THE WHIRLING OF THE WHEEL
As old as church or cloister, the massive wheel of the Mount had, in
the past, played prominent part in the affairs of succeeding
communities on the rock. It, or the hempen strand it controlled, had
primarily served as a link between the sequestered dwellers, and the
flesh-pots and material comforts of the lower world. Through its use
had my lord, the abbot, been ever enabled to keep full the mighty
wine-butts of his cellars; to provide good cheer for the tables of the
brethren, and to brighten his cold stone interiors with the fresh
greens of Flemish tapestry, or the sensuous hues of rugs and fabrics
from seraglio or mosque. Times less ancient had likewise claimed its
services, and even in recent years, by direction of his Excellency, the
Governor, had it occasionally been used for the hoisting of goods,
wares, or giant casks, overcumbersome for men or mules.
Toward this simple monkish contrivance, the summit's rough lift, or
elevator, wherein serfs or henchmen had walked like squirrels in a cage
to bring solace to generations of isolated dwellers, the Black Seigneur
had at first stepped impetuously; then stopped, hardly breathing, to
look over his shoulder at the door that had been left unfastened. An
involuntary question flashing through his brain--the cause of this
seeming carelessness--found almost immediate answer in his mind, and
the certainty that he stood not there alone--a consciousness of some
one else, near, became abruptly confirmed.
"What are you doing, soldier?" A voice, rough, snarling, drew swiftly
his glance toward a presence, intuitively divined; an undersized,
grotesque figure that had entered the place but a few moments before
and now appeared from behind boxes and casks where he had been about to
retire to his mattress in a corner.
"What do you want?" repeated this person, the anger and viciousness on
his distorted features, revealed in the moonlight from the large
opening, like that of some animal unwarrantedly disturbed.
"You, landlord of the thieves' inn!" And inaction giving way to
movement on the intruder's part, a knife that had flashed back in the
hand of the hunchback, with his query, was swiftly twisted from him and
kicked aside, while a scream of mingled pain and rage became abruptly
suppressed. Struggling and writhing like a wildcat, Jacques proved no
mean antagonist; with a strength incredible for one of his size,
supplemented by the well-known agility of his kind, he scratched,
kicked, and had managed to get the other's hand in his mouth, when,
making an effort to throw off that clinging burden, the Black Seigneur
dashed the dwarf's head violently against the wooden support of the
place. At once all belligerency left the hunchback, and, releasing his
hold, he sank to the ground.
An instant the intruder regarded the inert form; then, going to the
door, latched and locked it with a key he found inside. Having thus in
a measure secured himself from immediate interruption without--for any
one trying the door would conclude the wheel-room vacant, or that the
dwarf slept there or in the store-house beyond--the Black Seigneur
walked to the aperture, and reaching up, began to pay out the rope from
a pulley above. As he did so, with feet braced, he leaned over to
follow in its descent a small car along the almost perpendicular
planking from the mouth of the wheel-room to the rocks, several hundred
feet below.
A sudden slackening of the rope--assurance that the car, at the end of
the line, had reached the loading-spot below without the
fortifications--and the young man straightened; in an attitude of
attention, stood listening. But the stillness, impregnated only with a
faint underbreath, the far-away murmur of water, or the just audible
droning of insects near the fig-trees on the rocks, continued unbroken.
An impatient frown gathered on his brow; more eagerly he bent forward
to gaze down, when through the air a distant sound--the low, melancholy
hoot of an owl--was wafted upward.
Upon him at the aperture, this night-call, common to the Mount and its
environs, acted in magical manner, and swiftly had he stepped toward
the wheel, when an object, intervening, stirred; started to stagger to
its feet. At once was the young man's first impelling movement
arrested; but, thus forcibly drawn from his purpose, he did not long
pause to contemplate; his hand, drawing the soldier's sword, held it
quickly at the hunchback's throat.
"A sound, and you know what to expect!"
With the bare point at his flesh, Jacques, dully hearing, vaguely
comprehending, could, indeed, guess and the fingers he had
involuntarily raised to push the bright blade aside, fell, while at the
same time any desire to attempt to call out, or arouse the guard, was
replaced by an entirely different emotion in his aching brain. Never
before had he actually felt that sharp touch--the prelude to the final
thrust. At the sting of it, a tremor ran through him, while cowardice,
his besetting quality, long covered by growl and egotism in his
strength and hideousness to terrify, alone shone from his
unprepossessing yellow features.
