CHAPTER I._Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France

Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:

http://www.archive.org/details/historicalromanc00weymiala

2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

_UNDER THE RED ROBE_

_COUNT HANNIBAL_

_A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE_

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF

A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE

UNDER THE RED ROBE

SHREWSBURY

SOPHIA

COUNT HANNIBAL

IN KINGS' BYWAYS

STARVECROW FARM

LAID UP IN LAVENDER

OVINGTON'S BANK

THE TRAVELLER IN THE FUR CLOAK

QUEEN'S FOLLY

THE _LIVELY PEGGY_

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

_Under The Red Robe_

_Count Hannibal_

_A Gentleman of France_

STANLEY J. WEYMAN

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

55 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

UNDER THE RED ROBE * COUNT HANNIBAL

A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

UNDER THE RED ROBE

CONTENTS

I. At Zaton's.

II. At the Green Pillar.

III. The House in the Wood.

IV. Madam and Mademoiselle.

V. Revenge.

VI. Under the Pic du Midi.

VII. A Master Stroke.

VIII. The Question.

IX. Clon.

X. The Arrest.

XI. The Road to Paris.

XII. At the Finger-Post

XIII. St. Martin's Eve.

XIV. St. Martin's Summer.

UNDER THE RED ROBE

CHAPTER I.

AT ZATON'S

"Marked cards!"

There were a score round us when the fool, little knowing the man with

whom he had to deal, and as little how to lose like a gentleman, flung

the words in my teeth. He thought, I'll be sworn, that I should storm

and swear and ruffle it like any common cock of the hackle. But that

was never Gil de Berault's way. For a few seconds after he had spoken

I did not even look at him. I passed my eye instead--smiling, _bien

entendu_--round the ring of waiting faces, saw that there was no one

except De Pombal I had cause to fear; and then at last I rose and

looked at the fool with the grim face I have known impose on older and

wiser men.

"Marked cards, M. l'Anglais?" I said, with a chilling sneer. "They are

used, I am told, to trap players--not unbirched schoolboys."

"Yet I say that they are marked!" he replied hotly, in his queer

foreign jargon. "In my last hand I had nothing. You doubled the

stakes. Bah, Sir, you knew! You have swindled me!"

"Monsieur is easy to swindle--when he plays with a mirror behind him,"

I answered tartly. And at that there was a great roar of laughter,

which might have been heard in the street, and which brought to the

table every one in the eating-house whom his violence had not already

attracted. But I did not relax my face. I waited until all was quiet

again, and then waving aside two or three who stood between us and the

entrance, I pointed gravely to the door. "There is a little space

behind the church of St. Jacques, M. l'Etranger," I said, putting on

my hat and taking my cloak on my arm. "Doubtless you will accompany me

thither?"

He snatched up his hat, his face burning with shame and rage. "With

pleasure!" he blurted out. "To the devil, if you like!"

I thought the matter arranged, when the Marquis laid his hand on the

young fellow's arm and checked him. "This must not be," he said,

turning from him to me with his grand fine-gentleman's air. "You know

me, M. de Berault. This matter has gone far enough."

"Too far, M. de Pombal!" I answered bitterly. "Still, if you wish to

take the gentleman's place, I shall raise no objection."

"Chut, man!" he retorted, shrugging his shoulders negligently. "I know

you, and I do not fight with men of your stamp. Nor need this

gentleman."

"Undoubtedly," I replied, bowing low, "if he prefers to be caned in

the streets."

That stung the Marquis. "Have a care! have a care!" he cried hotly.

"You go too far, M. Berault."

"De Berault, if you please," I objected, eyeing him sternly. "My

family has borne the _de_ as long as yours, M. de Pombal."

He could not deny that, and he answered, "As you please"; at the same

time restraining his friend by a gesture. "But none the less, take my

advice," he continued. "The Cardinal has forbidden duelling, and this

time he means it! You have been in trouble once and gone free. A

second time it may fare worse with you. Let this gentleman go,

therefore, M. de Berault. Besides--why, shame upon you, man!" he

exclaimed hotly; "he is but a lad!"

Two or three who stood behind me applauded that. But I turned and they

met my eye; and they were as mum as mice. "His age is his own

concern," I said grimly. "He was old enough a while ago to insult me."

"And I will prove my words!" the lad cried, exploding at last. He had

spirit enough, and the Marquis had had hard work to restrain him so

long. "You do me no service, M. de Pombal," he continued, pettishly

shaking off his friend's hand. "By your leave, this gentleman and I

will settle this matter."

"That is better," I said, nodding drily, while the Marquis stood

aside, frowning and baffled. "Permit me to lead the way."

Zaton's eating-house stands scarcely a hundred paces from St. Jacques

la Boucherie, and half the company went thither with us. The evening

was wet, the light in the streets was waning, the streets themselves

were dirty and slippery. There were few passers in the Rue St.

Antoine; and our party, which earlier in the day must have attracted

notice and a crowd, crossed unmarked, and entered without interruption

the paved triangle which lies immediately behind the church. I saw in

the distance one of the Cardinal's guard loitering in front of the

scaffolding round the new Hotel Richelieu; and the sight of the

uniform gave me pause for a moment. But it was too late to repent.

The Englishman began at once to strip off his clothes. I closed mine

to the throat, for the air was chilly. At that moment, while we stood

preparing and most of the company seemed a little inclined to stand

off from me, I felt a hand on my arm, and, turning, saw the dwarfish

tailor at whose house in the Rue Savonnerie I lodged at the time. The

fellow's presence was unwelcome, to say the least of it; and though

for want of better company I had sometimes encouraged him to be free

with me at home, I took that to be no reason why I should be plagued

with him before gentlemen. I shook him off, therefore, hoping by a

frown to silence him.

He was not to be so easily put down, however. And perforce I had to

speak to him. "Afterwards, afterwards," I said. "I am engaged now."

"For God's sake, don't, Sir!" was the poor fool's answer. "Don't do

it! You will bring a curse on the house. He is but a lad, and--"

"You, too!" I exclaimed, losing patience. "Be silent, you scum! What

do you know about gentlemen's quarrels? Leave me; do you hear?"

"But the Cardinal!" he cried in a quavering voice. "The Cardinal, M.

de Berault? The last man you killed is not forgotten yet. This time he

will be sure to--"

"Do you hear?" I hissed. The fellow's impudence passed all bounds. It

was as bad as his croaking. "Begone!" I said. "I suppose you are

afraid he will kill me, and you will lose your money?"

Frison fell back at that almost as if I had struck him, and I turned

to my adversary, who had been awaiting my motions with impatience. God

knows he did look young; as he stood with his head bare and his fair

hair drooping over his smooth woman's forehead--a mere lad fresh from

the College of Burgundy, if they have such a thing in England. I felt

a sudden chill as I looked at him: a qualm, a tremor, a presentiment.

What was it the little tailor had said? That I should--but there, he

did not know. What did he know of such things? If I let this pass I

must kill a man a day, or leave Paris and the eating-house, and

starve.

"A thousand pardons," I said gravely, as I drew and took my place. "A

dun. I am sorry that the poor devil caught me so inopportunely. Now,

however, I am at your service."

He saluted, and we crossed swords and began. But from the first I had

no doubt what the result would be. The slippery stones and fading

light gave him, it is true, some chance, some advantage, more than he

deserved; but I had no sooner felt his blade than I knew that he was

no swordsman. Possibly he had taken half-a-dozen lessons in rapier

art, and practised what he learned with an Englishman as heavy and

awkward as himself. But that was all. He made a few wild, clumsy

rushes, parrying widely. When I had foiled these, the danger was over,

and I held him at my mercy.

I played with him a little while, watching the sweat gather on his

brow, and the shadow of the church-tower fall deeper and darker, like

the shadow of doom, on his face. Not out of cruelty--God knows I have

never erred in that direction!--but because, for the first time in my

life, I felt a strange reluctance to strike the blow. The curls clung

to his forehead; his breath came and went in gasps; I heard the men

behind me murmur, and one or two of them drop an oath; and then I

slipped--slipped, and was down in a moment on my right side, my elbow

striking the pavement so sharply that the arm grew numb to the wrist.

He held off! I heard a dozen voices cry, "Now! now you have him!" But

he held off. He stood back and waited with his breast heaving and his

point lowered, until I had risen and stood again on my guard.

"Enough! enough!" a rough voice behind me cried. "Don't hurt the man

after that."

"On guard, Sir!" I answered coldly--for he seemed to waver. "It was an

accident. It shall not avail you again."

Several voices cried "Shame!" and one, "You coward!" But the

Englishman stepped forward, a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his

place without a word. I read in his drawn white face that he had made

up his mind to the worst, and his courage won my admiration. I would

gladly and thankfully have set one of the lookers-on--any of the

lookers-on--in his place; but that could not be. So I thought of

Zaton's closed to me, of Pombal's insult, of the sneers and slights I

had long kept at the sword's point; and, pressing him suddenly in a

heat of affected anger, I thrust strongly over his guard, which had

grown feeble, and ran him through the chest.

When I saw him lying, laid out on the stones with his eyes half shut,

and his face glimmering white in the dusk--not that I saw him thus

long, for there were a dozen kneeling round him in a twinkling--I felt

an unwonted pang. It passed, however, in a moment. For I found myself

confronted by a ring of angry faces--of men who, keeping at a

distance, hissed and threatened me.

They were mostly canaille, who had gathered during the fight, and had

viewed all that passed from the farther side of the railings. While

some snarled and raged at me like wolves, calling me "Butcher!" and

"Cut-throat!" and the like, or cried out that Berault was at his trade

again, others threatened me with the vengeance of the Cardinal, flung

the edict in my teeth, and said with glee that the guard were

coming--they would see me hanged yet.

"His blood is on your head!" one cried furiously. "He will be dead in

an hour. And you will swing for him! Hurrah!"

"Begone to your kennel!" I answered, with a look which sent him a yard

backwards, though the railings were between us. And I wiped my blade

carefully, standing a little apart. For--well, I could understand

it--it was one of those moments when a man is not popular. Those who

had come with me from the eating-house eyed me askance, and turned

their backs when I drew nearer; and those who had joined us and

obtained admission were scarcely more polite.

But I was not to be outdone in _sangfroid_. I cocked my hat, and

drawing my cloak over my shoulders, went out with a swagger which

drove the curs from the gate before I came within a dozen paces of it.

The rascals outside fell back as quickly, and in a moment I was in the

street. Another moment and I should have been clear of the place and

free to lie by for a while, when a sudden scurry took place round me.

The crowd fled every way into the gloom, and in a hand-turn a dozen of

the Cardinal's guard closed round me.

I had some acquaintance with the officer in command, and he saluted me

civilly. "This is a bad business, M. de Berault," he said. "The man is

dead they tell me."

"Neither dying nor dead," I answered lightly. "If that be all, you may

go home again."

"With you," he replied, with a grin, "certainly. And as it rains, the

sooner the better. I must ask you for your sword, I am afraid."

"Take it," I said, with the philosophy which never deserts me. "But

the man will not die."

"I hope that may avail you," he answered in a tone I did not like.

"Left wheel, my friends! To the Chatelet! March!"

"There are worse places," I said, and resigned myself to fate. After

all, I had been in prison before, and learned that only one jail lets

no prisoner escape.

But when I found that my friend's orders were to hand me over to the

watch, and that I was to be confined like any common jail-bird caught

cutting a purse or slitting a throat, I confess my heart sank. If I

could get speech with the Cardinal, all would probably be well; but if

I failed in this, or if the case came before him in strange guise, or

he were in a hard mood himself, then it might go ill with me. The

edict said, death!

And the lieutenant at the Chatelet did not put himself to much trouble

to hearten me. "What! again, M. de Berault?" he said, raising his

eyebrows as he received me at the gate, and recognized me by the light

of the brazier which his men were just kindling outside. "You are a

very bold man, Sir, or a very foolhardy one, to come here again. The

old business, I suppose?"

"Yes, but he is not dead," I answered coolly.

"He has a trifle--a mere scratch. It was behind the church of St.

Jacques."

"He looked dead enough," my friend the guardsman interposed. He had

not yet gone.

"Bah!" I answered scornfully. "Have you ever known me make a mistake?

When I kill a man, I kill him. I put myself to pains, I tell you, not

to kill this Englishman. Therefore he will live."

"I hope so," the lieutenant said, with a dry smile. "And you had

better hope so, too, M. de Berault. For if not--"

"Well?" I said, somewhat troubled. "If not, what, my friend?"

"I fear he will be the last man you will fight," he answered. "And

even if he lives, I would not be too sure, my friend. This time the

Cardinal is determined to put it down."

"He and I are old friends," I said confidently.

"So I have heard," he answered, with a short laugh. "I think the same

was said of Chalais. I do not remember that it saved his head."

This was not reassuring. But worse was to come. Early in the morning

orders were received that I should be treated with especial

strictness, and I was given the choice between irons and one of the

cells below the level. Choosing the latter, I was left to reflect upon

many things; among others, on the queer and uncertain nature of the

Cardinal, who loved, I knew, to play with a man as a cat with a mouse;

and on the ill effects which sometimes attend a high chest-thrust,

however carefully delivered. I only rescued myself at last from these

and other unpleasant reflections by obtaining the loan of a pair of

dice; and the light being just enough to enable me to reckon the

throws, I amused myself for hours by casting them on certain

principles of my own. But a long run again and again upset my

calculations; and at last brought me to the conclusion that a run of

bad luck may be so persistent as to see out the most sagacious player.

This was not a reflection very welcome to me at the moment.

Nevertheless, for three days it was all the company I had. At the end

of that time the knave of a jailer who attended me, and who had never

grown tired of telling me, after the fashion of his kind, that I

should be hanged, came to me with a less assured air. "Perhaps you

would like a little water?" he said civilly.

"Why, rascal?" I asked.

"To wash with," he answered.

"I asked for some yesterday, and you would not bring it," I grumbled.

"However, better late than never. Bring it now. If I must hang, I will

hang like a gentleman. But, depend upon it, the Cardinal will not

serve an old friend so scurvy a trick."

"You are to go to him," he answered, when he came back with the water.

"What? To the Cardinal?" I cried.

"Yes," he answered.

"Good!" I exclaimed; and in my joy I sprang up at once, and began to

refresh my dress. "So all this time I have been doing him an

injustice. _Vive Monseigneur!_ I might have known it."

"Don't make too sure!" the man answered spitefully. Then he went on:

"I have something else for you. A friend of yours left it at the

gate," he added. And he handed me a packet.

"Quite so!" I said, reading his rascally face aright. "And you kept it

as long as you dared--as long as you thought I should hang, you knave!

Was not that so? But there, do not lie to me. Tell me instead which of

my friends left it." For, to confess the truth, I had not so many

friends at this time; and ten good crowns--the packet contained no

less a sum--argued a pretty staunch friend, and one of whom a man

might be proud.

The knave sniggered maliciously. "A crooked, dwarfish man left it," he

said. "I doubt I might call him a tailor and not be far out."

"Chut!" I answered; but I was a little out of countenance. "I

understand. An honest fellow enough, and in debt to me! I am glad he

remembered. But when am I to go, friend?"

"In an hour," he answered sullenly. Doubtless he had looked to get one

of the crowns; but I was too old a hand for that. If I came back I

could buy his services; and if I did not I should have wasted my

money.

Nevertheless, a little later, when I found myself on my way to the

Hotel Richelieu under so close a guard that I could see nothing except

the figures that immediately surrounded me, I wished I had given him

the money. At such times, when all hangs in the balance and the sky is

overcast, the mind runs on luck and old superstitions, and is prone to

think a crown given here may avail there--though there be a hundred

leagues away.

The Palais Richelieu was at this time in building, and we were

required to wait in a long, bare gallery, where the masons were at

work. I was kept a full hour here, pondering uncomfortably on the

strange whims and fancies of the great man who then ruled France as

the King's Lieutenant-General, with all the King's powers; and whose

life I had once been the means of saving by a little timely

information. On occasion he had done something to wipe out the debt;

and at other times he had permitted me to be free with him. We were

not unknown to one another, therefore.

Nevertheless, when the doors were at last thrown open, and I was led

into his presence, my confidence underwent a shock. His cold glance,

that, roving over me, regarded me not as a man but an item, the steely

glitter of his southern eyes, chilled me to the bone. The room was

bare, the floor without carpet or covering. Some of the woodwork lay

about, unfinished and in pieces. But the man--this man, needed no

surroundings. His keen, pale face, his brilliant eyes, even his

presence--though he was of no great height and began already to stoop

at the shoulders--were enough to awe the boldest. I recalled as I

looked at him a hundred tales of his iron will, his cold heart, his

unerring craft. He had humbled the King's brother, the splendid Duke

of Orleans, in the dust. He had curbed the Queen-mother. A dozen

heads, the noblest in France, had come to the block through him. Only

two years before he had quelled Rochelle; only a few months before he

had crushed the great insurrection in Languedoc: and though the south,

stripped of its old privileges, still seethed with discontent, no one

in this year 1630 dared lift a hand against him--openly, at any rate.

Under the surface a hundred plots, a thousand intrigues, sought his

life or his power; but these, I suppose, are the hap of every great

man.

No wonder, then, that the courage on which I plumed myself sank low at

sight of him; or that it was as much as I could do to mingle with the

humility of my salute some touch of the _sangfroid_ of old

acquaintanceship.

And perhaps that had been better left out. For this man was without

bowels. For a moment, while he stood looking at me and before he spoke

to me, I gave myself up for lost. There was a glint of cruel

satisfaction in his eyes that warned me, before he spoke, what he was

going to say to me.

"I could not have made a better catch, M. de Berault," he said,

smiling villainously, while he gently smoothed the fur of a cat that

had sprung on the table beside him. "An old offender and an excellent

example. I doubt it will not stop with you. But later, we will make

you the warrant for flying at higher game."

"Monseigneur has handled a sword himself," I blurted out. The very

room seemed to be growing darker, the air colder. I was never nearer

fear in my life.

"Yes?" he said, smiling delicately. "And so?"

"Will not be too hard on the failings of a poor gentleman."

"He shall suffer no more than a rich one," he replied suavely, as he

stroked the cat. "Enjoy that satisfaction, M. de Berault. Is that

all?"

"Once I was of service to your Eminence," I said desperately.

"Payment has been made," he answered, "more than once. But for that I

should not have seen you, M. de Berault."

"The King's face!" I cried, snatching at the straw he seemed to hold

out.

He laughed cynically, smoothly. His thin face, his dark moustache, and

whitening hair, gave him an air of indescribable keenness. "I am not

the King," he said. "Besides, I am told you have killed as many as six

men in duels. You owe the King, therefore, one life at least. You must

pay it. There is no more to be said, M. de Berault," he continued

coldly, turning away and beginning to collect some papers. "The law

must take its course."

I thought he was about to nod to the lieutenant to withdraw me, and a

chilling sweat broke out down my back. I saw the scaffold, I felt the

cords. A moment, and it would be too late! "I have a favour to ask," I

stammered desperately, "if your Eminence would give me a moment

alone."

"To what end?" he answered, turning and eyeing me with cold disfavour.

"I know you--your past--all. It can do no good, my friend."

"Nor harm!" I cried. "And I am a dying man, Monseigneur!"

"That is true," he said thoughtfully. Still he seemed to hesitate; and

my heart beat fast. At last he looked at the lieutenant. "You may

leave us," he said shortly. "Now," when the officer had withdrawn and

left us alone, "what is it? Say what you have to say quickly. And

above all, do not try to fool me, M. de Berault."

But his piercing eyes so disconcerted me that now I had my chance I

could not find a word to say, and stood before him mute. I think this

pleased him, for his face relaxed.

"Well?" he said at last. "Is that all?"

"The man is not dead," I muttered.

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "What of that?" he said.

"That was not what you wanted to say to me."

"Once I saved your Eminence's life," I faltered miserably.

"Admitted," he answered, in his thin, incisive voice. "You mentioned

the fact before. On the other hand, you have taken six to my

knowledge, M. de Berault. You have lived the life of a bully, a common

bravo, a gamester. You, a man of family! For shame! And it has brought

you to this. Yet on that one point I am willing to hear more," he

added abruptly.

"I might save your Eminence's life again," I cried. It was a sudden

inspiration.

"You know something," he said quickly, fixing me with his eyes. "But

no," he continued, shaking his head gently. "Pshaw! the trick is old.

I have better spies than you, M. de Berault."

"But no better sword," I cried hoarsely. "No, not in all your guard!"

"That is true," he said. "That is true." To my surprise, he spoke in a

tone of consideration; and he looked down at the floor. "Let me think,

my friend," he continued.

He walked two or three times up and down the room, while I stood

trembling. I confess it trembling. The man whose pulses danger has no

power to quicken, is seldom proof against suspense; and the sudden

hope his words awakened in me so shook me that his figure, as he trod

lightly to and fro, with the cat rubbing against his robe and turning

time for time with him, wavered before my eyes. I grasped the table to

steady myself. I had not admitted even in my own mind how darkly the

shadow of Montfaucon and the gallows had fallen across me.

I had leisure to recover myself, for it was some time before he spoke.

When he did, it was in a voice harsh, changed, imperative. "You have

the reputation of a man faithful, at least, to his employer," he said.

"Do not answer me. I say it is so. Well, I will trust you. I will give

you one more chance--though it is a desperate one. Woe to you if you

fail me! Do you know Cocheforet in Bearn? It is not far from Auch."

"No, your Eminence."

"Nor M. de Cocheforet?"

"No, your Eminence."

"So much the better," he retorted. "But you have heard of him. He has

been engaged in every Gascon plot since the late King's death, and

gave me more trouble last year in the Vivarais than any man twice his

years. At present he is at Bosost in Spain, with other refugees, but I

have learned that at frequent intervals he visits his wife at

Cocheforet, which is six leagues within the border. On one of these

visits he must be arrested."

"That should be easy," I said.

The Cardinal looked at me. "Tush, man! what do you know about it?" he

answered bluntly. "It is whispered at Cocheforet if a soldier crosses

the street at Auch. In the house are only two or three servants, but

they have the country-side with them to a man, and they are a

dangerous breed. A spark might kindle a fresh rising. The arrest,

therefore, must be made secretly."

I bowed.

"One resolute man inside the house, with the help of two or three

servants whom he could summon to his aid at will, might effect it,"

the Cardinal continued, glancing at a paper which lay on the table.

"The question is, will you be the man, my friend?"

I hesitated; then I bowed. What choice had I?

"Nay, nay, speak out!" he said sharply. "Yes or no, M. de Berault?"

"Yes, your Eminence," I said reluctantly. Again, I say, what choice

had I?

"You will bring him to Paris, and alive. He knows things, and that is

why I want him. You understand?"

"I understand, Monseigneur," I answered.

"You will get into the house as you can," he continued. "For that you

will need strategy, and good strategy. They suspect everybody. You

must deceive them. If you fail to deceive them, or, deceiving them,

are found out later, M. de Berault--I do not think you will trouble me

again, or break the edict a second time. On the other hand, should you

deceive _me_"--he smiled still more subtly, but his voice sank to a

purring note--"I will break you on the wheel like the ruined gamester

you are!"

I met his look without quailing. "So be it!" I said recklessly. "If I

do not bring M. de Cocheforet to Paris, you may do that to me, and

more also!"

"It is a bargain!" he answered slowly. "I think you will be faithful.

For money, here are a hundred crowns. That sum should suffice; but if

you succeed you shall have twice as much more. Well, that is all, I

think. You understand?"

"Yes, Monseigneur."

"Then why do you wait?"

"The lieutenant?" I said modestly.

Monseigneur laughed to himself, and sitting down wrote a word or two

on a slip of paper. "Give him that," he said, in high good-humour. "I

fear, M. de Berault, you will never get your deserts--in this world!"

CHAPTER II.

AT THE GREEN PILLAR.

Cocheforet lies in a billowy land of oak and beech and chestnut--a

land of deep, leafy bottoms, and hills clothed with forest. Ridge and

valley, glen and knoll, the woodland, sparsely peopled and more

sparsely tilled, stretches away to the great snow mountains that here

limit France. It swarms with game--with wolves and bears, deer and

boars. To the end of his life I have heard that the great King loved

this district, and would sigh, when years and State fell heavily on

him, for the beech-groves and box-covered hills of South Bearn. From

the terraced steps of Auch you can see the forest roll away in light

and shadow, vale and upland, to the base of the snow-peaks; and,

though I come from Brittany and love the smell of the salt wind, I

have seen few sights that outdo this.

It was the second week in October when I came to Cocheforet, and,

dropping down from the last wooded brow, rode quietly into the place

at evening. I was alone, and had ridden all day in a glory of ruddy

beech-leaves, through the silence of forest roads, across clear brooks

and glades still green. I had seen more of the quiet and peace of the

country than had been my share since boyhood, and I felt a little

melancholy; it might be for that reason, or because I had no great

taste for the task before me--the task now so imminent. In good faith,

it was not a gentleman's work, look at it how you might.

But beggars must not be choosers, and I knew that this feeling would

pass away. At the inn, in the presence of others, under the spur of

necessity, or in the excitement of the chase, were that once begun, I

should lose the feeling. When a man is young, he seeks solitude: when

he is middle-aged he flies it and his thoughts. I made without ado for

the Green Pillar, a little inn in the village street, to which I had

been directed at Auch, and, thundering on the door with the knob of my

riding-switch, railed at the man for keeping me waiting.

Here and there at hovel doors in the street--which was a mean, poor

place, not worthy of the name--men and women looked out at me

suspiciously. But I affected to ignore them; and at last the host

came. He was a fair-haired man, half Basque, half Frenchman, and had

scanned me well, I was sure, through some window or peephole; for,

when he came out, he betrayed no surprise at the sight of a

well-dressed stranger--a portent in that out-of-the-way village--but

eyed me with a kind of sullen reserve.

"I can lie here to-night, I suppose?" I said, dropping the reins on

the sorrel's neck. The horse hung its head.

"I don't know," he answered stupidly.

I pointed to the green bough which topped a post that stood opposite

the door.

"This is an inn, is it not?" I said.

"Yes," he answered slowly; "it is an inn. But--"

"But you are full, or you are out of food, or your wife is ill, or

something else is amiss," I answered peevishly. "All the same, I am

going to lie here. So you must make the best of it, and your wife,

too--if you have one."

He scratched his head, looking at me with an ugly glitter in his eyes.

But he said nothing, and I dismounted.

"Where can I stable my horse?" I asked.

"I'll put it up," he answered sullenly, stepping forward and taking

the reins in his hands.

"Very well," I said; "but I go with you. A merciful man is merciful to

his beast, and where-ever I go I see my horse fed."

"It will be fed," he said shortly. And then he waited for me to go

into the house. "The wife is in there," he continued, looking at me

stubbornly.

"_Imprimis_--if you understand Latin, my friend," I answered, "the

horse in the stall."

As if he saw it was no good, he turned the sorrel slowly round, and

began to lead it across the village street. There was a shed behind

the inn, which I had already marked and taken for the stable, and I

was surprised when I found he was not going there. But I made no

remark, and in a few minutes saw the horse well stabled in a hovel

which seemed to belong to a neighbour.

This done, the man led the way back to the inn, carrying my valise.

"You have no other guests?" I said, with a casual air. I knew he was

watching me closely.

"No," he answered.

"This is not much in the way to anywhere, I suppose?"

"No."

That was evident; a more retired place I never saw. The hanging woods,

rising steeply to a great height, so shut the valley in that I was

puzzled to think how a man could leave it save by the road I had come.

The cottages, which were no more than mean, small huts, ran in a

straggling double line, with many gaps--through fallen trees and

ill-cleared meadows. Among them a noisy brook ran in and out. And the

inhabitants--charcoal-burners, or swineherds, or poor people of the

like class, were no better than their dwellings. I looked in vain for

the Chateau. It was not to be seen, and I dared not ask for it.

The man led me into the common room of the tavern--a low-roofed, poor

place, lacking a chimney or glazed windows, and grimy with smoke and

use. The fire--a great half-burned tree--smouldered on a stone hearth,

raised a foot from the floor. A huge black pot simmered over it, and

beside one window lounged a country fellow talking with the goodwife.

In the dusk I could not see his face, but I gave the woman a word, and

sat down to wait for my supper.

She seemed more silent than the common run of women; but this might be

because her husband was present. While she moved about, getting my

meal, he took his place against the doorpost and fell to staring at me

so persistently that I felt by no means at my ease. He was a tall,

strong fellow, with a rough moustache and brown beard, cut in the mode

Henri Quatre; and on the subject of that king--a safe one, I knew,

with a Bearnais--and on that alone, I found it possible to make him

talk. Even then there was a suspicious gleam in his eyes that bade me

abstain from questions; and as the darkness deepened behind him, and

the firelight played more and more strongly on his features, and I

thought of the leagues of woodland that lay between this remote valley

and Auch. I recalled the Cardinal's warning that if I failed in my

attempt I should be little likely to trouble Paris again.

The lout by the window paid no attention to me; nor I to him, when I

had once satisfied myself that he was really what he seemed to be. But

by and by two or three men--rough, uncouth fellows--dropped in to

reinforce the landlord, and they, too, seemed to have no other

business than to sit in silence looking at me, or now and again to

exchange a word in a _patois_ of their own. By the time my supper was

ready, the knaves numbered six in all; and, as they were armed to a

man with huge Spanish knives, and evidently resented my presence in

their dull rustic fashion--every rustic is suspicious--I began to

think that, unwittingly, I had put my head into a wasp's nest.

Nevertheless, I ate and drank with apparent appetite; but little that

passed within the circle of light cast by the smoky lamp escaped me. I

watched the men's looks and gestures at least as sharply as they

watched mine; and all the time I was racking my wits for some mode of

disarming their suspicions--or failing that, of learning something

more of the position, which, it was clear, far exceeded in difficulty

and danger anything I had expected. The whole valley, it would seem,

was on the lookout to protect my man!

I had purposely brought with me from Auch a couple of bottles of

choice Armagnac; and these had been carried into the house with my

saddlebags. I took one out now and opened it, and carelessly offered a

dram of the spirit to the landlord. He took it. As he drank it, I saw

his face flush; he handed back the cup reluctantly, and on that hint I

offered him another. The strong spirit was already beginning to work.

He accepted, and in a few minutes began to talk more freely and with

less of the constraint which had marked us. Still, his tongue ran

chiefly on questions--he would know this, he would learn that; but

even this was a welcome change. I told him openly whence I had come,

by what road, how long I had stayed in Auch, and where; and so far I

satisfied his curiosity. Only when I came to the subject of my visit

to Cocheforet I kept a mysterious silence, hinting darkly at business

in Spain and friends across the border, and this and that, and giving

the peasants to understand, if they pleased, that I was in the same

interest as their exiled master.

They took the bait, winked at one another, and began to look at me in

a more friendly way--the landlord foremost. But when I had led them so

far, I dared go no farther, lest I should commit myself and be found

out. I stopped, therefore, and, harking back to general subjects,

chanced to compare my province with theirs. The landlord, now become

almost talkative, was not slow to take up this challenge; and it

presently led to my acquiring a curious piece of knowledge. He was

boasting of his great snow mountains, the forests that propped them,

the bears that roamed in them, the izards that loved the ice, and the

boars that fed on the oak mast.

"Well," I said, quite by chance, "we have not these things, it is

true. But we have things in the north you have not. We have tens of

thousands of good horses--not such ponies as you breed here. At the

horse fair at Fecamp my sorrel would be lost in the crowd. Here in the

south you will not meet his match in a long day's journey."

"Do not make too sure of that!" the man replied, his eyes bright with

triumph and the dram. "What would you say if I showed you a better--in

my own stable?"

I saw that his words sent a kind of thrill through his other hearers,

and that such of them as understood--for two or three of them talked

their _patois_ only--looked at him angrily; and in a twinkling I began

to comprehend. But I affected dulness, and laughed scornfully.

"Seeing is believing," I said. "I doubt if you know a good horse here

when you see one, my friend."

"Oh, don't I?" he said, winking. "Indeed!"

"I doubt it," I answered stubbornly.

"Then come with me, and I will show you one," he retorted, discretion

giving way to vainglory. His wife and the others, I saw, looked at him

dumbfounded; but, without paying any heed to them, he took up a

lanthorn, and, assuming an air of peculiar wisdom, opened the door.

"Come with me," he continued. "I don't know a good horse when I see

one, don't I? I know a better than yours, at any rate!"

I should not have been surprised if the other men had interfered;

but--I suppose he was a leader among them, and they did not, and in a

moment we were outside. Three paces through the darkness took us to

the stable, an offset at the back of the inn. My man twirled the pin,

and, leading the way in, raised his lanthorn. A horse whinnied softly,

and turned its bright, soft eyes on us--a baldfaced chestnut, with

white hairs in its tail and one white stocking.

"There!" my guide exclaimed, waving the lanthorn to and fro

boastfully, that I might see its points. "What do you say to that? Is

that an undersized pony?"

"No," I answered, purposely stinting my praise. "It is pretty

fair--for this country."

"Or any country," he answered wrathfully. "Any country, I say--I don't

care where it is! And I have reason to know! Why, man, that horse

is-- But there, that is a good horse, if ever you saw one!" And with

that he ended abruptly and lamely, lowering the lanthorn with a sudden

gesture, and turning to the door. He was on the instant in such hurry,

that he almost shouldered me out.

But I understood. I knew that he had nearly betrayed all--that he had

been on the point of blurting out that that was M. de Cocheforet's

horse! M. de Cocheforet's, _comprenez bien!_ And while I turned away

my face in the darkness, that he might not see me smile, I was not

surprised to find the man in a moment changed, and become, in the

closing of the door, as sober and suspicious as before, ashamed of

himself and enraged with me, and in a mood to cut my throat for a

trifle.

It was not my cue to quarrel, however--anything but that. I made,

therefore, as if I had seen nothing, and when we were back in the inn

praised the horse grudgingly, and like a man but half convinced. The

ugly looks and ugly weapons I saw around me were fine incentives to

caution; and no Italian, I flatter myself, could have played his part

more nicely than I did. But I was heartily glad when it was over,

and I found myself, at last, left alone for the night in a little

garret--a mere fowl-house--upstairs, formed by the roof and gable

walls, and hung with strings of apples and chestnuts. It was a poor

sleeping-place--rough, chilly, and unclean. I ascended to it by a

ladder; my cloak and a little fern formed my only bed. But I was glad

to accept it. It enabled me to be alone and to think out the position

unwatched.

Of course M. de Cocheforet was at the Chateau. He had left his horse

here, and gone up on foot: probably that was his usual plan. He was

therefore within my reach, in one sense--I could not have come at a

better time--but in another he was as much beyond it as if I were

still in Paris. So far was I from being able to seize him that I dared

not ask a question or let fall a rash word, or even look about me

freely. I saw I dared not. The slightest hint of my mission, the

faintest breath of distrust, would lead to throat-cutting--and the

throat would be mine; while the longer I lay in the village, the

greater suspicion I should incur, and the closer would be the watch

kept over me.

In such a position some men might have given up the attempt and saved

themselves across the border. But I have always valued myself on my

fidelity, and I did not shrink. If not to-day, to-morrow; if not this

time, next time. The dice do not always turn up aces. Bracing myself,

therefore, to the occasion, I crept, as soon as the house was quiet,

to the window, a small, square, open lattice, much cobwebbed, and

partly stuffed with hay. I looked out. The village seemed to be

asleep. The dark branches of trees hung a few feet away, and almost

obscured a grey, cloudy sky, through which a wet moon sailed drearily.

Looking downwards, I could at first see nothing; but as my eyes grew

used to the darkness--I had only just put out my rushlight--I made out

the stable-door and the shadowy outlines of the lean-to roof.

I had hoped for this. I could now keep watch, and learn at least

whether Cocheforet left before morning. If he did not I should know he

was still here. If he did, I should be the better for seeing his

features, and learning, perhaps, other things that might be of use.

Making up my mind to be uncomfortable, I sat down on the floor by the

lattice, and began a vigil that might last, I knew, until morning. It

did last about an hour. At the end of that time I heard whispering

below, then footsteps; then, as some persons turned a corner, a voice

speaking aloud and carelessly. I could not catch the words spoken; but

the voice was a gentleman's, and its bold accents and masterful tone

left me in no doubt that the speaker was M. de Cocheforet himself.

Hoping to learn more, I pressed my face nearer to the opening, and I

had just made out through the gloom two figures--one that of a tall,

slight man, wearing a cloak, the other, I thought, a woman's, in a

sheeny white dress--when a thundering rap on the door of my garret

made me spring back a yard from the lattice, and lie down hurriedly on

my couch. The noise was repeated.

"Well?" I cried, cursing the untimely interruption. I was burning with

anxiety to see more. "What is it? What is the matter?"

The trapdoor was lifted a foot or more. The landlord thrust up his

head.

"You called, did you not?" he asked. He held up a rushlight, which

illumined half the room and lit up his grinning face.

"Called--at this hour of the night, you fool?" I answered angrily.

"No! I did not call. Go to bed, man!"

But he remained on the ladder, gaping stupidly.

"I heard you," he said.

"Go to bed! You are drunk!" I answered, sitting up. "I tell you I did

not call."

"Oh, very well," he answered slowly. "And you do not want anything?"

"Nothing--except to be left alone!" I replied sourly.

"Umph!" he said. "Good-night!"

"Good-night! Good-night!" I answered, with what patience I might. The

tramp of the horse's hoofs as it was led out of the stable was in my

ear at the moment. "Good-night!" I continued feverishly, hoping he

would still retire in time, and I have a chance to look out. "I want

to sleep."

"Good," he said, with a broad grin. "But it is early yet, and you have

plenty of time." And then, at last, he slowly let down the trapdoor,

and I heard him chuckle as he went down the ladder.

