WOMAN'S LOVE IS LIFE.
Before we leave the fortress, to return thither no more, a glance must
be taken at Madeleine, evading the power of the Church and the secular
arm, escaping from the mother who had grown to hate her and the cousin
who had not courage to shield her. Her rescuer was not a man--if it be
true that man was made in the image of God--yet his actions upon that
night went far to prove that he owned a human heart.
So soon as Roussilac had gone from his cousin's sight for ever, the
tramp of the sentry's feet began again beating out the seconds like a
clock. The girl was unable to see the soldier, but at regular
intervals his shadow blackened the cracks along the door, and sometimes
she heard him growl when a mosquito pricked his neck. Life became
strangely mechanical as she lay half-asleep, her eyes opening and
closing at intervals, her ears half unconsciously admitting the sounds
of the outer world, her body subdued for the time and yielding to
languor. But soon she stirred, hearing voices outside her cell. A
grating laugh hurt her nerves, and after it came the order of the
sentry calling on some unwelcome visitant to depart. Then the heavy
tramp sounded monotonously again.
"Would rather be a toad gnawing the root of a tree, than a machine to
pace a dozen yards of grass," taunted an ugly voice. "Admit me into
the hut, Sir Sentry. Know you I have this day been ordained a priest
of Holy Church, and 'tis my duty to reason with the fair impenitent.
Shall defy me, rascal? I can mutter a spell that shall knock the sword
from your hand and shake your body with ague."
"Begone!" muttered the soldier. "I talk with none while on my duty."
Madeleine stirred uneasily. Something fell lightly against her arm,
and she looked up to the aperture which made a window. Nothing unusual
met her eyes; but when she moved again a soft odour brushed her face,
and her delighted hand caught up a bunch of wild bush roses.
"I go." The fully aroused girl felt that the hideous voice was
intended for her ears. "There is no moon to-night, and after dark,
when none shall see, I will be here to ease your duty by a song of
roses and woman's love, brave comrade. Mayhap I shall then meet with a
less churlish welcome."
"That may be," answered the soldier sullenly. "Another shall have
taken my place. Sing to him if you will."
"Oh, the lovely flowers!" murmured Madeleine. The blooms had opened
since noon and their yellow hearts were wet, because the gatherer had
dipped each one into the river, before tying them together with a blade
of scented grass.
She brushed these sweet companions against her cheek, wondering who
could have dared to show himself her friend. The time passed happily
while she waited in tingling expectancy for the coming of dark.
First came Laroche, full of bluster and talk of the wickedness of
self-will, of the fate of the unbeliever in the next world, and the
punishment of the heretic in this. The abbe had employed the afternoon
in putting an edge to his sword with his own clerical hands, and his
mind was fully occupied with the fineness of the bright steel and the
excellence of the point while he talked.
"We must save a soul from the everlasting burning," he said with
menace, as he made to depart. "When the body is put to pain the mind
is said to yield with wondrous readiness, and there is joy in Heaven
over the sinner that repenteth. Impenitence in one so young is surely
the work of the devil. The power of exorcism has been conferred upon
the priests of Holy Church. Pray to our Lady and the saints, daughter,
that they strengthen you for the ordeal."
Laroche swaggered out conscious of having well performed an unpleasant
duty, and hurried down to the street of fishermen, to convince himself
that Michel had not again dared to adulterate his wine.
After vespers came St Agapit. He had spent the day over his
manuscripts, endeavouring to unravel some of the perplexities of the
human mind. The ascetic was liberal beyond his time. He regarded
Madeleine as rather an object for pity than for punishment. Her brain
had been worked upon and her mind possessed by some spirit of darkness;
and it became his duty to deliver her from the benumbing influence and
to point out to her the way of life.
But when he came to leave the stone hut, he was for the first moment in
his life a doubter. Madeleine had spoken with such happiness of the
joy of life; had held out to his colourless face her blushing rosebuds,
bidding him note that their smell was as fragrant to her the Protestant
as to him the Catholic; had dwelt upon her faith, which was pure and
perfect even though it excluded the aid of saints and the help of the
Mother of God. And thus had she answered his final argument:
"In the free country birds would surround me, and each one had its own
way of showing me affection. One would peck at my gown, another caress
me with its wings, another, too shy to approach, would sit on a bough
and sing as best it could. But I loved them all, and the shyest the
best. Father, if the birds have each a different way of showing us
love, may not we, who are better than many sparrows, be allowed to
worship God after our own different promptings?"
St Agapit blessed her less sternly than usual, and returned perplexed
to his studies, there to search for proof of what Madeleine had said,
praying like the holy man he was for light and understanding.
Reluctantly he was compelled to admit that it was an evil spirit which
had spoken to him out of the mouth of Madeleine. So he went into his
little chapel and prayed for her and for himself that the doubt of his
heart might be forgiven him.
But in years to come, after those days when the Islanders had stirred
up the Iroquois to avenge their wrongs, a sachem of the Oneidas would
narrate the story of the death of the white doctor, dwelling upon those
last moments when the priest had turned to him to say: "Tell me, is it
true that you worship the sun?"
"Surely," answered the sachem. "For the sun is our life."
"In worshipping the sun," cried the exultant priest, "you have surely
worshipped the one God."
And over the horde of bloodthirsty natives, who were preparing his
fiery torment, St Agapit made the sign of the cross.