"You were brave enough with the soldiers at your beck!" went on a
determined voice whose ironical accents in no wise served to alleviate
his panic. "When you had only a mountebank to deal with! But get up!"
contemptuously. "And," as the hunchback obeyed, his crooked legs
shaking in the support of his misshapen frame, "into the wheel with
you!"
"The wheel!" stammered the dwarf. "Why--what--"
"To take a little of your own medicine! _Pardi_! What a voluble
fellow! In with you, or--"
With no more words the hunchback, staggering, hardly knowing what he
did, entered the ancient abbot's machine for hoisting. But as he
started to walk in the great wheel at the side of his captor, a picture
of the past--the times he, himself, had forced prisoners to the wheel,
stimulating with jeer and whip--arose mockingly before him, and the
incongruous present seemed, in contrast, like a black waking dream.
That it was no dream, however, and that the awakening would never
occur, he well knew, and malevolently though fearfully he eyed the
rope, coming in over the pulley at the aperture; to be wound around and
around by a smaller wheel, attached to the larger, and--drawing up what?
An inkling of the sort of merchandise to be expected, under the
circumstances, could but flash through his mind, together with a more
vivid consciousness of the only course open for him--to cry out,
regardless of consequences! Perhaps he might even have done so, but at
that instant--as if the other had read the thought--came the cold touch
of a bare blade on his neck; and with a sudden chill, the brief heroic
impulse passed.
More stealthily now he began to study his companion in the wheel, while
a question, suddenly occurring, reiterated itself in his brain. This
man--who was he? And what did he know of the mountebank, or his,
Jacques', dealings with the clown? That his captor was no soldier of
the rock, or belonged there, the hunchback felt by this time assured,
and a growing suspicion of the other's identity brought home with new
force to the dwarf the thankless part chance, perhaps, had assigned to
him in that night's work. And at the full realization of the
consequences, should his surmise prove correct--what must ultimately
happen to himself in that event, when unwilling cooperation at the
wheel should become known--almost had he again reached the desperate
point of calling out; but at that moment a turn in the wheel brought to
the level of the aperture, the car. In it, or clinging thereto, were a
number of figures who, as soon as the rope stopped, sprang noiselessly
to the platform.
"Seigneur, we hardly dared hope--"
"We obeyed orders, but--"
Gazing through the spokes of the wheel, and listening to their
whispered exclamations, any lingering doubt as to who his captor was
could no longer be entertained by the hunchback. These new-comers took
no pains to conceal it; even when the dwarf's presence became known to
them and unceremoniously was he dragged forth--they displayed a
contemptuous disregard of him as a factor to interfere, not calculated
to dull the edge of his apprehension! Too late now might he regret
that pusillanimity that had caused him to draw back from an immortal
role; already was the car again descending!
It came up loaded; went down once more, reappeared. On the little
platform now were more than a dozen men assembled, but to Jacques this
force looked multiplied. Amid the confusion of his thoughts, vaguely
could he hear orders given; caught something about the need for quiet,
haste, overpowering the guard; then saw the door open, and the men,
like shadows, go out; leaving him alone. No; with two black figures;
ominous; armed. He could see the glitter of their weapons, and
ventured to move his thick tongue, when, fiercely silenced, he crouched
down; waited, with hands clenched, an interminable period; until
faintly from afar sounded the note of a night-bird.
Roughly jerked to his feet, between them he walked to the door; heard
it close; stepped out into the night. Many times had he made his way
between wheel-room and guard-house, but now the route seemed strange,
and, looking around near the structures at the entrance to his dungeons
Jacques shook his head as if to rid his brain of some fantasy. But the
scene did not change; the guard-house remained--familiar; unlike, with
unknown faces peering from it, and an imperious voice issuing commands
to him, once unquestioned commander here!
And comprehending what was being said, he struck his breast violently;
with curses would have answered that the keys were his own; the
dungeons, too, and what they held, and that he would never lead them
there; never open those doors! But this grim, savage, determined band
beat down his arms, and his courage; and, with the shadow of the grave
again before him, the dwarf walked on; past the stable into the
guard-house, where familiar forms once had been seated, and into the
passage leading to the dungeons beyond.