Before he reached the bottom I was at the window. The woman whom I had

seen still stood below, in the same place; and beside her a man in a

peasant's dress, holding a lanthorn, But the man, the man I wanted to

see was no longer there. And it was evident that he was gone; it was

evident that the others no longer feared me, for while I gazed the

landlord came out to them with another lanthorn, and said something to

the lady, and she looked up at my window and laughed.

It was a warm night, and she wore nothing over her white dress. I

could see her tall, shapely figure and shining eyes, and the firm

contour of her beautiful face; which, if any fault might be found with

it, erred in being too regular. She looked like a woman formed by

nature to meet dangers and difficulties; and even here, at midnight,

in the midst of these desperate men, she seemed in place. It was

possible that under her queenly exterior, and behind the contemptuous

laugh with which she heard the land lord's story, there lurked a

woman's soul capable of folly and tenderness. But no outward sign

betrayed its presence.

I scanned her very carefully; and secretly, if the truth be told, I

was glad to find Madame de Cocheforet such a woman. I was glad that

she had laughed as she had--that she was not a little, tender,

child-like woman, to be crushed by the first pinch of trouble. For if

I succeeded in my task, if I--but, pish! Women, I said, were all

alike. She would find consolation quickly enough.

I watched until the group broke up, and Madame, with one of the men,

went her way round the corner of the inn, and out of my sight. Then I

retired to bed again, feeling more than ever perplexed what course I

should adopt. It was clear that, to succeed, I must obtain admission

to the house. This was garrisoned, unless my instructions erred, by

two or three old men-servants only, and as many women; since Madame,

to disguise her husband's visits the more easily, lived, and gave out

that she lived, in great retirement. To seize her husband at home,

therefore, might be no impossible task; though here, in the heart of

the village, a troop of horse might make the attempt, and fail.

But how was I to gain admission to the house--a house guarded by

quick-witted women, and hedged in with all the precautions love could

devise? That was the question; and dawn found me still debating it,

still as far as ever from an answer. With the first light I was glad

to get up. I thought that the fresh air might inspire me, and I was

tired, besides, of my stuffy closet. I crept stealthily down the

ladder, and managed to pass unseen through the lower room, in which

several persons were snoring heavily. The outer door was not fastened,

and in a hand-turn I stood in the street.

It was still so early that the trees stood up black against the

reddening sky, but the bough upon the post before the door was growing

green, and in a few minutes the grey light would be everywhere.

Already even in the road way there was a glimmering of it; and as

I stood at the corner of the house--where I could command both the

front and the side on which the stable opened--looking greedily for

any trace of the midnight departure, my eyes detected something

light-coloured lying on the ground. It was not more than two or

three paces from me, and I stepped to it and picked it up curiously,

hoping it might be a note. It was not a note, however, but a tiny

orange-coloured sachet, such as women carry in the bosom. It was full

of some faintly scented powder, and bore on one side the initial "E,"

worked in white silk; and was altogether a dainty little toy, such as

women love.

Doubtless Madame de Cocheforet had dropped it in the night. I turned

it over and over; and then I put it away with a smile, thinking it

might be useful some time, and in some way. I had scarcely done this,

and turned with the intention of exploring the street, when the door

behind me creaked on its leather hinges, and in a moment my host stood

at my elbow.

Evidently his suspicions were again aroused, for from that time he

managed to be with me, on one pretence or another, until noon.

Moreover, his manner grew each moment more churlish, his hints

plainer; until I could scarcely avoid noticing the one or the other.

About midday, having followed me for the twentieth time into the

street, he came at last to the point, by asking me rudely if I did not

need my horse.

"No," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because," he answered, with an ugly smile, "this is not a very

healthy place for strangers."

"Ah!" I retorted. "But the border air suits me, you see."

It was a lucky answer; for, taken with my talk of the night before, it

puzzled him, by again suggesting that I was on the losing side, and

had my reasons for lying near Spain. Before he had done scratching his

head over it, the clatter of hoofs broke the sleepy quiet of the

village street, and the lady I had seen the night before rode quickly

round the corner, and drew her horse on to its haunches. Without

looking at me, she called to the innkeeper to come to her stirrup.

He went. The moment his back was turned, I slipped away, and in a

twinkling was hidden by a house. Two or three glum-looking fellows

stared at me as I passed, but no one moved; and in two minutes I was

clear of the village, and in a half-worn track which ran through the

wood, and led--if my ideas were right--to the Chateau. To discover the

house and learn all that was to be learned about its situation was my

most pressing need: even at the risk of a knife-thrust, I was

determined to satisfy it.

I had not gone two hundred paces along the path before I heard the

tread of a horse behind me, and I had just time to hide myself before

Madame came up and rode by me, sitting her horse gracefully, and with

all the courage of a northern woman. I watched her pass, and then,

assured by her presence that I was in the right road, I hurried after

her. Two minutes' walking at speed brought me to a light wooden bridge

spanning a stream. I crossed this, and, the wood opening, saw before

me first a wide, pleasant meadow, and beyond this a terrace. On the

terrace, pressed upon on three sides by thick woods, stood a grey

mansion, with the corner tourelles, steep, high roofs, and round

balconies that men loved and built in the days of the first Francis.

It was of good size, but wore, I fancied, a gloomy aspect. A great yew

hedge, which seemed to enclose a walk or bowling-green, hid the ground

floor of the east wing from view, while a formal rose garden, stiff

even in neglect, lay in front of the main building. The west wing,

whose lower roofs fell gradually away to the woods, probably contained

the stables and granaries.

I stood a moment only, but I marked all, and noted how the road

reached the house, and which windows were open to attack; then I

turned and hastened back. Fortunately, I met no one between the house

and the village, and was able to enter the inn with an air of the most

complete innocence.

Short as had been my absence, I found things altered there. Round the

door loitered and chattered three strangers--stout, well-armed

fellows, whose bearing suggested a curious mixture of smugness and

independence. Half-a-dozen pack-horses stood tethered to the post in

front of the house; and the landlord's manner, from being rude and

churlish only, had grown perplexed and almost timid. One of the

strangers, I soon found, supplied him with wine; the others were

travelling merchants, who rode in the first one's company for the sake

of safety. All were substantial men from Tarbes--solid burgesses; and

I was not long in guessing that my host, fearing what might leak out

before them, and particularly that I might refer to the previous

night's disturbance, was on tenterhooks while they remained.

For a time this did not suggest anything to me. But when we had all

taken our seats for supper there came an addition to the party. The

door opened, and the fellow whom I had seen the night before with

Madame de Cocheforet entered, and took a stool by the fire. I felt

sure that he was one of the servants at the Chateau; and in a flash

his presence inspired me with the most feasible plan for obtaining

admission which I had yet hit upon. I felt myself growing hot at the

thought--it seemed so full of promise and of danger--and on the

instant, without giving myself time to think too much, I began to

carry it into effect.

I called for two or three bottles of better wine, and, assuming a

jovial air, passed it round the table. When we had drunk a few

glasses, I fell to talking, and, choosing politics, took the side of

the Languedoc party and the malcontents, in so reckless a fashion that

the innkeeper was beside himself at my imprudence. The merchants, who

belonged to the class with whom the Cardinal was always most popular,

looked first astonished and then enraged. But I was not to be checked.

Hints and sour looks were lost upon me. I grew more outspoken with

every glass, I drank to the Rochellois, I swore it would not be long

before they raised their heads again; and at last, while the innkeeper

and his wife were engaged lighting the lamp, I passed round the bottle

and called on all for a toast.

"I'll give you one to begin," I bragged noisily. "A gentleman's toast!

A southern toast! Here is confusion to the Cardinal, and a health to

all who hate him!"

"Mon Dieu!" one of the strangers cried, springing from his seat in a

rage. "I am not going to stomach that! Is your house a common

treason-hole," he continued, turning furiously on the landlord, "that

you suffer this?"

"Hoity-toity!" I answered, coolly keeping my seat. "What is all this?

Don't you relish my toast, little man?"

"No--nor you!" he retorted hotly, "whoever you may be!"

"Then I will give you another," I answered, with a hiccough. "Perhaps

it will be more to your taste. Here is the Duke of Orleans, and may he

soon be King!"

CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD.

MY words fairly startled the three men out of their anger. For a

moment they glared at me as if they had seen a ghost. Then the

wine-merchant clapped his hand on the table. "That is enough!" he

said, with a look at his companions. "I think there can be no mistake

about that. As damnable treason as ever I heard whispered! I

congratulate you, Sir, on your boldness. As for you," he continued,

turning with an ugly sneer to the landlord, "I shall know now the

company you keep! I was not aware that my wine wet whistles to such a

tune!"

But if he was startled, the innkeeper was furious, seeing his

character thus taken away; and, being at no time a man of many words,

he vented his rage exactly in the way I wished. In a twinkling he

raised such an uproar as can scarcely be conceived. With a roar like a

bull's he ran headlong at the table, and overturned it on the top of

me. The woman saved the lamp and fled with it into a corner, whence

she and the man from the Chateau watched the skirmish in silence; but

the pewter cups and platters flew spinning across the floor, while the

table pinned me to the ground among the ruins of my stool. Having me

at this disadvantage--for at first I made no resistance--the landlord

began to belabour me with the first thing he snatched up, and when I

tried to defend myself cursed me with each blow for a treacherous

rogue and a vagrant. Meanwhile, the three merchants, delighted with

the turn things had taken, skipped round us laughing; and now hounded

him on, now bantered me with "How is that for the Duke of Orleans?"

and "How now, traitor?"

When I thought this had lasted long enough--or, to speak more plainly,

when I could stand the innkeeper's drubbing no longer--I threw him off

by a great effort, and struggled to my feet. But still, though the

blood was trickling down my face, I refrained from drawing my sword. I

caught up instead a leg of the stool which lay handy, and, watching my

opportunity, dealt the landlord a shrewd blow under the ear, which

laid him out in a moment on the wreck of his own table.

"Now!" I cried, brandishing my new weapon, which fitted the hand to a

nicety, "come on! Come on, if you dare to strike a blow, you peddling,

truckling, huckstering knaves! A fig for you and your shaveling

Cardinal!"

The red-faced wine-merchant drew his sword in a one-two. "Why, you

drunken fool," he said wrathfully, "put that stick down, or I will

spit you like a lark!"

"Lark in your teeth!" I cried, staggering as if the wine were in my

head. "Another word, and I--"

He made a couple of savage passes at me, but in a twinkling his sword

flew across the room.

"_Voila!_" I shouted, lurching forward, as if I had luck and not skill

to thank for it. "Now the next! Come on, come on--you white-livered

knaves!" And, pretending a drunken frenzy, I flung my weapon bodily

amongst them, and seizing the nearest, began to wrestle with him.

In a moment they all threw themselves upon me, and, swearing

copiously, bore me back to the door. The wine-merchant cried

breathlessly to the woman to open it, and in a twinkling they had me

through it and half way across the road. The one thing I feared was a

knife-thrust in the melee; but I had to run that risk, and the men

were honest enough and, thinking me drunk, indulgent. In a trice I

found myself on my back in the dirt, with my head humming; and heard

the bars of the door fall noisily into their places.

I got up and went to the door, and, to play out my part, hammered on

it frantically, crying out to them to let me in. But the three

travellers only jeered at me, and the landlord, coming to the window,

with his head bleeding, shook his fist at me and cursed me for a

mischief-maker.

Baffled in this I retired to a log which lay in the road a few paces

from the house, and sat down on it to await events. With torn clothes

and bleeding face, hatless and covered with dirt, I was in scarcely

better case than my opponent. It was raining, too, and the dripping

branches swayed over my head. The wind was in the south--the coldest

quarter. I began to feel chilled and dispirited. If my scheme failed,

I had forfeited roof and bed to no purpose, and placed future progress

out of the question. It was a critical moment.

But at last that happened for which I had been looking. The door swung

open a few inches, and a man came noiselessly out; the door was

quickly barred behind him. He stood a moment, waiting on the threshold

and peering into the gloom; and seemed to expect to be attacked.

Finding himself unmolested, however, and all quiet, he went off

steadily down the street--towards the Chateau.

I let a couple of minutes go by and then I followed. I had no

difficulty in hitting on the track at the end of the street, but when

I had once plunged into the wood, I found myself in darkness so

intense that I soon strayed from the path, and fell over roots, and

tore my clothes with thorns, and lost my temper twenty times before I

found the path again. However, I gained the bridge at last, and caught

sight of a light twinkling before me. To make for it across the meadow

and terrace was an easy task; yet when I had reached the door and had

hammered upon it, I was in so sorry a plight that I sank down, and had

no need to play a part or pretend to be worse than I was.

For a long time no one answered. The dark house towering above me

remained silent. I could hear, mingled with the throbbings of my

heart, the steady croaking of the frogs in a pond near the stables;

but no other sound. In a frenzy of impatience and disgust I stood up

again and hammered, kicking with my heels on the nail-studded door,

and crying out desperately, "_A moi_! _A moi!_"

Then, or a moment later, I heard a remote door opened; footsteps as of

more than one person drew near. I raised my voice and cried again, "_A

moi!_"

"Who is there?" a voice asked.

"A gentleman in distress," I answered piteously, moving my hands

across the door. "For God's sake open and let me in. I am hurt, and

dying of cold."

"What brings you here?" the voice asked sharply. Despite its tartness,

I fancied it was a woman's.

"Heaven knows!" I answered desperately. "I cannot tell. They

maltreated me at the inn, and threw me into the street. I crawled

away, and have been wandering in the wood for hours. Then I saw a

light here."

Thereon, some muttering took place on the other side of the door, to

which I had my ear. It ended in the bars being lowered. The door swung

partly open and a light shone out, dazzling me. I tried to shade my

eyes with my fingers, and as I did so fancied I heard a murmur of

pity. But when I looked in under screen of my hand I saw only one

person--the man who held the light, and his aspect was so strange, so

terrifying, that, shaken as I was by fatigue, I recoiled a step.

He was a tall and very thin man, meanly dressed in a short scanty

jacket and well-darned hose. Unable, for some reason, to bend his

neck, he carried his head with a strange stiffness.

And that head! Never did living man show a face so like death. His

forehead was bald and white, his cheek-bones stood out under the

strained skin, all the lower part of his face fell in, his jaws

receded, his cheeks were hollow, his lips and chin were thin and

fleshless. He seemed to have only one expression--a fixed grin.

While I stood looking at this formidable creature he made a quick

motion to shut the door again, smiling more widely. I had the presence

of mind to thrust in my foot, and, before he could resent the act, a

voice in the background cried: "For shame, Clon! Stand back. Stand

back, do you hear? I am afraid, Monsieur, that you are hurt."

The last words were my welcome to that house; and, spoken at an hour

and in circumstances so gloomy, they made a lasting impression. Round

the hall ran a gallery, and this, the height of the apartment, and the

dark panelling seemed to swallow up the light. I stood within the

entrance (as it seemed to me) of a huge cave; the skull-headed porter

had the air of an ogre. Only the voice which greeted me dispelled the

illusion. I turned trembling towards the quarter whence it came, and,

shading my eyes, made out a woman's form standing in a doorway under

the gallery. A second figure, which I took to be that of the servant I

had seen at the inn, loomed uncertainly beside her.

I bowed in silence. My teeth were chattering I was faint without

feigning, and felt a kind of terror, hard to explain, at the sound of

this woman's voice.

"One of our people has told me about you," she continued, speaking out

of the darkness. "I am sorry that this has happened to you here, but I

am afraid that you were indiscreet."

"I take all the blame, Madame," I answered humbly. "I ask only shelter

for the night."

"The time has not yet come when we cannot give our friends that!" she

answered, with noble courtesy. "When it does, Monsieur, we shall be

homeless ourselves."

I shivered, looking anywhere but at her; for I had not sufficiently

pictured this scene of my arrival--I had not foreseen its details; and

now I took part in it I felt a miserable meanness weigh me down. I had

never from the first liked the work! But, I had had no choice. And I

had no choice now. Luckily, the guise in which I came, my fatigue, and

wound were a sufficient mark, or I should have incurred suspicion at

once. For I am sure that if ever in this world a brave man wore a

hang-dog air, or Gil de Berault fell below himself, it was then and

there--on Madame de Cocheforet's threshold, with her welcome sounding

in my ears.

One, I think, did suspect me. Clon, the porter, continued to hold the

door obstinately ajar and to eye me with grinning spite, until his

mistress, with some sharpness, bade him drop the bars, and conduct me

to a room.

"Do you go also, Louis," she continued, speaking to the man beside

her, "and see this gentleman comfortably disposed. I am sorry," she

added, addressing me in the graceful tone she had before used, and I

thought I could see her head bend in the darkness, "that our present

circumstances do not permit us to welcome you more fitly, Monsieur.

But the troubles of the times--however, you will excuse what is

lacking. Until to-morrow, I have the honour to bid you goodnight."

"Good-night, Madame," I stammered, trembling. I had not been able to

distinguish her face in the gloom of the doorway, but her voice, her

greeting, her presence, unmanned me. I was troubled and perplexed; I

had not spirit to kick a dog. I followed the two servants from the

hall without heeding how we went; nor was it until we came to a full

stop at a door in a whitewashed corridor, and it was forced upon me

that something was in question between my two conductors, that I began

to take notice.

Then I saw that one of them, Louis, wished to lodge me here where we

stood. The porter, on the other hand, who held the keys, would not. He

did not speak a word, nor did the other--and this gave a queer ominous

character to the debate; but he continued to jerk his head towards the

farther end of the corridor, and, at last, he carried his point. Louis

shrugged his shoulders, and moved on, glancing askance at me; and I,

not understanding the matter in debate, followed the pair in silence.

We reached the end of the corridor, and there, for an instant, the

monster with the keys paused and grinned at me. Then he turned into a

narrow passage on the left, and after following it for some paces,

halted before a small, strong door. His key jarred in the lock, but he

forced it shrieking round, and with a savage flourish threw the door

open.

I walked in and saw a mean, bare chamber with barred windows. The

floor was indifferently clean, there was no furniture. The yellow

light of the lanthorn falling on the stained walls gave the place the

look of a dungeon. I turned to the two men. "This is not a very good

room," I said. "And it feels damp. Have you no other?"

Louis looked doubtfully at his companion. But the porter shook his

head stubbornly.

"Why does he not speak?" I asked with impatience.

"He is dumb," Louis answered.

"Dumb!" I exclaimed. "But he hears."

"He has ears," the servant answered drily. "But he has no tongue,

Monsieur."

I shuddered. "How did he lose it?" I asked.

"At Rochelle. He was a spy, and the King's people took him the day the

town surrendered. They spared his life, but cut out his tongue."

"Ah!" I said. I wished to say more, to be natural, to show myself at

my ease. But the porter's eyes seemed to burn into me, and my own

tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. He opened his lips and pointed

to his throat with a horrid gesture, and I shook my head and turned

from him-- "You can let me have some bedding?" I murmured hastily, for

the sake of saying something, and to escape.

"Of course, Monsieur," Louis answered. "I will fetch some."

He went away, thinking doubtless that Clon would stay with me. But

after waiting a minute the porter strode off also with the lanthorn,

leaving me to stand in the middle of the damp, dark room, and reflect

on the position. It was plain that Clon suspected me. This prison-like

room, with its barred window at the back of the house, and in the wing

farthest from the stables, proved so much. Clearly, he was a dangerous

fellow, of whom I must beware. I had just begun to wonder how Madame

could keep such a monster in her house, when I heard his step

returning. He came in, lighting Louis, who carried a small pallet and

a bundle of coverings.

The dumb man had, besides the lanthorn, a bowl of water and a piece of

rag in his hand. He set them down, and going out again, fetched in a

stool. Then he hung up the lanthorn on a nail, took the bowl and rag,

and invited me to sit down.

I was loth to let him touch me; but he continued to stand over me,

pointing and grinning with dark persistence, and, rather than stand on

a trifle, I sat down at last, and gave him his way. He bathed my head

carefully enough, and I dare say did it good; but I understood. I knew

that his only desire was to learn whether the cut was real or a

pretence. I began to fear him more and more, and, until he was gone

from the room, dared scarcely lift my face, lest he should read too

much in it.

Alone, even, I felt uncomfortable. This seemed so sinister a business,

and so ill begun. I was in the house. But Madame's frank voice haunted

me, and the dumb man's eyes, full of suspicion and menace. When I

presently got up and tried my door, I found it locked. The room

smelled dank and close--like a vault. I could not see through the

barred window; but I could hear the boughs sweep it in ghostly

fashion; and I guessed that it looked out where the wood grew close to

the walls of the house; and that even in the day the sun never peeped

through it.

Nevertheless, tired and worn out, I slept at last. When I awoke the

room was full of grey light, the door stood open, and Louis, looking

ashamed of himself, waited by my pallet with a cup of wine in his

hand, and some bread and fruit on a platter.

"Will Monsieur be good enough to rise?" he said. "It is eight

o'clock."

"Willingly," I answered tartly. "Now that the door is unlocked."

He turned red. "It was an oversight," he stammered. "Clon is

accustomed to lock the door, and he did it inadvertently, forgetting

that there was any one--"

"Inside!" I said drily.

"Precisely, Monsieur."

"Ah!" I replied. "Well, I do not think the oversight would please

Madame de Cocheforet, if she heard of it?"

"If Monsieur would have the kindness not to--"

"Mention it, my good fellow?" I answered, looking at him with meaning,

as I rose. "No; but it must not occur again."

I saw that this man was not like Clon. He had the instincts of the

family servant, and freed from the influences of darkness, felt

ashamed of his conduct. While he arranged my clothes, he looked round

the room with an air of distaste, and muttered once or twice that the

furniture of the principal chambers was packed away.

"M. de Cocheforet is abroad, I think?" I said, as I dressed.

"And likely to remain there," the man answered carelessly, shrugging

his shoulders. "Monsieur will doubtless have heard that he is in

trouble. In the meantime, the house is triste, and Monsieur must

overlook much, if he stays. Madame lives retired, and the roads are

ill-made and visitors few."

"When the lion was ill the jackals left him," I said.

Louis nodded. "It is true," he answered simply. He made no boast or

brag on his own account, I noticed; and it came home to me that he was

a faithful fellow, such as I love. I questioned him discreetly, and

learned that he and Clon and an older man who lived over the stables

were the only male servants left of a great household. Madame, her

sister-in-law, and three women completed the family.

It took me some time to repair my wardrobe, so that I dare say it was

nearly ten when I left my dismal little room. I found Louis waiting in

the corridor, and he told me that Madame de Cocheforet and

Mademoiselle were in the rose-garden, and would be pleased to receive

me. I nodded, and he guided me through several dim passages to a

parlour with an open door, through which the sun shone in gaily.

Cheered by the morning air and this sudden change to pleasantness and

life, I stepped lightly out.

The two ladies were walking up and down a wide path which bisected the

garden. The weeds grew rankly in the gravel underfoot, the rose-bushes

which bordered the walk thrust their branches here and there in

untrained freedom, a dark yew hedge which formed the background

bristled with rough shoots and sadly needed trimming. But I did not

see any of these things then. The grace, the noble air, the

distinction of the two women who paced slowly to meet me--and who

shared all these qualities greatly as they differed in others--left me

no power to notice trifles.

Mademoiselle was a head shorter than her _belle s[oe]ur_--a slender

woman and petite, with a beautiful face and a fair complexion. She

walked with dignity, but beside Madame's stately figure she seemed

almost childish. And it was characteristic of the two that

Mademoiselle as they drew near to me regarded me with sorrowful

attention, Madame with a grave smile.

I bowed low. They returned the salute. "This is my sister," Madame de

Cocheforet said, with a slight, a very slight air of condescension.

"Will you please to tell me your name, Monsieur?"

"I am M. de Barthe, a gentleman of Normandy," I said, taking the name

of my mother. My own, by a possibility, might be known.

Madame's face wore a puzzled look. "I do not know your name, I think,"

she said thoughtfully. Doubtless she was going over in her mind all

the names with which conspiracy had made her familiar.

"That is my misfortune, Madame," I said humbly.

"Nevertheless I am going to scold you," she rejoined, still eyeing me

with some keenness. "I am glad to see that you are none the worse for

your adventure--but others may be. And you should have borne that in

mind."

"I do not think that I hurt the man seriously," I stammered.

"I do not refer to that," she answered coldly. "You know, or should

know, that we are in disgrace here; that the Government regards us

already with an evil eye, and that a very small thing would lead them

to garrison the village and perhaps oust us from the little the wars

have left us. You should have known this and considered it," she

continued. "Whereas--I do not say that you are a braggart, M. de

Barthe. But on this one occasion you seem to have played the part of

one."

"Madame, I did not think," I stammered.

"Want of thought causes much evil," she answered, smiling. "However, I

have spoken, and we trust that while you stay with us you will be more

careful. For the rest, Monsieur," she continued graciously, raising

her hand to prevent me speaking, "we do not know why you are here, or

what plans you are pursuing. And we do not wish to know. It is enough

that you are of our side. This house is at your service as long as you

please to use it. And if we can aid you in any other way we will do

so."

"Madame!" I exclaimed; and there I stopped. I could not say any more.

The rose-garden, with its air of neglect, the shadow of the quiet

house that fell across it, the great yew hedge which backed it, and

was the pattern of one under which I had played in childhood--all had

points that pricked me. But the women's kindness, their unquestioning

confidence, the noble air of hospitality which moved them! Against

these and their placid beauty in its peaceful frame I had no shield. I

turned away, and feigned to be overcome by gratitude. "I have no

words--to thank you!" I muttered presently. "I am a little shaken this

morning. I--pardon me."

"We will leave you for a while," Mademoiselle de Cocheforet said, in

gentle, pitying tones. "The air will revive you. Louis shall call you

when we go to dinner, M. de Barthe. Come, Elise."

I bowed low to hide my face, and they nodded pleasantly--not looking

closely at me--as they walked by me to the house. I watched the two

gracious, pale-robed figures until the doorway swallowed them, and

then I walked away to a quiet corner where the shrubs grew highest and

the yew hedge threw its deepest shadow, and I stood to think.

They were strange thoughts, I remember. If the oak can think at the

moment the wind uproots it, or the gnarled thorn-bush when the

landslip tears it from the slope, they may have such thoughts. I

stared at the leaves, at the rotting blossoms, into the dark cavities

of the hedge; I stared mechanically, dazed and wondering. What was the

purpose for which I was here? What was the work I had come to do?

Above all, how--my God! how was I to do it in the face of these

helpless women, who trusted me--who opened their house to me? Clon had

not frightened me, nor the loneliness of the leagued village, nor the

remoteness of this corner where the dread Cardinal seemed a name, and

the King's writ ran slowly, and the rebellion, long quenched

elsewhere, still smouldered. But Madame's pure faith, the younger

woman's tenderness--how was I to face these?

I cursed the Cardinal, I cursed the English fool who had brought me to

this, I cursed the years of plenty and scarceness and the Quartier

Marais, and Zaton's, where I had lived like a pig, and--

A touch fell on my arm. I turned. It was Clon. How he had stolen up so

quietly, how long he had been at my elbow, I could not tell. But his

eyes gleamed spitefully in their deep sockets, and he laughed with his

fleshless lips; and I hated him. In the daylight the man looked more

like a death's-head than ever. I fancied I read in his face that he

knew my secret, and I flashed into rage at sight of him.

"What is it?" I cried, with another oath. "Don't lay your corpse-claws

on me!"

He mowed at me, and, bowing with ironical politeness, pointed to the

house. "Is Madame served?" I said impatiently, crushing down my anger.

"Is that what you mean, fool?"

He nodded.

"Very well," I retorted. "I can find my way, then. You may go!"

He fell behind, and I strode back through the sunshine and flowers,

and along the grass-grown paths, to the door by which I had come. I

walked fast, but his shadow kept pace with me, driving out the strange

thoughts in which I had been indulging. Slowly but surely it darkened

my mood. After all, this was a little, little place; the people who

lived here--I shrugged my shoulders. France, power, pleasure, life lay

yonder in the great city. A boy might wreck himself here for a fancy;

a man of the world, never. When I entered the room, where the two

ladies stood waiting for me by the table, I was myself again.

"Clon made you understand, then?" the younger woman said kindly.

"Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered. On which I saw the two smile at one

another, and I added: "He is a strange creature. I wonder you can bear

to have him near you."

"Poor man! You do not know his story?" Madame said.

"I have heard something of it," I answered. "Louis told me."

"Well, I do shudder at him, sometimes," she replied, in a low voice.

"He has suffered--and horribly, and for us. But I wish it had been on

any other service. Spies are necessary things, but one does not wish

to have to do with them! Anything in the nature of treachery is so

horrible."

"Quick, Louis! the cognac, if you have any there!" Mademoiselle

exclaimed. "I am sure you are--still feeling ill, Monsieur."

"No, I thank you," I muttered hoarsely, making an effort to recover

myself. "I am quite well. It was an old wound that sometimes touches

me."

CHAPTER IV.

MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE.

To be frank, however, it was not the old wound that touched me so

nearly, but Madame's words; which, finishing what Clon's sudden

appearance in the garden had begun, went a long way towards hardening

me and throwing me back into myself. I saw with bitterness--what I had

perhaps forgotten for a moment--how great was the chasm which

separated me from these women; how impossible it was we could long

think alike; how far apart in views, in experience, in aims we were.

And while I made a mock in my heart of their high-flown sentiments--or

thought I did--I laughed no less at the folly which had led me to

dream, even for a moment, that I could, at my age, go back--go back

and risk all for a whim, a scruple, the fancy of a lonely hour.

I dare say something of this showed in my face: for Madame's eyes

mirrored a dim reflection of trouble as she looked at me, and

Mademoiselle ate nervously and at random. At any rate, I fancied so,

and I hastened to compose myself; and the two, in pressing upon me the

simple dainties of the table, soon forgot, or appeared to forget, the

incident.

Yet in spite of this _contretemps_, that first meal had a strange

charm for me. The round table whereat we dined was spread inside the

open door which led to the garden, so that the October sunshine fell

full on the spotless linen and quaint old plate, and the fresh balmy

air filled the room with the scent of sweet herbs. Louis served us

with the mien of major-domo, and set on each dish as though it had

been a peacock or a mess of ortolans. The woods provided the larger

portion of our meal; the garden did its part; the confections

Mademoiselle had cooked with her own hand.

By-and-bye, as the meal went on, as Louis trod to and fro across the

polished floor, and the last insects of summer hummed sleepily

outside, and the two gracious faces continued to smile at me out of

the gloom--for the ladies sat with their backs to the door--I began to

dream again. I began to sink again into folly--that was half pleasure,

half pain. The fury of the gaming-house and the riot of Zaton's seemed

far away. The triumphs of the fencing-room--even they grew cheap and

tawdry. I thought of existence as one outside it. I balanced this

against that, and wondered whether, after all, the red soutane were so

much better than the homely jerkin, or the fame of a day than ease and

safety.

And life at Cocheforet was all after the pattern of this dinner. Each

day, I might almost say each meal, gave rise to the same sequence of

thoughts. In Clon's presence, or when some word of Madame's,

unconsciously harsh, reminded me of the distance between us, I was

myself. At other times, in face of this peaceful and intimate life,

which was only rendered possible by the remoteness of the place and

the peculiar circumstances in which the ladies stood, I felt a strange

weakness. The loneliness of the woods that encircled the house, and

here and there afforded a distant glimpse of snow-clad peaks; the

absence of any link to bind me to the old life, so that at intervals

it seemed unreal; the remoteness of the great world, all tended to sap

my will and weaken the purpose which had brought me to this place.

On the fourth day after my coming, however, something happened to

break the spell. It chanced that I came late to dinner, and entered

the room hastily and without ceremony, expecting to find Madame and

her sister already seated. Instead, I found them talking in a low tone

by the open door, with every mark of disorder in their appearance;

while Clon and Louis stood at a little distance with downcast faces

and perplexed looks.

I had tune to see all this, and then my entrance wrought a sudden

change. Clon and Louis sprang to attention; Madame and her sister came

to the table and sat down, and made a shallow pretence of being at

their ease. But Mademoiselle's face was pale, her hand trembled; and

though Madame's greater self-command enabled her to carry off the

matter better, I saw that she was not herself. Once or twice she spoke

harshly to Louis; she fell at other times into a brown study; and when

she thought I was not watching her, her face wore a look of deep

anxiety.

I wondered what all this meant; and I wondered more when, after the

meal, the two walked in the garden for an hour with Clon. Mademoiselle

came from this interview alone, and I was sure that she had been

weeping. Madame and the dark porter stayed outside some time longer;

then she, too, came in, and disappeared.

Clon did not return with her, and when I went into the garden five

minutes later Louis also had vanished. Save for two women who sat

sewing at an upper window, the house seemed to be deserted. Not a

sound broke the afternoon stillness of room or garden, and yet I felt

that more was happening in this silence than appeared on the surface.

I began to grow curious--suspicious; and presently slipped out myself

by way of the stables, and, skirting the wood at the back of the

house, gained with a little trouble the bridge which crossed the

stream and led to the village.

Turning round at this point, I could see the house, and I moved a

little aside into the underwood, and stood gazing at the windows,

trying to unriddle the matter. It was not likely that M. de Cocheforet

would repeat his visit so soon; and, besides, the women's emotions had

been those of pure dismay and grief, unmixed with any of the

satisfaction to which such a meeting, though snatched by stealth,

would give rise. I discarded my first thought, therefore--that he had

returned unexpectedly--and I sought for another solution.

But none was on the instant forthcoming. The windows remained

obstinately blind, no figures appeared on the terrace, the garden lay

deserted, and without life. My departure had not, as I half expected

it would, drawn the secret into light.

I watched a while, at times cursing my own meanness; but the

excitement of the moment and the quest tided me over that. Then I

determined to go down into the village and see whether anything was

moving there. I had been down to the inn once, and had been received

half sulkily, half courteously, as a person privileged at the great

house, and therefore to be accepted. It would not be thought odd if I

went again; and after a moment's thought, I started down the track.

This, where it ran through the wood, was so densely shaded that the

sun penetrated to it little, and in patches only. A squirrel stirred

at times, sliding round a trunk, or scampering across the dry leaves.

Occasionally a pig grunted and moved farther into the wood. But the

place was very quiet, and I do not know how it was that I surprised

Clon instead of being surprised by him.

He was walking along the path before me with his eyes on the

ground--walking so slowly, and with his lean frame so bent that I

might have supposed him ill if I had not remarked the steady movement

of his head from right to left, and the alert touch with which he now

and again displaced a clod of earth or a cluster of leaves. By-and-bye

he rose stiffly, and looked round him suspiciously; but by that time I

had slipped behind a trunk, and was not to be seen; and after a brief

interval he went back to his task, stooping over it more closely, if

possible, than before, and applying himself with even greater care.

By that time I had made up my mind that he was tracking some one. But

whom? I could not make a guess at that. I only knew that the plot was

thickening, and began to feel the eagerness of the chase. Of course,

if the matter had not to do with Cocheforet, it was no affair of mine;

but though it seemed unlikely that anything could bring him back so

soon, he might still be at the bottom of this. And, besides, I felt a

natural curiosity. When Clon at last improved his pace, and went on to

the village, I took up his task. I called to mind all the wood-lore I

had ever known, and scanned trodden mould and crushed leaves with

eager eyes. But in vain. I could make nothing of it at all, and rose

at last with an aching back and no advantage.

I did not go on to the village after that, but returned to the house,

where I found Madame pacing the garden. She looked up eagerly on

hearing my step; and I was mistaken if she was not disappointed--if

she had not been expecting some one else. She hid the feeling bravely,

however, and met me with a careless word; but she turned to the house

more than once while we talked, and she seemed to be all the while on

the watch, and uneasy. I was not surprised when Clon's figure

presently appeared in the doorway, and she left me abruptly, and went

to him. I only felt more certain than before that there was something

strange on foot. What it was, and whether it had to do with M. de

Cocheforet, I could not tell. But there it was, and I grew more

curious the longer I remained alone.

She came back to me presently, looking thoughtful and a trifle

downcast. "That was Clon, was it not?" I said, studying her face.

"Yes," she answered. She spoke absently, and did not look at me.

"How does he talk to you?" I asked, speaking a trifle curtly.

As I intended, my tone roused her. "By signs," she said.

"Is he--is he not a little mad?" I ventured. I wanted to make her talk

and forget herself.

She looked at me with sudden keenness, then dropped her eyes.

"You do not like him?" she said, a note of challenge in her voice. "I

have noticed that, Monsieur."

"I think he does not like me," I replied.

"He is less trustful than we are," she answered naively. "It is

natural that he should be. He has seen more of the world."

That silenced me for a moment, but she did not seem to notice it. "I

was looking for him a little while ago, and I could not find him," I

said, after a pause.

"He has been into the village," she answered.

I longed to pursue the matter farther; but though she seemed to

entertain no suspicion of me, I dared not run the risk. I tried her,

instead, on another tack. "Mademoiselle de Cocheforet does not seem

very well to-day?" I said.

"No?" she answered carelessly. "Well, now you speak of it, I do not

think she is. She is often anxious about--my husband."

She uttered the last two words with a little hesitation, and looked at

me quickly when she had spoken them. We were sitting at the moment on

a stone seat which had the wall of the house for a back; and,

fortunately, I was toying with the branch of a creeping plant that

hung over it, so that she could not see more than the side of my face.

For I knew that it altered. Over my voice, however, I had more

control, and I hastened to answer, "Yes, I suppose so," as innocently

as possible.

"He is at Bosost--in Spain. You knew that, I conclude?" she said, with

a certain sharpness. And she looked me in the face again very

directly.