Evening came, soft and fragrant, with a rush of sweet wind when the
door opened to admit food and drink for the prisoner. Madeleine caught
a glimpse of the sentry who took up his post after the proclamation of
the evening gun; a thick-set man, swarthy and black-bearded, a Cyclops
in appearance, but a Cerberus for watchfulness, as the girl knew; for
once, when she had timidly tried the door, the brute had growled at her
like a dog.
Darker grew the air. Madeleine stood against the wall, listening to
the rush of water far beneath, the drone of beetles, and the scarcely
audible murmur from the heart of the fortress. The last beam went out,
the tired day was asleep, and Cerberus tramped, growling out his
thoughts.
It became so dark that the walls disappeared. Clouds hung low, dark as
the under-world; the stars were blotted out; not a gleam of phosphorus
nor a smoky ray shot upward from the north. The land whirled blackly
into space.
Madeleine moved her forehead from the cold stone and sighed softly.
She crept to her bed and sat shivering gently, holding fast her
treasured blooms. The night damp had revived the flowers and drawn out
their odour, so that the girl pleased herself with the fancy that she
was sitting in a rose-bower.
She heard the screech of an owl far away, the rattle and splash of
oars, the running out of a chain, the snap of a belated locust. She
heard the ticking of an insect in the walls; and she heard the growl of
Cerberus:
"A plague upon that ghost-light!"
She heard a sound which made her shiver, though it might have been
nothing more than a heavy foot struck sharply upon the turf; but hardly
had the thrill passed when a gasp and a great groan made the dark night
wild, and the hill-top and every stone in the building seemed to jar as
the ground was smitten. The silence that followed was unbroken by the
solemn tramp which had become a part of the girl's life. The human
clock was broken.
Then a subdued voice began to sing, harsh and unmusical, straining to
be sympathetic, and its song was of peace and love in an old-world
garden. Harsher grew the voice, though the effort to be tender
underlay each note.
"Friend," whispered Madeleine
The song was stilled.
"Oh, friend, open the door and let me feel the air."
"Prepare your eyes for a hideous sight," muttered the voice, dull and
grating like a saw.
"My deliverer cannot make me fear," she murmured.
The iron bolt grated, the door opened, and Madeleine beheld in the
gloom the shapeless outline of the dwarf.
"Thank the night, lady," he said. "It is kind because it hides one of
nature's failures. A spider, they say, once saved a Scotchman. A
hunchback may do as much for a queen."
Madeleine stepped out to the balmy night.
"What made you come to my aid?" she murmured. "It is death for you."
"Lady," said Gaudriole, "I bow to the Church, because hypocrisy drives
many a sinner to play the saint. When the fat Laroche calls me to my
duty, I confess with my tongue in my cheek and burn a rushlight. That
is for policy. Before you I am a Protestant. By myself I am a
believer in living long and cheating the gallows. That again is
policy. I hate the Church and its priests, therefore I have released
you. Also, by some strange mischance, nature has placed a man's heart
within this contemptible body. But let us hasten."
"The sentry!" exclaimed Madeleine.
"Look not in that direction," said Gaudriole. "Lady, which way? I
will guide you to safety, stay by your side while I can serve you, and
when you say, 'Back, dog!' I disappear."
"You have done murder," cried the girl. "Let me see. Stand aside.
Ah, poor wretch! He was but doing his duty, and his blood is on my
head."
"The deed is mine, both in this world and the next," said Gaudriole.
"I had a grudge against the knave. He stunned me once with his fist
when I stumbled by mischance across his foot. Lady, you must come
quickly. I see lights moving yonder. There is no time to lose."
"Geoffrey!" murmured Madeleine softly to her self.
"For his sake," urged the dwarf. Then he paused and ground his teeth.
"But you?" she exclaimed.
"I!" Gaudriole uttered his malevolent chuckle. "To-morrow I shall be
hopping about the fortress, full of wild fancies which shall mightily
impress the superstitious. I shall say how, as I lay on the hillside,
I saw lightning strike the sentry dead, and how at the roll of thunder
the door of this hut burst open and you passed out in a flame of fire.
Laroche shall worship you as a saint to-morrow, if he worship aught but
his belly and his sword, and shall keep the day holy in honour of
Sainte Madeleine. Fear not for me. I have a clever tongue, lady, and
a brave imagination, and if I am pushed can devise twenty men to do
this deed. Come!" he whispered sharply. "The lights approach."
Madeleine permitted herself to be hurried away, and the ill-matched
pair made no stop until the forest had closed behind. Not a sound came
from the heights; only the watch-fires flickered gently in the wind.
"Which way?" cried Gaudriole.
"The sea," said Madeleine.
"There lies your path. 'Tis a mountainous country yonder. If you hide
to-night, I will after dark to-morrow bring down a boat, and in that
you may escape."
"I know how to find food, and the Indians will not harm me," she
replied. "I have made myself friendly with them, and carry a marked
stone which one of their sachems gave me."
"Say now the words, 'Back, dog!' and I leave you."
Madeleine turned reluctantly to the dwarf.
"Go, friend," she said, with her pitying smile Gaudriole went down on
his sharp knees, and his crooked shoulders heaved.
"Lady, I am no man, but a beast who has done you what little service it
might. My life shall continue as nature has fitted me, but when I come
to die on the gallows, as such as I must end, I would have one blessed
memory to carry with me into hell. Suffer me to kiss your hand."
Madeleine hesitated, her lips parting pitifully, her eyes wet as the
grass which brushed her skirt. Then, as the poor villain raised his
hideous face, she bent and swiftly kissed his grimy brow. Her glorious
hair for a moment streamed upon his elfin locks, then she was gone,
breathing a little faster, while Gaudriole lay humped upon the ground.