FLORINE TO THE RESCUE
A shroud of consuming terror now possessed me. I crouched in the dank
corner clutching my sword, listening, vainly listening, for some sound
out of which to conjure up an assassin. A rat ran across my foot.
Screaming out I bounded erect and beat about me with blind desperation.
One hand touched the other and shrank from its mate. They were as ice.
Oh, God, the horrid silence! How weightily it bore upon me, stripping
me of voice, of courage and of hope. How many, many times I braced
myself against the wall, cold with fear at the apprehension of an
attack by some demon of the night. How many, many times I sank again
into the same dumb misery when no enemy appeared to do me hurt.
So long it had been since the tones of human speech blessed my ears, I
almost hoped the marshal's men might come, that I might hear his stern
command, "Hang him to yonder window ledge." A rasping thirst roasted
my throat until my tongue gritted and ground as a rusted clapper in a
bell. I touched it with my hand. It was as dry as Broussard's.
Broussard! A quiver in the musty air set me all a shudder; in every
rustle I felt again the last convulsions of the dead. Dull lights
gathered when I closed my eyes, and rested upon his swollen features,
their white eyes following me in hate.
Coolly and logically as if it concerned someone else, the reason of it
all crept into my morbid brain. I was mad; mad from hunger, thirst and
terror. Yes, mad, and felt not one whit sorry of it; nay, rejoiced
rather, for it meant a freedom of the spirit. So insidiously this
knowledge forced itself upon me, it brought no shock, I even dimly
wondered that any other condition ever existed. Verily, men are
happier for a gentle frenzy. Then, indeed, are all things leveled, all
barriers removed. Gone were all my pigmy troubles, vanished into
nothingness. Engulfed in a common ruin lay all fragments of desire;
the search for reward, the dread of punishment--all petty figments of
the imagination were powerful now no more. The fall of reason crushed
every human hope and dulled the edge of every human fear. What cared I
now for food, for water; for honor or for shame? My mind, imperial and
free from artificial restraints, plunged riotously into forbidden
realms, I reveled in the exaltation of chainless thought, and drank
from the deepest wells of rebellion delicious draughts of secret sin,
thanking, yea thanking, this sweet madness which gave a glorious
independence.
What repugnance had I now for yon piece of foul and rotting carrion!
What mattered if but lately a breathing man it had strangled in my
grip. By the gods, a knightly feat and most bravely done! And I
laughed at my former fear, not loud, but such as laughed the fiends of
hell when Lucifer rose against his Prince. Low I chuckled, then
shivered at my own unnatural voice.
Dead now to every sense of physical loathing I advanced steadfastly
towards where he lay. Shorn of human companions my wretchedness sought
a lonely comradeship with the piece of mortal clay. Turning now and
again to beat back some skinny hand which snatched my garments, to slap
in the face some evil sprite which thrust its sneer upon me, I walked
in resolution across the floor. I fancied again I heard the tread of
men in the passage. Pleased at the babble of the children of my own
imagination, I stood to listen. Yes, by the wit of a fool, I'll
indulge the jest, a joyous jibe and a merry.
The low shuffle of cautious feet came again. The latch clanked ever so
softly as if some hand without lifted it gently, oh so gently raised
it. "Ha! here you are, seeking to frighten me again, but I know you
well. No, no, you'll scare me no more; I'll play a merry game with
you." So I hid myself in the dark, and thought to play a prank upon
the evil Thing. Held my breath.
Elated to find I owned so wondrously fertile a brain I saw the door
open little by little without a creak. A current of liberated air
brushed by my cheek. So real it was, I smiled. The door swung wider
and wider yet, in the dark I saw it. Verily the sight of a madman is
sharp. The wind blew more chill and strong. I saw a gleam peeping
beneath a cloak as from a hidden lanthorn; I bethought me I would catch
the tiny wanderer from the floor and hold it in my hand. It came
crawling and crawling, on and on, wavering to my feet. So many times
that night had I manned myself valiantly to fight a shadow, I only
laughed in silence and contempt at this.
Behold the folly of a madman's thought. Yet the creation of it all
gave me exquisite pleasure, as a child might find delight in some
strange toy from which it could call weird shapes at will. On it moved
with a noiseless, gliding motion; now inside the door, now coming,
coming, coming--nearly to me. Now it let fall a timorous blade of
light along the floor. It reached Broussard's body. Its foot struck
him. It stooped, threw the light full upon him. Open fell the
concealing mantle, showing the barren stones, the corpse, the ghastly
upturned face of the strangled man.