"Yes," I answered, beginning to tremble.

"I suppose you have heard, too, that he--that he sometimes crosses the

border?" she continued, in a low voice, but with a certain ring of

insistence in her tone. "Or, if you have not heard it, you guess it?"

I was in a quandary, and grew, in one second, hot all over. Uncertain

what amount of knowledge I ought to admit, I took refuge in gallantry.

"I should be surprised if he did not," I answered, with a bow, "being,

as he is, so close, and having such an inducement to return, Madame."

She drew a long, shivering sigh--at the thought of his peril, I

fancied, and sat back against the wall. Nor did she say any more,

though I heard her sigh again. In a moment she rose. "The afternoons

are growing chilly," she said; "I will go in and see how Mademoiselle

is. Sometimes she does not come to supper. If she cannot descend this

evening, I am afraid you must excuse me too, Monsieur."

I said what was right, and watched her go in; and, as I did so, I

loathed my errand, and the mean contemptible curiosity which it had

planted in my mind, more than at any former time. These women--I could

find it in my heart to hate them for their frankness, for their

foolish confidence, and the silly trustfulness that made them so easy

a prey!

_Nom de Dieu!_ What did the woman mean by telling me all this? To meet

me in such a way, to disarm one by such methods, was to take an unfair

advantage. It put a vile--ay, the vilest--aspect, on the work I had to

do.

Yet it was very odd! What could M. de Cocheforet mean by returning so

soon, if M. de Cocheforet was here? And, on the other hand, if it was

not his unexpected presence that had so upset the house, what was the

secret? Whom had Clon been tracking? And what was the cause of

Madame's anxiety? In a few minutes I began to grow curious again; and,

as the ladies did not appear at supper, I had leisure to give my brain

full license, and in the course of an hour thought of a hundred keys

to the mystery. But none exactly fitted the lock, or laid open the

secret.

A false alarm that evening helped to puzzle me still more. I was

sitting, about an hour after supper, on the same seat in the garden--I

had my cloak and was smoking--when Madame came out like a ghost, and,

without seeing me, flitted away through the darkness toward the

stables. For a moment I hesitated, then I followed her. She went down

the path and round the stables, and so far I understood; but when she

had in this way gained the rear of the west wing, she took a track

through the thicket to the east of the house again, and so came back

to the garden. This gained, she came up the path and went in through

the parlour door, and disappeared--after making a clear circuit of the

house, and not once pausing or looking to right or left! I confess I

was fairly baffled. I sank back on the seat I had left, and said to

myself that this was the lamest of all conclusions. I was sure that

she had exchanged no word with any one. I was equally sure that she

had not detected my presence behind her. Why, then, had she made this

strange promenade, alone, unprotected, an hour after nightfall? No dog

had bayed, no one had moved, she had not once paused, or listened,

like a person expecting a rencontre. I could not make it out. And I

came no nearer to solving it, though I lay awake an hour beyond my

usual time.

In the morning neither of the ladies descended to dinner, and I heard

that Mademoiselle was not so well. After a lonely meal, therefore--I

missed them more than I should have supposed--I retired to my

favourite seat, and fell to meditating.

The day was fine, and the garden pleasant. Sitting there with my eyes

on the old-fashioned herb-beds, with the old-fashioned scents in the

air, and the dark belt of trees bounding the view on either side, I

could believe that I had been out of Paris not three weeks, but three

months. The quiet lapped me round. I could fancy that I had never

loved anything else. The wood-doves cooed in the stillness;

occasionally the harsh cry of a jay jarred the silence. It was an hour

after noon, and hot. I think I nodded.

On a sudden, as if in a dream, I saw Clon's face peering at me round

the angle of the parlour door. He looked, and in a moment withdrew,

and I heard whispering. The door was gently closed. Then all was still

again.

But I was wide awake now, and thinking hard. Clearly the people of the

house wished to assure themselves that I was asleep and safely out of

the way. As clearly, it was to my interest to know what was passing.

Giving way to the temptation, I rose quietly, and, stooping below the

level of the windows, slipped round the east end of the house, passing

between it and the great yew hedge. Here I found all still, and no

one stirring. So, keeping a wary eye about me, I went on round

the house--reversing the route which Madame had taken the night

before--until I gained the rear of the stables. Here I had scarcely

paused a second to scan the ground before two persons came out of the

stable-court They were Madame and the porter.

They stood a brief while outside, and looked up and down. Then Madame

said something to the man, and he nodded. Leaving him standing where

he was, she crossed the grass with a quick, light step, and vanished

among the trees.

In a moment my mind was made up to follow; and, as Clon turned at once

and went in, I was able to do so before it was too late. Bending low

among the shrubs, I ran hot-foot to the point where Madame had entered

the wood. Here I found a narrow path, and ran nimbly along it, and

presently saw her grey robe fluttering among the trees before me. It

only remained to keep out of her sight and give her no chance of

discovering that she was followed; and this I set myself to do. Once

or twice she glanced round, but the wood was of beech, the light which

passed between the leaves was mere twilight, and my clothes were

dark-coloured. I had every advantage, therefore, and little to fear as

long as I could keep her in view and still remain myself at such a

distance that the rustle of my tread would not disturb her.

Assured that she was on her way to meet her husband, whom my presence

kept from the house, I felt that the crisis had come at last; and I

grew more excited with each step I took. True, I detested the task of

watching her: it filled me with peevish disgust. But in proportion as

I hated it I was eager to have it done and be done with it, and

succeed, and stuff my ears and begone from the scene. When she

presently came to the verge of the beech wood, and, entering a little

open clearing, seemed to loiter, I went cautiously. This, I thought,

must be the rendezvous; and I held back warily, looking to see him

step out of the thicket.

But he did not, and by-and-bye she quickened her pace. She crossed the

open and entered a wide ride cut through a low, dense wood of alder

and dwarf oak--a wood so closely planted, and so intertwined with

hazel and elder and box that the branches rose like a solid wall,

twelve feet high, on either side of the track.

Down this she passed, and I stood and watched her go; for I dared not

follow. The ride stretched away as straight as a line for four or five

hundred yards, a green path between green walls. To enter it was to be

immediately detected, if she turned; while the thicket itself

permitted no passage. I stood baffled and raging, and watched her pass

along. It seemed an age before she at last reached the end, and,

turning sharply to the right, was in an instant gone from sight.

I waited then no longer. I started off, and, running as lightly and

quietly as I could, I sped down the green alley. The sun shone into

it, the trees kept off the wind, and between heat and haste, I sweated

finely. But the turf was soft, and the ground fell slightly, and in

little more than a minute I gained the end. Fifty yards short of the

turning I stayed myself, and, stealing on, looked cautiously the way

she had gone.

I saw before me a second ride, the twin of the other, and a hundred

and fifty paces down it her grey figure tripping on between the green

hedges. I stood and took breath, and cursed the wood and the heat and

Madame's wariness. We must have come a league or two-thirds of a

league, at least. How far did the man expect her to plod to meet him?

I began to grow angry. There is moderation even in the cooking of

eggs, and this wood might stretch into Spain, for all I knew!

Presently she turned the corner and was gone again, and I had to

repeat my man[oe]uvre. This time, surely, I should find a change. But

no! Another green ride stretched away into the depths of the forest,

with hedges of varying shades--here light and there dark, as hazel and

elder, or thorn, and yew and box prevailed--but always high and stiff

and impervious. Half-way down the ride Madame's figure tripped

steadily on, the only moving thing in sight. I wondered, stood, and,

when she vanished, followed--only to find that she had entered another

track, a little narrower, but in every other respect alike.

And so it went on for quite half an hour. Sometimes Madame turned to

the right, sometimes to the left. The maze seemed to be endless. Once

or twice I wondered whether she had lost her way, and was merely

seeking to return. But her steady, purposeful gait, her measured pace,

forbade the idea. I noticed, too, that she seldom looked behind

her--rarely to right or left. Once the ride down which she passed was

carpeted not with green, but with the silvery, sheeny leaves of some

creeping plant that in the distance had a shimmer like that of water

at evening. As she trod this, with her face to the low sun, her tall

grey figure had a pure air that for the moment startled me--she looked

unearthly. Then I swore in scorn of myself, and at the next corner I

had my reward. She was no longer walking on. She had stopped, I found,

and seated herself on a fallen tree that lay in the ride.

For some time I stood in ambush watching her, and with each minute I

grew more impatient. At last I began to doubt--to have strange

thoughts. The green walls were growing dark. The sun was sinking; a

sharp, white peak, miles and miles away, which closed the vista of the

ride began to flush and colour rosily. Finally, but not before I had

had leisure to grow uneasy, she stood up and walked on more slowly. I

waited, as usual, until the next turning hid her. Then I hastened

after her, and, warily passing round the corner--came face to face

with her!

I knew all in a moment--that she had fooled me, tricked me, lured me

away. Her face was white with scorn, her eyes blazed; her figure, as

she confronted me, trembled with anger and infinite contempt.

"You spy!" she cried. "You hound! You--gentleman! Oh, _mon Dieu!_ if

you are one of us--if you are really not _canaille_--we shall pay for

this some day! We shall pay a heavy reckoning in the time to come! I

did not think," she continued--her every syllable like the lash of a

whip--"that there was anything so vile as you in this world!"

I stammered something--I do not know what. Her words burned into

me--into my heart! Had she been a man, I would have struck her dead!

"You thought you deceived me yesterday," she continued, lowering her

tone, but with no lessening of the passion and contempt which curled

her lip and gave fulness to her voice. "You plotter! You surface

trickster! You thought it an easy task to delude a woman--you find

yourself deluded. God give you shame that you may suffer!" she

continued mercilessly. "You talked of Clon, but Clon beside you is the

most honourable of men!"

"Madame," I said hoarsely--and I know my face was grey as ashes--"let

us understand one another."

"God forbid!" she cried, on the instant. "I would not soil myself!"

"Fie! Madame," I said, trembling. "But then, you are a woman. That

should cost a man his life!"

She laughed bitterly.

"You say well," she retorted. "I am not a man. Neither am I Madame.

Madame de Cocheforet has spent this afternoon--thanks to your absence

and your imbecility--with her husband. Yes, I hope that hurts you!"

she went on, savagely snapping her little white teeth together. "To

spy and do vile work, and do it ill, Monsieur Mouchard--Monsieur de

Mouchard, I should say--I congratulate you!"

"You are not Madame de Cocheforet!" I cried, stunned--even in the

midst of my shame and rage--by this blow.

"No, Monsieur!" she answered grimly. "I am not! And permit me to point

out--for we do not all lie easily--that I never said I was. You

deceived yourself so skilfully that we had no need to trick you."

"Mademoiselle, then?" I muttered.

"Is Madame!" she cried. "Yes, and I am Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. And

in that character, and in all others, I beg from this moment to close

our acquaintance, Sir. When we meet again--if we ever do meet--which

God forbid!" she cried, her eyes sparkling, "do not presume to speak

to me, or I will have you flogged by the grooms. And do not stain our

roof by sleeping under it again. You may lie to-night in the inn. It

shall not be said that Cocheforet," she continued proudly, "returned

even treachery with inhospitality; and I will give orders to that end.

To-morrow begone back to your master, like the whipped cur you are!

Spy and coward!"

With the last fierce words she moved away. I would have said

something, I could almost have found it in my heart to stop her and

make her hear. Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was the stronger,

and I might have done with her as I pleased. But she swept by me so

fearlessly--as I might pass some loathsome cripple in the road--that I

stood turned to stone. Without looking at me--without turning her head

to see whether I followed or remained, or what I did--she went

steadily down the track until the trees and the shadow and the growing

darkness hid her grey figure from me; and I found myself alone.

CHAPTER V.

REVENGE.

And full of black rage! Had she only reproached me, or, turning on me

in the hour of _my_ victory, said all she had now said in the moment

of her own, I could have borne it. She might have shamed me then, and

I might have taken the shame to myself, and forgiven her. But, as it

was, I stood there in the gathering dusk, between the darkening

hedges, baffled, tricked, defeated! And by a woman! She had pitted her

wits against mine, her woman's will against my experience, and she had

come off the victor. And then she had reviled me. As I took it all in,

and began to comprehend, also, the more remote results, and how

completely her move had made further progress on my part impossible,

I hated her. She had tricked me with her gracious ways and her

slow-coming smile. And, after all--for what she had said--it was this

man's life or mine. What had I done that another man would not do?

_Mon Dieu!_ In the future there was nothing I would not do. I would

make her smart for those words of hers! I would bring her to her

knees!

Still, hot as I was, an hour might have restored me to coolness. But

when I started to return, I fell into a fresh rage, for I remembered

that I did not know my way out of the maze of rides and paths into

which she had drawn me; and this and the mishaps which followed kept

my rage hot. For a full hour I wandered in the wood, unable, though I

knew where the village lay, to find any track which led continuously

in one direction. Whenever, at the end of each attempt, the thicket

brought me up short, I fancied I heard her laughing on the farther

side of the brake; and the ignominy of this chance punishment, the

check which the confinement placed on my rage, almost maddened me. In

the darkness, I fell, and rose cursing; I tore my hands with thorns; I

stained my suit, which had suffered sadly once before. At length, when

I had almost resigned myself to lie in the wood, I caught sight of the

lights of the village, and trembling between haste and anger, pressed

towards them. In a few minutes I stood in the little street.

The lights of the inn shone only fifty yards away; but before I could

show myself even there pride suggested that I should do something to

repair my clothes. I stopped, and scraped and brushed them; and, at

the same time, did what I could to compose my features. Then I

advanced to the door and knocked. Almost on the instant the landlord's

voice cried from the inside, "Enter, Monsieur!"

I raised the latch and went in. The man was alone, squatting over the

fire, warming his hands A black pot simmered on the ashes: as I

entered, he raised the lid and peeped inside. Then he glanced over his

shoulder.

"You expected me?" I said defiantly, walking to the hearth, and

setting one of my damp boots on the logs.

"Yes," he answered, nodding curtly. "Your supper is just ready. I

thought you would be in about this time."

He grinned as he spoke, and it was with difficulty I suppressed my

wrath "Mademoiselle de Cocheforet told you," I said, affecting

indifference, "where I was?"

"Ay, Mademoiselle--or Madame," he replied, grinning afresh.

So she had told him where she had left me, and how she had tricked me!

She had made me the village laughing-stock! My rage flashed out afresh

at the thought, and, at the sight of his mocking face, I raised my

fist.

But he read the threat in my eyes, and was up in a moment, snarling,

with his hand on his knife. "Not again, Monsieur!" he cried, in his

vile _patois_, "My head is sore still. Raise your hand, and I will rip

you up as I would a pig!"

"Sit down, fool," I said. "I am not going to harm you. Where is your

wife?"

"About her business."

"Which should be getting my supper," I retorted sharply.

He rose sullenly, and, fetching a platter, poured the mess of broth

and vegetables into it. Then he went to a cupboard and brought out a

loaf of black bread and a measure of wine, and set them also on the

table. "You see it," he said laconically.

"And a poor welcome!" I exclaimed.

He flamed into sudden passion at that. Leaning with both his hands on

the table, he thrust his rugged face and blood-shot eyes close to

mine. His mustachios bristled; his beard trembled. "Hark ye, Sirrah!"

he muttered, with sullen emphasis--"be content! I have my suspicions.

And if it were not for my lady's orders I would put a knife into you,

fair or foul, this very night. You would lie snug outside, instead of

inside, and I do not think any one would be the worse. But, as it is,

be content. Keep a still tongue; and when you turn your back on

Cocheforet to-morrow keep it turned."

"Tut! tut!" I said--but I confess I was a little out of countenance.

"Threatened men live long, you rascal!"

"In Paris!" he answered significantly. "Not here, Monsieur."

He straightened himself with that, nodded once, and went back to the

fire, and I shrugged my shoulders and began to eat, affecting to

forget his presence. The logs on the hearth burned sullenly, and gave

no light. The poor oil-lump, casting weird shadows from wall to wall,

served only to discover the darkness. The room, with its low roof and

earthen floor, and foul clothes flung here and there, reeked of stale

meals and garlic and vile cooking. I thought of the parlour at

Cocheforet, and the dainty table, and the stillness, and the scented

pot-herbs; and, though I was too old a soldier to eat the worse

because my spoon lacked washing, I felt the change, and laid it

savagely at Mademoiselle's door.

The landlord, watching me stealthily from his place by the hearth,

read my thoughts, and chuckled aloud. "Palace fare, palace manners!"

he muttered scornfully. "Set a beggar on horseback, and he will

ride--back to the inn!"

"Keep a civil tongue, will you!" I answered, scowling at him.

"Have you finished?" he retorted.

I rose, without deigning to reply, and, going to the fire, drew off my

boots, which were wet through. He, on the instant, swept off the wine

and loaf to the cupboard, and then, coming back for the platter I had

used, took it, opened the back door, and went out, leaving the door

ajar. The draught which came in beat the flame of the lamp this way

and that, and gave the dingy, gloomy room an air still more miserable.

I rose angrily from the fire, and went to the door, intending to close

it with a bang.

But when I reached it, I saw something, between door and jamb, which

stayed my hand. The door led to a shed in which the housewife washed

pots and the like. I felt some surprise, therefore, when I found a

light there at this time of night; still more surprise when I saw what

she was doing.

She was seated on the mud floor, with a rushlight before her, and on

either side of her a high-piled heap of refuse and rubbish. From one

of these, at the moment I caught sight of her, she was sorting

things--horrible, filthy sweepings of road or floor--to the other;

shaking and sifting each article as she passed it across, and then

taking up another and repeating the action with it, and so on: all

minutely, warily, with an air of so much patience and persistence that

I stood wondering. Some things--rags--she held up between her eyes and

the light, some she passed through her fingers, some she fairly tore

in pieces. And all the time her husband stood watching her greedily,

my platter still in his hand, as if her strange occupation fascinated

him.

I stood looking, also, for half a minute, perhaps; then the man's eye,

raised for a single second to the doorway, met mine. He started,

muttered something to his wife, and, quick as thought, kicked the

light out, leaving the shed in darkness. Cursing him for an

ill-conditioned fellow, I walked back to the fire, laughing. In a

twinkling he followed me, his face dark with rage.

"_Ventre saint gris!_" he exclaimed, thrusting it close to mine. "Is

not a man's house his own?"

"It is, for me," I answered coolly, shrugging my shoulders. "And his

wife: if she likes to pick dirty rags at this hour, that is your

affair."

"Pig of a spy!" he cried, foaming with rage.

I was angry enough at bottom, but I had nothing to gain by quarrelling

with the fellow; and I curtly bade him remember himself. "Your

mistress gave you your orders," I said contemptuously. "Obey them!"

He spat on the floor, but at the same time he grew calmer. "You are

right there," he answered spitefully. "What matter, after all, since

you leave to-morrow at six? Your horse has been sent down, and your

baggage is above."

"I will go to it," I retorted. "I want none of your company. Give me a

light, fellow!"

He obeyed reluctantly, and, glad to turn my back on him, I went up the

ladder, still wondering faintly, in the midst of my annoyance, what

his wife was about that my chance detection of her had so enraged him.

Even now he was not quite himself. He followed me with abuse, and,

deprived by my departure of any other means of showing his spite, fell

to shouting through the floor, bidding me remember six o'clock, and be

stirring; with other taunts, which did not cease until he had tired

himself out.

The sight of my belongings--which I had left a few hours before at the

Chateau--strewn about the floor of this garret, went some way towards

firing me again. But I was worn out. The indignities and mishaps of

the evening had, for once, crushed my spirit, and after swearing an

oath or two I began to pack my bags. Vengeance I would have; but the

time and manner I left for daylight thought. Beyond six o'clock in the

morning I did not look forward; and if I longed for anything it was

for a little of the good Armagnac I had wasted on those louts of

merchants in the kitchen below. It might have done me good now.

I had wearily strapped up one bag, and nearly filled the other, when I

came upon something which did, for the moment, rouse the devil in me.

This was the tiny orange-coloured sachet which Mademoiselle had

dropped the night I first saw her at the inn, and which, it will be

remembered, I picked up. Since that night I had not seen it, and had

as good as forgotten it. Now, as I folded up my other doublet, the one

I had then been wearing, it dropped from the pocket.

The sight of it recalled all--that night, and Mademoiselle's face in

the lanthorn light, and my fine plans, and the end of them; and, in a

fit of childish fury, the outcome of long suppressed passion, I

snatched up the sachet from the floor and tore it across and across,

and flung the pieces down. As they fell, a cloud of fine pungent dust

burst from them, and with the dust something heavier, which tinkled

sharply on the boards. I looked down to see what this was--perhaps I

already repented of my act--but for the moment I could see nothing.

The floor was grimy and uninviting, and the light bad.

In certain moods, however, a man is obstinate about small things, and

I moved the taper nearer. As I did so, a point of light, a flashing

sparkle that shone for a second among the dirt and refuse on the

floor, caught my eye. It was gone in a moment, but I had seen it. I

stared, and moved the light again, and the spark flashed out afresh,

this time in a different place. Much puzzled, I knelt, and, in a

twinkling, found a tiny crystal. Hard by lay another--and another;

each as large as a fair-sized pea. I took up the three, and rose to my

feet again, the light in one hand, the crystals in the palm of the

other.

They were diamonds!--diamonds of price! I knew it in a moment. As I

moved the taper to and fro above them, and watched the fire glow and

tremble in their depths, I knew that I held that which would buy the

crazy inn and all its contents a dozen times over. They were diamonds!

Gems so fine, and of so rare a water--or I had never seen gems--that

my hand trembled as I held them, and my head grew hot, and my heart

beat furiously. For a moment I thought I dreamed, that my fancy played

me some trick; and I closed my eyes and did not open them again for a

minute. But when I did, there they were, hard, real, and angular.

Convinced at last, in a maze of joy and fear, I closed my hand upon

them, and, stealing on tip-toe to the trapdoor, laid first my saddle

on it, and then my bags, and over all my cloak, breathing fast the

while.

Then I stole back; and, taking up the light again, began to search the

floor, patiently, inch by inch, with naked feet, every sound making me

tremble as I crept hither and thither over the creaking boards. And

never was search more successful or better paid. In the fragments of

the sachet I found six smaller diamonds and a pair of rubies. Eight

large diamonds I found on the floor. One, the largest and last-found,

had bounded away, and lay against the wall in the farthest corner. It

took me an hour to run that one to earth; but afterwards I spent

another hour on my hands and knees before I gave up the search, and,

satisfied at last that I had collected all, sat down on my saddle on

the trap-door, and, by the last flickering light of a candle which I

had taken from my bag, gloated over my treasure--a treasure worthy of

fabled Golconda.

Hardly could I believe in its reality, even now. Recalling the jewels

which the English Duke of Buckingham wore on the occasion of his visit

to Paris in 1625, and of which there was so much talk, I took these to

be as fine, though less in number. They should be worth fifteen

thousand crowns, more or less. Fifteen thousand crowns! And I held

them in the hollow of my hand--I who was scarcely worth ten thousand

sous.

The candle going out cut short my admiration. Left in the dark with

these precious atoms, my first thought was how I might dispose of them

safely; which I did, for the time, by secreting them in the lining of

my boot. My second thought turned on the question how they had come

where I had found them, among the powdered spice and perfumes in

Mademoiselle de Cocheforet's sachet.

A minute's reflection enabled me to come very near the secret, and at

the same time shed a flood of light on several dark places. What Clon

had been seeking on the path between the house and the village, what

the goodwife of the inn had sought among the sweepings of yard and

floor, I knew now,--the sachet. I knew, too, what had caused the

marked and sudden anxiety I had noticed at the Chateau--the loss of

this sachet.

And there for a while I came to a check. But one step more up the

ladder of thought brought all in view. In a flash I guessed how the

jewels had come to be in the sachet; and that it was not Mademoiselle

but M. de Cocheforet who had mislaid them. And I thought the discovery

so important that I began to pace the room softly, unable, in my

excitement, to remain still.

Doubtless he had dropped the jewels in the hurry of his start from the

inn that night! Doubtless, too, he had carried them in that bizarre

hiding-place for the sake of safety, considering it unlikely that

robbers, if he fell into their hands, would take the sachet from him;

as still less likely that they would suspect it to contain anything of

value. Everywhere it would pass for a love-gift, the work of his

mistress.

Nor did my penetration stop there. Ten to one the gems were family

property, the last treasure of the house; and M. de Cocheforet, when I

saw him at the inn, was on his way to convey them out of the country;

either to secure them from seizure by the Government, or to raise

money by selling them--money to be spent in some last desperate

enterprise. For a day or two, perhaps, after leaving Cocheforet, while

the mountain road and its chances occupied his thoughts, he had not

discovered his loss. Then he had searched for the precious sachet,

missed it, and returned hot-foot on his tracks.

I was certain that I had hit on the true solution; and all that night

I sat wakeful in the darkness, pondering what I should do. The stones,

unset as they were, could never be identified, never be claimed. The

channel by which they had come to my hands could never be traced. To

all intents they were mine--mine, to do with as I pleased! Fifteen

thousand crowns!--perhaps twenty thousand crowns!--and I to leave at

six in the morning, whether I would or no! I might leave for Spain

with the jewels in my pocket.

I confess I was tempted. The gems were so fine that I doubt not some

indifferently honest men would have sold salvation for them. But a

Berault his honour? No! I was tempted, but not for long. Thank God, a

man may be reduced to living by the fortunes of the dice, and may even

be called by a woman spy and coward without becoming a thief. The

temptation soon left me--I take credit for it--and I fell to thinking

of this and that plan for making use of them. Once it occurred to me

to take the jewels to the Cardinal and buy my pardon with them; again,

to use them as a trap to capture Cocheforet; again to--and then about

five in the morning, as I sat up on my wretched pallet, while the

first light stole slowly in through the cobwebbed, hay-stuffed

lattice, there came to me the real plan, the plan of plans, on which I

acted.

It charmed me. I smacked my lips over it, and hugged myself, and felt

my eyes dilate in the darkness, as I conned it. It seemed cruel, it

seemed mean; I cared nothing. Mademoiselle had boasted of her victory

over me, of her woman's wits and her acuteness; and of my dulness. She

had said her grooms should flog me, she had rated me as if I had been

a dog. Very well; we would see now whose brains were the better, whose

was the master mind, whose should be the whipping.

The one thing required by my plan was that I should get speech with

her; that done, I could trust myself, and my new-found weapon, for the

rest. But that was absolutely necessary; and seeing that there might

be some difficulty about it, I determined to descend as if my mind

were made up to go; then, on pretence of saddling my horse, I would

slip away on foot, and lie in wait near the Chateau until I saw her

come out. Or if I could not effect my purpose in that way--either by

reason of the landlord's vigilance, or for any other cause--my course

was still easy. I would ride away, and when I had proceeded a mile or

so, tie up my horse in the forest and return to the wooden bridge.

Thence I could watch the garden and front of the Chateau until time

and chance gave me the opportunity I sought.

So I saw my way quite clearly; and when the fellow below called me,

reminding me rudely that I must be going, and that it was six o'clock,

I was ready with my answer. I shouted sulkily that I was coming, and,

after a decent delay, I took up my saddle and bags and went down.

Viewed by the cold morning light, the inn room looked more smoky, more

grimy, more wretched than when I had last seen it. The goodwife was

not visible. The fire was not lighted. No provision, not so much as a

stirrup-cup or bowl of porridge cheered the heart. I looked round,

sniffing the stale smell of last night's lamp, and grunted. "Are you

going to send me out fasting?" I said, affecting a worse humour than I

felt.

The landlord was standing by the window, stooping over a great pair of

frayed and furrowed thigh-boots, which he was labouring to soften with

copious grease. "Mademoiselle ordered no breakfast," he answered, with

a malicious grin.

"Well, it does not much matter," I replied grandly. "I shall be at

Auch by noon."

"That is as may be," he answered, with another grin. I did not

understand him, but I had something else to think about, and I opened

the door and stepped out, intending to go to the stable. Then in a

second I comprehended. The cold air laden with woodland moisture met

me and went to my bones; but it was not that which made me shiver.

Outside the door, in the road, sitting on horseback in silence, were

two men. One was Clon. The other, who held a spare horse by the

rein--my horse--was a man I had seen at the inn, a rough,

shock-headed, hard-bitten fellow. Both were armed, and Clon was

booted. His mate rode barefoot, with a rusty spur strapped to one

heel.

The moment I saw them a sure and certain fear crept into my mind: it

was that made me shiver. But I did not speak to them. I went in again,

and closed the door behind me. The landlord was putting on the boots.

"What does this mean?" I said hoarsely. I had a clear prescience of

what was coming. "Why are these men here?"

"Orders," he answered laconically.

"Whose orders?" I retorted.

"Whose?" he answered bluntly. "Well, Monsieur, that is my business.

Enough that we mean to see you out of the country, and out of harm's

way."

"But if I will not go?" I cried.

"Monsieur will go," he answered coolly. "There are no strangers in the

village to-day," he added, with a significant smile.

"Do you mean to kidnap me?" I replied, in a rage. Behind the rage

was something--I will not call it terror, for the brave feel no

terror--but it was near akin to it. I had had to do with rough men all

my life, but there was a grimness and truculence in the aspect of

these three that shook me. When I thought of the dark paths and narrow

lanes and cliff-sides we must traverse, whichever road we took, I

trembled.

"Kidnap you, Monsieur?" he answered, with an everyday air. "That is as

you please to call it. One thing is certain, however," he continued,

maliciously touching an arquebuss which he had produced and set

upright against a chair while I was at the door; "if you attempt the

slightest resistance, we shall know how to put an end to it, either

here or on the road."

I drew a deep breath. The very imminence of the danger restored me to

the use of my faculties I changed my tone and laughed aloud. "So that

is your plan, is it?" I said. "The sooner we start the better, then.

And the sooner I see Auch and your back turned, the more I shall be

pleased."

He rose. "After you, Monsieur," he said.

I could not restrain a slight shiver. His newborn politeness alarmed

me more than his threats. I knew the man and his ways, and I was sure

that it boded ill for me.

But I had no pistols, and only my sword and knife, and I knew that

resistance at this point must be worse than vain. I went out jauntily,

therefore, the landlord coming after me with my saddle and bags.

The street was empty, save for the two waiting horsemen who sat in

their saddles looking doggedly before them. The sun had not yet risen,

the air was raw. The sky was grey, cloudy, and cold. My thoughts flew

back to the morning on which I had found the sachet--at that very

spot, almost at that very hour; and for a moment I grew warm again at

the thought of the little packet I carried in my boot. But the

landlord's dry manner, the sullen silence of his two companions, whose

eyes steadily refused to meet mine, chilled me again. For an instant

the impulse to refuse to mount, to refuse to go, was almost

irresistible; then, knowing the madness of such a course, which might,

and probably would, give the men the chance they desired, I crushed it

down and went slowly to my stirrup.

"I wonder you do not want my sword," I said by way of sarcasm, as I

swung myself up.

"We are not afraid of it," the innkeeper answered gravely. "You may

keep it--for the present."

I made no answer--what answer had I to make?--and we rode at a

foot-pace down the street; he and I leading, Clon and the shock-headed

man bringing up the rear. The leisurely mode of our departure, the

absence of hurry or even haste, the men's indifference whether they

were seen, or what was thought, all served to sink my spirits, and

deepen my sense of peril. I felt that they suspected me, that they

more than half guessed the nature of my errand at Cocheforet, and that

they were not minded to be bound by Mademoiselle's orders. In

particular I augured the worst from Clon's appearance. His lean

malevolent face and sunken eyes, his very dumbness chilled me. Mercy

had no place there.

We rode soberly, so that nearly half an hour elapsed before we gained

the brow from which I had taken my first look at Cocheforet. Among the

dwarf oaks whence I had viewed the valley we paused to breathe our

horses, and the strange feelings with which I looked back on the scene

may be imagined. But I had short time for indulging in sentiment or

recollections. A curt word, and we were moving again.

A quarter of a mile farther on the road to Auch dipped into the

valley. When we were already half-way down this descent the innkeeper

suddenly stretched out his hand and caught my rein. "This way!" he

said.

I saw he would have me turn into a by-path leading south-westwards--a

mere track, faint and little trodden and encroached on by trees, which

led I knew not whither. I checked my horse. "Why?" I said

rebelliously. "Do you think I do not know the road? This is the way to

Auch."

"To Auch--yes," he answered bluntly. "But we are not going to Auch."

"Whither then?" I said angrily.

"You will see presently," he replied, with an ugly smile.

"Yes, but I will know now!" I retorted, passion getting the better of

me. "I have come so far with you. You will find it more easy to take

me farther, if you tell me your plans."

"You are a fool!" he cried, with a snarl.

"Not so," I answered. "I ask only to know whither I am going."

"Into Spain," he said. "Will that satisfy you?"

"And what will you do with me there?" I asked, my heart giving a great

bound.

"Hand you over to some friends of ours," he answered curtly, "if you

behave yourself. If not, there is a shorter way, and one that will

save us some travelling. Make up your mind. Monsieur. Which shall it

be?"

CHAPTER VI.

UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI.

So that was their plan. Two or three hours to the southward, the long

white glittering wall stretched east and west above the brown woods.

Beyond that lay Spain. Once across the border, I might be detained, if

no worse happened to me, as a prisoner of war; for we were then at war

with Spain on the Italian side. Or I might be handed over to one of

the savage bands, half smugglers, half brigands, that held the passes;

or be delivered--worst fate of all--into the power of the French

exiles, of whom some would be likely to recognize me and cut my

throat.

"It is a long way into Spain," I muttered, watching in a kind of

fascination Clon handling his pistols.

"I think you will find the other road longer still!" the landlord

answered grimly. "But choose, and be quick about it."

They were three to one, and they had firearms. In effect I had no

choice. "Well, if I must I must!" I cried, making up my mind with

seeming recklessness. "_Vogue la galere!_ Spain be it. It will not be

the first time I have heard the dons talk."

The men nodded, as much as to say that they had known what the end

would be; the landlord released my rein; and in a trice we were riding

down the narrow track, with our faces set towards the mountains.

On one point my mind was now more easy. The men meant fairly by me;

and I had no longer to fear, as I had feared, a pistol shot in the

back at the first convenient ravine. As far as that went, I might ride

in peace. On the other hand, if I let them carry me across the border

my fate was sealed. A man set down without credentials or guards among

the wild desperadoes who swarmed in war time in the Asturian passes

might consider himself fortunate if an easy death fell to his lot. In

my case I could make a shrewd guess what would happen. A single nod of

meaning, one muttered word, dropped among the savage men with whom I

should be left, and the diamonds hidden in my boot would go neither to

the Cardinal nor back to Mademoiselle--nor would it matter to me

whither they went.

So while the others talked in their taciturn fashion, or sometimes

grinned at my gloomy face, I looked out over the brown woods with eyes

that saw, yet did not see. The red squirrel swarming up the trunk, the

startled pigs that rushed away grunting from their feast of mast, the

solitary rider who met us, armed to the teeth, and passed northwards

after whispering with the landlord--all these I saw. But my mind was

not with them. It was groping and feeling about like a hunted mole for

some way of escape. For time pressed. The slope we were on was growing

steeper. By-and-bye we fell into a southward valley, and began to

follow it steadily upwards, crossing and recrossing a swiftly rushing

stream. The snow-peaks began to be hidden behind the rising bulk of

hills that overhung us; and sometimes we could see nothing before or

behind but the wooded walls of our valley rising sheer and green a

thousand paces on either hand, with grey rocks half masked by fern and

ivy getting here and there through the firs and alders.

It was a wild and sombre scene even at that hour, with the midday sun

shining on the rushing water and drawing the scent out of the pines;

but I knew that there was worse to come, and sought desperately for

some ruse by which I might at least separate the men. Three were too

many; with one I might deal. At last, when I had cudgelled my brain

for an hour, and almost resigned myself to a sudden charge on the men

single-handed--a last desperate resort--I thought of a plan,

dangerous, too, and almost desperate, but which still seemed to

promise something. It came of my fingers resting in my pocket on the

fragments of the orange sachet, which, without having any particular

design in my mind, I had taken care to bring with me. I had torn the

sachet into four pieces--four corners. As I played mechanically with

them, one of my fingers fitted into one, as into a glove; a second

finger into another. And the plan came.

Still, before I could move in it, I had to wait until we stopped to

bait the flagging horses, which we did about noon at the head of the

valley. Then, pretending to drink from the stream, I managed to secure

unseen a handful of pebbles, slipping them into the same pocket with

the morsels of stuff. On getting to horse again, I carefully fitted a

pebble, not too tightly, into the largest scrap, and made ready for

the attempt.

The landlord rode on my left, abreast of me; the other two knaves

behind. The road at this stage favoured me, for the valley, which

drained the bare uplands that lay between the lower spurs and the base

of the real mountains, had become wide and shallow. Here were no

trees, and the path was a mere sheep-track covered with short crisp

grass, and running sometimes on this bank of the stream and sometimes

on that.

I waited until the ruffian beside me turned to speak to the men

behind. The moment he did so and his eyes were averted, I slipped out

the scrap of satin in which I had placed the pebble, and balancing it

carefully on my right thigh as I rode, I flipped it forward with all

the strength of my thumb and finger. I meant it to fall a few paces

before us in the path, where it could be seen. But alas for my hopes!

At the critical moment my horse started, my finger struck the scrap

aslant, the pebble flew out, and the bit of stuff fluttered into a

whin-bush close to my stirrup--and was lost!

I was bitterly disappointed, for the same thing might happen again,

and I had now only three scraps left. But fortune favoured me, by

putting it into my neighbour's head to plunge into a hot debate with

the shock-headed man on the nature of some animals seen on a distant

brow; which he said were izards, while the other maintained that they

were common goats. He continued, on this account, to ride with his

face turned the other way. I had time to fit another pebble into the

second piece of stuff, and sliding it on to my thigh, poised it, and

flipped it.

