IN THE DEVIL'S CUPS.
"A NEW companion must justify his election," said the sullen man, who
had throughout shown ill disposition towards Noémi.
"The new companion shall do so," answered Noémi. A deep colour flushed
her olive skin. "For that I ask you to follow me, as well as that other
comrade who was as inclined to be civil as you to be insolent. First,
send down below and bid the two servants of the Tardes go on to Ste.
Soure and tarry there till I go for them."
"You--to Ste. Soure?" said her father.
"Not now. But I do not desire to have the Tardes' men with me. They are
not of the Company."
"What do you mean?"
"That I will justify my election," said Noémi. "And for that I take
these two mates--and no others."
"It is not well that I go," said the sulky man. "But, if go I must, it
is unwillingly."
"And I go with all my heart," said he whose name was Roger.
"What do you intend to do, child?" asked her father, puzzled and uneasy.
"This is a farce. Take off the cross."
"No, it is no farce. I will not remove the cross till I have shown that
I am worthy to be enrolled in your band."
"Then what will you do?"
"That is my secret."
"And you demand two of the companions?"
"Yes; two of the companions--he named Roger, and----"
"Amanieu?"
"Roger and Amanieu. I ask that they may accompany me and serve me and do
my bidding--on my first _chevauchée_."
"La Pucelle! Another Joan! To the English! To the English! Vive la
Pucelle de Domme! We will pit her against the Pucelle de Domrémi." The
men shouted, hammered the table, and tossed the knucklebones about. They
treated the matter as a joke.
Amanieu, the sulky man, was very angry at being fixed upon to make one
of a party that would incur ridicule and expose him to the jeers of his
fellows.
Le Gros Guillem now interfered. "If my daughter has said you are to
attend, and I consent, you go. Guard her well."
Amanieu murmured no more. There was no insubordination in a Company.
The serving-men of the Tarde brothers were dismissed, and then Noémi
prepared to depart along with her new attendants. Her father asked no
further questions. The horses were brought from a stable cut in the
rocks. They were nimble and sure of footing. Access to the stable was
only to be had by a drawbridge let fall over a chasm, and from the
further side of the gap a narrow track descended rapidly to the bottom
of the valley.
At Noémi's request the men had drawn on jackets that concealed their red
crosses, and no one seeing the little party would have conjectured that
the girl was attended by some of the greatest ruffians and cut-throats
in the country. She knew the character of the men, but was not afraid.
The fear of her father entertained by all the band, and the discipline
maintained in the Company, would prevent them from doing her harm.
Guillem was a man of few words, but of decision in action. The look of
his pale eyes was enough, as he sent the men with Noémi, to take from
them any spirit of insolence or rebellion had they entertained it. They
knew without more words than the three uttered by Guillem, that if she
came to harm through them, by their neglect, in any way, he was the man
to put them to death by slow and horrible torture. They had seen that
done once on a comrade who had disregarded a half-expressed order. He
had been roasted over a slow fire.
The two men asked no questions when Noémi took the road to Sarlat, and
along the road she did not speak with them. At Sarlat she bade them hold
back while she went on alone and on foot to make an inquiry. Apparently
satisfied at what she had learnt, she returned to the men, remounted her
horse, and said, "Forward!"
She rode along the way to La Roque, a little ahead of the two men. The
day was closing in. It would be dark by the time they reached her home.
Presently they came to a long and tedious ascent. The way had been at
one time paved, but had not been repaired for a century. It ran up a
hog's back or hill, through coppice that was cut every fourteen years
for the making of charcoal, direct to the point where was the Devil's
Table.
She halted, and turned to her followers; and they drew rein.
"Listen to me," she said. "You do not know whither I am leading you, for
what purpose you follow me, or what is to be gained thereby. But one
thing you do know, that you are placed under my command by Le Gros
Guillem, and that you disobey at your peril. I will tell you wherefore
you are following me; it is for your own advantage. You have carried
away seven men from the Del' Peyras, and you have put them to ransom at
a hundred livres. That is a large sum. It is to be divided among you
into fourteen equal shares. But let me tell you that if this sum be not
found--you will get nothing. The seven men will be no gain to you when
cast away mutilated. Jean del' Peyra has been this day to Sarlat, he has
been to the Bishop, he has been to the Jew Levi, he has been to the
Tardes at Gageac, I cannot say where he has not been, to whom he has not
applied--but nowhere can he raise the sum. It was too large. But that is
no concern of mine. The money must be found, or you get nothing. I can
tell you where the sum is to be found, whence it can be taken. But
understand this--no more shall be exacted than the hundred livres. I
will not have a denier more, nor a denier less. You agree to this?"
"Yes, we shall be glad of the money; we do not want to hurt the men of
Ste. Soure, and their wounds are no pay to us."
"Very well. Then we understand each other. You would never receive any
ransom but for me. It is I who bring you where it shall be paid."
"And where is that?" asked Amanieu.
"On the Devil's Table," answered Noémi.
The men shrank back. Their superstitious fears were aroused.
"Do not be alarmed. We shall not conjure up the foul fiend; but we shall
squeeze one of his servants. Let us ride on and await him at the Table."
Then she turned towards La Roque, and in silence they continued to
ascend the hill.
When they had nearly reached the summit she drew up again, and said to
the men--
"I will explain it all. The Jew Levi comes this way. He has been
gathering in money at La Roque, and my cousins have paid him a large
sum. He has been engaged there all day, and he made my cousins, the
Tardes, promise to send servants with him to see him safe on his way
back to Sarlat. They agreed to send him on his way as far as the Devil's
Table; and he named the time at which he would be ready to start. I
know, if he has started on his way as he proposed, that he will be
approaching now. From the Table onward to Sarlat he would be alone, but
alone he could not convey all the money. What he purposes doing I cannot
say. We will wait and see. He desired that he might be attended all the
way to Sarlat, but that the Tardes would not allow. The distance was too
great, the men were needed, they would not be home till too late. He was
forced to accept half of what he had asked. Understand, no more is to be
taken from the Jew than the ransom money. It were better that a Jew
should lose than that seven Christian households should be ruined."
