitary light shining in the blackness.
To proceed farther was impossible, for the ground grew more and more
precipitous; and, seeing this, I bade Maignan dismount, and leaving us
where we were, go for a guide to the house from which the light issued.
He obeyed, and plunging into the night, which in that pit; between the
hills was of an inky darkness, presently returned with a peasant and a
lanthorn. I was about to bid the man guide us to the ford, or to some
level ground where we could picket the horses, when Maignan gleefully
cried out that he had news. I asked what news.
‘Speak up, MANANT!’ he said, holding up his lanthorn so that the light
fell on the man’s haggard face and unkempt hair. ‘Tell his Excellency
what you have told me, or I will skin you alive, little man!’
‘Your other party came to the ford an hour before sunset,’ the peasant
answered, staring dully at us. ‘I saw them coming, and hid myself. They
quarrelled by the ford. Some were for crossing, and some not.’
‘They had ladies with them?’ M. d’Agen said suddenly.
‘Ay, two, your Excellency,’ the clown answered, ‘riding like men. In the
end they did not cross for fear of the plague, but turned up the river,
and rode westwards towards St. Gaultier.’
‘St. Gaultier!’ I said, ‘Where is that? Where does the road to it go to
besides?’
But the peasant’s knowledge was confined to his own neighbourhood. He
knew no world beyond St. Gaultier, and could not answer my question. I
was about to bid him show us the way down, when Maignan cried out that
he knew more.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Arnidieu! he heard them say where they were going to spend the night!’
‘Ha!’ I cried. ‘Where?’
‘In an old ruined castle two leagues from this, and between here and St.
Gaultier,’ the equerry answered, forgetting in his triumph both plague
and panic. ‘What do you say to that, your Excellency? It is so, sirrah,
is it not?’ he continued, turning to the peasant. ‘Speak, Master
Jacques, or I will roast you before a slow fire!’
But I did not wait to hear the answer. Leaping to the ground, I took the
Cid’s rein on my arm, and cried impatiently to the man to lead us down.