This time my finger struck the tiny missile fairly in the middle, and

shot it so far and so truly that it dropped exactly in the path ten

paces in front of us. The moment I saw it fall I kicked my neighbour's

nag in the ribs; it started, and he, turning in a rage, hit it. The

next instant he pulled it almost on to its haunches.

"Saint Gris!" he cried; and sat glaring at the bit of yellow satin,

with his face turned purple and his jaw fallen.

"What is it?" I said, staring at him in turn. "What is the matter,

fool?"

"Matter?" he blurted out. "_Mon Dieu!_"

But Clon's excitement surpassed even his. The dumb man no sooner saw

what had attracted his comrade's attention, than he uttered an

inarticulate and horrible noise, and tumbling off his horse, more like

a beast than a man, threw himself bodily on the precious morsel.

The innkeeper was not far behind him. An instant and he was down, too,

peering at the thing; and for an instant I thought that they would

fight over it. However, though their jealousy was evident, their

excitement cooled a little when they discovered that the scrap of

stuff was empty; for, fortunately, the pebble had fallen out of it.

Still, it threw them into such a fever of eagerness as it was

wonderful to witness. They nosed the ground where it had lain, they

plucked up the grass and turf, and passed it through their fingers,

they ran to and fro like dogs on a trail; and, glancing askance at one

another, came back always together to the point of departure. Neither

in his jealousy would suffer the other to be there alone.

The shock-headed man and I sat our horses and looked on; he

marvelling, and I pretending to marvel. As the two searched up and

down the path, we moved a little out of it to give them space; and

presently, when all their heads were turned from me, I let a second

morsel drop under a gorse-bush. The shock-headed man, by-and-bye,

found this, and gave it to Clon; and, as from the circumstances of the

first discovery no suspicion attached to me, I ventured to find the

third and last scrap myself. I did not pick it up, but I called the

innkeeper, and he pounced on it as I have seen a hawk pounce on a

chicken.

They hunted for the fourth morsel, but, of course, in vain, and in the

end they desisted, and fitted the three they had together; but neither

would let his own portion out of his hands, and each looked at the

other across the spoil with eyes of suspicion. It was strange to see

them in that wide-stretching valley, whence grey boar-backs of hills

swelled up into the silence of the snow--it was strange, I say, in

that vast solitude to see these two, mere dots on its bosom, circling

round one another in fierce forgetfulness of the outside world,

glaring and shifting their ground like cocks about to engage, and

wholly engrossed--by three scraps of orange-colour, invisible at fifty

paces!

At last the innkeeper cried with an oath: "I am going back. This must

be known down yonder. Give me your pieces, man, and do you go with

Antoine. It will be all right."

But Clon, waving a scrap in either hand and thrusting his ghastly mask

into the other's face, shook his head in passionate denial. He could

not speak, but he made it clear that if any one went back with the

news he was the man to go.

"Nonsense!" the landlord retorted fiercely. "We cannot leave Antoine

to go on alone with him. Give me the stuff."

But Clon would not. He had no thought of resigning the credit of the

discovery, and I began to think that the two would really come to

blows. But there was an alternative, and first one and then the other

looked at me. It was a moment of peril, and I knew it. My stratagem

might react on myself, and the two, to put an end to this difficulty,

agree to put an end to me. But I faced them so coolly and showed so

bold a front, and the ground was so open, that the idea took no root.

They fell to wrangling again more viciously than before. One tapped

his gun and the other his pistols. The landlord scolded, the dumb man

gurgled. At last their difference ended as I had hoped it would.

"Very well then, we will both go back!" the innkeeper cried in a rage.

"And Antoine must see him on. But the blame be on your head. Do you

give the lad your pistols."

Clon took one pistol and gave it to the shock-headed man.

"The other!" the innkeeper said impatiently.

But Clon shook his head with a grim smile, and pointed to the

arquebuss.

By a sudden movement the landlord snatched the pistol, and averted

Clon's vengeance by placing both it and the gun in the shock-headed

man's hands. "There!" he said, addressing the latter, "now can you do?

If Monsieur tries to escape or turn back, shoot him! But four hours'

riding should bring you to the Roca Blanca. You will find the men

there, and will have no more to do with it."

Antoine did not see things quite in that light, however. He looked at

me, and then at the wild track in front of us; and he muttered an oath

and said he would die if he would. But the landlord, who was in a

frenzy of impatience, drew him aside and talked to him, and in the end

seemed to persuade him; for in a few minutes the matter was settled.

Antoine came back and said sullenly, "Forward, Monsieur," the two

others stood on one side, I shrugged my shoulders and kicked up my

horse, and in a twinkling we two were riding on together--man to man.

I turned once or twice to see what those we had left behind were

doing, and always found them standing in apparent debate; but my guard

showed so much jealousy of these movements that I presently shrugged

my shoulders again and desisted.

I had racked my brains to bring about this state of things. But,

strange to say, now I had succeeded, I found it less satisfactory than

I had hoped. I had reduced the odds and got rid of my most dangerous

antagonists; but Antoine, left to himself, proved to be as full of

suspicion as an egg of meat. He rode a little behind me with his gun

across his saddle-bow, and a pistol near his hand, and at the

slightest pause on my part, or if I turned to look at him, he muttered

his constant "Forward, Monsieur!" in a tone that warned me that his

finger was on the trigger. At such a distance he could not miss; and I

saw nothing for it but to go on meekly before him--to the Roca Blanca

and my fate.

What was to be done? The road presently reached the end of the valley

and entered a narrow pine-clad defile, strewn with rocks and boulders,

over which the torrent plunged and eddied with a deafening roar. In

front the white gleam of waterfalls broke the sombre ranks of climbing

trunks. The snow-line lay less than half a mile away on either hand;

and crowning all--at the end of the pass, as it seemed to the

eye--rose the pure white pillar of the Pic du Midi shooting up six

thousand feet into the blue of heaven. Such a scene, so suddenly

disclosed, was enough to drive the sense of danger from my mind; and

for a moment I reined in my horse. But "Forward, Monsieur!" came the

grating order. I fell to earth again, and went on. What was to be

done?

I was at my wit's end to know. The man refused to talk, refused to

ride abreast of me, would have no dismounting, no halting, no

communication; at all. He would have nothing but this silent, lonely

procession of two, with the muzzle of his gun at my back. And

meanwhile we were fast climbing the pass. We had left the others an

hour--nearly two. The sun was declining; the time, I supposed, about

half-past three.

If he would only let me come within reach of him! Or if anything would

fall out to take his attention! When the pass presently widened into a

bare and dreary valley, strewn with huge boulders, and with snow lying

here and there in the hollows, I looked desperately before me, and

scanned even the vast snow-fields that overhung us and stretched away

to the base of the ice-peak. But I saw nothing. No bear swung across

the path, no izard showed itself on the cliffs. The keen sharp air cut

our cheeks and warned me that we were approaching the summit of the

ridge. On all sides were silence and desolation.

_Mon Dieu!_ And the ruffians on whose tender mercies I was to be

thrown might come to meet us! They might appear at any moment. In my

despair I loosened my hat on my head, and let the first gust carry it

to the ground, and then with an oath of annoyance tossed my feet loose

to go after it. But the rascal roared to me to keep my seat.

"Forward, Monsieur!" he shouted brutally. "Go on!"

"But my hat!" I cried. "_Mille tonnerres_, man! I must--"

"Forward, Monsieur, or I shoot!" he replied inexorably, raising his

gun. "One--two--"

And I went on. But, oh, I was wrathful! That I, Gil de Berault, should

be outwitted and led by the nose, like a ringed bull, by this Gascon

lout! That I, whom all Paris knew and feared--if it did not love--the

terror of Zaton's, should come to my end in this dismal waste of snow

and rock, done to death by some pitiful smuggler or thief! It must not

be! Surely in the last resort I could give an account of one man,

though his belt were stuffed with pistols!

But how? Only, it seemed, by open force. My heart began to flutter as

I planned it; and then grew steady again. A hundred paces before us a

gully or ravine on the left ran up into the snow-field. Opposite its

mouth a jumble of stones and broken rocks covered the path. I marked

this for the place. The knave would need both his hands to hold up his

nag over the stones, and, if I turned on him suddenly enough, he might

either drop his gun, or fire it harmlessly.

But, in the meantime, something happened; as, at the last moment,

things do happen. While we were still fifty yards short of the place,

I found his horse's nose creeping forward on a level with my crupper;

and, still advancing, until I could see it out of the tail of my eye,

and my heart gave a great bound. He was coming abreast of me: he was

going to deliver himself into my hands! To cover my excitement, I

began to whistle.

"Hush!" he muttered fiercely: his voice sounding strange and

unnatural. My first thought was that he was ill, and I turned to him.

But he only said again, "Hush! Pass by here quietly, Monsieur."

"Why?" I asked mutinously, curiosity getting the better of me. For had

I been wise I had taken no notice; every second his horse was coming

up with mine. Its nose was level with my stirrup already.

"Hush, man!" he said again. This time there was no mistake about the

panic in his voice. "They call this the Devil's Chapel. God send us

safe by it! It is late to be here. Look at those!" he continued,

pointing with a finger which visibly shook.

I looked. At the mouth of the gully, in a small space partly cleared

of stones stood three broken shafts, raised on rude pedestals. "Well?"

I said in a low voice. The sun which was near setting flushed the

great peak above to the colour of blood; but the valley was growing

grey and each moment more dreary. "Well, what of those?" I said. In

spite of my peril and the excitement of the coming struggle I felt the

chill of his fear. Never had I seen so grim, so desolate, so

Godforsaken a place! Involuntarily I shivered.

"They were crosses," he muttered, in a voice little above a whisper,

while his eyes roved this way and that in terror. "The Cure of Gabas

blessed the place, and set them up. But next morning they were as you

see them now. Come on, Monsieur, come on!" he continued, plucking at

my arm. "It is not safe here after sunset. Pray God, Satan be not at

home!"

He had completely forgotten in his panic that he had anything to fear

from me. His gun dropped loosely across his saddle, his leg rubbed

mine. I saw this, and I changed my plan of action. As our horses

reached the stones I stooped, as if to encourage mine, and by a sudden

clutch snatched the gun bodily from his hand; at the same time I

backed my horse with all my strength. It was done in a moment! A

second and I had him at the end of the gun, and my finger was on the

trigger. Never was victory more easily gained.

He looked at me between rage and terror, his jaw fallen. "Are you

mad?" he cried, his teeth chattering as he spoke. Even in this strait

his eyes left me and wandered round in alarm.

"No, sane!" I retorted fiercely. "But I do not like this place any

better than you do!" Which was true enough, if not quite true. "So, by

your right, quick march!" I continued imperatively. "Turn your horse,

my friend, or take the consequences."

He turned like a lamb, and headed down the valley again, without

giving a thought to his pistols. I kept close to him, and in less than

a minute we had left the Devil's Chapel well behind us, and were

moving down again as we had come up. Only now I held the gun.

When we had gone half a mile or so--until then I did not feel

comfortable myself, and though I thanked Heaven the place existed,

thanked Heaven also that I was out of it--I bade him halt. "Take off

your belt!" I said curtly, "and throw it down. But, mark me, if you

turn, I fire!"

The spirit was quite gone out of him. He obeyed mechanically. I jumped

down, still covering him with the gun, and picked up the belt, pistols

and all. Then I remounted, and we went on. By-and-bye he asked me

sullenly what I was going to do.

"Go back," I said, "and take the road to Auch when I come to it."

"It will be dark in an hour," he answered sulkily.

"I know that," I retorted. "We must camp and do the best we can."

And as I said, we did. The daylight held until we gained the skirts of

the pine-wood at the head of the pass. Here I chose a corner a little

off the track, and well-sheltered from the wind, and bade him light a

fire. I tethered the horses near this and within sight. It remained

only to sup. I had a piece of bread; he had another and an onion. We

ate in silence, sitting on opposite sides of the fire.

But after supper I found myself in a dilemma; I did not see how I was

to sleep. The ruddy light which gleamed on the knave's swart face and

sinewy hands showed also his eyes, black, sullen, and watchful. I knew

that the man was plotting revenge; that he would not hesitate to plant

his knife between my ribs should I give him a chance. I could find

only one alternative to remaining awake. Had I been bloody-minded, I

should have chosen it and solved the question at once and in my favour

by shooting him as he sat.

But I have never been a cruel man, and I could not find it in my heart

to do this. The silence of the mountain and the sky--which seemed a

thing apart from the roar of the torrent and not to be broken by

it--awed me. The vastness of the solitude in which we sat, the dark

void above through which the stars kept shooting, the black gulf below

in which the unseen waters boiled and surged, the absence of other

human company or other signs of human existence put such a face upon

the deed that I gave up the thought of it with a shudder, and resigned

myself, instead, to watch through the night--the long, cold, Pyrenean

night. Presently he curled himself up like a dog and slept in the

blaze, and then for a couple of hours I sat opposite him, thinking. It

seemed years since I had seen Zaton's or thrown the dice. The old

life, the old employments--should I ever go back to them?--seemed dim

and distant. Would Cocheforet, the forest and the mountain, the grey

Chateau and its mistresses, seem one day as dim! And if one bit of

life could fade so quickly at the unrolling of another, and seem in a

moment pale and colourless, would all life some day and somewhere, and

all the things we--But faugh! I was growing foolish. I sprang up and

kicked the wood together, and, taking up the gun, began to pace to and

fro under the cliff. Strange that a little moonlight, a few stars, a

breath of solitude should carry a man back to childhood and childish

things!

* * * * *

It was three in the afternoon of the next day, and the sun lay hot on

the oak groves, and the air was full of warmth as we began to climb

the slope, on which the road to Auch shoots out of the track. The

yellow bracken and the fallen leaves underfoot seemed to throw up

light of themselves, and here and there a patch of ruddy beech lay

like a bloodstain on the hillside. In front a herd of pigs routed

among the mast, and grunted lazily; and high above us a boy lay

watching them. "We part here," I said to my companion. It was my plan

to ride a little way on the road to Auch so as to blind his eyes;

then, leaving my horse in the forest, I would go on foot to the

Chateau.

"The sooner the better!" he answered, with a snarl. "And I hope I may

never see your face again, Monsieur!"

But when we came to the wooden cross at the fork of the roads, and

were about to part, the boy we had seen leapt out of the fern and came

to meet us. "Hollo!" he cried, in a sing-song tone.

"Well!" my companion answered, drawing rein impatiently. "What is it?"

"There are soldiers in the village."

"Soldiers?" Antoine cried incredulously.

"Ay, devils on horseback!" the lad answered, spitting on the ground.

"Three score of them! From Auch!"

Antoine turned to me, his face transformed with fury. "Curse you!" he

cried. "This is some of your work! Now we are all undone! And my

mistresses! _Sacre!_ if I had that gun I would shoot you like a rat!"

"Steady, fool!" I answered roughly. "I know no more of this than you

do!"

This was so true that my surprise was as great as his. The Cardinal,

who rarely made a change of front, had sent me hither that he might

not be forced to send soldiers, and run the risk of all that might

arise from such a movement. What of this invasion, then, than which

nothing could be less consistent with his plans? I wondered. It was

possible, of course, that the travelling merchants, before whom I had

played at treason, had reported the facts; and that on this the

Commandant at Auch had acted. But it seemed unlikely. He had had his

orders, too; and, under the Cardinal's rule, there was small place for

individual enterprise. I could not understand it.

One thing was clear, however. I might now enter the village as I

pleased. "I am going on to look into this," I said to Antoine. "Come,

my man."

He shrugged his shoulders, and stood still. "Not I!" he answered, with

an oath. "No soldiers for me! I have lain out one night, and I can lie

out another!"

I nodded indifferently, for I no longer wanted him; and we parted.

After this, twenty minutes' riding brought me to the entrance of the

village; and here the change was great indeed. Not one of the ordinary

dwellers in the place was to be seen: either they had shut themselves

up in their hovels, or, like Antoine, they had fled to the woods.

Their doors were closed, their windows shuttered. But lounging about

the street were a score of dragoons, in boots and breastplates, whose

short-barrelled muskets, with pouches and bandoliers attached, were

piled near the inn door. In an open space where there was a gap in the

street, a long row of horses, linked head to head, stood bending their

muzzles over bundles of rough forage, and on all sides the cheerful

jingle of chains and bridles and the sound of coarse jokes and

laughter filled the air.

As I rode up to the inn door an old sergeant, with squinting eyes and

his tongue in his cheeks, eyed me inquisitively, and started to cross

the street to challenge me. Fortunately, at that moment the two knaves

whom I had brought from Paris with me, and whom I had left at Auch to

await my orders, came up. I made them a sign not to speak to me, and

they passed on; but I suppose that they told the sergeant that I was

not the man he wanted, for I saw no more of him.

After picketing my horse behind the inn--I could find no better

stable, every place being full--I pushed my way through the group at

the door, and entered. The old room, with the low grimy roof and the

reeking floor, was half full of strange figures, and for a few minutes

I stood unseen in the smoke and confusion. Then the landlord came my

way, and as he passed me I caught his eye. He uttered a low curse,

dropped the pitcher he was carrying, and stood glaring at me, like a

man possessed.

The soldier whose wine he was carrying flung a crust in his face,

with, "Now, greasy fingers! What are you staring at?"

"The devil!" the landlord muttered, beginning to tremble.

"Then let me look at him!" the man retorted and he turned on his

stool.

He started, finding me standing over him. "At your service!" I said

grimly. "A little time and it will be the other way, my friend."

CHAPTER VII.

A MASTER STROKE.

I HAVE a way with me which commonly commands respect; and when the

landlord's first terror was over and he would serve me, I managed to

get my supper--the first good meal I had had in two days--pretty

comfortably in spite of the soldiers' presence. The crowd, too, which

filled the room, soon began to melt. The men strayed off in groups to

water their horses, or went to hunt up their quarters, until only two

or three were left. Dusk had fallen outside; the noise in the street

grew less. The firelight began to glow and flicker on the walls,

and the wretched room to look as homely as it was in its nature to

look. I was pondering for the twentieth time what step I should take

next--under these new circumstances--and why the soldiers were here,

and whether I should let the night pass before I moved, when the door,

which had been turning on its hinges almost without pause for an hour,

opened again, and a woman came in.

She paused a moment on the threshold looking round, and I saw that she

had a shawl on her head and a milk-pitcher in her hand, and that her

feet and ankles were bare. There was a great rent in her coarse stuff

petticoat, and the hand which held the shawl together was brown and

dirty. More I did not see; supposing her to be a neighbour stolen in

now that the house was quiet to get some milk for her child or the

like, I took no further heed of her. I turned to the fire again and

plunged into my thoughts.

But to get to the hearth where the goodwife was fidgeting, the woman

had to pass in front of me; and as she passed I suppose she stole a

look at me from under her shawl. For just when she came between me and

the blaze she uttered a low cry and shrank aside--so quickly that she

almost stepped on the hearth. The next moment she turned her back to

me and was stooping, whispering in the housewife's ear. A stranger

might have thought that she had merely trodden on a hot ember.

But another idea, and a very sharp one, came into my mind; and I stood

up silently. The woman's back was towards me, but something in her

height, her shape, the pose of her head, hidden as it was by her

shawl, seemed familiar. I waited while she hung over the fire

whispering, and while the goodwife slowly filled her pitcher out of

the great black pot. But when she turned to go, I took a step forward

so as to bar her way. And our eyes met.

I could not see her features; they were lost in the shadow of the

hood. But I saw a shiver run through her from head to foot. And I knew

then that I had made no mistake.

"That is too heavy for you, my girl," I said familiarly, as I might

have spoken to a village wench. "I will carry it for you."

One of the men, who remained lolling at the table, laughed, and the

other began to sing a low song. The woman trembled in rage or fear,

but she kept silence and let me take the jug from her hands. And when

I went to the door and opened it, she followed mechanically. An

instant, and the door fell to behind us, shutting off the light and

glow, and we two stood together in the growing dusk.

"It is late for you to be out, Mademoiselle," I said politely. "You

might meet with some rudeness, dressed as you are. Permit me to see

you home."

She shuddered, and I thought I heard her sob, but she did not answer.

Instead, she turned and walked quickly through the village in the

direction of the Chateau, keeping in the shadow of the houses. I

carried the pitcher and walked beside her; and in the dark I smiled. I

knew how shame and impotent rage were working in her. This was

something like revenge!

Presently I spoke. "Well, Mademoiselle," I said. "Where are your

grooms?"

She gave me one look, her eyes blazing with anger, her face like hate

itself; and after that I said no more, but left her in peace, and

contented myself with walking at her shoulder until we came to the end

of the village, where the track to the great house plunged into the

wood. There she stopped, and turned on me like a wild creature at bay.

"What do you want?" she cried hoarsely, breathing as if she had been

running.

"To see you safe to the house," I answered coolly.

"And if I will not?" she retorted.

"The choice does not lie with you, Mademoiselle," I answered sternly.

"You will go to the house with me, and on the way you will give me an

interview; but not here. Here we are not private enough. We may be

interrupted at any moment, and I wish to speak to you at length."

I saw her shiver. "What if I will not?" she said again.

"I might call to the nearest soldiers and tell them who you are," I

answered coolly. "I might, but I should not. That were a clumsy way of

punishing you, and I know a better way. I should go to the captain,

Mademoiselle, and tell him whose horse is locked up in the inn stable.

A trooper told me--as some one had told him--that it belonged to one

of his officers; but I looked through the crack, and I knew the horse

again."

She could not repress a groan. I waited. Still she did not speak.

"Shall I go to the captain?" I said ruthlessly.

She shook the hood back from her face, and looked at me. "Oh, you

coward! you coward!" she hissed through her teeth. "If I had a knife!"

"But you have not, Mademoiselle," I answered, unmoved. "Be good

enough, therefore, to make up your mind which it is to be. Am I to go

with my news to the captain, or am I to come with you?"

"Give me the pitcher!" she said harshly.

I did so, wondering. In a moment she flung it with a savage gesture

far into the bushes. "Come!" she said, "if you will. But some day God

will punish you!"

Without another word she turned and entered the path through the

trees, and I followed her. I suppose every turn in its course, every

hollow and broken place in it had been known to her from childhood,

for she followed it swiftly and unerringly, barefoot as she was. I had

to walk fast through the darkness to keep up with her. The wood was

quiet, but the frogs were beginning to croak in the pool, and their

persistent chorus reminded me of the night when I had come to the

house-door hurt and worn out, and Clon had admitted me, and she had

stood under the gallery in the hall. Things had looked dark then. I

had seen but a very little way ahead. Now all was plain. The

Commandant might be here with all his soldiers, but it was I who held

the strings.

We came to the little wooden bridge and saw beyond the dark meadows

the lights of the house. All the windows were bright. Doubtless the

troopers were making merry. "Now, Mademoiselle," I said quietly. "I

must trouble you to stop here, and give me your attention for a few

minutes. Afterwards you may go your way."

"Speak!" she said defiantly. "And be quick! I cannot breathe the air

where you are! It poisons me!"

"Ah!" I said slowly. "Do you think you make things better by such

speeches as those?"

"Oh!" she cried--and I heard her teeth click together. "Would you have

me fawn on you?"

"Perhaps not," I answered. "Still you make one mistake."

"What is it?" she panted.

"You forget that I am to be feared as well as--loathed!" I answered

grimly. "Ay, Mademoiselle, to be feared!" I continued. "Do you think

that I do not know why you are here in this guise? Do you think that I

do not know for whom that pitcher of broth was intended? Or who will

now have to fast to-night? I tell you I know all these things. Your

house is full of soldiers; your servants were watched and could not

leave. You had to come yourself and get food for him!"

She clutched at the hand-rail of the bridge, and for an instant clung

to it for support. Her face, from which the shawl had fallen,

glimmered white in the shadow of the trees. At last I had shaken her

pride. At last! "What is your price?" she murmured faintly.

"I am going to tell you," I replied, speaking so that every word might

fall distinctly on her ears, and sating my eyes on her proud face. I

had never dreamed of such revenge as this! "About a fortnight ago, M.

de Cocheforet left here at night with a little orange-coloured sachet

in his possession."

She uttered a stifled cry, and drew herself stiffly erect.

"It contained--but there, Mademoiselle, you know its contents," I went

on. "Whatever they were, M. de Cocheforet lost it and them at

starting. A week ago he came back--unfortunately for himself--to seek

them."

She was looking full in my face now. She seemed scarcely to breathe in

the intensity of her surprise and expectation. "You had a search made,

Mademoiselle," I continued quietly. "Your servants left no place

unexplored. The paths, the roads, the very woods were ransacked. But

in vain, because all the while the orange sachet lay whole and

unopened in my pocket."

"No!" she cried impetuously. "You lie, Sir! The sachet was found, torn

open, many leagues from this place!"

"Where I threw it, Mademoiselle," I replied, "that I might mislead

your rascals and be free to return. Oh! believe me," I continued,

letting something of myself, something of my triumph, appear at last

in my voice. "You have made a mistake! You would have done better had

you trusted me. I am no bundle of sawdust, Mademoiselle, but a man: a

man with an arm to shield and a brain to serve, and--as I am going to

teach you--a heart also!"

She shivered.

"In the orange-coloured sachet that you lost I believe there were

eighteen stones of great value?"

She made no answer, but she looked at me as if I fascinated her. Her

very breath seemed to pause and wait on my words. She was so little

conscious of anything else, of anything outside ourselves, that a

score of men might have come up behind her unseen and unnoticed.

I took from my breast a little packet wrapped in soft leather, and

held it towards her. "Will you open this?" I said. "I believe it

contains what you lost. That it contains all I will not answer,

Mademoiselle, because I spilled the stones on the floor of my room,

and I may have failed to find some. But the others can be recovered--I

know where they are."

She took the packet slowly and began to unroll it, her fingers

shaking. A few turns and the mild lustre of the stones made a kind of

moonlight in her hands--such a shimmering glory of imprisoned light as

has ruined many a woman and robbed many a man of his honour.

_Morbleu!_ as I looked at them--and as she stood looking at them in

dull, entranced perplexity--I wondered how I had come to resist the

temptation.

While I gazed her hands began to waver. "I cannot count," she muttered

helplessly. "How many are there?"

"In all, eighteen.'

"They should be eighteen," she said.

She closed her hand on them with that, and opened it again, and did so

twice, as if to reassure herself that the stones were real and that

she was not dreaming. Then she turned to me with sudden fierceness,

and I saw that her beautiful face, sharpened by the greed of

possession, was grown as keen and vicious as before. "Well?" she

muttered between her teeth. "Your price, man? Your price?"

"I am coming to it now, Mademoiselle," I said gravely. "It is a simple

matter. You remember the afternoon when I followed you--clumsily and

thoughtlessly perhaps--through the wood to restore these things? It

seems about a month ago. I believe it happened the day before

yesterday. You called me then some very harsh names, which I will not

hurt you by repeating. The only price I ask for restoring your jewels

is that you recall those names.

"How?" she muttered. "I do not understand."

I repeated my words very slowly. "The only price or reward I ask,

Mademoiselle, is that you take back those names, and say that they

were not deserved."

"And the jewels?" she exclaimed hoarsely.

"They are yours. They are nothing to me. Take them, and say that you

do not think of me-- Nay, I cannot say the words, Mademoiselle."

"But there is something--else! What else?" she cried, her head thrown

back, her eyes, bright as any wild animal's, searching mine. "Ha! my

brother? What of him? What of him, Sir?"

"For him, Mademoiselle--I would prefer that you should tell me no more

than I know already," I answered in a low voice. "I do not wish to be

in that affair. But yes, there is one thing I have not mentioned. You

are right."

She sighed so deeply that I caught the sound.

"It is," I continued slowly, "that you will permit me to remain at

Cocheforet for a few days, while the soldiers are here. I am told that

there are twenty men and two officers quartered in your house. Your

brother is away. I ask to be permitted, Mademoiselle, to take his

place for the time, and to be privileged to protect your sister and

yourself from insult. That is all."

She raised her hand to her head. After a long pause: "The frogs!" she

muttered, "they croak! I cannot hear."

And then, to my surprise, she turned suddenly on her heel, and walked

over the bridge, leaving me there. For a moment I stood aghast,

peering after her shadowy figure, and wondering what had taken her.

Then, in a minute or less, she came quickly back to me, and I

understood. She was crying.

"M. de Barthe," she said, in a trembling voice, which told me that the

victory was won. "Is there nothing else? Have you no other penance for

me?"

"None, Mademoiselle."

She had drawn the shawl over her head, and I no longer saw her face.

"That is all you ask?" she murmured.

"That is all I ask--now," I answered.

"It is granted," she said slowly and firmly. "Forgive me if I seem to

speak lightly--if I seem to make little of your generosity or my

shame; but I can say no more now. I am so deep in trouble and so

gnawed by terror that--I cannot feel anything much to-night, either

shame or gratitude. I am in a dream; God grant it may pass as a dream!

We are sunk in trouble. But for you and what you have done, M. de

Barthe--I--" she paused and I heard her fighting with the sobs which

choked her--"forgive me.... I am overwrought. And my--my feet are

cold," she added suddenly and irrelevantly. "Will you take me home?"

"Ah, Mademoiselle," I cried remorsefully, "I have been a beast! You

are barefoot, and I have kept you here."

"It is nothing," she said in a voice which thrilled me. "My heart is

warm, Monsieur--thanks to you. It is many hours since it has been as

warm."

She stepped out of the shadow as she spoke--and there, the thing was

done. As I had planned, so it had come about. Once more I was crossing

the meadow in the dark to be received at Cocheforet a welcome guest.

The frogs croaked in the pool and a bat swooped round us in circles;

and surely never--never, I thought, with a kind of exultation in my

breast--had man been placed in a stranger position.

Somewhere in the black wood behind us--probably in the outskirts of

the village--lurked M. de Cocheforet. In the great house before us,

outlined by a score of lighted windows, were the soldiers come from

Auch to take him. Between the two, moving side by side in the

darkness, in a silence which each found to be eloquent, were

Mademoiselle and I: she who knew so much, I who knew all--all but one

little thing!

We reached the house, and I suggested that she should steal in first

by the way she had come out, and that I should wait a little and knock

at the door when she had had time to explain matters to Clon.

"They do not let me see Clon," she answered slowly.

"Then your woman must tell him," I rejoined. "Or he may say something

and betray me."

"They will not let our woman come to us."

"What?" I cried, astonished. "But this is infamous. You are not

prisoners!"

Mademoiselle laughed harshly. "Are we not? Well, I suppose not; for if

we wanted company, Captain Larolle said he would be delighted to see

us--in the parlour."

"He has taken your parlour?" I said.

"He and his lieutenant sit there. But I suppose we should be

thankful," she added bitterly. "We have still our bed-rooms left to

us."

"Very well," I said. "Then I must deal with Clon as I can. But I have

still a favour to ask, Mademoiselle. It is only that you and your

sister will descend to-morrow at your usual time. I shall be in the

parlour."

"I would rather not," she said, pausing and speaking in a troubled

voice.

"Are you afraid?"

"No, Monsieur; I am not afraid," she answered proudly. "But--"

"You will come?" I said.

She sighed before she spoke. At length, "Yes, I will come--if you wish

it," she answered; and the next moment she was gone round the corner

of the house, while I laughed to think of the excellent watch these

gallant gentlemen were keeping. M. de Cocheforet might have been with

her in the garden, might have talked with her as I had talked, might

have entered the house even, and passed under their noses scot-free.

But that is the way of soldiers. They are always ready for the enemy,

with drums beating and flags flying--at ten o'clock in the morning.

But he does not always come at that hour.

I waited a little, and then I groped my way to the door, and knocked

on it with the hilt of my sword. The dogs began to bark at the back,

and the chorus of a drinking-song, which came fitfully from the east

wing, ceased altogether. An inner door opened, and an angry voice,

apparently an officer's, began to rate some one for not coming.

Another moment, and a clamour of voices and footsteps seemed to pour

into the hall, and fill it. I heard the bar jerked away, the door was

flung open, and in a twinkling a lanthorn, behind which a dozen

flushed visages were dimly seen, was thrust into my face.

"Why, who the fiend is this?" cried one, glaring at me in

astonishment.

"_Morbleu!_ It is the man!" another shrieked. "Seize him!"

In a moment half a dozen hands were laid on my shoulders, but I only

bowed politely. "The officer, my friends," I said, "M. le Capitaine

Larolle. Where is he?"

"_Diable!_ but who are you, first?" the lanthorn-bearer retorted

bluntly. He was a tall, lanky sergeant, with a sinister face.

"Well, I am not M. de Cocheforet," I replied; "and that must satisfy

you, my man. For the rest, if you do not fetch Captain Larolle at once

and admit me, you will find the consequences inconvenient."

"Ho! ho!" he said, with a sneer. "You can crow, it seems. Well, come

in."

They made way, and I walked into the hall, keeping my hat on. On the

great hearth a fire had been kindled, but it had gone out. Three or

four carbines stood against one wall, and beside them lay a heap of

haversacks and some straw. A shattered stool, broken in a frolic, and

half a dozen empty wine-skins strewed the floor, and helped to give

the place an air of untidiness and disorder. I looked round with eyes

of disgust, and my gorge rose. They had spilled oil, and the place

reeked foully.

"_Ventre bleu!_" I said. "Is this conduct in a gentleman's house, you

rascals? _Ma vie!_ If I had you, I would send half of you to the

wooden horse!"

They gazed at me open-mouthed. My arrogance startled them. The

sergeant alone scowled. When he could find his voice for rage--

"This way!" he said. "We did not know a general officer was coming, or

we would have been better prepared!" And muttering oaths under his

breath, he led me down the well-known passage. At the door of the

parlour he stopped. "Introduce yourself!" he said rudely. "And if you

find the air warm, don't blame me!"

I raised the latch and went in. At a table in front of the hearth,

half covered with glasses and bottles, sat two men playing hazard. The

dice rang sharply as I entered, and he who had just thrown kept the

box over them while he turned, scowling, to see who came in. He was a

fair-haired, blonde man, large-framed and florid. He had put off his

cuirass and boots, and his doublet showed frayed and stained where the

armour had pressed on it. But otherwise he was in the extreme of last

year's fashion. His deep cravat, folded over so that the laced ends

drooped a little in front, was of the finest; his great sash of blue

and silver was a foot wide. He had a little jewel in one ear, and his

tiny beard was peaked _a l'Espagnole_. Probably when he turned he

expected to see the sergeant, for at sight of me he rose slowly,

leaving the dice still covered.

"What folly is this?" he cried wrathfully. "Here, Sergeant!

Sergeant!--without there! What the--! Who are you, Sir?"

"Captain Larolle," I said, uncovering politely, "I believe?"

"Yes, I am Captain Larolle," he retorted. "But who, in the fiend's

name, are you? You are not the man we are after!"

"I am not M. Cocheforet," I said coolly. "I am merely a guest in the

house, M. le Capitaine. I have been enjoying Madame de Cocheforet's

hospitality for some time, but by an evil chance I was away when you

arrived." And with that I walked to the hearth, and, gently pushing

aside his great boots which stood there drying, kicked the logs into a

blaze.

"_Mille diables!_" he whispered. And never did I see a man more

confounded. But I affected to be taken up with his companion, a

sturdy, white-mustachioed old veteran, who sat back in his chair,

eyeing me, with swollen cheeks and eyes surcharged with surprise.

"Good evening, M. le Lieutenant," I said, bowing gravely. "It is a

fine night."

Then the storm burst.

"Fine night!" the captain shrieked, finding his voice again. "_Mille

diables!_ Are you aware, Sir, that I am in possession of this house,

and that no one harbours here without my permission? Guest!

Hospitality! Lieutenant--call the guard! Call the guard!" he continued

passionately. "Where is that ape of a sergeant?"

The lieutenant rose to obey, but I lifted my hand.

"Gently, gently, Captain," I said. "Not so fast! You seem surprised to

see me here. Believe me, I am much more surprised to see you."

"_Sacre!_" he cried, recoiling at this fresh impertinence, while the

lieutenant's eyes almost jumped out of his head.

But nothing moved me.

"Is the door closed?" I said sweetly. "Thank you; it is, I see. Then

permit me to say again, gentlemen, that I am much more surprised to

see you than you can be to see me. When Monseigneur the Cardinal

honoured me by sending me from Paris to conduct this matter, he gave

me the fullest--the fullest powers, M. le Capitaine--to see the affair

to an end. I was not led to expect that my plans would be spoiled on

the eve of success by the intrusion of half the garrison from Auch!"

"O ho!" the captain said softly--in a very different tone and with a

very different face. "So you are the gentleman I heard of at Auch?"

"Very likely," I said drily. "But I am from Paris, not Auch."

"To be sure," he answered thoughtfully. "Eh, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, M. le Capitaine, no doubt," the inferior replied. And they both

looked at one another, and then at me, in a way I did not understand.

"I think," said I, to clinch the matter, "that you have made a

mistake, Captain; or the Commandant has. And it occurs to me that the

Cardinal will not be best pleased."

"I hold the King's commission," he answered rather stiffly.

"To be sure," I replied. "But you see the Cardinal--"

"Ah, but the Cardinal--" he rejoined quickly; and then he stopped and

shrugged his shoulders. And they both looked at me.

"Well?" I said.

"The King," he answered slowly.

"Tut-tut!" I exclaimed, spreading out my hands. "The Cardinal. Let us

stick to him. You were saying?"

"Well, the Cardinal, you see--" And then again, after the same words,

he stopped--stopped abruptly and shrugged his shoulders.

