TO TAKE OR LEAVE.
The house in the Corraterie, near the Porte Tertasse, differed in no
outward respect from its neighbours. The same row of chestnut trees
darkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows,
the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. A
kindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within its
walls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it had
absorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and minds
of two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above all
things in the world--life; and for the other, that which the young set
above life--love.
Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before his
eyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room in
that house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and he
could not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleeping
he saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to the
wall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and the
placid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the room
itself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and rich
furnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it a
marvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up and
up the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in his
mind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, alone
or in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fell
a-dreaming of the room and the box--the room and the box that held his
life?
Had this been the worst! But it was not. There were times, bitter times,
dark hours, when the pains were upon him, and he saw his fate clear
before him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him in
its clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lock
himself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionate
fits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which the
knowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to--_the
house_. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he could
not come at it! He could not come at it! But he would! He would!
It issued in that always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possession
of the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild and
desperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others were
merely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, held
out a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arresting
Basterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket together
with his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible;
nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there were
rumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at the
council table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrest
would be made, the search instituted, the papers and casket seized. Nay,
if he did not give the word, it was possible that others might.
But when he thought of that step, that irrevocable step, he knew that he
would not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much as
two minutes' notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those who
came to take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on the
floor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought--at
the thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance of
life, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breath
of spring, the Syndic trembled and shook and sweated with rage and fear.
No, he would not have the courage. He would not dare. For a week and
more after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach the
scholar's lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was his
fear of arousing Basterga's suspicions and setting him on his guard.
At the end of a fortnight or so, the choice of ways was presented to him
in a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edge
of perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. The
day was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transacted
monotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thing
only--beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small as
the doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass--had fallen asleep, or
nearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit and
nervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it was
unfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed the
current of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital.
Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringing
in his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knew
where he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drew
all eyes upon him.
"Basterga!"
Some knew he had slept and smiled; more had not noticed it, and turned,
struck by the strange tone in which he echoed the name. Fabri, the First
Syndic, who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter from
the secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. "Ay, Basterga," he
said, "an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?"
He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe that
he was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, small
things hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known.
Mechanically, to gain time, he repeated the name: "Basterga?"
"Yes," Fabri repeated. "Do you know him?"
"Caesar Basterga, is it?"
"That is his name."
He was himself now, though his nerves still shook; himself so far as he
could be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to be
challenged. "Yes, I know him," he said slowly, "if you mean a Paduan, a
scholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me--I dare say it would
be six weeks back--for a licence to stay a while in the town."
"Which you granted?"
"In the usual course. He had letters from"--Blondel shrugged his
shoulders--"I forget from whom. What of him?" with a steady look at
Baudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence if
trouble were brewing it was to be expected. "What of him?" he repeated,
throwing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with his
fingers.
"This," Fabri answered, waving the letter which he had in his hands.
"But I do not know what that is," Blondel replied coolly. "I am
afraid"--he looked at his neighbour on either side--"was I asleep?"
"I fear so," said one, while the other smiled. They were his very good
friends and allies.
"Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not often," with a keen
look at Baudichon, "caught napping! And now, M. Fabri," he continued
with his usual practical air, "I have delayed the business long enough.
What is it? And what is that?" He pointed to the letter in the First
Syndic's hands.
"Well, it is really your affair in the main," Fabri answered, "since as
Fourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city's safety;
and ours afterwards. It is a warning," he continued, his eyes reverting
to the page before him, "from our secret agent in Turin, whose name I
need not mention"--Blondel nodded--"informing us of a fresh attempt to
be made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed of
hurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. These
he has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Having
reached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladders
which are being made to fit into one another. They are covered with
black cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. It
sounds--circumstantial?" Fabri commented, breaking off and looking at
Blondel.
The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I think so. I think
also," he continued, "that with the aid of my friend, Captain Blandano,
I shall be able to give a good account of the rafts and the ladders."
Baudichon the councillor interposed. "But that is not all," he muttered,
rolling ponderously in his chair as he spoke. He was a stout man with a
double chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman of
the more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singular
appearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supported
him. Petitot, who bore the nickname of "the Inquisitor," represented the
Venerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste by
the turbulent spirits whom the war had left in the city, as well as by
the lower ranks, who upheld Blondel. In sense and vigour the Fourth
Syndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty of
purpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. "That is
not all," Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and ally
Petitot, "I want to know----"
"One moment, M. Baudichon, if you please," Fabri said, cutting him
short, amid a partial titter; the phrase "I want to know" was so often
on the councillor's lips that it had become ridiculous. "One moment; as
you say, that is not all. The writer proceeds to warn us that the Grand
Duke's lieutenant, M. d'Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian side
of the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels which
is to be dragged up to the gate----"
"With the ladders and rafts?"
"They seem to belong to another scheme," Fabri said, as he turned back
and conned the letter afresh.
"With M. d'Albigny at the bottom of both?"
"Yes."
"Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answered
contemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal--which
ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder--I think Captain
Blandano and I may deal with him."
A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all.
There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who had
daughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over the
world since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew--to be
speedily followed by the sack of Antwerp--had paled the cheek of Europe.
Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to prove
a match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty. That the
Papists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the head
and front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy which
they had refused to her children, these men did not believe. The
presence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, ever
threatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. They
feared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the small
hours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed by
cries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons.
To these men Blondel seemed over confident. But no one took on himself
to gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of the
guard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the word
was left with him. "Is that all, Messer Fabri?" he asked.
"Yes, if we lay it to heart."
"But I want to know," Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, "what is
to be done about--Basterga."
"Basterga? To be sure I was forgetting him," Fabri answered. "What is to
be done? What do you say, Messer Blondel? What are we to do about him?"
"I will tell you if you will tell me what the point is that touches him.
You forget, Messer Syndic"--with a somewhat sickly smile--"that I was
asleep."
"The letter," Fabri replied, returning to it, "touches him seriously. It
asserts that a person of that name is here in the Grand Duke's interest,
that he is in the secret of these plots, and that we should do well to
expel him, if we do not seize and imprison him."
"And you want to know----"
"I want to know," Baudichon answered, rolling in his chair as was his
habit when delivering himself, "what you know of him, Messer Blondel."
Blondel turned rudely on him, perhaps to hide a slight ebb of colour
from his cheeks. "What I know?" he said.
"Ay, ay."
"No more than you know!"
"But," Petitot retorted in his dry, thin voice, "it was you, Messer
Blondel, not Messer Baudichon, who gave him permission to reside in the
town."
"And I want to know," Baudichon chimed in remorselessly, "what
credentials he had. That is what I want to know!"
"Credentials? Oh, something formal! I don't know what," Blondel replied
rudely. He looked to the secretary who sat at the foot of the table. "Do
you know?" he asked.
"No, Messer Syndic," the man replied. "I remember that a licence was
granted to him in the name of Caesar Basterga, graduate of Padua; and
doubtless--for licences to reside are not granted without such--he had
letters, but I do not recall from whom. They would be returned to him
with the licence."
"And that is all," Petitot said, his long nose drooping, his inquisitive
eyes looking over his glasses, "that you know about him, Messer
Blondel?"
Did they know anything, and, if so, what did they know? Blondel
hesitated. This persistence, this continual harping on one point, began
to alarm him. But he carried it bravely. "Do you mean as to his
convictions?" he asked with a sneer.
"No, I mean at all!"
"I want to know," Baudichon added--the parrot phrase began to carry to
Blondel's ears the note of fate--"what you know about him."
This time a pause betrayed Blondel's hesitation. Should he admit that he
had been to Basterga's lodging; or dared he deny a fact that might imply
an intimacy greater than he had acknowledged? A faint perspiration rose
on his brow as he decided that he dare not. "I know that he lives in a
house in the Corraterie," he answered, "a house beside the Porte
Tertasse, and that he is a scholar--I believe of some repute. I know so
much," he continued boldly, "because he wrote to thank me for the
licence, and, by way of acknowledgment, invited me to visit his lodging
to view a rare manuscript of the Scriptures. I did so, and remained a
few minutes with him. That is all I know of him. I suppose," with a grim
look at Baudichon and the Inquisitor, who had exchanged meaning glances,
"it is not alleged that I am in the plot with him? Or that he has
confided to me the Grand Duke's plans?"
Fabri laughed heartily at the notion, and the laugh, which was echoed by
four-fifths of those at the table, cleared the air. Petitot, it is true,
limited himself to a smile, and Baudichon shrugged his shoulders. But
for the moment the challenge silenced them. The game passed to Blondel's
hands, and his spirits rose. "If M. Baudichon wants to know more about
him," he said contemptuously, "I dare say that the information can be
obtained."
"The point is," Fabri answered, "what are we to do?"
"As to--what?"
"As to expelling him or seizing him."
"Oh!" The exclamation fell from Blondel's lips before he could stay it.
He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which he was to be placed.
"We have the letter before us," the First Syndic continued, "and apart
from it, we know nothing for this person or against him." He looked
round the table and met assenting glances. "I think, therefore, that it
will be well, to leave it to Messer Blondel. He is responsible for the
safety of the city, and it should be for him to say what is to be
done."
"Yes, yes," several voices agreed. "Leave it to Messer Blondel."
"You assent to that, Messer Baudichon?"
"I suppose so," the councillor muttered reluctantly.
"Very good," said Fabri. "Then, Messer Blondel, it remains with you to
say what is to be done."
The Fourth Syndic hesitated, and with reason; had Baudichon, had the
Inquisitor known the whole, they could hardly have placed him in a more
awkward dilemma. If he took the course that prudence in his own
interests dictated, and shielded Basterga, his action might lay him open
to future criticism. If, on the other hand, he gave the word to expel or
seize him, he broke at once and for ever with the man who held his last
chance of life in the hollow of his hand.