The woman--for it was a woman--dropped to her knees beside him, called
him, felt of his clammy head, and suffered but a single scream of swift
affright to leave her lips. From the unhooded lanthorn burst out a
spreading yellow glow. Her scream awoke me to a consciousness of
reality. From my own unlocked tongue of terror came its answer. I
joined my voice to hers, defied the hush of slumbering centuries and
filled that quaking room with a perfect deluge of reverberating
shrieks. Many others, men, with cloaks, some having lights, some none,
rushed in behind the woman. From that time I knew nothing.
* * * * * *
I awakened from a dreamy languor; a subtle essence of perfume floated
through my senses. A gentle touch of some kindly hand was bathing my
temples. Fearful lest this sweet illusion vanish with the others, I
kept my eyes firmly closed, and soon abandoned myself wholly to the
subduing influences of natural slumber.
"Has he stirred, Florine?"
"No, Monsieur, but his head is cooler now--he sleeps, hush! Perhaps
another day he will be better. How he raved through the night. Poor,
young gentleman, he quite exhausted himself."
"Ah, well, Florine, he is young, and with such nurses as thou and
Nannette he will of a surety recover."
I turned my head and smiled a feeble recognition of Jerome and Florine.
The other woman I had never seen; she was much older than Florine and
had a kind, motherly face.
"What day is it?"
"The morning of Sunday."
It was Wednesday night when Jerome and I went to the ball.
I looked about me. The lodgings were those I had taken at the Austrian
Arms, yet much changed in little things. The vase of flowers there in
the window, the neat-swept hearth, the cheerful fire, and that
indefinable something which gives a touch of womanliness to a room.
Florine, perhaps.
"Ugh! I'm so glad to be here," and I shuddered at the remembrance of
my prison and suffering.
"Poor dear," said the older woman in a voice full of sympathy, "don't
worry; you are in comfort now, and will soon be strong again."
"Am I wounded in any wise?" I inquired, for I knew not the manner of my
coming there.
"No, no, my lad," broke in Jerome's hearty reassurance, "not a bit,
just worn and starved out. Truly, boy, you had a rough adventure. By
'Od's blood, I'd hate to have the like! Has he taken any food Florine?"
"Nothing but the wine, and a sup or two of broth. Here is something
for him now," and she brought me a most tempting array of soup, hot
viands and victuals of which I feared to eat as I desired.
Though Florine and Jerome would not permit me to disturb myself with
vain conversation, yet by dint of questions and listening when they
talked apart, thinking I slept, I found how it all came about. It
seems Florine saw and recognized me when I returned to the gaming room,
having left Madame la Princesse. She knew too, in some way which I did
not learn, that neither Broussard nor I had left Bertrand's that night.
This, though the Provost's men had been searching the city for us both.
She kept her knowledge to herself. When the turbulence calmed down
somewhat and sentries were placed to guard the house, she occupied
herself in slipping about looking for my hiding place. It took but a
little while for her, familiar as she was with the house, to find the
room where Broussard and I had taken refuge. Listening at the door she
heard our angry voices and the scuffle within. This may have been when
I was choking him. Horrible! horrible!
At any rate she feared to intrude, and at once set out to seek help.
The girl throughout acted with astonishing promptness and judgment.
Florine had recognized Madame la Princesse--all Paris knew the
eccentric lady--so went straight to her. At first denied admission she
sent up a note couched in such terms as gained for her an immediate
private interview--indeed the Princess herself was careful it should be
strictly private.
Madame knew nothing of me except the request I made concerning Jerome,
and sending the papers to the Austrian Arms. Florine went without
delay to that place. This was about midday. Meanwhile Jerome, much
troubled that I did not appear during the night, pursued our original
plan of watching the house, and arranged his men at windows, and in the
street, in such a way as not to attract attention. One of them had
seen me working at the window but never dreamed it was I. Jerome found
the house already doubly guarded by the Provost's men, to his infinite
disgust. He was a handy chap though, and not to be outdone. Dressing
himself as a clumsy lout, he found little difficulty in worming the
transactions of the night before out of one of the guard off duty. A
drink or two together at the sign of the "Yellow Flagon" fetched this
information.
Jerome was much wearied through his long watching and anxiety when he
returned to the Austrian Arms. The hostler at the inn turned him aside
from the front door by a gesture, so that he entered by another way.