I began to suspect something. "If you have anything to say against

Monseigneur," I answered, watching him narrowly, "say it. But take a

word of advice. Don't let it go beyond the door of this room, my

friend, and it will do you no harm."

"Neither here nor outside," he retorted, looking for a moment at his

comrade. "Only I hold the King's commission. That is all. And I think

enough. For the rest, will you throw a main? Good! Lieutenant, find a

glass, and the gentleman a seat. And here, for my part, I will give

you a toast. The Cardinal--whatever betide!"

I drank it, and sat down to play with him; I had not heard the music

of the dice for a month, and the temptation was irresistible. But I

was not satisfied. I called the mains and won his crowns,--he was a

mere baby at the game,--but half my mind was elsewhere. There was

something here I did not understand; some influence at work on which I

had not counted; something moving under the surface as unintelligible

to me as the soldiers' presence. Had the captain repudiated my

commission altogether, and put me to the door or sent me to the

guard-house, I could have followed that. But these dubious hints, this

passive resistance, puzzled me. Had they news from Paris, I wondered.

Was the King dead? or the Cardinal ill? I asked them. But they said

no, no, no to all, and gave me guarded answers. And midnight found us

still playing; and still fencing.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE QUESTION.

"Sweep the room, Monsieur? And remove this medley? But, M. le

Capitaine--"

"The captain is at the village," I replied sternly. "And do you move!

move, man, and the thing will be done while you are talking about it.

Set the door into the garden open--so!"

"Certainly, it is a fine morning. And the tobacco of M. le

Lieutenant--But M. le Capitaine did not--"

"Give orders? Well, I give them!" I answered. "First of all, remove

these beds. And bustle, man, bustle, or I will find something to

quicken you."

In a moment-- "And M. le Capitaine's riding-boots?"

"Place them in the passage," I replied.

"_Ohe!_ In the passage?" He paused, looking at them in doubt.

"Yes, booby; in the passage."

"And the cloaks, Monsieur?"

"There is a bush handy outside the window. Let them air."

"_Ohe_, the bush? Well, to be sure they are damp. But--yes, yes,

Monsieur, it is done. And the holsters?"

"There also!" I said harshly. "Throw them out. Faugh! The place reeks

of leather. Now, a clean hearth. And set the table before the open

door, so that we may see the garden. So. And tell the cook that we

shall dine at eleven, and that Madame and Mademoiselle will descend."

"_Ohe!_ But M. le Capitaine ordered the dinner for half past eleven?"

"It must be advanced, then; and, mark you, my friend, if it is not

ready when Madame comes down, you will suffer, and the cook too."

When he was gone on his errand, I looked round. What else was lacking?

The sun shone cheerily on the polished floor; the air, freshened by

the rain which had fallen in the night, entered freely through the

open doorway. A few bees lingering with the summer hummed outside. The

fire crackled bravely; an old hound, blind and past work, lay warming

its hide on the hearth. I could think of nothing more, and I stood and

watched the man set out the table and spread the cloth. "For how many,

Monsieur?" he asked, in a scared tone.

"For five," I answered; and I could not help smiling at myself. What

would Zaton's say could it see Berault turned housewife? There was

a white glazed cup--an old-fashioned piece of the second Henry's

time--standing on a shelf. I took it down and put some late flowers in

it, and set it in the middle of the table, and stood off myself to

look at it. But a moment later, thinking I heard them coming, I

hurried it away in a kind of panic, feeling on a sudden ashamed of the

thing. The alarm proved to be false, however; and then again, taking

another turn, I set the piece back. I had done nothing so foolish

for--for more years than I liked to count.

But when Madame and Mademoiselle came, they had eyes neither for the

flowers nor the room. They had heard that the captain was out beating

the village and the woods for the fugitive, and where I had looked for

a comedy I found a tragedy. Madame's face was so red with weeping that

all her beauty was gone. She started and shook at the slightest sound,

and, unable to find any words to answer my greeting, could only sink

into a chair and sit crying silently.

Mademoiselle was in a mood scarcely more cheerful. She did not weep,

but her manner was hard and fierce. She spoke absently and answered

fretfully. Her eyes glittered, and she had the air of straining her

ears continually to catch some dreaded sound. "There is no news,

Monsieur?" she said, as she took her seat. And she shot a swift look

at me.

"None, Mademoiselle."

"They are searching the village?"

"I believe so."

"Where is Clon?" This in a lower voice, and with a kind of shrinking

in her face.

I shook my head. "I believe they have him confined somewhere. And

Louis, too," I said, "But I have not seen either of them."

"And where are--? I thought these people would be here," she muttered.

And she glanced askance at the two vacant places. The servant had

brought in the meal.

"They will be here presently," I said coolly. "Let us make the most of

the time. A little wine and food will do Madame good."

She smiled rather sadly. "I think we have changed places," she said;

"and that you have turned host, and we guests."

"Let it be so," I said cheerfully. "I recommend some of this ragout.

Come, Mademoiselle; fasting can aid no one. A full meal has saved many

a man's life."

It was clumsily said perhaps, for she shuddered and looked at me with

a ghastly smile. But she persuaded her sister to taste something; and

she took something on her own plate and raised her fork to her lips.

But in a moment she laid it down again. "I cannot," she murmured. "I

cannot swallow. Oh, my God, at this moment they may be taking him!"

I thought that she was about to burst into a passion of tears, and I

repented that I had induced her to descend. But her self-control was

not yet exhausted. By an effort painful to see, she recovered her

composure. She took up her fork, and ate a few mouthfuls. Then she

looked at me with a fierce under-look. "I want to see Clon," she

whispered feverishly. The man who waited on us had left the room.

"He knows?" I said.

She nodded, her beautiful face strangely disfigured. Her closed teeth

showed between her lips. Two red spots burned in her white cheeks, and

she breathed quickly. I felt, as I looked at her, a sudden pain at my

heart; and a shuddering fear, such as a man awaking to find himself

falling over a precipice, might feel. How these women loved the man!

For a moment I could not speak. When I found my voice it sounded dry

and husky. "He is a safe confidant," I muttered. "He can neither speak

nor write, Mademoiselle."

"No, but--" and then her face became fixed. "They are coming," she

whispered. "Hush!" She rose stiffly, and stood supporting herself by

the table. "Have they--have they--found him?" she muttered. The woman

by her side wept on, unconscious what was impending.

I heard the captain stumble far down the passage, and swear loudly;

and I touched Mademoiselle's hand. "They have not!" I whispered. "All

is well, Mademoiselle. Pray, pray calm yourself. Sit down, and meet

them as if nothing were the matter. And your sister! Madame, Madame,"

I cried, almost harshly, "compose yourself. Remember that you have a

part to play."

My appeal did something. Madame stifled her sobs. Mademoiselle drew a

deep breath and sat down; and though she was still pale and still

trembled, the worst was past.

And just in time. The door flew open with a crash. The captain

stumbled into the room, swearing afresh. "_Sacre nom du Diable!_" he

cried, his face crimson with rage. "What fool placed these things

here? My boots? My--"

His jaw fell. He stopped on the word, stricken silent by the new

aspect of the room, by the sight of the little party at the table, by

all the changes I had worked. "_Saint Siege!_" I he muttered. "What is

this?" The lieutenant's grizzled face peering over his shoulder

completed the picture.

"You are rather late, M. le Capitaine," I said cheerfully. "Madame's

hour is eleven. But come, here are your seats waiting for you."

"_Mille tonnerres!_" he muttered, advancing into the room, and glaring

at us.

"I am afraid the ragout is cold," I continued, peering into the dish

and affecting to see nothing. "The soup, however, has been kept hot by

the fire. But I think you do not see Madame."

He opened his mouth to swear, but for the moment thought better of it.

"Who--who put my boots in the passage?" he asked, his voice thick with

rage. He did not bow to the ladies, or take any notice of their

presence.

"One of the men, I suppose," I said indifferently. "Is anything

missing?"

He glared at me. Then his cloak, spread outside, caught his eye. He

strode through the door, saw his holsters lying on the grass, and

other things strewn about. He came back. "Whose monkey game is this?"

he snarled, and his face was very ugly. "Who is at the bottom of this?

Speak, Sir, or I--"

"Tut-tut! the ladies!" I said. "You forget yourself, Monsieur."

"Forget myself?" he hissed, and this time he did not check his oath.

"Don't talk to me of the ladies! Madame? Bah! Do you think, fool, that

we are put into rebels' houses to bow and smile and take dancing

lessons?"

"In this case a lesson in politeness were more to the point,

Monsieur," I said sternly. And I rose.

"Was it by your orders that this was done?" he retorted, his brow

black with passion. "Answer, will you?"

"It was!" I replied outright.

"Then take that!" he cried, dashing his hat violently in my face. "And

come outside."

"With pleasure, Monsieur," I answered, bowing. "In one moment. Permit

me to find my sword. I think it is in the passage."

I went thither to get it. When I returned I found that the two men

were waiting for me in the garden, while the ladies had risen from the

table and were standing near it with blanched faces. "You had better

take your sister upstairs, Mademoiselle," I said gently, pausing a

moment beside them. "Have no fear. All will be well."

"But what is it?" she answered, looking troubled. "It was so sudden. I

am--I did not understand. You quarrelled so quickly."

"It is very simple," I answered, smiling. "M. le Capitaine insulted

you yesterday; he will pay for it to-day. That is all. Or, not quite

all," I continued, dropping my voice and speaking in a different tone.

"His removal may help you, Mademoiselle. Do you understand? I think

that there will be no more searching to-day."

She uttered an exclamation, grasping my arm and peering into my face.

"You will kill him?" she muttered.

I nodded. "Why not?" I said.

She caught her breath and stood with one hand clasped to her bosom,

gazing at me with parted lips, the blood mounting to her cheeks.

Gradually the flush melted into a fierce smile. "Yes, yes, why not?"

she repeated, between her teeth. "Why not?" She had her hand on my

arm, and I felt her fingers tighten until I could have winced. "Why

not? So you planned this--for us, Monsieur?"

I nodded.

"But can you?"

"Safely," I said; then, muttering to her to take her sister upstairs,

I turned towards the garden. My foot was already on the threshold, and

I was composing my face to meet the enemy, when I heard a movement

behind me. The next moment her hand was on my arm. "Wait! Wait a

moment! Come back!" she panted. I turned. The smile and flush had

vanished; her face was pale. "No!" she said abruptly. "I was wrong! I

will not have it. I will have no part in it! You planned it last

night, M. de Barthe. It is murder."

"Mademoiselle!" I exclaimed, wondering. "Murder? Why? It is a duel."

"It is murder," she answered persistently. "You planned it last night.

You said so."

"But I risk my own life," I replied sharply.

"Nevertheless--I will have no part in it," she answered more faintly.

"It will bring no good." She was trembling with agitation. Her eyes

avoided mine.

"On my shoulders be it then!" I replied stoutly. "It is too late,

Mademoiselle, to go back. They are waiting for me. Only, before I go,

let me beg of you to retire."

And I turned from her, and went out, wondering and thinking. First,

that women were strange things. Secondly--_murder?_ Merely because I

had planned the duel and provoked the quarrel! Never had I heard

anything so preposterous. Grant it, and dub every man who kept his

honour with his hands a Cain--and a good many branded faces would be

seen in some streets. I laughed at the fancy, as I strode down the

garden walk.

And yet, perhaps, I was going to do a foolish thing. The lieutenant

would still be here: a hard, bitter man, of stiffer stuff than his

captain. And the troopers. What if, when I had killed their leader,

they made the place too hot for me, Monseigneur's commission

notwithstanding? I should look silly, indeed, if on the eve of success

I were driven from the place by a parcel of jack-boots.

I liked the thought so little that I hesitated Yet it seemed too late

to retreat. The captain and the lieutenant were waiting in a little

open space fifty yards from the house, where a narrower path crossed

the broad walk, down which I had first seen Mademoiselle and her

sister pacing. The captain had removed his doublet, and stood in his

shirt leaning against the sundial, his head bare and his sinewy throat

uncovered. He had drawn his rapier and stood pricking the ground

impatiently. I marked his strong and nervous frame and his sanguine

air: and twenty years earlier the sight might have damped me. But no

thought of the kind entered my head now, and though I felt with each

moment greater reluctance to engage, doubt of the issue had no place

in my calculations.

I made ready slowly, and would gladly, to gain time, have found some

fault with the place. But the sun was sufficiently high to give no

advantage to either. The ground was good, the spot well chosen. I

could find no excuse to put off the man, and I was about to salute him

and fall to work, when a thought crossed my mind.

"One moment!" I said. "Supposing I kill you, M. le Capitaine, what

becomes of your errand here?"

"Don't trouble yourself," he answered, with a sneer--he had misread my

slowness and hesitation. "It will not happen, Monsieur. And in any

case the thought need not harass you. I have a lieutenant."

"Yes, but what of my mission?" I replied bluntly. "I have no

lieutenant."

"You should have thought of that before you interfered with my boots,"

he retorted, with contempt.

"True," I said, overlooking his manner. "But better late than never. I

am not sure, now I think of it, that my duty to Monseigneur will let

me fight."

"You will swallow the blow?" he cried, spitting on the ground

offensively. "_Diable!_" And the lieutenant, standing on one side with

his hands behind him and his shoulders squared, laughed grimly.

"I have not made up my mind," I answered irresolutely.

"Well, _nom de Dieu!_ make it up," the captain replied, with an ugly

sneer. He took a swaggering step this way and that, playing his

weapon. "I am afraid, Lieutenant, there will be no sport to-day," he

continued, in a loud aside. "Our cock has but a chicken heart."

"Well!" I said coolly, "I do not know what to do. Certainly it is a

fine day, and a fair piece of ground. And the sun stands well. But I

have not much to gain by killing you, M. le Capitaine, and it might

get me into an awkward fix. On the other hand, it would not hurt me to

let you go."

"Indeed?" he said contemptuously, looking at me as I should look at a

lacquey.

"No!" I replied. "For if you were to say that you had struck Gil de

Berault, and left the ground with a whole skin, no one would believe

you."

"Gil de Berault!" he exclaimed, frowning.

"Yes, Monsieur," I replied suavely. "At your service. You did not know

my name?"

"I thought your name was De Barthe," he said. His voice sounded

queerly; and he waited for the answer with parted lips, and a shadow

in his eyes which I had seen in men's eyes before.

"No," I said. "That was my mother's name, I took it for this occasion

only."

His florid cheek lost a shade of its colour, and he bit his lips as he

glanced at the lieutenant, trouble in his eyes. I had seen these signs

before, and knew them, and I might have cried "Chicken-heart!" in my

turn; but I had not made a way of escape for him--before I declared

myself--for nothing, and I held to my purpose. "I think you will allow

now," I said grimly, "that it will not harm me even if I put up with a

blow!"

"M. de Berault's courage is known," he muttered.

"And with reason," I said. "That being so, suppose we say this day

three months, M. le Capitaine? The postponement to be for my

convenience."

He caught the lieutenant's eye, and looked down sullenly, the conflict

in his mind as plain as daylight. He had only to insist, and I must

fight; and if by luck or skill he could master me, his fame as a

duellist would run, like a ripple over water, through every garrison

town in France and make him a name even in Paris. On the other side

were the imminent peril of death, the gleam of cold steel already in

fancy at his breast, the loss of life and sunshine, and the

possibility of a retreat with honour, if without glory. I read his

face, and knew before he spoke what he would do.

"It appears to me that the burden is with you," he said huskily; "but

for my part, I am satisfied."

"Very well," I said, "I take the burden. Permit me to apologize for

having caused you to strip unnecessarily. Fortunately the sun is

shining."

"Yes," he said gloomily. And he took his clothes from the sundial, and

began to put them on. He had expressed himself satisfied; but I knew

that he was feeling very ill-satisfied with himself, and I was not

surprised when he presently said abruptly and almost rudely, "There is

one thing I think we must settle here."

"What is that?" I asked.

"Our positions," he blurted out. "Or we shall cross one another again

within the hour."

"Umph! I am not quite sure that I understand," I said.

"That is precisely what I don't do--understand!" he retorted, in a

tone of surly triumph. "Before I came on this duty, I was told that

there was a gentleman here, bearing sealed orders from the Cardinal to

arrest M. de Cocheforet; and I was instructed to avoid collision with

him so far as might be possible. At first I took you for the

gentleman. But the plague take me if I understand the matter now."

"Why not?" I said coldly.

"Because--well, the matter is in a nutshell!" he answered impetuously.

"Are you here on behalf of Madame de Cocheforet to shield her husband?

Or are you here to arrest him? That is what I don't understand, M. de

Berault."

"If you mean, am I the Cardinal's agent--I am!" I answered sternly.

"To arrest M. de Cocheforet?"

"To arrest M. de Cocheforet."

"Well--you surprise me," he said.

Only that; but he spoke so drily that I felt the blood rush to my

face. "Take care, Monsieur," I said severely. "Do not presume too far

on the inconvenience to which your death might put me."

He shrugged his shoulders. "No offence!" he said. "But you do not

seem, M. de Berault, to comprehend the difficulty. If we do not settle

things now, we shall be bickering twenty times a day!"

"Well, what do you want?" I asked impatiently.

"Simply to know how you are going to proceed. So that our plans may

not clash."

"But surely, M. le Capitaine, that is my affair!" I replied.

"The clashing?" he answered bitterly. Then he waved aside my wrath.

"Pardon," he said, "the point is simply this: How do you propose to

find him if he is here?"

"That again is my affair," I answered.

He threw up his hands in despair; but in a moment his place was taken

by an unexpected disputant. The lieutenant, who had stood by all the

time, listening and tugging at his grey moustache, suddenly spoke.

"Look here, M. de Berault," he said, confronting me roughly, "I do not

fight duels. I am from the ranks. I proved my courage at Montauban in

'21, and my honour is good enough to take care of itself. So I say

what I like, and I ask you plainly what M. le Capitaine doubtless has

in his mind but does not ask: Are you running with the hare and

hunting with the hounds in this matter? In other words, have you

thrown up Monseigneur's commission in all but name and become Madame's

ally; or--it is the only other alternative--are you getting at the man

through the women?"

"You villain!" I cried, glaring at him in such a rage and fury I could

scarcely get the words out. This was plain speaking with a vengeance!

"How dare you! How dare you say that I am false to the hand that pays

me?"

I thought he would blench, but he did not. He stood up stiff as a

poker. "I do not say; I ask!" he replied, facing me squarely, and

slapping his fist into his open hand to drive home his words the

better. "I ask you whether you are playing the traitor to the

Cardinal? Or to these two women? It is a simple question."

I fairly choked. "You impudent scoundrel," I said.

"Steady, steady!" he replied. "Pitch sticks where it belongs. But that

is enough. I see which it is, M. le Capitaine; this way a moment, by

your leave."

And in a very cavalier way he took his officer by the arm, and drew

him into a side-walk, leaving me to stand in the sun, bursting with

anger and spleen. The gutter-bred rascal! That such a man should

insult me, and with impunity! In Paris I might have made him fight,

but here it was impossible. I was still foaming with rage when they

returned.

"We have come to a determination," the lieutenant said, tugging his

grey mustachios and standing like a ramrod. "We shall leave you the

house and Madame, and you can take your line to find the man. For

ourselves, we shall draw off our men to the village, and we shall take

our line. That is all, M. le Capitaine, is it not?"

"I think so," the captain muttered, looking anywhere but at me.

"Then we bid you good-day, Monsieur," the lieutenant added. And in a

moment he turned his companion round, and the two retired up the walk

to the house, leaving me to look after them in a black fit of rage and

incredulity. At the first flush there was something so offensive in

the manner of their going that anger had the upper hand. I thought of

the lieutenant's words, and I cursed him to hell with a sickening

consciousness that I should not forget them in a hurry: "Was I playing

the traitor to the Cardinal or to these women--which?" _Mon Dieu!_ if

ever question--but there! some day I would punish him. And the

captain? I could put an end to his amusement, at any rate; and I

would. Doubtless among the country bucks of Auch he lorded it as a

chief provincial bully, but I would cut his comb for him some fine

morning behind the barracks.

And then, as I grew cooler I began to wonder why they were going, and

what they were going to do. They might be already on the track, or

have the information they required under hand; in that case I could

understand the movement. But if they were still searching vaguely,

uncertain whether their quarry were in the neighbourhood or not, and

uncertain how long they might have to stay, it seemed incredible that

soldiers should move from good quarters to bad without motive.

I wandered down the garden thinking sullenly of this, and pettishly

cutting off the heads of the flowers with my sheathed sword. After

all, if they found and arrested the man, what then? I should have to

make my peace with the Cardinal as I best might. He would have gained

his point, but not through me, and I should have to look to myself. On

the other hand, if I anticipated them--and, as a fact, I felt that I

could lay my hand on the fugitive within a few hours--there would come

a time when I must face Mademoiselle.

A little while back that had not seemed so difficult a thing. From the

day of our first meeting--and in a higher degree since that afternoon

when she had lashed me with her scorn--my views of her, and my

feelings towards her, had been strangely made up of antagonism and

sympathy; of repulsion, because in her past and present she was so

different from me; of yearning, because she was a woman and

friendless. Then I had duped her and bought her confidence by

returning the jewels, and in a measure I had sated my vengeance; and

then, as a consequence, sympathy had again begun to get the better,

until now I hardly knew my own mind or what I intended. _I did not

know_, in fact, what I intended. I stood there in the garden with that

conviction suddenly new-born in my mind; and then, in a moment, I

heard her step and turned to find her behind me.

Her face was like April, smiles breaking through her tears. As she

stood with a tall hedge of sunflowers behind her, I started to see how

beautiful she was. "I am here in search of you, M. de Barthe," she

said, colouring slightly, perhaps because my eyes betrayed my thought,

"to thank you. You have not fought, and yet you have conquered. My

woman has just been with me, and she tells me that they are going!"

"Going?" I said. "Yes, Mademoiselle, they are leaving the house."

She did not understand my reservation. "What magic have you used?" she

said, almost gaily--it was wonderful how hope had changed her.

"Moreover, I am curious to learn how you managed to avoid fighting."

"After taking a blow?" I said bitterly.

"Monsieur, I did not mean that," she said reproachfully. But her face

clouded. I saw that, viewed in this light--in which I suppose she had

not seen it--the matter perplexed her still more.

I took a sudden resolution. "Have you ever heard, Mademoiselle," I

said gravely, plucking off while I spoke the dead leaves from a plant

beside me, "of a gentleman by name De Berault? Known in Paris, so I

have heard, by the sobriquet of the Black Death?"

"The duellist?" she answered, in wonder. "Yes, I have heard of him. He

killed a young gentleman of this province at Nancy two years back. It

was a sad story," she continued, shuddering, "of a dreadful man. God

keep our friends from such!"

"Amen!" I said quietly. But, in spite of myself, I could not meet her

eyes.

"Why?" she answered, quickly taking alarm at my silence. "What of him,

M. de Barthe? Why have you mentioned him?"

"Because he is here, Mademoiselle."

"Here?" she exclaimed.

"Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered soberly. "I am he."

CHAPTER IX.

CLON.

"You!" she cried, in a voice which pierced me, "You--M. de Berault?

Impossible!" But, glancing askance at her.--I could not face her,--I

saw that the blood had left her cheeks.

"Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered, in a low voice. "De Barthe was my

mother's name. When I came here, a stranger, I took it that I might

not be known; that I might again speak to a good woman and not see her

shrink. That--but why trouble you with all this?" I continued proudly,

rebelling against her silence, her turned shoulder, her averted face.

"You asked me, Mademoiselle, how I could take a blow and let the

striker go. I have answered. It is the one privilege M. de Berault

possesses."

"Then," she replied quickly, but almost in a whisper, "if I were M. de

Berault, I would use it, and never fight again."

"In that event, Mademoiselle," I answered cynically, "I should lose my

men friends as well as my women friends. Like Monseigneur, the

Cardinal, I rule by fear."

She shuddered, either at the name or at the idea my words called up,

and, for a moment, we stood awkwardly silent. The shadow of the

sundial fell between us; the garden was still; here and there a leaf

fluttered slowly down, or a seed fell. With each instant of silence I

felt the gulf between us growing wider, I felt myself growing harder;

I mocked at her past, which was so unlike mine; I mocked at mine, and

called it fate. I was on the point of turning from her with a bow--and

a furnace in my breast--when she spoke.

"There is a late rose lingering there," she said, a slight tremor in

her voice. "I cannot reach it. Will you pluck it for me, M. de

Berault?"

I obeyed her, my hand trembling, my face on fire. She took the rose

from me, and placed it in the bosom of her dress. And I saw that her

hand trembled too, and that her cheek was dark with blushes.

She turned at once, and began to walk towards the house. Presently she

spoke. "Heaven forbid that I should misjudge you a second time!" she

said, in a low voice. "And, after all, who am I that I should judge

you at all? An hour ago, I would have killed that man had I possessed

the power."

"You repented, Mademoiselle," I said huskily. I could scarcely speak.

"Do you never repent?"

"Yes. But too late, Mademoiselle."

"Perhaps it is never too late," she answered softly.

"Alas, when a man is dead--"

"You may rob a man of more than life!" she replied with energy,

stopping me by a gesture. "If you have never robbed a man--or a

woman--of honour! If you have never ruined boy or girl, M. de Berault!

If you have never pushed another into the pit and gone by it yourself!

If--but for murder? Listen. You may be a Romanist, but I am a

Huguenot, and have read. 'Thou shalt not kill!' it is written; and

the penalty, 'By man shall thy blood be shed!' But, 'If you cause

one of these little ones to offend, it were _better_ for you that a

mill-stone were hanged about your neck, and that you were cast into

the depths of the sea."

"Mademoiselle, you are too merciful," I muttered.

"I need mercy myself," she answered, sighing. "And I have had few

temptations. How do I know what you have suffered?"

"Or done!" I said, almost rudely.

"Where a man has not lied, nor betrayed, nor sold himself or others,"

she answered firmly, but in a low tone, "I think I can forgive all

else. I can better put up with force," she added, smiling sadly, "than

with fraud."

Ah, Dieu! I turned away my face that she might not see how it paled,

how I winced; that she might not guess how her words, meant in mercy,

stabbed me to the heart. And yet, then, for the first time, while

viewing in all its depth and width the gulf which separated us, I was

not hardened; I was not cast back on myself. Her gentleness, her pity,

her humility, softened me, while they convicted me. My God! How could

I do that which I had come to do? How could I stab her in the

tenderest part, how could I inflict on her that rending pang, how

could I meet her eyes, and stand before her, a Caliban, a Judas, the

vilest, lowest, basest thing she could conceive?

I stood, a moment, speechless and disordered; stunned by her words, by

my thoughts--as I have seen a man stand when he has lost his all, his

last, at the tables. Then I turned to her; and for an instant I

thought that my tale was told already. I thought that she had pierced

my disguise, for her face was aghast, stricken with sudden fear. Then

I saw that she was not looking at me, but beyond me, and I turned

quickly and saw a servant hurrying from the house to us. It was Louis.

His face, it was, had frightened her. His eyes were staring, his hair

waved, his cheeks were flabby with dismay. He breathed as if he had

been running.

"What is it?" Mademoiselle cried, while he was still some way off.

"Speak, man. My sister? Is she--"

"Clon," he gasped.

The name changed her to stone. "Clon?" she muttered. "What of him?"

"In the village!" Louis panted, his tongue stuttering with terror.

"They are flogging him! They are killing him, Mademoiselle! To make

him tell!"

Mademoiselle grasped the sundial and leant against it, her face

colourless, and, for an instant, I thought that she was fainting.

"Tell?" I said mechanically. "But he cannot tell. He is dumb, man."

"They will make him guide them," Louis groaned, covering his ears with

his shaking hands, his face like paper. "And his cries! Oh, Monsieur,

go!" he continued, suddenly appealing to me, in a thrilling tone.

"Save him. All through the wood I heard them. It was horrible!

horrible!"

Mademoiselle uttered a low moan, and I turned to support her, thinking

each second to see her fall. But with a sudden movement she

straightened herself, and, slipping by me, with eyes which seemed to

see nothing, she started swiftly down the walk towards the meadow

gate.

I ran after her, but, taken by surprise as I was, it was only by a

great effort I reached the gate before her, and, thrusting myself in

the road, barred the way. "Let me pass!" she panted fiercely, striving

to thrust me on one side. "Out of my way, Sir! I am going to the

village."

"You are not going to the village," I said sternly. "Go back to the

house, Mademoiselle, and at once."

"My servant!" she wailed. "Let me go! Oh, let me go! Do you

think I can rest here while they torture him? He cannot speak, and

they--they--"

"Go back, Mademoiselle," I said, cutting her short, with decision.

"You would only make matters worse! I will go myself, and what one man

can do against many, I will! Louis, give your mistress your arm and

take her to the house. Take her to Madame."

"But you will go?" she cried. Before I could stay her--I swear I would

have done so if I could--she raised my hand and carried it to her

trembling lips. "You will go! Go and stop them! Stop them," she

continued, in a tone which stirred my heart, "and Heaven reward you,

Monsieur!"

I did not answer; nor did I once look back, as I crossed the meadow;

but I did not look forward either. Doubtless it was grass I trod;

doubtless the wood was before me with the sun shining aslant on it,

and behind me the house with a flame here and there on the windows.

But I went in a dream, among shadows; with a racing pulse, in a glow

from head to heel; conscious of nothing but the touch of

Mademoiselle's warm lips, seeing neither meadows nor house, nor even

the dark fringe of wood before me, but only Mademoiselle's passionate

face. For the moment I was drunk: drunk with that to which I had been

so long a stranger, with that which a man may scorn for years, to find

it at last beyond his reach--drunk with the touch of a good woman's

lips.

I passed the bridge in this state; and my feet were among the

brushwood before the heat and fervour in which I moved found on a

sudden their direction. Something began to penetrate to my veiled

senses--a hoarse inarticulate cry, now deep, now shrilling horribly,

which seemed to fill the wood. It came at intervals of half a minute

or so, and made the flesh creep, it was so full of dumb pain, of

impotent wrestling, of unspeakable agony. I am a man and have seen

things. I saw the Concini beheaded, and Chalais ten years later--they

gave him thirty-four blows; and when I was a boy I escaped from

the college and viewed from a great distance Ravaillac torn by

horses--that was in the year ten. But the horrible cries I now heard

filled me, perhaps because I was alone and fresh from the sight of

Mademoiselle, with loathing that was intense. The very wood, though

the sun wanted an hour of setting, seemed to grow dark. I ran on

through it, cursing, until the hovels of the village at length came in

sight. Again the shriek rose, a pulsing horror, and this time I could

hear the lash fall on the sodden flesh, I could see in fancy the

strong man, trembling, quivering, straining against his bonds. And

then, in a moment, I was in the street, and, as the scream once more

tore the air, I dashed round the corner by the inn, and came upon

them.

I did not look at _him_. I saw Captain Larolle and the lieutenant, and

a ring of troopers, and one man, bare-armed, teasing out with his

fingers the thongs of a whip. The thongs dripped blood, and the sight

fired the mine. The rage I had suppressed when the lieutenant bearded

me earlier in the afternoon, the passion with which Mademoiselle's

distress had filled my breast, at last found vent. I sprang through

the line of soldiers, and striking the man with the whip a buffet

between the shoulders, which hurled him breathless to the ground, I

turned on the leaders. "You devils!" I cried. "Shame on you! The man

is dumb! I tell you, if I had ten men with me, I would sweep you and

your scum out of the village with broomsticks. Lay on another lash," I

continued recklessly, "and I will see if you or the Cardinal be the

stronger."

The lieutenant glared at me, his grey moustache bristling, his eyes

almost starting from his head. Some of the troopers laid their hands

on their swords, but no one moved, and only the captain spoke. "_Mille

diables!_" he swore. "What is all this about? Are you mad, Sir?"

"Mad or sane!" I cried, still in a fury. "Lay on another lash, and you

shall repent it."

"I?"

"Yes, you!"

For an instant there was a pause of astonishment. Then to my surprise

the captain laughed--laughed loudly. "Very heroic!" he said. "Quite

magnificent, M. le Chevalier-errant. But you see, unfortunately, you

come too late!"

"Too late!" I said incredulously.

"Yes, too late," he replied, with a mocking smile. And the lieutenant

grinned too. "You see the man has just confessed. We have only been

giving him an extra touch or two, to impress his memory, and save us

the trouble of tying him up again."

"I don't believe it," I said bluntly--but I felt the check, and fell

to earth. "The man cannot speak."

"No, but he has managed to tell us that he will guide us to the place

we want," the captain answered drily. "The whip, if it cannot find a

man a tongue, can find him wits. What is more, I think, he will keep

his word," he continued, with a hideous smile. "For I warn him that if

he does not, all your heroics shall not save him! He is a rebel dog,

and known to us of old, and I will flay his back to the bones--ay,

until we can see his heart beating through his ribs--but I will have

what I want--in your teeth, too, you d--d meddler."

"Steady, steady!" I said, somewhat sobered. I saw that he was

telling me the truth. "He is going to take you to M. de Cocheforet's

hiding-place, is he?"

"Yes, he is!" the captain retorted offensively. "Have you any

objection to make to that, Master Spy?"

"None," I replied. "But I shall go with you. And if you live three

months, I shall kill you for that name--behind the barracks at Auch,

M. le Capitaine."

He changed colour, but he answered me boldly enough. "I don't know

that you will go with us. That is as we please," he continued, with a

snarl.

"I have the Cardinal's orders," I said sternly.

"The Cardinal?" he exclaimed, stung to fury by this repetition of the

name. "The Cardinal be--"

But the lieutenant laid his hands on his lips, and stopped him.

"Hush!" he said. Then more quietly, "Your pardon, M. le Capitaine.

Shall I give orders to the men to fall in?"

The captain nodded sullenly.

"Take him down!" the lieutenant ordered, in his harsh, monotonous

voice. "Throw his blouse over him, and tie his hands. And do you two,

Paul and Lebrun, guard him. Michel, bring the whip, or he may forget

how it tastes. Sergeant, choose four good men and dismiss the rest to

their quarters."

"Shall we need the horses?" the sergeant asked.

"I don't know," the captain answered peevishly. "What does the rogue

say?"

The lieutenant stepped up to him. "Listen!" he said grimly. "Nod if

you mean yes, and shake your head if you mean no. And have a care you

answer truly. Is it more than a mile to this place? The place you know

of?"

They had loosened the poor wretch's fastenings, and covered his back.

He stood leaning against the wall, his mouth still panting, the sweat

running down his hollow cheeks; his sunken eyes were closed; a quiver

now and again ran through his frame. The lieutenant repeated his

question, and, getting no answer, looked round for orders. The captain

met the look, and crying savagely, "Answer, will you, you mute!"

struck the half-swooning miserable across the back with his switch.

The effect was magical. Covered, as his shoulders were, the man sprang

erect with a shriek of pain, raising his chin, and hollowing his back;

and in that attitude stood an instant with starting eyes, gasping for

breath. Then he sank back against the wall, moving his mouth

spasmodically. His face was the colour of lead.

"_Diable!_ I think we have gone too far with him!" the captain

muttered.

"Bring some wine!" the lieutenant replied. "Quick with it!"

I looked on, burning with indignation, and wondering besides what

would come of this. If the man took them to the place, and they

succeeded in seizing, Cocheforet, there was an end of the matter as

far as I was concerned. It was off my shoulders, and I might leave the

village when I pleased; nor was it likely--since he would have his

man, though not through me--that the Cardinal would refuse me an

amnesty. On the whole, I thought that I would prefer that things

should take that course; and assuming the issue, I began to wonder

whether in that event it would be necessary that Madame should know

the truth. I had a kind of a vision of a reformed Berault, dead to

play and purging himself at a distance from Zaton's, winning, perhaps,

a name In the Italian war, and finally--but, pshaw! I was a fool.

However, be that as it might, it was essential that I should see the

arrest made; and I waited patiently while they revived the tortured

man, and made their dispositions. These took some time; so that the

sun was down, and it was growing dusk, when we marched out, Clon

going first, supported by his two guards, the captain and I

following,--abreast, and eyeing one another suspiciously,--the

lieutenant, with the sergeant and five troopers, bringing up the rear.

Clon moved slowly, moaning from time to time, and but for the aid

given him by the two men with him, must have sunk down again and

again.

He went out between two houses close to the inn, and struck a narrow

track, scarcely discernible, which ran behind other houses, and then

plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A single person,

traversing the covert, might have made such a track; or pigs, or

children. But it was the first idea that occurred to us, and it put us

all on the alert. The captain carried a cocked pistol, I held my sword

drawn, and kept a watchful eye on him; and the deeper the dusk fell in

the wood, the more cautiously we went, until at last we came out with

a sort of jump into a wider and lighter path.

I looked up and down it, and saw before me a wooden bridge, and an

open meadow, lying cold and grey in the twilight; and I stood in

astonishment. It was the old path to the Chateau! I shivered at the

thought that he was going to take us there, to the house--to

Mademoiselle!

The captain also recognised the place, and swore aloud. But the dumb

man went on unheeding, until he reached the wooden bridge. There he

paused as if in doubt, and looked towards the dark outline of the

building, which was just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in

the west wing. As the captain and I pressed up behind him, he raised

his hands and seemed to wring them towards the house.

"Have a care!" the captain growled. "Play me no tricks, or--" But he

did not finish the sentence; for Clon turned back from the bridge,

and, entering the wood on the left hand, began to ascend the bank of

the stream. We had not gone a hundred yards before the ground grew

rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet through all ran a kind of

path which enabled us to advance, dark as it was growing. Very soon

the bank on which we moved began to rise above the water, and grew

steep and rugged. We turned a shoulder, where the stream swept round a

curve, and saw we were in the mouth of a small ravine, dark and

steep-walled. The water brawled along the bottom, over boulders and

through chasms. In front, the slope on which we stood shaped itself

into a low cliff; but half-way between its summit and the water, a

ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the face, was dimly visible.