And yet, if he dared adopt the latter course, if he dared give the word
to seize, there was a chance, and a good chance, that he would find the
_remedium_ in the casket; for with a little arrangement Basterga might
be arrested out of doors, or be allured to a particular place and there
be set upon. But in that way lay risk; a risk that chilled the current
of the Syndic's blood. There was the chance that the attempt might fail;
the chance that Basterga might escape; the chance that he might have the
_remedium_ about him--and destroy it; the chance that he might have
hidden it. There were so many chances, in a word, that the Syndic's
heart stood still as he enumerated them, and pictured the crash of his
last hope of life.
He could not face the risk. He could not. Though duty, though courage
dictated the venture, craven fear--fear for the loss of the new-born
hope that for a week had buoyed him up--carried it. Hurriedly at last,
as if he feared that he might change his mind, he pronounced his
decision.
"I doubt the wisdom of touching him," he said. "To seize him if he be
guilty proclaims our knowledge of the plot; it will be laid aside, and
another, of which we may not be informed, will be hatched. But let him
be watched, and it will be hard if with the knowledge we have we cannot
do something more than frustrate his scheme."
After an interval of silence, "Well," Fabri said, drawing a deep breath
and looking round, "I believe you are right. What do you say, Messer
Baudichon?"
"Messer Blondel knows the man," Baudichon answered drily. "He is,
therefore, the best judge."
Blondel reddened. "I see you are determined to lay the responsibility on
me," he cried.
"The responsibility is on you already!" Petitot retorted. "You have
decided. I trust it may turn out as you expect."
"And as you do not expect!"
"No; but you see"--and again the Inquisitor looked over his
glasses--"you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversed
with him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to do
with him. By the way," he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mere Royaume's, is
he not? Is there not a Spaniard of the name of Grio lodging there?"
Blondel did not answer and the secretary looked up from his register.
"An old soldier, Messer Petitot?" he said. "Yes, there is."
"Perhaps you know him also, Messer Blondel?"
"Yes, I know him. He served the State," Blondel answered quietly. He had
winked at more than one irregularity on the part of Grio, and at the
sound of the name anger gave place to caution. "I have also," he
continued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will that
satisfy you, Messer Petitot?"
The councillor leaned forward. "Fac salvam Genevam!" he replied in a
voice low and not quite steady. "Do that, keep Geneva safe--guard well
our faith, our wives and little ones--and I care not what you do!" And
he rose from his seat.
The Fourth Syndic did not answer. Those few words that in a moment
raised the discussion from the low level of detail on which the
Inquisitor commonly wasted himself, and set it on the true plane of
patriotism--for with all his faults Petitot was a patriot--silenced
Blondel while they irritated and puzzled him. Why did the man assume
such airs? Why talk as if he and he alone cared for Geneva? Why bear
himself as if he and he alone had shed and was prepared to shed his
blood for the State? Why, indeed? Blondel snarled his indignation, but
made no other answer.
A few minutes later, as he descended the stairs, he laughed at the
momentary annoyance which he had felt. What did it matter to him, a
dying man, who had the better or who the worse, who posed, or who
believed in the pose? It was of moment indeed that his enemies had
contrived to fix him with the responsibility of arresting Basterga, or
of leaving him at large: that they had contrived to connect him with the
Paduan, and made him accountable to an extent which did not please him
for the man's future behaviour. But yet again what did that
matter--after all? Of what moment was it--after all? He was a dying man.
Was anything of moment to him except the one thing which Basterga had it
in his power to grant or to withhold, to give or to deny?
Nothing! Nothing!
He pondered on what had passed, and wondered if he had not done
foolishly. Certainly he had let slip a grand, a unique opportunity of
seizing the man and of snatching the _remedium_. He had put the chance
from him at the risk of future blame. Now he was of two minds about it.
Of two minds: but of one mind only about another thing. As he veered
this way and that in his mind, now cursing his cowardice, and now
thanking God that he had not taken the irrevocable step,
Opportunity
That work'st our thoughts into desires, desires
To resolutions,
kindled in him a burning impatience to act. If he did not act, if he
were not going to act, if he were not going to take some surer and safer
step, he had been foolish and trebly foolish to let slip the opportunity
that had been his.
But he would act. For a fortnight he had abstained from visiting
Basterga, and had even absented himself from the neighbourhood of the
house lest the scholar's suspicions should be wakened. But to what
purpose if he were not going to act? If he were not going to build on
the ground so carefully prepared, to what end this wariness and this
abstention?
Within an hour the Syndic, long so wary, had worked himself into a fever
and, rather than remain inactive, was ripe for any step, however
venturesome, provided it led to the _remedium_. He had still the
prudence to postpone action until night; but when darkness had fairly
set in and the bell of St. Peter, inviting the townsfolk to the evening
preaching, had ceased to sound--an indication that he would meet few in
the streets--he cloaked himself, and, issuing forth, bent his steps
across the Bourg du Four in the direction of the Corraterie.
Even now he had no plan in his mind. But amid the medley of schemes that
for a week had been hatching in his brain, he hoped to be guided by
circumstances to that one which gave surest promise of success. Nor was
his courage as deeply rooted as he fancied: the day had told on his
nerves; he shivered in the breeze and started at a sound. Yet as often
as he paused or hesitated, the words "A dying man! A dying man!" rang in
his ears and urged him on.