The men laughed. They were easy in their minds now that they understood
they were to play a familiar game--only they grudged that they were to
half accomplish it. If they caught a Jew let them squeeze and wring him
out till not a drop of the golden syrup were left in him.
Noémi had, however, her own ideas in the matter. She justified her act
to her conscience as a deed of necessity. It was a marvel that her
conscience felt any scruple in the matter, as in the Middle Ages none
hesitated to defraud a Jew, none considered that a son of Israel had any
right to have meted out to him the like justice as to a Christian.
Before the Cathedral gates at Toulouse every Good Friday a Jew had to
present himself to have his ears boxed by the Bishop, and to acknowledge
in his person on behalf of his race its guilt in having crucified the
Messiah.
"Here!" said the girl, "tie up your horses and mine and lie in the
scrub."
Before them, on the left hand of the track, rose the Devil's Table; a
mound of earth had anciently covered it, but rain had washed away the
earth from the capstone and showed the points of those blocks which
upheld it. The slab was a singularly uncouth stone, with its flat old
bed underneath, the upper surface uneven and dinted with cup-holes.
The _routiers_ had not been long in hiding before the voice of Levi was
heard, and the tramp of his ass.
"I thank you, good fellows. It was gracious of your master to lend me
your escort, for, Heaven knows! I am too poor to need one. My ass is
laden with lentils. You eat them in your fasting times, and when not
fasting, eat pig. I cannot touch the unclean meat, and so eat lentils
all the year. All my little moneys I carried with me have been expended
in lentils for my wife Rachel and me. Ah! this must last us a long time.
We are so poor, and lentils are so dear."
"You will give us something to drink your health, Levi," asked one of
Tardes' men.
"Oh! certainly. Open both your hands and I will fill them with lentils.
When Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in the palace of King
Darius, they refused the meats from the King's table that they might eat
lentils. And they grew fat! Oh! Father Abraham, so sleek that their
faces shone, and all the young ladies ran after them. Open your hands
and I will give you lentils, and all the fair maids of La Roque will
admire you."
The men laughed. "Come, come, Jew, keep the pulse for yourself, and give
us something more solid--money--and we will drink your health."
"Money!" exclaimed Levi; "as if I had money! Oh, Fathers of the
Covenant! poor Levi with money!--that is a comical idea. You are jesting
with me, and I like a jest."
Those lying in wait listened to the altercation that ensued--the men
murmured, then there ensued an outcry from the Jew and a burst of
laughter from the men--they had raised and thrown down on the ground the
sack which the ass was carrying.
The Jew shouted and entreated and swore, but to no avail. The two
serving-men ran off on their way back to La Roque Gageac, full of glee,
rejoicing that they had served the man such a trick, for they well knew
that he would hardly be able to replace the sack on his ass.
After Levi had convinced himself that his appeals were in vain, he
returned to the fallen sack, and vainly endeavoured to lift it upon the
ass. He could raise it at one end, but not bear the entire weight. He
became very angry, and grumbled and cursed, and prayed to Heaven for
assistance.
Then, as his sole chance, he endeavoured to roll the sack up the
sepulchral mound, and so to tilt it on to the Devil's Table. By that
means, if he drew up his ass by the mouth of the burial-chamber, where
treasure-seekers had grubbed and made a hollow, he hoped to be able to
replace the burden on the back that was to bear it.
"Oh, Fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Mother Sarah!" lamented the Jew, "come
to me in my necessity and help me."
"We are here!"
Hands were laid on his shoulder. With a scream of fear he sprang back,
and saw two male and a female figure before him. Dusk had set in, and he
could not distinguish who they were.
"Jew!" said Noémi, "we want a hundred livres."
"A hundred lentils! Let me go! Help me with my sack, and they are
yours."
"Jew!" said the girl; "do not delay us and yourself. We will escort you
within sight of the lights of the town--when you have paid us the
hundred livres."
"Hear her, Father Abraham!" cried the unhappy man. "She thinks that I
have money, who have only a few lentils on which to feed my wife and
me."
"I know what you have," said Noémi. "You have all the money paid you by
the Tardes."
"It is a lie--I have been paid no money; I have been given a sack of
lentils instead."
"Levi--I was present when it was paid."
"You--you are a Tarde! and the Tardes are thieves!"
"I am not a Tarde."
"You are a Tarde--and these are Tardes' servants, and you will cheat and
rob me. I shall appeal to the Bishop!"
"Strike a light," said the girl. "Let the man see who we are."
With a flint and steel Amanieu produced sparks, and presently held a
wisp of dry grass blazing over his head.
"Look here," said Noémi. "Do you know this?" She showed the red cross on
her arm. "Look at the shoulders of my mates. Do you know who they are?
Do you know me? I am Le Gros Guillem's daughter. Open your sack."
"Oh, pity me! Pity me!" sobbed the terrified Jew.
"One hundred livres--not a denier under, not a denier over," answered
the girl. "See, in the Devil's Table are ten saucers; put ten livres
into each, and you, Amanieu, and you, Roger, count. Jew, when the last
coin is paid, you shall go on with the rest. You do not stir till the
sum is paid that I require."
The Jew faltered, trembled, stuttered some unintelligible words.
"Levi!" said Noémi, "you know how Guillem's men deal with the
refractory. Ho! a string here for his thumbs."
The ten cups were filled.