"Ten to one, a cave!" the captain muttered. "It is a likely place."

"And an ugly one!" I sneered. "Which one to ten might safely hold for

hours!"

"If the ten had no pistols--yes!" he answered viciously. "But you see

we have. Is he going that way?"

He was. "Lieutenant," Larolle said, turning and speaking in a low

voice, though the chafing of the stream below us covered ordinary

sounds, "shall we light the lanthorns, or press on while there is

still a glimmering of day?"

"On, I should say, M. le Capitaine," the lieutenant answered. "Prick

him in the back if he falters. I will warrant he has a tender place or

two!" the brute added, with a chuckle.

The captain gave the word, and we moved forward; it being very evident

now that the cliff-path was our destination. It was possible for the

eye to follow the track all the way to it through rough stones and

brushwood; and though Clon climbed feebly and with many groans, two

minutes saw us step on to it. It did not turn out to be the perilous

place it looked at a distance. The ledge, grassy and terrace-like,

sloped slightly downwards and outwards, and in parts was slippery; but

it was as wide as a highway, and the fall to the water did not exceed

thirty feet. Even in such a dim light as now displayed it to us, and

by increasing the depth and unseen dangers of the gorge, gave a kind

of impressiveness to our movements, a nervous woman need not have

feared to breast it. I wondered how often Mademoiselle had passed

along it with her milk-pitcher.

"I think we have him now!" Captain Larolle muttered, twisting his

mustachios, and looking round to make his last dispositions. "Paul and

Lebrun, see that your man makes no noise. Sergeant, come forward with

your carbine, but do not fire without orders. Now, silence, all, and

close up, Lieutenant. Forward!"

We advanced about a hundred paces, keeping the cliff on our left, then

turned a shoulder, and saw, a few paces in front of us, a black blotch

standing out from the grey duskiness of the cliff-side. The prisoner

stopped, and raising his bound hands pointed to it.

"There?" the captain whispered, pressing forward. "Is that the place?"

Clon nodded. The captain's voice shook with excitement. "You two

remain here with him!" he muttered, in a low tone. "Sergeant, come

forward with me. Now, are you ready? Forward!"

He and the sergeant passed quickly, one on either side of Clon and his

guards. The path was narrow here, and the captain passed outside. The

eyes of all but one were on the black blotch, the hollow in the

cliff-side, and no one saw exactly what happened. But somehow, as the

captain passed abreast of him, the prisoner thrust back his guards,

and springing sideways, flung his unbound arms round Larolle's body,

and in an instant swept him, shouting, to the verge of the precipice.

It was done in a moment. By the time the lieutenant's startled wits

and eyes were back, the two were already tottering on the edge,

looking in the gloom like one dark form. The sergeant, who was the

first to find his head, levelled his carbine; but as the wrestlers

twirled and twisted, the captain shrieking out oaths and threats, the

mute silent as death, it was impossible to see which was which; and

the sergeant lowered his gun again, while the men held back nervously.

The ledge sloped steeply there; the edge was vague; already the two

seemed to be wrestling in mid-air,--and the mute was a man beyond hope

or fear.

That moment of hesitation was fatal. Clon's long arms were round the

other's arms, crushing them into his ribs; Clon's skull-like face

grinned hate into the other's eyes; his long limbs curled round him

like the folds of a snake. Suddenly Larolle's strength gave way. "Damn

you all! Why don't you--Mercy! mercy!" came in a last scream from his

lips; and then, as the lieutenant, taken aback before, sprang forward

to his aid, the two toppled over the edge, and in a second hurtled out

of sight.

"_Mon Dieu!_" the lieutenant cried, in horror. The answer was a dull

splash in the depths below.

He flung up his arms. "Water!" he said. "Quick, men, get down! We may

save him yet! They have fallen into water!"

But there was no path, and night was come, and the men's nerves were

shaken. The lanthorns had to be lit, and the way to be retraced; and

by the time we reached the dark pool which lay below, the last bubbles

were gone from the surface, the last ripples had beaten themselves out

against the banks. True, the pool still rocked sullenly, and the

yellow light showed a man's hat floating, and near it a glove three

parts submerged. But that was all. The mute's dying grip had known no

loosening, nor his hate any fear. Later, I heard that when they

dragged the two out next day, his fingers were in the other's

eye-sockets, his teeth in his throat. If ever man found death sweet,

it was he.

As we turned slowly from the black water, some shuddering, some

crossing themselves, the lieutenant looked vengefully at me. "Curse

you!" he said, in sudden fury. "I believe you are glad!"

"He deserved his fate," I answered coldly. "Why should I pretend to be

sorry? It was now or in three months. And for the other poor devil's

sake I am glad."

He glared at me a moment, in speechless anger. At last, "I should like

to have you tied up!" he said, between his teeth.

"I should have thought that you had had enough of tying up for one

day!" I retorted. "But there; it comes of making officers out of the

canaille. Dogs love blood. The teamster must still lash something, if

he can no longer lash his horses."

We were back, a sombre little procession, at the wooden bridge, when I

said this. He stopped suddenly. "Very well," he replied, nodding

viciously, "That decides me. Sergeant, light me this way with a

lanthorn. The rest of you to the village. Now, Master Spy," he

continued, glancing at me with gloomy spite, "your road is my road. I

think I know how to cook your goose."

I shrugged my shoulders in disdain, and together, the sergeant leading

the way with the light, we crossed the meadow, and passed through the

gate where Mademoiselle had kissed my hand, and up the ghostly walk

between the rosebushes. I wondered uneasily what the lieutenant would

be at, and what he intended; but the lanthorn light which now fell

on the ground at our feet, and now showed one of us to the other,

high-lit in a frame of blackness, discovered nothing in his grizzled

face but settled hostility. He wheeled at the end of the walk to go

to the main door; but as he did so, I saw the flutter of a white

skirt by the stone seat against the house, and I stepped that way.

"Mademoiselle," I said softly, "is it you?"

"Clon?" she muttered, her voice quivering. "What of him?"

"He is past pain," I answered gently. "He is dead, but in his own way.

Take comfort, Mademoiselle." And then before I could say more, the

lieutenant with his sergeant and light were at my elbow. He saluted

Mademoiselle roughly. She looked at him with shuddering abhorrence.

"Are you come to flog me, Sir?" she said icily. "Is it not enough that

you have murdered my servant?"

"On the contrary, it was he killed my captain," the lieutenant

answered, in another tone than I had expected. "If your servant is

dead, so is my comrade."

She looked with startled eyes, not at him, but at me. "What! Captain

Larolle?" she muttered.

I nodded.

"How?" she asked.

"Clon flung the captain and himself into the river-pool," I explained,

in a low voice. "The pool above the bridge."

She uttered an exclamation of awe, and stood silent. But her lips

moved; I think she was praying for Clon, though she was a Huguenot.

Meanwhile I had a fright. The lanthorn, swinging in the sergeant's

hand, and now throwing its smoky light on the stone seat, now on the

rough wall above it, showed me something else. On the seat, doubtless

where Mademoiselle's hand had lain, as she sat in the dark, listening

and watching, stood a pitcher of food. Beside her, in that place, it

was damning evidence. I trembled lest the lieutenant's eye should fall

upon it, lest the sergeant should see it; I thought what I could do to

hide it; and then in a moment I forgot all about it. The lieutenant

was speaking, and his voice was like doom. My throat grew dry as I

listened. My tongue stuck to my mouth; I tried to look at

Mademoiselle, but I could not.

"It is true, the captain is gone," he said stiffly. "But others are

alive, and about one of them, a word with you,--by your leave,

Mademoiselle. I have listened to a good deal of talk from this fine

gentleman friend of yours. He has spent the last twenty-four hours

saying, 'You shall!' and 'You shall not!' He came from you, and took a

very high tone because we laid a little whip-lash about that dumb

devil of yours. He called us brutes and beasts, and but for him I am

not sure that my friend would not be alive. But when he said a few

minutes ago that he was glad,--glad of it, damn him!--then I fixed it

in my mind that I would be even with him. And I am going to be!"

"What do you mean?" Mademoiselle asked, wearily interrupting him. "If

you think you can prejudice me against that gentleman--"

"That is precisely what I do think! And I am going to do it. And a

little more than that!"

"You will be only wasting your breath!" she answered proudly.

"Wait! wait, Mademoiselle, until you have heard!" he said. "If ever a

black-hearted scoundrel, a dastardly, sneaking spy, trod the earth, it

is this fellow! This friend of yours! And I am going to expose him.

Your own eyes and your own ears shall persuade you. Why, I would not

eat, I would not drink, I would not sit down with him! I would not! I

would rather be beholden to the meanest trooper in my squadron than to

him! Ay, I would, so help me Heaven!" And the lieutenant, turning

squarely on his heels, spat on the ground.

CHAPTER X.

THE ARREST.

So it had come! And come in such a fashion that I saw no way of

escape. The sergeant was between us, and I could not strike him. And I

found no words. A score of times I had thought with shrinking how I

should reveal my secret to Mademoiselle, what I should say, and how

she would take it. But in my mind it had always been a voluntary act,

this disclosure. It had been always I who had unmasked myself, and she

who listened--alone; and in this voluntariness and this privacy there

had been something which seemed to take from the shame of

anticipation. But here--here was no voluntary act on my part, no

privacy, nothing but shame. I stood mute, convicted, speechless--like

the thing I was.

Yet if anything could have braced me, it was Mademoiselle's voice,

when she answered him. "Go on, Monsieur," she said, with the perfect

calmness of scorn. "You will have done the sooner."

"You do not believe me?" he replied hotly. "Then, I say, look at him!

Look at him! If ever shame--"

"Monsieur!" she said abruptly--she did not look at me. "I am ashamed

myself!"

"Why, his very name is not his own!" the lieutenant rejoined jerkily.

"He is no Barthe at all. He is Berault the gambler, the duellist, the

bully--"

Again she interrupted him. "I know it," she said coldly. "I know it

all. And if you have nothing more to tell me, go, Monsieur. Go!" she

continued, in a tone of infinite scorn. "Enough that you have earned

my contempt as well as my abhorrence!"

He looked for a moment taken aback. Then, "Ay, but I _have_ more!" he

cried, his voice stubbornly triumphant. "I forgot that you would think

little of that! I forgot that a swordsman has always the ladies'

hearts. But I have more. Do you know, too, that he is in the

Cardinal's pay? Do you know that he is here on the same errand which

brings us here,--to arrest M. de Cocheforet? Do you know that while we

go about the business openly and in soldier fashion, it is his part to

worm himself into your confidence, to sneak into Madame's intimacy, to

listen at your door, to follow your footsteps, to hang on your

lips, to track you--track you until you betray yourselves and

the man? Do you know this, and that all his sympathy is a lie,

Mademoiselle? His help, so much bait to catch the secret? His aim,

blood-money--blood-money? Why, _morbleu!_" the lieutenant continued,

pointing his finger at me, and so carried away by passion, so lifted

out of himself by wrath and indignation, that in spite of myself I

shrank before him,--"you talk, lady, of contempt and abhorrence in the

same breath with me! But what have you for him? What have you for him,

the spy, the informer, the hired traitor? And if you doubt, if you

want evidence, look at him. Only look at him, I say!"

And he might well say it! For I stood silent still; cowering and

despairing, white with rage and hate. But Mademoiselle did not look.

She gazed straight at the lieutenant. "Have you done?" she said.

"Done?" he stammered. Her words, her air, brought him to earth again.

"Done? Yes, if you believe me."

"I do not," she answered proudly. "If that be all, be satisfied,

Monsieur. I do not believe you."

"Then tell me," he retorted, after a moment of stunned surprise, "why,

if he was not on our side, do you think we let him remain here? Why

did we suffer him to stay in a suspected house bullying us, and taking

your part from hour to hour?"

"He has a sword, Monsieur," she answered, with fine contempt.

"_Mille diables!_" he cried, snapping his fingers in a rage. "That for

his sword! No. It was because he held the Cardinal's commission;

because he had equal authority with us; because we had no choice."

"And that being so, Monsieur, why are you now betraying him?" she

asked keenly.

He swore at that, feeling the stroke go home. "You must be mad," he

said, glaring at her. "Mad, if you cannot see that the man is what I

tell you he is. Look at him! Listen to him! Has he a word to say for

himself?"

Still she did not look. "It is late," she replied, coldly and

irrelevantly. "And I am not very well. If you have quite done, perhaps

you will leave me, Monsieur."

"_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders; "you are mad! I

have told you the truth, and you will not believe it. Well, on your

head be it then, Mademoiselle. I have no more to say. But you will

see."

He looked at her for a moment as if he thought that she might still

give way; then he saluted her roughly, gave the word to the sergeant,

turned, and went down the path. The sergeant went after him, the

lanthorn swaying in his hand. We two were left alone in the gloom. The

frogs were croaking in the pool; the house, the garden, the wood,--all

lay quiet under the darkness, as on the night when I first came to the

Chateau.

And would to Heaven I had never come! That was the cry in my heart.

Would to Heaven I had never seen this woman, whose nobility and faith

and singleness were a continual shame to me; a reproach, branding me

every hour I stood in her presence, with all vile and hateful names.

The man just gone, coarse, low-bred, brutal soldier as he was,

man-flogger, and drilling-block, had yet found heart to feel my

baseness, and words in which to denounce it. What, then, would she say

when the truth some day came home to her? What shape should I take in

her eyes then? How should I be remembered through all the years--then?

Then? But now? What was she thinking, now, as she stood, silent and

absorbed, by the stone seat, a shadowy figure with face turned from

me? Was she recalling the man's words, fitting them to the facts and

the past, adding this and that circumstance? Was she, though she had

rebuffed him in the body, collating, now he was gone, all he had said,

and out of these scraps piecing together the damning truth? The

thought tortured me. I could brook uncertainty no longer. I went

nearer to her and touched her sleeve. "Mademoiselle," I said, in a

voice which sounded hoarse and forced even in my own ears, "do you

believe this of me?"

She started violently and turned. "Pardon, Monsieur," she answered. "I

had forgotten that you were here. Do I believe--what?"

"What that man said of me," I muttered.

"That!" she exclaimed; and she stood a moment gazing at me in a

strange fashion. "Do I believe what he said, Monsieur! But come,

come," she continued, "and I will show you if I believe it. But not

here."

She led the way on the instant into the house, going in through the

parlour door, which stood half open. The room inside was pitch dark,

but she took me fearlessly by the hand, and led me quickly through it,

and along the passage, until we came to the cheerful lighted hall,

where a great fire burned on the hearth. All traces of the soldiers'

occupation had been swept away. But the room was empty.

She led me to the fire, and there, in the full light, no longer a

shadowy creature, but red-lipped, brilliant, throbbing with life, she

stood opposite me, her eyes shining, her colour high, her breast

heaving. "Do I believe it?" she said. "I will tell you. M. de

Cocheforet's hiding-place is in the hut behind the fern-stack, two

furlongs beyond the village, on the road to Auch. You know now what no

one else knows, he and I and Madame excepted. You hold in your hands

his life and my honour; and you know also, M. de Berault, whether I

believed that tale."

"My God!" I cried. And I stood looking at her, until something of the

horror in my eyes crept into hers, and she shuddered and stepped back.

"What is it? What is it?" she whispered, clasping her hands. And with

all the colour gone from her cheeks she peered trembling into the

corners and towards the door. "There is no one here. Is there any

one--listening?"

I forced myself to speak, though I shook all over, like a man in an

ague. "No, Mademoiselle, there is no one here," I muttered. And then I

let my head fall on my breast, and I stood before her, the statue of

despair. Had she felt a grain of suspicion, a grain of doubt, my

bearing must have opened her eyes. But her mind was cast in so noble a

mould, that having once thought ill of me and been converted, she

could feel no doubt again. It was her nature to trust all in all. So,

a little recovered from her fright, she stood looking at me in great

wonder; and at last she had a thought.

"You are not well?" she said suddenly. "It is your old wound,

Monsieur."

"Yes, Mademoiselle," I muttered faintly. "It is my old wound."

"I will call Clon!" she cried impetuously. And then, with a sob, "Ah!

poor Clon! He is gone. But there is Louis. I will call him, and he

will get you something."

She was gone from the room before I could stop her; and I was left

leaning against the table, possessor at last of the great secret which

I had come so far to win. Possessor of that secret, and able in a

moment to open the door, and go out into the night, and make use of

it--and yet the most unhappy of men. The sweat stood on my brow, my

eyes wandered round the room; I even turned towards the door, with

some mad thought of flight--flight from her, from the house, from

everything. And God knows if I might not have chosen that course; for

I still stood doubting, when on the door, that door, there came a

sudden hurried knocking which jarred every nerve in my body. I

started. I stood in the middle of the floor, gazing at the door, as at

a ghost. Then glad of action, glad of anything that might relieve the

tension of my feelings, I strode to it, and pulled it sharply open.

On the threshold, his flushed face lit up by the light behind me,

stood one of the knaves I had brought with me to Auch. He had been

running, and panted heavily, but he had kept his wits. He grasped my

sleeve instantly. "Ah! Monsieur, the very man!" he cried, tugging at

me. "Quick! come this instant, and you may yet be first. They have the

secret. They have found Monsieur."

"Found whom?" I echoed. "M. de Cocheforet?"

"No; but the place where he lies. It was found by accident. The

lieutenant was gathering his men to go to it when I came away. If we

are quick, we may be there first."

"But the place?" I said.

"I could not hear where it was," he answered bluntly. "We can hang on

their skirts, and at the last moment strike in."

The pair of pistols I had taken from the shock-headed man lay on a

chest by the door. I snatched them up, and my hat, and joined him

without another word; and in a moment we were running down the garden.

I looked back once before we passed the gate, and I saw the light

streaming out through the door which I had left open; and I fancied

that for an instant a figure darkened the gap. But the fancy only

strengthened the one single iron purpose which had taken possession of

me and all my thoughts. I must be first. I must anticipate the

lieutenant, and make the arrest myself. I ran on only the faster.

We seemed to be across the meadow and in the wood in a moment. There,

instead of keeping along the common path, I boldly singled out--my

senses seemed preternaturally keen--the smaller track by which Clon

had brought us, and ran unfaltering along it, avoiding logs and

pitfalls as by instinct, and following all its turns and twists, until

it brought us to the back of the inn, and we could hear the murmur of

subdued voices in the village street, the sharp low words of command,

and even the clink of weapons; and could see, above and between the

houses, the dull glare of lanthorns and torches.

I grasped my man's arm and crouched down, listening. "Where is your

mate?" I said, in his ear.

"With them," he muttered.

"Then come," I whispered, rising. "I have seen enough. Let us go."

But he caught me by the arm and detained me. "You don't know the way!"

he hissed. "Steady, steady, Monsieur. You go too fast. They are just

moving. Let us join them, and strike in when the time comes. We must

let them guide us."

"Fool!" I said, shaking off his hand. "I tell you, I know where he is!

I know where they are going. Come; lose not a moment, and we will

pluck the fruit while they are on the road to it."

His only answer was an exclamation of surprise; at that moment the

lights began to move. The lieutenant was starting. The moon was not

yet up; the sky was grey and cloudy; to advance where we were was to

step into a wall of blackness. But we had lost too much time already,

and I did not hesitate. Bidding my companion follow me, and use his

legs, I sprang through a low fence which rose before us, and stumbling

blindly over some broken ground in the rear of the houses, came, with

a fall or two, to a little watercourse with steep sides. Through this

I plunged recklessly, and up the farther side, and, breathless and

panting, gained the road just beyond the village, and fifty yards in

advance of the lieutenant's troop.

They had only two lanthorns burning now, and we were beyond the circle

of light these cast; while the steady tramp of so many footsteps

covered the noise we made. We were unnoticed. In a twinkling we turned

our backs, and as fast as we could ran down the road. Fortunately,

they were thinking more of secrecy than speed, and in a minute we had

doubled the distance between us; in two minutes their lights were mere

sparks shining in the gloom behind us. We lost, at last, even the

tramp of their feet. Then I began to look out and go more slowly;

peering into the shadows on either side for the fern-stack.

On one hand the hill rose steeply; on the other it fell away to the

stream. On neither side was close wood,--or my difficulties had been

immensely increased,--but scattered oak-trees stood here and there

among gorse and bracken. This helped me, and in a moment, on the upper

side, I came upon the dense substance of the stack looming black

against the lighter hill.

My heart beat fast, but it was no time for thought. Bidding the man in

a whisper to follow me and be ready to back me up, I climbed the bank

softly, and with a pistol in my hand, felt my way to the rear of the

stack; thinking to find a hut there, set against the fern, and M. de

Cocheforet in it. But I found no hut. There was none; and all was so

dark that it came upon me suddenly as I stood between the hill and the

stack that I had undertaken a very difficult thing. The hut behind the

fern-stack? But how far behind? How far from it? The dark slope

stretched above us, infinite, immeasurable, shrouded in night. To

begin to climb it in search of a tiny hut, probably well-hidden and

hard to find in daylight, seemed a task as impossible as to meet with

the needle in the hay! And now, while I stood, chilled and doubting,

the steps of the troop in the road began to grow audible, began to

come nearer.

"Well, M. le Capitaine?" the man beside me muttered--in wonder why I

stood. "Which way? Or they will be before us yet."

I tried to think, to reason it out; to consider where the hut would

be; while the wind sighed through the oaks, and here and there I could

hear an acorn fall. But the thing pressed too close on me: my thoughts

would not be hurried, and at last I said at a venture, "Up the hill!

Straight from the stack."

He did not demur, and we plunged at the ascent, knee deep in bracken

and furze, sweating at every pore with our exertions, and hearing the

troop come every moment nearer on the road below. Doubtless _they_

knew exactly whither to go! Forced to stop and take breath when we had

scrambled up fifty yards or so, I saw their lanthorns shining like

moving glow-worms; and could even hear the clink of steel. For all I

could tell, the hut might be down there, and we two be moving from it!

But it was too late to go back now; they were close to the fern-stack:

and in despair I turned to the hill again. A dozen steps, and I

stumbled. I rose and plunged on again; again I stumbled. Then I found

that I was no longer ascending. I was treading level earth. And--was

it water I saw before me, below me, a little in front of my feet, or

some mirage of the sky?

Neither; and I gripped my fellow's arm, as he came abreast of me, and

stopped him sharply. Below us, in the centre of a steep hollow, a pit

in the hill-side, a light shone out through some aperture and quivered

on the mist, like the pale lamp of a moorland hobgoblin. It made

itself visible, displaying nothing else; a wisp of light in the bottom

of a black bowl.

Yet my spirits rose with a great bound at sight of it, for I knew that

I had stumbled on the place I sought. In the common run of things I

should have weighed my next step carefully, and gone about it slowly.

But here was no place for thought, nor room for delay, and I slid down

the side of the hollow, and the moment my feet touched the bottom,

sprang to the door of the little hut whence the light issued. A stone

turned under my foot in my rush, and I fell on my knees on the

threshold; but the fall only brought my face to a level with the

startled eyes of the man who lay inside on a bed of fern. He had been

reading. At the sound I made he dropped his book, and stretched out

his hand for a weapon. But the muzzle of my pistol covered him before

he could reach his; he was not in a posture from which he could

spring, and at a sharp word from me he dropped his hand. The tigerish

glare which had flickered for an instant in his eyes, gave place to a

languid smile; and he shrugged his shoulders. "_Eh, bien?_" he said,

with marvellous composure. "Taken at last! Well, I was tired of it."

"You are my prisoner, M. de Cocheforet," I answered.

"It seems so," he said.

"Move a hand, and I kill you," I answered. "But you have still a

choice."

"Truly?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes. My orders are to take you to Paris alive or dead. Give me your

parole that you will make no attempt to escape, and you shall go

thither at your ease and as a gentleman. Refuse, and I shall disarm

and bind you, and you will go as a prisoner."

"What force have you?" he asked curtly. He had not moved. He still lay

on his elbow, his cloak covering him, the little Marot in which he had

been reading close to his hand. But his quick, black eyes, which

looked the keener for the pallor and thinness of his face, roved

ceaselessly over me, probed the darkness behind me, took note of

everything.

"Enough to compel you, Monsieur," I replied sternly. "But that is not

all. There are thirty dragoons coming up the hill to secure you, and

they will make you no such offer. Surrender to me before they come and

give me your parole, and I will do all for your comfort. Delay, and

you will fall into their hands. There can be no escape."

"You will take my word," he said slowly.

"Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de Cocheforet," I replied.

"Tell me at least that you are not alone."

"I am not alone."

"Then I give it," he said, with a sigh. "And for Heaven's sake get me

something to eat and a bed. I am tired of this pig-sty--and this life

_Arnidieu!_ it is a fortnight since I slept between sheets."

"You shall sleep to-night in your own house if you please," I answered

hurriedly. "But here they come. Be good enough to stay where you are a

moment, and I will meet them."

I stepped out into the darkness, in the nick of time. The lieutenant,

after posting his men round the hollow, had just slid down with a

couple of sergeants to make the arrest. The place round the open door

was pitch dark. He had not espied my knave, who had lodged himself in

the deepest shadow of the hut; and when he saw me come out across the

light, he took me for Cocheforet. In a twinkling he thrust a pistol

into my face, and cried triumphantly, "You are my prisoner!" At the

same instant one of the sergeants raised a lanthorn and threw its

light into my eyes.

"What folly is this?" I said savagely.

The lieutenant's jaw fell, and he stood for half a minute, paralyzed

with astonishment. Less than an hour before he had left me at the

Chateau. Thence he had come hither with the briefest delay; and yet he

found me here before him! He swore fearfully, his face dark, his

mustachios stiff with rage. "What is this? What is it?" he cried at

last. "Where is the man?"

"What man?" I said.

"This Cocheforet!" he roared, carried away by his passion. "Don't lie

to me! He is here, and I will have him!"

"You will not. You are too late!" I said, watching him heedfully. "M.

de Cocheforet is here, but he has already surrendered to me, and he is

my prisoner."

"Your prisoner?"

"Yes, my prisoner!" I answered facing the man with all the harshness I

could muster. "I have arrested him by virtue of the Cardinal's special

commission granted to me. And by virtue of the same I shall keep him!"

He glared at me for a moment in utter rage and perplexity. Then on a

sudden I saw his face lighten. "It is a d--d ruse!" he shouted,

brandishing his pistol like a madman. "It is a cheat and a fraud! And

by G--d you have no commission! I see through it! I see through it

all! You have come here, and you have hocussed us! You are of their

side, and this is your last shift to save him!"

"What folly is this?" I exclaimed.

"No folly at all!" he answered, conviction in his tone. "You have

played upon us! You have fooled us! But I see through it now! An hour

ago I exposed you to that fine Madame at the house there, and I

thought it a marvel that she did not believe me. I thought it a marvel

that she did not see through you, when you stood there before her,

confounded, tongue-tied, a rogue convicted! But I understand it now.

She knew you! By----, she knew you! She was in the plot, and you were

in the plot; and I, who thought I was opening her eyes, was the only

one fooled! But it is my turn now. You have played a bold part, and a

clever one, and I congratulate you! But," he continued, a sinister

light in his little eyes, "it is at an end now, Monsieur! You took us

in finely with your tale of Monseigneur, and his commission, and your

commission, and the rest. But I am not to be blinded any longer, or

bullied! You have arrested him, have you? _You_ have arrested him!

Well, by G--d, I shall arrest him, and I shall arrest you too!"

"You are mad!" I said, staggered as much by this new view of the

matter as by his perfect conviction of its truth. "Mad, Lieutenant!"

"I was!" he snarled drily. "But I am sane now. I was mad when you

imposed upon us; when you persuaded me that you were fooling the women

to get the secret out of them, while all the time you were sheltering

them, protecting them, aiding them, and hiding him--then I was mad!

But not now. However, I ask your pardon, M. de Barthe, or M. de

Berault, or whatever your name really is. I ask your pardon. I thought

you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest hound heaven ever made, or

hell refused! I find that you were cleverer than I thought, and an

honest traitor. Your pardon."

One of the men who stood about the rim of the bowl above us laughed. I

looked at the lieutenant, and could willingly have killed him. "_Mon

Dieu!_" I said, so furious in my turn that I could scarcely speak. "Do

you say that I am an impostor--that I do not hold the Cardinal's

commission?"

"I do say that!" he answered coolly. "And shall abide by it."

"And that I belong to the rebel party?"

"I do," he replied, in the same tone. "In fact," with a grin, "I say

that you are an honest man on the wrong side, M. de Berault. And you

say that you are a scoundrel on the right. The advantage, however, is

with me, and I shall back my opinion by arresting you."

A ripple of coarse laughter ran round the hollow. The sergeant who

held the lanthorn grinned, and a trooper at a distance called out of

the darkness, "_A bon chat bon rat!_" This brought a fresh burst of

laughter, while I stood speechless, confounded by the stubbornness,

the crassness, the insolence, of the man. "You fool!" I cried at last,

"you fool!" And then M. de Cocheforet, who had come out of the hut,

and taken his stand at my elbow, interrupted me.

"Pardon me one moment," he said airily, looking at the lieutenant,

with raised eyebrows, and pointing to me with his thumb. "But I am

puzzled between you. This gentleman's name? Is it de Berault or de

Barthe?"

"I am M. de Berault," I said brusquely, answering for myself.

"Of Paris?"

"Yes, Monsieur, of Paris."

"You are not then the gentleman who has been honouring my poor house

with his presence?"

"Oh, yes!" the lieutenant struck in, grinning. "He is that gentleman,

too!"

"But I thought--I understood that that was M. de Barthe."

"I am M. de Barthe, also," I retorted impatiently. "What of that,

Monsieur? It was my mother's name. I took it when I came down here."

"To--er, to arrest me, may I ask?"

"Yes," I answered doggedly. "To arrest you. What of that?"

"Nothing," he replied slowly and with a steady look at me, a look I

could not meet. "Except that, had I known this before, M. de Berault,

I should have thought long before I surrendered to you."

The lieutenant laughed, and I felt my cheek burn. But I affected to

see nothing, and turned to him again. "Now, Monsieur," I said sternly,

"are you satisfied?"

"No!" he answered point blank. "I am not. You two gentlemen may have

rehearsed this pretty scene a dozen times. The only word it seems to

me, is, Quick March, back to Quarters."

I found myself driven to play my last card--much against my will. "Not

so," I said; "I have my commission."

"Produce it!" he replied brusquely.

"Do you think that I carry it with me?" I said, in scorn. "Do you

think that when I came here, alone, and not with fifty dragoons at my

back, I carried the Cardinal's seal in my pocket for the first lackey

to find? But you shall have it. Where is that knave of mine?"

The words were scarcely out of my mouth before his ready hand thrust a

paper into my fingers. I opened it slowly, glanced at it, and amid a

pause of surprise gave it to the lieutenant. He looked for a moment

confounded. He stared at it, with his jaw fallen. Then with a last

instinct of suspicion he bade the sergeant hold up the lanthorn, and

by its light proceeded to spell out the document.

"Umph!" he ejaculated, after a moment's silence; and he cast an ugly

look at me. "I see." And he read it aloud.

"_By these presents I command and empower Gilles de Berault, sieur de

Berault, to seek for, hold, arrest, and deliver to the Governor of the

Bastile the body of Henri de Cocheforet, and to do all such acts and

things as shall be necessary to effect such arrest and delivery, for

which these shall be his warrant_.

"(_Signed_) _RICHELIEU, Lieut.-Gen_."

When he had done,--and he read the signature with a peculiar

intonation,--some one said softly, "_Vive le roi!_" and there was a

moment's silence. The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. "Is it enough?" I

said hoarsely, glaring from face to face.

The lieutenant bowed stiffly. "For me?" he said. "Quite, Monsieur. I

beg your pardon again. I find that my first impressions were

the-correct ones. Sergeant, give the gentleman his paper." And turning

his shoulder rudely, he tossed the commission towards the sergeant,

who picked it up, and gave it to me, grinning.

I knew that the clown would not fight, and he had his men round him;

and I had no choice but to swallow the insult. As I put the paper in

my breast, with as much indifference as I could assume, he gave a

sharp order. The troopers began to form on the edge above, the men who

had descended, to climb the bank. As the group behind him began to

open and melt away, I caught sight of a white robe in the middle of

it. The next moment, appearing with a suddenness which was like a blow

on the cheek to me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforet glided forward, and

came towards me. She had a hood on her head, drawn low; and for a

moment I could not see her face. I forgot her brother's presence at my

elbow; from habit and impulse rather than calculation, I took a step

forward to meet her---though my tongue cleaved to the roof of my

mouth, and I was dumb and trembling.

But she recoiled with such a look of white hate, of staring,

frozen-eyed loathing, that I stepped back as if she had indeed struck

me. It did not need the words which accompanied the look, the "_Do not

touch me!_" which she hissed at me as she drew her skirts together, to

drive me to the farther edge of the hollow; there to stand with

clenched teeth and nails driven into the flesh while she hung, sobbing

tearless sobs, on her brother's neck.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ROAD TO PARIS.

I remember hearing Marshal Bassompierre, who, of all men within my

knowledge, had the widest experience, say that not dangers, but

discomforts, prove a man, and show what he is; and that the worst

sores in life are caused by crumpled rose-leaves and not by thorns.

I am inclined to agree with this. For I remember that when I came from

my room on the morning after the arrest, and found hall and parlour

and passage empty, and all the common rooms of the house deserted, and

no meal laid, and when I divined anew from this discovery the feeling

of the house towards me,--however natural and to be expected,--I felt

as sharp a pang as when, the night before, I had had to face discovery

and open rage and scorn. I stood in the silent, empty parlour, and

looked round me with a sense of desolation; of something lost and

gone, which I could not replace. The morning was grey and cloudy, the

air sharp; a shower was falling. The rose-bushes at the window swayed

in the wind, and where I could remember the hot sunshine lying on

floor and table, the rain beat in and stained the boards. The main

door flapped and creaked to and fro. I thought of other days and meals

I had taken there, and of the scent of flowers, and I fled to the hall

in despair.

But here, too, was no sign of life or company, no comfort, no

attendance. The ashes of the logs, by whose blaze Mademoiselle had

told me the secret, lay on the hearth white and cold; and now and then

a drop of moisture, sliding down the great chimney, pattered among

them. The great door stood open as if the house had no longer anything

to guard. The only living thing to be seen was a hound which roamed

about restlessly, now gazing at the empty hearth, now lying down with

pricked ears and watchful eyes. Some leaves which had been blown in

rustled in a corner.

I went out moodily into the garden, and wandered down one path, and

up another, looking at the dripping woods and remembering things,

until I came to the stone seat. On it, against the wall, trickling

with rain-drops, and with a dead leaf half filling its narrow neck,

stood the pitcher of food. I thought how much had happened since

Mademoiselle took her hand off it and the sergeant's lanthorn

disclosed it to me. And sighing grimly, I went in again through the

parlour door.

A woman was on her knees, kindling the belated fire. I stood a moment,

looking at her doubtfully, wondering how she would bear herself, and

what she would say to me: and then she turned, and I cried out her

name in horror; for it was Madame!

She was very plainly dressed; her childish face was wan, and piteous

with weeping. But either the night had worn out her passion and

drained her tears, or this great exigency gave her temporary calmness;

for she was perfectly composed. She shivered as her eyes met mine, and

she blinked as if a light had been suddenly thrust before her. But she

turned again to her task, without speaking.

"Madame! Madame!" I cried, in a frenzy of distress. "What is this?"

"The servants would not do it," she answered, in a low but steady

voice. "You are still our guest, Monsieur, and it must be done."

"But--I cannot suffer it!" I cried, in misery. "Madame de Cocheforet,

I will--I would rather do it myself!"

She raised her hand, with a strange, patient expression on her face.

"Hush, please," she said. "Hush! you trouble me."

The fire took light and blazed up as she spoke, and she rose slowly

from it, and, with a lingering look at it, went out; leaving me to

stand and stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Presently I

heard her coming back along the passage, and she entered, bearing a

tray with wine and meat and bread. She set it down on the table, and

with the same wan face, trembling always on the verge of tears, she

began to lay out the things. The glasses clinked pitifully against the

plates as she handled them; the knives jarred with one another; and I

stood by, trembling myself, and endured this strange, this awful

penance.

She signed to me at last to sit down and eat; and she went herself,

and stood in the garden doorway, with her back to me. I obeyed. I sat

down; but though I had eaten nothing since the afternoon of the day

before, and a little earlier had had appetite enough, I could not

swallow. I fumbled with my knife, and munched and drank; and grew hot

and angry at this farce; and then looked through the window at the

dripping bushes, and the rain, and the distant sundial, and grew cold

again.

Suddenly she turned round and came to my side. "You do not eat," she

said.

I threw down my knife, and sprang up in a frenzy of passion. "_Mon

Dieu!_ Madame!" I cried. "Do you think I have _no_ heart?"

And then in a moment I knew what I had done. In a moment she was on

her knees on the floor, clasping my knees, pressing her wet cheeks to

my rough clothes, crying to me for mercy--for life! life! life! his

life! Oh, it was horrible! It was horrible to see her fair hair

falling over my mud-stained boots, to see her slender little form

convulsed with sobs, to feel that this was a woman, a gentlewoman, who

thus abased herself at my feet.

"Oh, Madame! Madame!" I cried, in my agony. "I beg you to rise. Rise,

or I must go! You will drive me out!"

"Grant me his life!" she moaned passionately. "Only his life! What had

he done to you, that you should hunt him down? What had we done to

you, that you should slay us? Ah, Sir, have mercy! Let him go, and we

will pray for you; I and my sister will pray for you every morning and

night of our lives."