Claude acquainted him that a lady in the public room desired to speak
with M. Jerome de Greville, and would not be denied. Jerome's custom
with visitors was to see them first himself, before Claude told them
whether he was in or no.
Peeping through an aperture he saw the lady walking impatiently up and
down the room, tapping at the window, mending the fire, and expressing
her haste in many other pettish manners so truly feminine. It was
Florine. He knew the girl well from his frequenting Bertrand's during
this piece of business. Jerome sent her word he would be in, and
changing his costume to one he usually wore, presented himself before
her in the public room.
"Is it I you seek, M. de Greville, Mademoiselle?" he inquired, politely.
"Oh! Monsieur de Greville, it is you; I'm so glad." She came forward
with a pretty air of perplexity and surprise, for Florine had a dainty
woman's way about her, showing even through her present trouble. She
bore herself more steadily that she had not to deal with some
severe-faced stranger, but a gallant gentleman, whose mien was not that
from which timid maidens were prone to fly.
"Oh, Monsieur de Greville, I know not what to say, now that I am well
met with you."
"And by my faith, Mademoiselle, I am sure no word of mine would grace
those pretty lips as well as thine own sweet syllables. So _I_ can not
tell you what to say."
Florine pouted her dissent, yet was not in earnest angered--she was a
woman. Jerome saw her business lay deeper than mere jest and badinage,
so he spoke her more seriously.
"I pray you Mademoiselle--Florine?--am I right? Be seated."
Florine had no thought for gallantries; she declined the proffered
seat, and, standing, proceeded at once to the point of her mission.
"There is a young gentleman in our house," and she blushed a little,
Jerome declared to me afterwards, "in Bertrand's wine room--you know
the place? locked up, and I am not certain whether he lives or is dead.
I can not tell Monsieur his name, but you know him. Oh, he was kind to
me, and I would willingly do something to save him. It is so hard to
be only a woman. The Provost has the house guarded."
"I know it," Jerome put in drily.
"This gentleman gave your name and lodgings to the lady who was with
him there last night, and she it was who sent you the packet." Florine
had run on hurriedly, unheeding Jerome's blank look of astonishment.
This was probably a shrewd guess on her part, yet it squarely struck
the mark.
"Lady? Sent the papers? Who? What lady?" Jerome asked before she
could answer anything.
"That I must not tell, Monsieur. Oh, come, quick; get him away from
there; if our people find him they may do him harm. Monsieur is a
brave gentleman, a friend of his, is it not true? Come."
Jerome drew the facts pretty well out of the excited girl, knowing
somewhat of the circumstances and guessing the rest--all in an
exceeding short space of time. Florine told him as accurately as she
could in what room I lay, leaving him to locate the window from the
street. From this point the plan was simple enough. Jerome and
Florine arrived at Bertrand's by different routes, Florine passing in
unconcernedly, and Jerome, clad again as a stupid country knave, walked
by the house to discover my outer window.
It was at this time that the falling of the spur conveyed to him the
intelligence of my life and place of confinement. After this Jerome
had to depend greatly upon the quick-witted woman.
It would be a long story, and a bootless, were I to tell how it fell
out that Florine had a friend, the same kind-faced woman who helped her
watch beside my bed; the window of this friend's garret room opened
almost directly opposite Florine's own poor apartment. Only a narrow,
dingy alley lay between; so scant was the space the upper stories came
near to touching across it. Florine's friend, after some tearful
persuasion, consented to aid the rescue of such a gallant gentleman as
I was described to be. The girl could come and go at will. The friend
permitted Jerome and three of his men to hide in her room. From her
window Jerome cast a light cord into Florine's window, she drawing a
stouter rope across with it, and made fast. It now became a trifling
feat for these nimble adventurers to swing themselves across to
Florine's room, but twelve feet or so away. Once inside Bertrand's
they proceeded with abundant caution, all of which near came to naught
through Florine's sudden shriek and my own nervous clamor. It shamed
me heartily.
"Truly, comrade, thou hast good lungs," Jerome told me days afterward.
"It took all our strength to shut thee of thy wind."
When the four men found me a helpless body in their hands, they were
greatly troubled. However, Florine insisted that I be carried to her
room where she could conceal me.
Once there they found means to truss me up like a bale of merchandise
and sling me across the alley again, whence I was conveyed, still
unconscious, through out-of-the-way streets to the Austrian Arms.
And so it was I came to my strength, safe in my own lodgings in Rue St.
Denis, with Florine and her kind-hearted friend to nurse me.