I was in terror lest some one should come and see her lying there, and

I stooped and tried to raise her. But she would not rise; she only

sank the lower until her tender hands clasped my spurs, and I dared

not move. Then I took a sudden resolution. "Listen then, Madame," I

said, almost sternly, "if you will not rise. When you ask what you do,

you forget how I stand, and how small my power is! You forget that

were I to release your husband to-day, he would be seized within the

hour by those who are still in the village, and who are watching every

road--who have not ceased to suspect my movements and my intentions.

You forget, I say, my circumstances--"

She cut me short on that word. She sprang abruptly to her feet and

faced me. One moment, and I should have said something to the purpose.

But at that word she was before me, white, breathless, dishevelled,

struggling for speech. "Oh yes, yes," she panted eagerly, "I know! I

understand!" And she thrust her hand into her bosom and plucked

something out and gave it to me--forced it upon me into my hands. "I

know! I know!" she said again. "Take it, and God reward you, Monsieur!

We give it freely--freely and thankfully! And may God bless you!"

I stood and looked at her, and looked at it, and slowly froze. She had

given me the packet--the packet I had restored to Mademoiselle, the

parcel of jewels. I weighed it in my hands, and my heart grew hard

again, for I knew that this was Mademoiselle's doing; that it was she

who, mistrusting the effect of Madame's tears and prayers, had armed

her with this last weapon--this dirty bribe, I flung it down on the

table among the plates, all my pity changed to anger. "Madame," I

cried ruthlessly, "you mistake me altogether. I have heard hard words

enough in the last twenty-four hours, and I know what you think of me!

But you have yet to learn that I have never turned traitor to the hand

that employed me, nor sold my own side! When I do so for a treasure

ten times the worth of that, may my hand rot off!"

She sank into a seat, with a moan of despair, and at that moment the

door opened, and M. de Cocheforet came in. Over his shoulder I had a

glimpse of Mademoiselle's proud face, a little whiter to-day, with

dark marks under the eyes, but still firm and cold. "What is this?" he

said, frowning and stopping short as his eyes lighted on Madame.

"It is--that we start at eleven o'clock, Monsieur," I answered, bowing

curtly. "Those, I fancy, are your property." And pointing to the

jewels, I went out by the other door.

* * * * *

That I might not be present at their parting, I remained in the garden

until the hour I had appointed was well passed; then without entering

the house I went to the stable entrance. Here I found all ready, the

two troopers (whose company I had requisitioned as far as Auch)

already in the saddle, my own two knaves waiting with my sorrel and M.

de Cocheforet's chestnut. Another horse was being led up and down by

Louis, and, alas, my heart winced at the sight. For it bore a lady's

saddle, and I saw that we were to have company. Was it Madame who

meant to come with us? or Mademoiselle? And how far? To Auch? or

farther?

I suppose that they had set some kind of a watch on me; for, as I

walked up, M. de Cocheforet and his sister came out of the house,--he

looking white, with bright eyes and a twitching in his cheek, though

through all he affected a jaunty bearing; she wearing a black mask.

"Mademoiselle accompanies us?" I said formally.

"With your permission, Monsieur," he answered, with grim politeness.

But I saw that he was choking with emotion. I guessed that he had just

parted from his wife, and I turned away.

When we were all mounted, he looked at me. "Perhaps, as you have my

parole, you will permit me to ride alone," he said, with a little

hesitation, "and--"

"Without me!" I rejoined keenly. "Assuredly, so far as is possible." I

directed the troopers to ride in front and keep out of ear-shot; my

two men followed the prisoner at a like distance, with their carbines

on their knees. Last of all I rode myself, with my eyes open and a

pistol loose in my holster. M. de Cocheforet, I saw, was inclined to

sneer at so many precautions, and the mountain made of his request;

but I had not done so much and come so far, I had not faced scorn and

insults, to be cheated of my prize at last. Aware that until we were

beyond Auch there must be hourly and pressing danger of a rescue, I

was determined that he who would wrest my prisoner from me should pay

dearly for it. Only pride, and, perhaps, in a degree also, appetite

for a fight, had prevented me borrowing ten troopers instead of two.

We started, and I looked with a lingering eye and many memories at the

little bridge, the narrow woodland path, the first roofs of the

village; all now familiar, all seen for the last time. Up the brook a

party of soldiers were dragging for the captain's body. A furlong

farther on, a cottage, burned by some carelessness in the night, lay a

heap of black ashes. Louis ran beside us, weeping; the last brown

leaves fluttered down in showers. And between my eyes and all, the

slow, steady rain fell and fell and fell. And so I left Cocheforet.

Louis went with us to a point a mile beyond the village, and there

stood and saw us go, cursing me furiously as I passed. Looking back

when we had ridden on, I still saw him standing; and after a moment's

hesitation I rode back to him. "Listen, fool," I said, cutting him

short in the midst of his mowing and snarling, "and give this message

to your mistress. Tell her from me that it will be with her husband

as it was with M. de Regnier, when he fell into the hands of his

enemy--no better and no worse."

"You want to kill her, too, I suppose?" he answered, glowering at me.

"No, fool! I want to save her!" I retorted wrathfully. "Tell her that,

just that and no more, and you will see the result."

"I shall not," he said sullenly. "I shall not tell her. A message from

you, indeed!" And he spat on the ground.

"Then on your head be it!" I answered solemnly. And I turned my

horse's head and galloped fast after the others. For, in spite of his

refusal, I felt sure that he would report what I had said--if it were

only out of curiosity; and it would be strange if Madame did not

understand the reference.

And so we began our journey; sadly, under dripping trees and a leaden

sky. The country we had to traverse was the same I had trodden on the

last day of my march southwards, but the passage of a month had

changed the face of everything. Green dells, where springs welling out

of the chalk had made of the leafy bottom a fairies' home, strewn with

delicate ferns and hung with mosses--these were now swamps into which

our horses sank to the fetlock. Sunny brows, whence I had viewed the

champaign and traced my forward path, had become bare, windswept

ridges. The beech woods, which had glowed with ruddy light, were naked

now; mere black trunks and rigid arms pointing to heaven. An earthy

smell filled the air; a hundred paces away a wall of mist closed the

view. We plodded on sadly, up hill and down hill; now fording brooks

already stained with flood-water, now crossing barren heaths.

But up hill or down hill, whatever the outlook, I was never permitted

to forget that I was the jailer, the ogre, the villain; that I, riding

behind in my loneliness, was the blight on all, the death-spot. True,

I was behind the others; I escaped their eyes. But there was not a

line of Mademoiselle's drooping figure that did not speak scorn to me,

not a turn of her head that did not seem to say, "Oh God, that such a

thing should breathe!"

I had only speech with her once during the day, and that was on the

last ridge before we went down into the valley to climb up again to

Auch. The rain had ceased; the sun, near its setting, shone faintly;

and for a few moments we stood on the brow and looked southwards while

we breathed the horses. The mist lay like a pall on all the country we

had traversed; but beyond it and above it, gleaming pearl-like in the

level rays, the line of the mountains stood up like a land of

enchantment, soft, radiant, wonderful, or like one of those castles on

the Hill of Glass of which the old romances tell us. I forgot, for an

instant, how we were placed, and I cried to my neighbour that it was

the fairest pageant I had ever seen.

She--it was Mademoiselle, and she had taken off her mask--cast one

look at me; only one, but it conveyed disgust and loathing so

unspeakable that scorn beside them would have been a gift. I reined in

my horse as if she had struck me, and felt myself go first hot and

then cold under her eyes. Then she looked another way.

I did not forget the lesson; after that I avoided her more sedulously

than before. We lay that night at Auch, and I gave M. de Cocheforet

the utmost liberty; even permitting him to go out and return at his

will. In the morning, believing that on the farther side of Auch we

ran less risk of attack, I dismissed the two dragoons, and an hour

after sunrise we set out again. The day was dry and cold, the weather

more promising. I planned to go by way of Lectoure, crossing the

Garonne at Agen; and I thought with roads continually improving as we

moved northwards, we should be able to make good progress before

night. My two men rode first; I came last by myself.

Our way lay for some hours down the valley of the Gers, under poplars

and by long rows of willows; and presently the sun came out and warmed

us. Unfortunately, the rain of the day before had swollen the brooks

which crossed our path, and we more than once had a difficulty in

fording them. Noon, therefore, found us little more than half-way to

Lectoure, and I was growing each minute more impatient, when our road,

which had for a little while left the river bank, dropped down to it

again, and I saw before us another crossing, half ford, half slough.

My men tried it gingerly, and gave back, and tried it again in another

place and finally, just as Mademoiselle and Monsieur came up to them,

floundered through and sprang slantwise up the farther bank.

The delay had been long enough to bring me, with no good will of my

own, close up to the Cocheforets. Mademoiselle's horse made a little

business of the place; this delayed them still longer, and in the

result, we entered the water almost together, and I crossed close on

her heels. The bank on either side was steep; while crossing we could

see neither before nor behind. At the moment, however, I thought

nothing of this, nor of her delay, and I was following her quite at my

leisure, when the sudden report of a carbine, a second report, and a

yell of alarm in front, thrilled me through.

On the instant, while the sound was still in my ears, I saw it all.

Like a hot iron piercing my brain, the truth flashed into my mind. We

were attacked! We were attacked, and I was here helpless in this pit,

this trap! The loss of a second while I fumbled here, Mademoiselle's

horse barring the way, might be fatal.

There was but one way. I turned my horse straight at the steep bank,

and he breasted it. One moment he hung as if he must fall back. Then,

with a snort of terror and a desperate bound, he topped it, and gained

the level, trembling and snorting.

It was as I had guessed. Seventy paces away on the road lay one of my

men. He had fallen, horse and man, and lay still. Near him, with his

back against a bank, stood his fellow, on foot, pressed by four

horsemen, and shouting. As my eye lighted on the scene, he let fly

with a carbine and dropped one.

I snatched a pistol from my holster, cocked it, and seized my horse by

the head--I might save the man yet. I shouted to encourage him, and in

another second should have charged into the fight, when a sudden

vicious blow, swift and unexpected, struck the pistol from my hand.

I made a snatch at it as it fell, but missed it; and before I could

recover myself, Mademoiselle thrust her horse furiously against mine,

and with her riding-whip, lashed the sorrel across the ears. As my

horse reared madly up, I had a glimpse of her eyes flashing hate

through her mask; of her hand again uplifted; the next moment, I was

down in the road, ingloriously unhorsed, the sorrel was galloping

away, and her horse, scared in its turn, was plunging unmanageably a

score of paces from me.

I don't doubt that but for that she would have trampled on me. As it

was, I was free to draw; and in a twinkling I was running towards the

fighters. All I have described had happened in a few seconds. My man

was still defending himself; the smoke of the carbine had scarcely

risen. I sprang with a shout across a fallen tree that intervened; at

the same moment, two of the men detached themselves, and rode to meet

me. One, whom I took to be the leader, was masked. He came furiously

at me, trying to ride me down; but I leaped aside nimbly, and evading

him, rushed at the other, and scaring his horse, so that he dropped

his point, cut him across the shoulder before he could guard himself.

He plunged away, cursing, and trying to hold in his horse, and I

turned to meet the masked man.

"You double-dyed villain!" he cried, riding al. me again. And this

time he man[oe]uvred his horse so skilfully that I was hard put to it

to prevent him knocking me down; and could not with all my efforts

reach him to hurt him. "Surrender, will you!" he continued, "you

bloodhound!"

I wounded him slightly in the knee for answer; but before I could do

more his companion came back, and the two set upon me with a will,

slashing at my head so furiously and towering above me with so

great an advantage that it was all I could do to guard myself.

I was soon glad to fall back against the bank--as my man had done

before me. In such a conflict my rapier would have been of little

use, but fortunately I had armed myself before I left Paris with a

cut-and-thrust sword for the road; and though my mastery of the weapon

was not on a par with my rapier-play, I was able to fend off their

cuts, and by an occasional prick keep the horses at a distance. Still

they swore and cut at me, trying to wear me out; and it was trying

work. A little delay, the least accident, might enable the other man

to come to their help, or Mademoiselle, for all I knew, might shoot me

with my own pistol; and I confess, I was unfeignedly glad when a lucky

parade sent the masked man's sword flying across the road. He was no

coward; for unarmed as he was, he pushed his horse at me, spurring it

recklessly; but the animal, which I had several times touched, reared

up instead and threw him at the very moment that I wounded his

companion a second time in the arm, and made him give back.

This quite changed the scene. The man in the mask staggered to his

feet, and felt stupidly for a pistol. But he could not find one, and

was, I saw, in no state to use it if he had. He reeled helplessly to

the bank, and leaned against it. He would give no further trouble. The

man I had wounded was in scarcely better condition. He retreated

before me for some paces, but then losing courage, he dropped his

sword, and, wheeling round, cantered off down the road, clinging to

his pommel. There remained only the fellow engaged with my man, and I

turned to see how they were getting on. They were standing to take

breath, so I ran towards them; but, seeing me coming, this rascal,

too, whipped round his horse, and disappeared in the wood, and left us

masters of the field. The first thing I did--and I remember it to this

day with pleasure--was to plunge my hand into my pocket, take out half

the money I had in the world, and press it on the man who had fought

for me so stoutly, and who had certainly saved me from disaster. In my

joy I could have kissed him! It was not only that I had escaped defeat

by the skin of my teeth,--and his good sword,--but I knew, and

thrilled with the knowledge, that the fight had altered the whole

position. He was wounded in two places, and I had a scratch or two,

and had lost my horse; and my other poor fellow was dead as a herring.

But speaking for myself, I would have spent half the blood in my body

to purchase the feeling with which I turned back to speak to M. de

Cocheforet and his sister. _I had fought before them_.

Mademoiselle had dismounted, and with her face averted and her mask

pushed on one side, was openly weeping. Her brother, who had

scrupulously kept his place by the ford from the beginning of the

fight to the end, met me with raised eyebrows and a peculiar

smile. "Acknowledge my virtue," he said airily. "I am here, M. de

Berault--which is more than can be said of the two gentlemen who have

just ridden off."

"Yes," I answered, with a touch of bitterness. "I wish they had not

shot my poor man before they went."

He shrugged his shoulders. "They were my friends," he said. "You must

not expect me to blame them. But that is not all."

"No," I said, wiping my sword. "There is this gentleman in the mask."

And I turned to go towards him.

"M. de Berault!" There was something abrupt in the way in which

Cocheforet called my name after me.

I stood. "Pardon?" I said, turning.

"That gentleman?" he answered, hesitating, and looking at me

doubtfully. "Have you considered--what will happen to him, if you give

him up to the authorities?"

"Who is he?" I said sharply.

"That is rather a delicate question," he answered, frowning, and still

looking at me fixedly.

"Not from me," I replied brutally, "since he is in my power. If he

will take off his mask, I shall know better what I intend to do with

him."

The stranger had lost his hat in his fall, and his fair hair, stained

with dust, hung in curls on his shoulders. He was a tall man, of a

slender, handsome presence, and though his dress was plain and almost

rough, I espied a splendid jewel on his hand, and fancied I detected

other signs of high quality. He still lay against the bank in a

half-swooning condition, and seemed unconscious of my scrutiny.

"Should I know him if he unmasked?" I said suddenly, a new idea in my

head.

"You would," M. de Cocheforet answered simply.

"And?"

"It would be bad for every one."

"Ho, ho!" I said softly, looking hard, first at my old prisoner, and

then at my new one. "Then, what do you wish me to do?"

"Leave him here," M. de Cocheforet answered glibly, his face flushed,

the pulse in his cheek beating. I had known him for a man of perfect

honour before, and trusted him. But this evident earnest anxiety on

behalf of his friend touched me. Besides, I knew that I was treading

on slippery ground; that it behoved me to be careful. "I will do it,"

I said, after a moment's reflection. "He will play me no tricks, I

suppose? A letter of--"

"_Mon Dieu_, no! He will understand," Cocheforet answered eagerly.

"You will not repent it, I swear. Let us be going."

"Well,--but my horse?" I said, somewhat taken aback by this extreme

haste.

"We shall overtake it," he replied urgently. "It will have kept to the

road. Lectoure is no more than a league from here, and we can give

orders there to have these two fetched in and buried."

I had nothing to gain by demurring, and so it was arranged. After that

we did not linger. We picked up what we had dropped, M. de Cocheforet

mounted his sister, and within five minutes we were gone. Casting a

glance back from the skirts of the wood, as we entered it, I fancied

that I saw the masked man straighten himself and turn to look after

us; but the leaves were beginning to intervene, the distance was great

and perhaps cheated me. And yet I was not disinclined to think the

unknown a little less severely injured and a trifle more observant

than he seemed.

CHAPTER XII.

AT THE FINGER-POST.

Through all, it will have been noticed, Mademoiselle had not spoken to

me, nor said one word, good or bad. She had played her part grimly;

had taken her defeat in silence, if with tears; had tried neither

prayer, nor defence, nor apology. And the fact that the fight was now

over, the scene left behind, made no difference in her conduct--to my

surprise and discomfiture. She kept her face averted from me; she rode

as before; she affected to ignore my presence. I caught my horse

feeding by the road-side, a furlong forward, and mounted, and fell

into place behind the two, as in the morning. And just as we had

plodded on then in silence, we plodded on now, while I wondered at the

unfathomable ways of women, and knowing that I had borne myself well,

marvelled that she could take part in such an incident and remain

unchanged.

Yet it had made a change in her. Though her mask screened her well, it

could not entirely hide her emotions, and by-and-bye I marked that her

head drooped, that she rode sadly and listlessly, that the lines of

her figure were altered. I noticed that she had flung away, or

furtively dropped, her riding-whip, and I understood that to the old

hatred of me were now added shame and vexation; shame that she had so

lowered herself, even to save her brother, vexation that defeat had

been her only reward.

Of this I saw a sign at Lectoure, where the inn had but one common

room, and we must all dine in company. I secured for them a table by

the fire, and leaving them standing by it, retired myself to a smaller

one, near the door. There were no other guests, and this made the

separation between us more marked. M. de Cocheforet seemed to feel

this. He shrugged his shoulders and looked at me with a smile half

sad, half comical. But Mademoiselle was implacable. She had taken off

her mask, and her face was like stone. Once, only once, during the

meal I saw a change come over her. She coloured, I suppose at her

thoughts, until her face flamed from brow to chin. I watched the blush

spread and spread, and then she slowly and proudly turned her shoulder

to me, and looked through the window at the shabby street.

I suppose that she and her brother had both built on this attempt,

Which must have been arranged at Auch. For when we went on in the

afternoon, I saw a more marked change. They rode now like people

resigned to the worst. The grey realities of the brother's position,

the dreary, hopeless future, began to hang like a mist before their

eyes; began to tinge the landscape with sadness; robbed even the

sunset of its colours. With each hour their spirits flagged and their

speech became less frequent, until presently, when the light was

nearly gone and the dusk was round us, the brother and sister rode

hand in hand, silent, gloomy, one at least of them weeping. The cold

shadow of the Cardinal, of Paris, of the scaffold, was beginning to

make itself felt; was beginning to chill them. As the mountains which

they had known all their lives sank and faded behind us, and we

entered on the wide, low valley of the Garonne, their hopes sank and

faded also--sank to the dead-level of despair. Surrounded by guards, a

mark for curious glances, with pride for a companion, M. de Cocheforet

could doubtless have borne himself bravely; doubtless he would bear

himself bravely still when the end came. But almost alone, moving

forward through the grey evening to a prison, with so many measured

days before him, and nothing to exhilarate or anger,--in this

condition it was little wonder if he felt, and betrayed that he felt,

the blood run slow in his veins; if he thought more of the weeping

wife and ruined home, which he left behind him, than of the cause in

which he had spent himself.

But God knows, they had no monopoly of gloom. I felt almost as sad

myself. Long before sunset the flush of triumph, the heat of the

battle, which had warmed my heart at noon, were gone; giving place to

a chill dissatisfaction, a nausea, a despondency, such as I have known

follow a long night at the tables. Hitherto there had been

difficulties to be overcome, risks to be run, doubts about the end.

Now the end was certain, and very near; so near that it filled all the

prospect. One hour of triumph I might still have; I hugged the thought

of it as a gambler hugs his last stake. I planned the place and time

and mode, and tried to occupy myself wholly with it. But the price?

Alas, that would intrude too, and more as the evening waned; so that

as I passed this or that thing by the road, which I could recall

passing on my journey south,--with thoughts so different, with plans

that now seemed so very, very old,--I asked myself grimly if this were

really I, if this were Gil de Berault, known as Zaton's _premier

joueur_; or some Don Quichotte from Castile, tilting at windmills, and

taking barbers' bowls for gold.

We reached Agen very late in the evening, after groping through a

by-way near the river, set with holes and willow-stools and

frog-spawns--a place no better than a slough. After it the great fire

and the lights at the Blue Maid seemed like a glimpse of a new world,

and in a twinkling put something of life and spirits into two at least

of us. There was queer talk round the hearth here of doings in

Paris,--of a stir against the Cardinal, with the Queen-mother at

bottom, and of grounded expectations that something might this time

come of it. But the landlord pooh-poohed the idea, and I more than

agreed with him. Even M. de Cocheforet, who was for a moment inclined

to build on it, gave up hope when he heard that it came only by way of

Montauban; whence, since its reduction the year before, all sorts of

_canards_ against the Cardinal were always on the wing.

"They kill him about once a month," our host said, with a grin.

"Sometimes it is _Monsieur_ who is to prove a match for him, sometimes

_Cesar Monsieur_--the Duke of Vendome, you understand,--and sometimes

the Queen-mother. But since M. de Chalais and the Marshal made a mess

of it, and paid forfeit, I pin my faith to His Eminence--that is his

new title, they tell me."

"Things are quiet round here?" I asked.

"Perfectly. Since the Languedoc business came to an end, all goes

well," he answered.

Mademoiselle had retired on our arrival, so that her brother and I

were for an hour or two thrown together. I left him at liberty to

separate himself if he pleased, but he did not use the opportunity. A

kind of comradeship, rendered piquant by our peculiar relations, had

begun to spring up between us. He seemed to take pleasure in my

company, more than once rallied me on my post of jailer, would ask

humorously if he might do this or that, and once even inquired what I

should do if he broke his parole.

"Or take it this way," he continued flippantly "Suppose I had stuck

you in the back this evening, in that cursed swamp by the river, M. de

Berault? What then? _Pardieu!_ I am astonished at myself that I did

not do it. I could have been in Montauban within twenty-four hours,

and found fifty hiding-places, and no one the wiser."

"Except your sister," I said quietly.

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he said, "I am afraid I

must have put her out of the way too, to preserve my self-respect. You

are right." And on that he fell into a reverie which held him for a

few minutes. Then I found him looking at me with a kind of frank

perplexity that invited question.

"What is it?" I said.

"You have fought a great many duels?"

"Yes," I said.

"Did you never strike a foul blow in one of them?"

"Never. Why do you ask?"

"Well,--I wanted to confirm an impression," he said. "To be frank, M.

de Berault, I seem to see in you two men."

"Two men?"

"Yes, two men," he answered. "One, the man who captured me; the other,

the man who let my friend go free to-day."

"It surprised you that I let him go? That was prudence, M. de

Cocheforet," I replied, "nothing more. I am an old gambler--I know

when the stakes are too high for me. The man who caught a lion in his

wolf-pit had no great catch."

"No, that is true," he answered, smiling. "And yet--I find two men in

your skin."

"I dare say that there are two in most men's skins," I answered, with

a sigh, "but not always together. Sometimes one is there, and

sometimes the other."

"How does the one like taking up the other's work?" he asked keenly.

I shrugged my shoulders. "That is as may be," I said. "You do not take

an estate without the debts."

He did not answer for a moment, and I fancied that his thoughts had

reverted to his own case. But on a sudden he looked at me again. "Will

you answer me a question, M. de Berault?" he said, with a winning

smile.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Then tell me--it is a tale that is, I am sure, worth the telling.

What was it that, in a very evil hour for me, sent you in search of

me?"

"The Cardinal," I answered.

"I did not ask who," he replied drily. "I asked, what. You had no

grudge against me?"

"No."

"No knowledge of me?"

"No."

"Then what on earth induced you to do it? Heavens, man," he continued

bluntly, rising and speaking with greater freedom than he had before

used, "nature never intended you for a tip staff! What was it, then?"

I rose too. It was very late, and the room was empty, the fire low. "I

will tell you--tomorrow!" I said. "I shall have something to say to

you then, of which that will be part."

He looked at me in great astonishment; with a little suspicion, too.

But I put him off, and called for a light, and by going at once to

bed, cut short his questions.

Those who know the great south road to Agen, and how the vineyards

rise in terraces north of the town, one level of red earth above

another, green in summer, but in late autumn bare and stony, will

remember a particular place where the road two leagues from the town

runs up a long hill. At the top of the hill four ways meet; and there,

plain to be seen against the sky is a finger-post, indicating which

way leads to Bordeaux, and which to Montauban, and which to Perigueux.

This hill had impressed me on my journey down; perhaps, because I had

from it my first view of the Garonne valley, and there felt myself on

the verge of the south country where my mission lay. It had taken root

in my memory; I had come to look upon its bare, bleak brow, with the

finger-post and the four roads, as the first outpost of Paris, as the

first sign of return to the old life.

Now for two days I had been looking forward to seeing it again. That

long stretch of road would do admirably for something I had in my

mind. That sign-post, with the roads pointing north, south, east, and

west, could there be a better place for meetings and partings?

We came to the bottom of the ascent about an hour before noon--M. de

Cocheforet, Mademoiselle, and I. We had reversed the order of

yesterday, and I rode ahead. They came after me at their leisure. At

the foot of the hill, however, I stopped and, letting Mademoiselle

pass on, detained M. de Cocheforet by a gesture. "Pardon me, one

moment," I said. "I want to ask a favour."

He looked at me somewhat fretfully, with a gleam of wildness in his

eyes that betrayed how the iron was eating into his heart. He had

started after breakfast as gaily as a bridegroom, but gradually he had

sunk below himself; and now he had much ado to curb his impatience.

The _bonhomie_ of last night was quite gone. "Of me?" he said. "What

is it?"

"I wish to have a few words with Mademoiselle--alone," I explained.

"Alone?" he answered, frowning.

"Yes," I replied, without blenching, though his face grew dark. "For

the matter of that, you can be within call all the time, if you

please. But I have a reason for wishing to ride a little way with

her."

"To tell her something?"

"Yes."

"Then you can tell it to me," he retorted suspiciously. "Mademoiselle,

I will answer for it, has no desire to--"

"See me, or speak to me!" I said, taking him up. "I can understand

that. Yet I want to speak to her."

"Very well, you can speak to her before me," he answered rudely. "Let

us ride on and join her." And he made a movement as if to do so.

"That will not do, M. de Cocheforet," I said firmly, stopping him with

my hand. "Let me beg you to be more complaisant. It is a small thing I

ask; but I swear to you, if Mademoiselle does not grant it, she will

repent it all her life."

He looked at me, his face growing darker and darker. "Fine words!" he

said presently, with a sneer. "Yet I fancy I understand them." Then

with a passionate oath he broke out in a fresh tone. "But I will not

have it. I have not been blind, M. de Berault, and I understand. But I

will not have it! I will have no such Judas bargain made. _Pardieu!_

do you think I could suffer it and show my face again?"

"I don't know what you mean!" I said, restraining myself with

difficulty. I could have struck the fool.

"But I know what you mean," he replied, in a tone of repressed rage.

"You would have her sell herself: sell herself body and soul to you to

save me! And you would have me stand by and see the thing done! Well,

my answer is--never! though I go to the wheel! I will die a gentleman,

if I have lived a fool!"

"I think you will do the one as certainly as you have done the other,"

I retorted, in my exasperation. And yet I admired him.

"Oh, I am not such a fool," he cried, scowling at me, "as you have

perhaps thought. I have used my eyes."

"Then be good enough now to favour me with your ears," I answered

drily. "And listen when I say that no such bargain has ever crossed my

mind. You were kind enough to think well of me last night, M. de

Cocheforet. Why should the mention of Mademoiselle in a moment change

your opinion? I wish simply to speak to her. I have nothing to ask

from her; neither favour nor anything else. And what I say she will

doubtless tell you afterwards. _Ciel_, man!" I continued angrily,

"what harm can I do to her, in the road, in your sight?"

He looked at me sullenly, his face still flushed, his eyes suspicious.

"What do you want to say to her?" he asked jealously. He was quite

unlike himself. His airy nonchalance, his careless gaiety, were gone.

"You know what I do _not_ want to say to her, M. de Cocheforet," I

answered. "That should be enough."

He glowered at me for a moment, still ill content. Then, without a

word, he made me a gesture to go to her.

She had halted a score of paces away, wondering doubtless what was on

foot. I rode towards her. She wore her mask, so that I lost the

expression of her face as I approached, but the manner in which she

turned her horse's head uncompromisingly towards her brother, and

looked past me--as if I were merely a log in the road--was full of

meaning. I felt the ground suddenly cut from under me. I saluted her,

trembling. "Mademoiselle," I said, "will you grant me the privilege of

your company for a few minutes, as we ride."

"To what purpose, Sir?" she answered, in the coldest voice in which I

think a woman ever spoke to a man.

"That I may explain to you a great many things you do not understand,"

I murmured.

"I prefer to be in the dark," she replied. And her manner said more

than her words.

"But, Mademoiselle," I pleaded,--I would not be discouraged,--"you

told me one day that you would never judge me hastily again."

"Facts judge you, not I, Sir," she answered icily. "I am not

sufficiently on a level with you to be able to judge you--I thank

God."

I shivered though the sun was on me, and the hollow where we stood was

warm. "Still--once before you thought the same!" I exclaimed.

"Afterwards you found that you had been wrong. It may be so again,

Mademoiselle."

"Impossible," she said.

That stung me. "No!" I said fiercely. "It is not impossible. It is you

who are impossible! It is you who are heartless, Mademoiselle. I have

done much, very much, in the last three days to make things lighter

for you. I ask you now to do something for me which can cost you

nothing."

"Nothing?" she answered slowly; and her scornful voice cut me as if it

had been a knife. "Do you think, Monsieur, it costs me nothing to lose

my self-respect, as I do with every word I speak to you? Do you think

it costs me nothing to be here, where I feel every look you cast on me

an insult, every breath I take in your presence a contamination.

Nothing, Monsieur?" She laughed in bitter irony. "Oh, be sure,

something! But something which I despair of making clear to you."

I sat for a moment in my saddle, shaken and quivering with pain. It

had been one thing to feel that she hated and scorned me, to know that

the trust and confidence which she had begun to place in me were

changed to loathing. It was another to listen to her hard, pitiless

words, to change colour under the lash of her gibing tongue. For a

moment I could not find voice to answer her. Then I pointed to M. de

Cocheforet. "Do you love him?" I said, hoarsely, roughly. The gibing

tone had passed from her voice to mine.

She did not answer.

"Because, if you do," I continued, "you will let me tell my tale. Say

no but once more, Mademoiselle,--I am only human,--and I go. And you

will repent it all your life."

I had done better had I taken that tone from the beginning. She

winced, her head drooped, she seemed to grow smaller. All in a moment,

as it were, her pride collapsed. "I will hear you," she answered

feebly.

"Then we will ride on, if you please," I said, keeping the advantage I

had gained. "You need not fear. Your brother will follow."

I caught hold of her rein and turned her horse, and she suffered it

without demur. In a moment we were pacing side by side, the long,

straight road before us. At the end where it topped the hill, I could

see the finger-post,--two faint black lines against the sky. When we

reached that, involuntarily I checked my horse and made it move more

slowly.

"Well, Sir," she said impatiently. And her figure shook as if with

cold.

"It is a tale I desire to tell you, Mademoiselle," I answered,

speaking with effort. "Perhaps I may seem to begin a long way off, but

before I end, I promise to interest you. Two months ago there was

living in Paris a man, perhaps a bad man, at any rate, by common

report, a hard man."

She turned to me suddenly, her eyes gleaming through her mask. "Oh,

Monsieur, spare me this!" she said, quietly scornful. "I will take it

for granted."

"Very well," I replied steadfastly. "Good or bad, this man, one day,

in defiance of the Cardinal's edict against duelling, fought with a

young Englishman behind St. Jacques Church. The Englishman had

influence, the person of whom I speak had none, and an indifferent

name; he was arrested, thrown into the Chatelet, cast for death, left

for days to face death. At the last an offer was made to him. If he

would seek out and deliver up another man, an outlaw with a price upon

his head, he should himself go free."

I paused and drew a deep breath. Then I continued, looking not at her,

but into the distance: "Mademoiselle, it seems easy now to say what

course he should have chosen. It seems hard now to find excuses for

him. But there was one thing which I plead for him. The task he was

asked to undertake was a dangerous one. He risked, he knew he must

risk, and the event proved him right, his life against the life of

this unknown man. And--one thing more--there was time before him.

The outlaw might be taken by another, might be killed, might die,

might--. But there, Mademoiselle, we know what answer this person

made. He took the baser course, and on his honour, on his parole, with

money supplied to him, went free,--free on the condition that he

delivered up this other man."

I paused again, but I did not dare to look at her, and after a moment

of silence I resumed. "Some portion of the second half of this story

you know, Mademoiselle; but not all. Suffice it that this man came

down to a remote village, and there at a risk, but Heaven knows,

basely enough, found his way into his victim's home. Once there, his

heart began to fail him. Had he found the house garrisoned by men, he

might have pressed on to his end with little remorse. But he found

there only two helpless, loyal women; and I say again that from the

first hour of his entrance he sickened of the work he had in hand.

Still he pursued it. He had given his word, and if there was one

tradition of his race which this man had never broken, it was that of

fidelity to his side; to the man that paid him. But he pursued it with

only half his mind, in great misery sometimes, if you will believe me,

in agonies of shame. Gradually, however, almost against his will, the

drama worked itself out before him, until he needed only one thing."

I looked at Mademoiselle. But her head was averted; I could gather

nothing from the outlines of her form. And I went on. "Do not

misunderstand me," I said, in a lower voice. "Do not misunderstand

what I am going to say next. This is no love story, and can have no

ending such as romancers love to set to their tales. But I am bound to

mention, Mademoiselle, that this man, who had lived about inns and

eating-houses, and at the gaming-tables almost all his days, met here

for the first time for years a good woman; and learned by the light of

her loyalty and devotion to see what his life had been, and what was

the real nature of the work he was doing. I think,--nay, I know--that

it added a hundredfold to his misery, that when he learned at last the

secret he had come to surprise, he learned it from her lips, and in

such a way that had he felt no shame, hell could have been no place

for him. But in one thing she misjudged him. She thought, and had

reason to think, that the moment he knew her secret he went out, not

even closing the door, and used it. But the truth was that, while her

words were still in his ears, news came to him that others had the

secret; and had he not gone out on the instant, and done what he did,

and forestalled them, M. de Cocheforet would have been taken, but by

others."

Mademoiselle broke her long silence so suddenly that her horse sprang

forward. "Would to Heaven he had!" she wailed.

"Been taken by others?" I exclaimed, startled out of my false

composure.

"Oh, yes, yes!" she answered passionately. "Why did you not tell me?

Why did you not confess to me even then? I--oh, no more! No more!" she

continued, in a piteous voice. "I have heard enough. You are racking

my heart, M. de Berault. Some day I will ask God to give me strength

to forgive you."

"But you have not heard me out," I replied.

"I want to hear no more," she answered, in a voice she vainly strove

to render steady. "To what end? Can I say more than I have said? Did

you think I could forgive you now--with him behind us going to his

death? Oh, no, no!" she continued. "Leave me! I implore you to leave

me. I am not well."

She drooped over her horse's neck as she spoke and began to weep so

passionately that the tears ran down her cheeks under her mask, and

fell and sparkled like dew on the mane before her; while her sobs

shook her so painfully that I thought she must fall. I stretched out

my hand instinctively to give her help; but she shrank from me. "No!"

she gasped, between her sobs. "Do not touch me. There is too much

between us."

"Yet there must be one thing more between us," I answered firmly. "You

must listen to me a little longer, whether you will or no,

Mademoiselle, for the love you bear to your brother. There is one

course still open to me by which I may redeem my honour; it has been

in my mind for some time back to take that course. To-day, I am

thankful to say, I can take it cheerfully, if not without regret; with

a steadfast heart, if with no light one. Mademoiselle," I continued

earnestly, feeling none of the triumph, none of the vanity, I had

foreseen, but only joy in the joy I could give her, "I thank God that

it is still in my power to undo what I have done; that it is still in

my power to go back to him who sent me, and telling him that I have

changed my mind and will bear my own burdens, to pay the penalty."

We were within a hundred paces of the brow of the hill and the

finger-post now. She cried out wildly that she did not understand.

"What is it you have just said?" she murmured. "I cannot hear." And

she began to fumble with the ribbon of her mask.

"Only this, Mademoiselle," I answered gently. "I give back to your

brother his word and his parole. From this moment he is free to go

whither he pleases. You shall tell him so from me. Here, where we

stand, four roads meet. That to the right goes to Montauban, where you

have doubtless friends, and can lie hid for a time; or that to the

left leads to Bordeaux, where you can take ship if you please. And in

a word Mademoiselle," I continued, ending a little feebly, "I hope

that your troubles are now over."

She turned her face to me--we had both come to a standstill--and

plucked at the fastenings of her mask. But her trembling fingers had

knotted the string, and in a moment she dropped her hands with a cry

of despair. "And you? You?" she said, in a voice so changed I should

not have known it for hers. "What will you do? I do not understand.

This mask! I cannot hear."

"There is a third road," I answered. "It leads to Paris. That is my

road, Mademoiselle. We part here."

"But why? Why?" she cried wildly.

"Because from to-day I would fain begin to be honourable," I answered,

in a low voice. "Because I dare not be generous at another's cost I

must go back to the Chatelet."

She tried feverishly to raise her mask with her hand. "I am--not

well," she stammered. "I cannot breathe."

She swayed so violently in her saddle as she spoke, that I sprang

down, and running round her horse's head, was just in time to catch

her as she fell. She was not quite unconscious then, for, as I

supported her, she murmured, "Leave me! Leave me! I am not worthy that

you should touch me."

Those words made me happy. I carried her to the bank, my heart on

fire, and laid her against it just as M. de Cocheforet rode up. He

sprang from his horse, his eyes blazing with anger. "What is this?" he

cried harshly. "What have you been saying to her, man?"

"She will tell you," I answered drily, my composure returning under

his eye,--"amongst other things, that you are free. From this moment,

M. de Cocheforet, I give you back your parole, and I take my own

honour. Farewell."

He cried out something as I mounted, but I did not stay to hear or

answer. I dashed the spurs into my horse, and rode away past the

crossroads, past the finger-post; away with the level upland

stretching before me, dry, bare, almost treeless--and behind me all I

loved. Once, when I had gone a hundred yards, I looked back and saw

him standing upright against the sky, staring after me across her

body. And again I looked back. This time I saw only the slender wooden

cross, and below it a dark blurred mass.

CHAPTER XIII.

ST. MARTIN'S EVE.

It was late evening on the last day but one of November, when I rode

into Paris through the Orleans gate. The wind was in the northeast,

and a great cloud of vapour hung in the eye of an angry sunset. The

air seemed to be full of wood smoke, the kennels reeked, my gorge rose

at the city's smell; and with all my heart I envied the man who had

gone out of it by the same gate nearly two months before, with his

face to the south, and the prospect of riding day after day across

heath and moor and pasture. At least he had had some weeks of life

before him, and freedom, and the open air, and hope and uncertainty,

while I came back under doom; and in the pall of smoke that hung over

the huddle of innumerable roofs, saw a gloomy shadowing of my own

fate.

For make no mistake. A man in middle life does not strip himself of

the worldly habit with which experience has clothed him, does not run

counter to all the cynical saws and instances by which he has governed

his course so long, without shiverings and doubts and horrible

misgivings and struggles of heart. At least a dozen times between the

Loire and Paris, I asked myself what honour was; and what good it

would do me when I lay rotting and forgotten; if I was not a fool

following a Jack-o'-lanthorn; and whether, of all the men in the

world, the relentless man to whom I was returning, would not be the

first to gibe at my folly.

However, shame kept me straight; shame and the memory of

Mademoiselle's looks and words. I dared not be false to her

again; I could not, after speaking so loftily, fall so low. And

therefore--though not without many a secret struggle and quaking--I

came, on this last evening but one of November, to the Orleans gate,

and rode slowly and sadly through the streets by the Luxembourg, on my

way to the Pont au Change.

The struggle had sapped my last strength, however; and with the first

whiff of the gutters, the first rush of barefooted _gamins_ under my

horse's hoofs, the first babel of street cries, the first breath, in a

word, of Paris, there came a new temptation--to go for one last night

to Zaton's to see the tables again and the faces of surprise; to be,

for an hour or two, the old Berault. That could be no breach of

honour; for in any case I could not reach the Cardinal before

tomorrow. And it could do no harm. It could make no change in

anything. It would not have been a thing worth struggling about--only

I had in my inmost heart suspicions that the stoutest resolutions

might lose their force in that atmosphere; that even such a talisman

as the memory of a woman's looks and words might lose its virtue

there.

Still I think I should have succumbed in the end, if I had not

received at the corner of the Luxembourg a shock which sobered me

effectually. As I passed the gates, a coach followed by two outriders

swept out of the palace courtyard; it was going at a great pace, and I

reined my jaded horse on one side to give it room. As it whirled by

me, one of the leather curtains flapped back, and I saw for a second,

by the waning light,--the nearer wheels were no more than two feet

from my boot,--a face inside.

A face, and no more, and that only for a second! But it froze me. It

was Richelieu's, the Cardinal's; but not as I had been wont to see it,

keen, cold, acute, with intellect and indomitable will in every

feature. This face was distorted with rage and impatience; with the

fever of haste and the fear of death. The eyes burned under the pale

brow, the mustachios bristled, the teeth showed through the beard; I

could fancy the man crying "Faster! Faster!" and gnawing his nails in

the impatience of passion; and I shrank back as if I had been struck.

The next moment the galloping outriders splashed me, the coach was a

hundred paces ahead, and I was left chilled and wondering, foreseeing

the worst, and no longer in any mood for the gaming-table.

Such a revelation of such a man was enough to appall me. Conscience

cried out that he must have heard that Cocheforet had escaped, and

through me! But I dismissed the idea as soon as formed.

In the vast meshes of the Cardinal's schemes, Cocheforet could be only

a small fish; and to account for the face in the coach I needed a

cataclysm, a catastrophe, a misfortune, as far above ordinary mishaps,

as this man's intellect rose above the common run of minds.

It was almost dark when I crossed the bridges, and crept despondently

to the Rue Savonnerie. After stabling my horse, I took my bag and

holsters, and climbing the stairs to my old landlord's,--the place

seemed to have grown strangely mean and small and ill-smelling in my

absence,--I knocked at the door. It was opened by the little tailor

himself, who threw up his arms at the sight of me. "By St. Genevieve!"

he said. "If it is not M. de Berault!"

"No other," I said. It touched me a little, after my lonely journey,

to find him so glad to see me--though I had never done him a greater

benefit than sometimes to unbend with him and borrow his money. "You

look surprised, little man!" I continued, as he made way for me to

enter. "I'll be sworn you have been pawning my goods and letting my

room, you knave!"

"Never, your excellency!" he answered, beaming on me. "On the

contrary, I have been expecting you."

"How?" I said. "To-day?"

"To-day or to-morrow," he answered, following me in and closing the

door. "The first thing I said, when I heard the news this morning,

was, Now we shall have M. de Berault back again. Your excellency will

pardon the children," he continued, as I took the old seat on the

three-legged stool before the hearth. "The night is cold, and there is

no fire in your room."

While he ran to and fro with my cloak and bags, little Gil, to whom I

had stood at St. Sulpice's--borrowing ten crowns the same day, I

remember--came shyly to play with my sword-hilt "So you expected me

back when you heard the news, Frison, did you?" I said, taking the lad

on my knee.

"To be sure, your excellency," he answered, peeping into the black pot

before he lifted it to the hook.

"Very good. Then, now, let us hear what the news was," I said drily.

"Of the Cardinal, M. de Berault."

"Ah? And what?"

He looked at me, holding the heavy pot suspended in his hands. "You

have not heard?" he exclaimed, his jaw falling.

"Not a tittle. Tell it me, my good fellow."

"You have not heard that His Eminence is disgraced?"

I stared at him. "Not a word," I said.

He set down the pot. "Your excellency must have made a very long

journey indeed, then," he said, with conviction. "For it has been in

the air a week or more, and I thought it had brought you back. A week?

A month, I dare say. They whisper that it is the old Queen's doing. At

any rate, it is certain that they have cancelled his commissions and

displaced his officers. There are rumours of immediate peace with

Spain. His enemies are lifting up their heads, and I hear that he has

relays of horses set all the way to the coast, that he may fly at any

moment For what I know he may be gone already."

"But, man," I said--"the King! You forget the King. Let the Cardinal

once pipe to him, and he will dance. And they will dance, too!" I

added grimly.

"Yes," Frison answered eagerly. "True, your excellency, but the King

will not see him. Three times to-day, as I am told, the Cardinal has

driven to the Luxembourg, and stood like any common man in the

ante-chamber, so that I hear it was pitiful to see him. But His

Majesty would not admit him. And when he went away the last time, I am

told that his face was like death! Well, he was a great man, and we

may be worse ruled, M. de Berault, saving your presence. If the nobles

did not like him, he was good to the traders, and the _bourgeoisie_,

and equal to all."

"Silence, man! Silence, and let me think," I said, much excited. And

while he bustled to and fro, getting my supper, and the firelight

played about the snug, sorry little room, and the child toyed with his

plaything, I fell to digesting this great news, and pondering how I

stood now and what I ought to do. At first sight, I know, it seemed

that I had nothing to do but sit still. In a few hours the man who

held my bond would be powerless, and I should be free. In a few hours

I might smile at him. To all appearance, the dice had fallen well for

me. I had done a great thing, run a great risk, won a woman's love,

and after all was not to pay the penalty!

But a word which fell from Frison as he fluttered round me, pouring

out the broth, and cutting the bread, dropped into my mind and spoiled

my satisfaction. "Yes, your excellency," he exclaimed, confirming

something he had said before, and which I had missed, "and I am told

that the last time he came into the gallery, there was not a man of

all the scores who attended his _levee_ last Monday would speak to

him. They fell off like rats,--just like rats,--until he was left

standing all alone. And I have seen him!" Frison lifted up his eyes

and his hands and drew in his breath. "Ah, I have seen the King look

shabby beside him! And his eye! I would not like to meet it now."

"Pish!" I growled. "Some one has fooled you. Men are wiser than that."

"So? Well, your excellency understands. But--there are no cats on a

cold hearth."

I told him again that he was a fool. But withal I felt uncomfortable.

This was a great man if ever a great man lived, and they were all

leaving him; and I--well, I had no cause to love him. But I had taken

his money, I had accepted his commission, and I had betrayed him.

Those three things being so, if he fell before I could--with the best

will in the world--set myself right with him, so much the better for

me. That was my gain, the fortune of war. But if I lay hid, and took

time for my ally, and being here while he stood still,--though

tottering,--waited until he fell, what of my honour then? What of the

grand words I had said to Mademoiselle at Agen? I should be like the

recreant in the old romance, who, lying in the ditch while the battle

raged, came out afterwards and boasted of his courage. And yet the

flesh was weak. A day, twenty-four hours, two days, might make the

difference between life and death. At last I settled what I would do.

At noon the next day, the time at which I should have presented

myself, if I had not heard this news, at that time I would still

present myself. Not earlier; I owed myself the chance. Not later; that

was due to him.

Having so settled it, I thought to rest in peace. But with the first

light I was awake; and it was all I could do to keep myself quiet

until I heard Frison stirring. I called to him then to know if there

was any news, and lay waiting and listening while he went down to the

street to learn. It seemed an endless time before he came back; an

age, after he came back, before he spoke.

"Well, he has not set off?" I cried at last, unable to control my

eagerness.

Of course he had not. At nine o'clock I sent Frison out again; and at

ten, and at eleven--always with the same result. I was like a man

waiting, and looking, and, above all, listening for a reprieve, and as

sick as any craven. But when he came back at eleven, I gave up hope,

and dressed myself carefully. I suppose I still had an odd look,

however; for Frison stopped me at the door and asked me, with evident

alarm, whither I was going.

I put the little man aside gently. "To the tables," I said. "To make a

big throw, my friend."

It was a fine morning; sunny, keen, pleasant. Even the streets smelled

fresh. But I scarcely noticed it. All my thoughts were where I was

going. It seemed but a step from my threshold to the Hotel Richelieu.

I was no sooner gone from the one than I found myself at the other. As

on the memorable evening, when I had crossed the street in a drizzling

rain, and looked that way with foreboding, there were two or three

guards in the Cardinal's livery, loitering before the gates. But this

was not all. Coming nearer, I found the opposite pavement under the

Louvre thronged with people; not moving about their business, but

standing all silent, all looking across furtively, all with the air of

persons who wished to be thought passing by. Their silence and their

keen looks had in some way an air of menace. Looking back after I had

turned in towards the gates, I found them devouring me with their

eyes.

Certainly they had little else to look at. In the courtyard, where

some mornings when the court was in Paris I had seen a score of

coaches waiting and thrice as many servants, were now emptiness and

sunshine and stillness. The officer, who stood twisting his

mustachios, on guard, looked at me in wonder as I passed. The lackeys

lounging in the portico, and all too much taken up with whispering to

make a pretence of being of service, grinned at my appearance. But

that which happened when I had mounted the stairs, and come to the

door of the ante-chamber, outdid all. The man on guard there would

have opened the door; but when I went to take advantage of the offer,

and enter, a major-domo, who was standing near, muttering with two or

three of his kind, hastened forward and stopped me.

"Your business, Monsieur, if you please?" he said inquisitively. And I

wondered why the others looked at me so strangely.

"I am M. de Berault," I answered sharply. "I have the _entree_."

He bowed politely enough. "Yes, M. de Berault, I have the honour to

know your face," he said. "But pardon me. Have you business with His

Eminence?"

"I have the common business," I answered bluntly, "by which many of us

live, sirrah!--to wait on him."

"But--by appointment, Monsieur?" he persisted.

"No," I said, astonished. "It is the usual hour. For the matter of

that, however, I have business with him."

The man looked at me for a moment, in apparent embarrassment. Then he

stood reluctantly aside, and signed to the door-keeper to open the

door. I passed in, uncovering, with an assured face, ready to meet all

eyes. Then in a moment, on the threshold, the mystery was explained.

The room was empty.

CHAPTER XIV.

ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER.

Yes, at the great Cardinal's _levee_ I was the only client. I stared

round the room, a long narrow gallery, through which it was his custom

to walk every morning, after receiving his more important visitors. I

stared, I say, round this room, in a state of stupefaction. The seats

against either wall were empty, the recesses of the windows empty too.

The hat, sculptured and painted here and there, the staring R, the

blazoned arms, looked down on a vacant floor. Only, on a little stool

by the main door, sat a quiet-faced man in black, who read, or

pretended to read, in a little book, and never looked up. One of those

men, blind, deaf, secretive, who fatten in the shadow of the great.

At length, while I stood confounded and full of shamed thought,--for I

had seen the ante-chamber of Richelieu's old hotel so crowded that he

could not walk through it,--this man closed his book, rose, and came

noiselessly towards me. "M. de Berault?" he said.

"Yes," I answered.

"His Eminence awaits you. Be good enough to follow me."

I did so, in a deeper stupor than before. For how could the Cardinal

know that I was here? How could he have known when he gave the order?

But I had short time to think of these things. We passed through two

rooms, in one of which some secretaries were writing; we stopped at a

third door. Over all brooded a silence which could be felt. The usher

knocked, opened, and with his finger on his lip, pushed aside a

curtain, and signed to me to enter. I did so, and found myself

standing behind a screen.

"Is that M. de Berault?" asked a thin, high-pitched voice.

"Yes, Monseigneur," I answered, trembling.

"Then come, my friend, and talk to me."

I went round the screen; and I know not how it was, the watching crowd

outside, the vacant antechamber in which I had stood, the

stillness,--all seemed concentrated here, and gave to the man I saw

before me, a dignity which he had never possessed for me when the world

passed through his doors, and the proudest fawned on him for a smile.

He sat in a great chair on the farther side of the hearth, a little red

skull-cap on his head, his fine hands lying motionless in his lap. The

collar of lawn which fell over his red cape was quite plain, but the

skirts of his red robe were covered with rich lace, and the order of

the Holy Ghost shone on his breast. Among the multitudinous papers on

the great table near him I saw a sword and pistols lying; and some

tapestry that covered a little table behind him failed to hide a pair

of spurred riding-boots. But he--in spite of these signs of

trouble--looked towards me as I advanced, with a face mild and almost

benign; a face in which I strove in vain to find traces of last

night's passion. So that it flashed across me that if this man really

stood--and afterwards I knew he did--on the thin razor-edge between

life and death, between the supreme of earthly power, lord of France,

and arbiter of Europe, and the nothingness of the clod, he justified

his fame. He gave weaker natures no room for triumph.

The thought was no sooner entertained than it was gone. "And so you

are back at last, M. de Berault?" he said, gently. "I have been

expecting to see you since nine this morning."

"Your Eminence knew then--" I muttered.

"That you returned to Paris by the Orleans gate last evening, alone?"

He fitted together the ends of his fingers, and looked at me over them

with inscrutable eyes. "Yes, I knew all that last night. And now of

your mission? You have been faithful, and diligent, I am sure. Where

is he?"

I stared at him, and was dumb. Somehow the strange things I had seen

since I left my lodging, the surprises I had found awaiting me here,

had driven my own fortunes, my own peril, out of my head, until this

moment. Now, at his question, all returned with a rush. My heart

heaved suddenly in my breast. I strove for a savour of the old

hardihood; but for the moment I could not find a word.

"Well?" he said lightly, a faint smile lifting his mustache. "You do

not speak. You left Auch with him on the twenty-fourth, M. de Berault.

So much I know. And you reached Paris without him last night. He has

not given you the slip?" with sudden animation.

"No, Monseigneur," I muttered.

"Ha! That is good," he answered, sinking back again in his chair. "For

the moment--but I knew I could depend on you. And now where is he?" he

continued. "What have you done with him? He knows much, and the sooner

I know it, the better. Are your people bringing him, M. de Berault?"

"No, Monseigneur," I stammered, with dry lips. His very good humour,

his benignity, appalled me. I knew how terrible would be the change,

how fearful his rage, when I should tell him the truth. And yet that

I, Gil de Berault, should tremble before any man! I spurred myself, as

it were, to the task. "No, Your Eminence," I said, with the courage of

despair. "I have not brought him, because I have set him free."

"Because you have--_what?_" he exclaimed. He leaned forward, his hands

on the arm of his chair; and his glittering eyes, growing each instant

smaller, seemed to read my soul.

"Because I have let him go," I repeated.

"And why?" he said, in a voice like the rasping of a file.

"Because I took him unfairly," I answered desperately. "Because,

Monseigneur, I am a gentleman, and this task should have been given to

one who was not. I took him, if you must know," I continued

impatiently,--the fence once crossed, I was growing bolder,--"by

dogging a woman's steps, and winning her confidence, and betraying it.

And, whatever I have done ill in my life,--of which you were good

enough to throw something in my teeth when I was last here,--I have

never done that, and I will not!"

"And so you set him free?"

"Yes."

"After you had brought him to Auch?"

"Yes."

"And in point of fact saved him from falling into the hands of the

commandant at Auch?"

"Yes," I answered desperately.

"Then what of the trust I placed in you, sirrah?" he rejoined, in a

terrible voice; and stooping still farther forward, he probed me with

his eyes. "You who prate of trust and confidence, who received your

life on parole, and but for your promise to me would have been carrion

this month past, answer me that! What of the trust I placed in you?"

"The answer is simple," I said, shrugging my shoulders with a touch of

my old self. "I am here to pay the penalty."

"And do you think that I do not know why?" he retorted, striking his

one hand on the arm of the chair with a force which startled me.

"Because you have heard, Sir, that my power is gone! That I, who was

yesterday the King's right hand, am to-day dried up, withered, and

paralyzed! Because--but have a care! Have a care!" he continued not

loudly, but in a voice like a dog's snarl. "You, and those others!

Have a care I say, or you may find yourselves mistaken yet!"

"As Heaven shall judge me," I answered solemnly, "that is not true.

Until I reached Paris last night I knew nothing of this report. I came

here with a single mind, to redeem my honour by placing again in Your

Eminence's hands that which you gave me on trust."

For a moment he remained in the same attitude, staring at me fixedly.

Then his face somewhat relaxed. "Be good enough to ring that bell," he

said.

It stood on a table near me. I rang it, and a velvet-footed man in

black came in, and gliding up to the Cardinal placed a paper in his

hand. The Cardinal looked at it while the man stood with his head

obsequiously bent; my heart beat furiously. "Very good," the Cardinal

said, after a pause, which seemed to me to be endless. "Let the doors

be thrown open."

The man bowed low, and retired behind the screen. I heard a little

bell ring, somewhere in the silence, and in a moment the Cardinal

stood up. "Follow me!" he said, with a strange flash of his keen eyes.

Astonished, I stood aside while he passed to the screen; then I

followed him. Outside the first door, which stood open, we found eight

or nine persons,--pages, a monk, the major-domo, and several guards

waiting like mutes. These signed to me to precede them, and fell in

behind us, and in that order we passed through the first room and the

second, where the clerks stood with bent heads to receive us. The last

door, the door of the ante-chamber, flew open as we approached; a

score of voices cried, "Place! Place for His Eminence!" We passed

without pause through two lines of bowing lackeys, and entered--an

empty room!

The ushers did not know how to look at one another. The lackeys

trembled in their shoes. But the Cardinal walked on, apparently

unmoved, until he had passed slowly half the length of the chamber.

Then he turned himself about, looking first to one side; and then to

another, with a low laugh of derision. "Father," he said, in his thin

voice, "what does the psalmist say? 'I am become like a pelican in the

wilderness, and like an owl that is in the desert!'"

The monk mumbled assent.

"And later, in the same psalm is it not written, 'They shall perish,

but thou shalt endure!'"

"It is so," the father answered. "Amen."

"Doubtless that refers to another life," the Cardinal continued, with

his slow, wintry smile. "In the meantime we will go back to our book?

and our prayers, and serve God and the King in small things, if not in

great. Come, father, this is no longer a place for us. _Vanitas

vanitatum; omnia vanitas!_ We will retire."

So, as solemnly as we had come, we marched back through the first and

second and third doors, until we stood again in the silence of the

Cardinal's chamber; he and I and the velvet-footed man in black. For a

while Richelieu seemed to forget me. He stood brooding on the hearth,

with his eye's on the embers. Once I heard him laugh; and twice he

uttered in a tone of bitter mockery, the words, "Fools! Fools! Fools!"

At last he looked up, saw me, and started. "Ah!" he said. "I had

forgotten you. Well, you are fortunate, M. de Berault. Yesterday I had

a hundred clients. To-day I have only one, and I cannot afford to hang

him. But for your liberty--that is another matter."

I would have said something, but he turned abruptly to the table, and

sitting down wrote a few lines on a piece of paper. Then he rang his

bell, while I stood waiting and confounded.

The man in black came from behind the screen. "Take that letter and

this gentleman to the upper guard-room," His Eminence said sharply. "I

can hear no more," he continued wearily, raising his hand to forbid

interruption. "The matter is ended, M. de Berault. Be thankful."

And in a moment I was outside the door, my head in a whirl, my heart

divided between gratitude and resentment. Along several passages I

followed my guide; everywhere finding the same silence, the same

monastic stillness. At length, when I had begun to consider whether

the Bastile or the Chatelet would be my fate, he stopped at a door,

gave me the letter, and, lifting the latch, signed to me to enter.

I went in in amazement, and stopped in confusion. Before me, alone,

just risen from a chair, with her face one moment pale, the next red

with blushes, stood Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. I cried out her name.

"M. de Berault!" she said, visibly trembling. "You did not expect to

see me?"

"I expected to see no one so little, Mademoiselle," I answered,

striving to recover my composure.

"Yet you might have thought that we should not utterly desert you,"

she replied, with a reproachful humility which went to my heart. "We

should have been base indeed, if we had not made some attempt to save

you. I thank Heaven that it has so far succeeded that that strange man

has promised me your life. You have seen him?" she continued eagerly,

and in another tone, while her eyes grew suddenly large with fear.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, I have seen him," I said. "And he has given me my

life."

"And?"

"And sent me to imprisonment."

"For how long?" she whispered.

"I do not know," I answered. "I expect, during the King's pleasure."

She shuddered. "I may have done more harm than good," she murmured,

looking at me piteously. "But I did it for the best. I told him all,

and--yes, perhaps I did harm."

But to hear her accuse herself thus, when she had made this long and

lonely journey to save me; when she had forced herself into her

enemy's presence, and had, as I was sure she had, abased herself for

me, was more than I could bear. "Hush, Mademoiselle, hush!" I said,

almost roughly. "You hurt me. You have made me happy: and yet I wish

that you were not here, where I fear you have few friends, but back at

Cocheforet. You have done more than I expected, and a hundred times

more than I deserved. But I was a ruined man before this happened. I

am no more now, but I am still that; and I would not have your name

pinned to mine on Paris lips. Therefore, good-bye. God forbid I should

say more to you, or let you stay where foul tongues would soon malign

you."

She looked at me in a kind of wonder; then with a growing smile, "It

is too late," she said gently.

"Too late?" I exclaimed. "How, Mademoiselle?"

"Because--do you remember, M. de Berault, what you told me of your

love story, by Agen? That it could have no happy ending? For the same

reason I was not ashamed to tell mine to the Cardinal. By this time it

is common property."

I looked at her as she stood facing me. Her eyes shone, but they were

downcast. Her figure drooped, and yet a smile trembled on her lips.

"What did you tell him, Mademoiselle?" I whispered, my breath coming

quickly.

"That I loved," she answered boldly, raising her clear eyes to mine.

"And therefore that I was not ashamed to beg, even on my knees. Nor

ashamed to be with my lover, even in prison."

I fell on my knees, and caught her hand before the last word passed

her lips. For the moment I forgot King and Cardinal, prison and the

future, all--all except that this woman, so pure and so beautiful, so

far above me in all things, loved me. For the moment, I say. Then I

remembered myself. I stood up and thrust her from me, in a sudden

revulsion of feeling. "You do not know me," I said. "You do not know

me. You do not know what I have done."

"That is what I do know," she answered, looking at me with a wondrous

smile.

"Ah, but you do not," I cried. "And besides, there is this--this

between us." And I picked up the Cardinal's letter. It had fallen on

the floor.

She turned a shade paler. Then she said, "Open it! Open it! It is not

sealed, nor closed."

I obeyed mechanically, dreading what I might see. Even when I had it

open I looked at the finely scrawled characters with eyes askance. But

at last I made it out. It ran thus:--

"The King's pleasure is, that M. de Berault, having mixed himself up

with affairs of state, retire forthwith to the manor of Cocheforet,

and confine himself within its limits, until the King's pleasure be

further known.

"Richelieu."

On the next day we were married. The same evening we left Paris, and I

retraced, in her company, the road which I had twice traversed alone

and in heaviness.

A fortnight later we were at Cocheforet, in the brown woods under the

southern mountains; and the great Cardinal, once more triumphant over

his enemies, saw, with cold, smiling eyes, the world pass through his

chamber. The flood-tide, which then set in, lasted thirteen years; in

brief, until his death. For the world had learned its lesson, and was

not to be deceived a second time. To this hour they call that day,

which saw me stand for all his friends, "The day of Dupes."

THE END

COUNT HANNIBAL

SORORI

SUA CAUSSA CARAE

PIO ERGA MATREM AMORE

ETIAM CARIORI

HOC FRATER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. CRIMSON FAVOURS.

II. HANNIBAL DE SAULX, COMTE DE TAVANNES.

III. THE HOUSE NEXT THE GOLDEN MAID.

IV. THE EVE OF THE FEAST.

V. A ROUGH WOOING.

VI. "WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES?"

VII. IN THE AMPHITHEATRE.

VIII. TWO HENS AND AN EGG.

IX. UNSTABLE.

X. MADAME ST. LO.

XI. A BARGAIN.

XII. IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVRE.

XIII. DIPLOMACY.

XIV. TOO SHORT A SPOON.

XV. THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE.

XVI. AT CLOSE QUARTERS.

XVII. THE DUEL.

XVIII. ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT.

XIX. IN THE ORLEANNAIS.

XX. ON THE CASTLE HILL.

XXI. SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT.

XXII. PLAYING WITH FIRE.

XXIII. A MIND, AND NOT A MIND.

XXIV. AT THE KING'S INN.

XXV. THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART.

XXVI. TEMPER.

XXVII. THE BLACK TOWN.

XXVIII. IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER HOUSE.

XXIX. THE ESCAPE.

XXX. SACRILEGE!

XXXI. THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS.

XXXII. THE ORDEAL BY STEEL.

XXXIII. THE AMBUSH.

XXXIV. "WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME?"

XXXV. AGAINST THE WALL.

XXXVI. HIS KINGDOM.

COUNT HANNIBAL.

CHAPTER I.

CRIMSON FAVOURS.

M. de Tavannes smiled. Mademoiselle averted her eyes, and shivered;

as if the air, even of that close summer night, entering by the door

at her elbow, chilled her. And then came a welcome interruption.

"Tavannes!"

"Sire!"

Count Hannibal rose slowly. The King had called, and he had no choice

but to obey and go. Yet he hung a last moment over his companion, his

hateful breath stirring her hair. "Our pleasure is cut short too soon,

Mademoiselle," he said, in the tone and with the look she loathed.

"But for a few hours only. We shall meet to-morrow. Or, it may

be--earlier."

She did not answer, and "Tavannes!" the King repeated with violence.

"Tavannes! Mordieu!" his Majesty continued, looking round furiously.

"Will no one fetch him? Sacre nom, am I King, or a dog of a----"

"I come, sire!" Count Hannibal cried in haste. For Charles, King of

France, Ninth of the name, was none of the most patient; and scarce

another in the Court would have ventured to keep him waiting so long.

"I come, sire; I come!" Tavannes repeated, as he moved from her side.

He shouldered his way through the circle of courtiers, who barred the

road to the presence, and in part hid Mademoiselle from observation.

He pushed past the table at which Charles and the Comte de

Rochefoucauld had been playing primero, and at which the latter still

sat, trifling idly with the cards. Three more paces, and he reached

the King, who stood in the _ruelle_ with Rambouillet and the Italian

Marshal. It was the latter who, a moment before, had summoned his

Majesty from his game.

Mademoiselle, watching him go, saw so much; so much, and the King's

roving eyes and haggard face, and the four figures, posed apart in the

fuller light of the upper half of the Chamber. Then the circle of

courtiers came together before her, and she sat back on her stool. A

fluttering, long-drawn sigh escaped her. Now, if she could slip out

and make her escape! Now--she looked round. She was not far from the

door; to withdraw seemed easy. But a staring, whispering knot of

gentlemen and pages blocked the way; and the girl, ignorant of the

etiquette of the Court and with no more than a week's experience of

Paris, had not the courage to rise and pass alone through the group.

She had come to the Louvre this Saturday evening under the wing of

Madame d'Yverne, her _fiance's_ cousin. By ill hap Madame had been

summoned to the Princess Dowager's closet, and perforce had left her.

Still, Mademoiselle had her betrothed, and in his charge had sat

herself down to wait, nothing loth, in the great gallery, where all

was bustle and gaiety and entertainment. For this, the seventh day of

the fetes, held to celebrate the marriage of the King of Navarre and

Charles's sister--a marriage which was to reconcile the two factions

of the Huguenots and the Catholics, so long at war--saw the Louvre as

gay, as full, and as lively as the first of the fete days had found

it; and in the humours of the throng, in the ceaseless passage of

masks and maids of honour, guards and bishops, Swiss in the black,

white and green of Anjou, and Huguenot nobles in more sombre habits,

the country-bred girl had found recreation and to spare. Until

gradually the evening had worn away and she had begun to feel nervous;

and M. de Tignonville, her betrothed, placing her in the embrasure of

a window, had gone to seek Madame.

She had waited for a time without much misgiving; expecting each

moment to see him return. He would be back before she could count a

hundred; he would be back before she could number the leagues that

separated her from her beloved province, and the home by the Biscay

Sea, to which even in that brilliant scene her thoughts turned fondly.

But the minutes had passed, and passed, and he had not returned.

Worse, in his place Tavannes--not the Marshal, but his brother Count

Hannibal--had found her; he, whose odious court, at once a menace and

an insult, had subtly enveloped her for a week past. He had sat down

beside her, he had taken possession of her, and, profiting by her

inexperience, had played on her fears and smiled at her dislike.

Finally, whether she would or no, he had swept her with him into the

Chamber. The rest had been an obsession, a nightmare, from which only

the King's voice summoning Tavannes to his side had relieved her.

Her aim now was to escape before he returned, and before another,

seeing her alone, adopted his _role_ and was rude to her. Already the

courtiers about her were beginning to stare, the pages to turn and

titter and whisper. Direct her gaze as she might, she met some eye

watching her, some couple enjoying her confusion. To make matters

worse, she presently discovered that she was the only woman in the

Chamber; and she conceived the notion that she had no right to be

there at that hour. At the thought her cheeks burned, her eyes

dropped; the room seemed to buzz with her name, with gross words and

jests, and gibes at her expense.

At last, when the situation had grown nearly unbearable, the group

before the door parted, and Tignonville appeared. The girl rose with a

cry of relief, and he came to her. The courtiers glanced at the two

and smiled.

He did not conceal his astonishment at finding her there. "But,

Mademoiselle, how is this?" he asked in a low voice. He was as

conscious of the attention they attracted as she was, and as uncertain

on the point of her right to be there. "I left you in the gallery. I

came back, missed you, and----"

She stopped him by a gesture. "Not here!" she muttered, with

suppressed impatience. "I will tell you outside. Take me--take me out,

if you please, Monsieur, at once!"

He was as glad to be gone as she was to go. The group by the doorway

parted; she passed through it, he followed. In a moment the two stood

in the great gallery, above the Salle des Caryatides. The crowd which

had paraded here an hour before was gone, and the vast echoing

apartment, used at that date as a guard-room, was well-nigh empty.

Only at rare intervals, in the embrasure of a window or the recess of

a door, a couple talked softly. At the farther end, near the head of

the staircase which led to the hall below, and the courtyard, a group

of armed Swiss lounged on guard. Mademoiselle shot a keen glance up

and down, then she turned to her lover, her face hot with indignation.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked. "Why did you leave me, if you could

not come back at once? Do you understand, sir," she continued, "that

it was at your instance I came to Paris, that I came to this Court,

and that I look to you for protection?"

"Surely," he said. "And----"

"And do you think Carlat and his wife fit guardians for me? Should I

have come or thought of coming to this wedding, but for your promise,

and Madame your cousin's? If I had not deemed myself almost your

wife," she continued warmly, "and secure of your protection, should I

have come within a hundred miles of this dreadful city? To which, had

I my will, none of our people should have come."

"Dreadful? Pardieu, not so dreadful," he answered, smiling, and

striving to give the dispute a playful turn. "You have seen more in a

week than you would have seen at Vrillac in a lifetime, Mademoiselle."

"And I choke!" she retorted; "I choke! Do you not see how they look at

us, at us Huguenots, in the street? How they, who live here, point at

us and curse us? How the very dogs scent us out and snarl at our

heels, and the babes cross themselves when we go by? Can you see the

Place des Gastines and not think what stood there? Can you pass the

Greve at night and not fill the air above the river with screams and

wailings and horrible cries--the cries of our people murdered on that

spot?" She paused for breath, recovered herself a little, and in a

lower tone, "For me," she said, "I think of Philippine de Luns by day

and by night! The eaves are a threat to me; the tiles would fall on us

had they their will; the houses nod to--to----"

"To what, Mademoiselle?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders and

assuming a tone of cynicism.

"To crush us! Yes, Monsieur, to crush us!"

"And all this because I left you for a moment?"

"For an hour--or well-nigh an hour," she answered more soberly.

"But if I could not help it?"

"You should have thought of that--before you brought me to Paris,

Monsieur. In these troublous times."

He coloured warmly. "You are unjust, Mademoiselle," he said. "There

are things you forget; in a Court one is not always master of

oneself."

"I know it," she answered drily, thinking of that through which she

had gone.

"But you do not know what happened!" he returned with impatience. "You

do not understand that I am not to blame. Madame d'Yverne, when I

reached the Princess Dowager's closet, had left to go to the Queen of

Navarre. I hurried after her, and found a score of gentlemen in the

King of Navarre's chamber. They were holding a council, and they

begged, nay, they compelled me to remain."

"And it was that which detained you so long?"

"To be sure, Mademoiselle."

"And not--Madame St. Lo?"

M. de Tignonville's face turned scarlet. The thrust in tierce was

unexpected. This then was the key to Mademoiselle's spirt of temper.

"I do not understand you," he stammered.

"How long were you in the King of Navarre's chamber, and how long with

Madame St. Lo?" she asked with fine irony. "Or no, I will not tempt

you," she went on quickly, seeing him hesitate. "I heard you talking

to Madame St. Lo in the gallery while I sat within. And I know how

long you were with her."

"I met Madame as I returned," he stammered, his face still hot, "and I

asked her where you were. I did not know, Mademoiselle, that I was,

not to speak to ladies of my acquaintance."

"I was alone, and I was waiting."

"I could not know that--for certain," he answered, making the best of

it. "You were not where I left you. I thought, I confess--that you had

gone. That you had gone home."

"With whom? With whom?" she repeated pitilessly. "Was it likely? With

whom was I to go? And yet it is true, I might have gone home had I

pleased--with M. de Tavannes! Yes," she continued, in a tone of keen

reproach and with the blood mounting to her forehead, "it is to that,

Monsieur, you expose me! To be pursued, molested, harassed by a man

whose look terrifies me, and whose touch I--I detest! To be addressed

wherever I go by a man whose every word proves that he thinks me game

for the hunter, and you a thing he may neglect. You are a man and you

do not know, you cannot know what I suffer! What I have suffered this

week past whenever you have left my side!"

Tignonville looked gloomy. "What has he said to you?" he asked,

between his teeth.

"Nothing I can tell you," she answered with a shudder. "It was he who

took me into the Chamber."

"Why did you go?"

"Wait until he bids you do something," she answered. "His manner, his

smile, his tone, all frighten me. And to-night, in all these there was

a something worse, a hundred times worse than when I saw him last--on

Thursday! He seemed to--to gloat on me," the girl stammered, with a

flush of shame, "as if I were his! Oh, Monsieur, I wish we had not

left our Poitou! Shall we ever see Vrillac again, and the fishers'

huts about the port, and the sea beating blue against the long brown

causeway?"

He had listened darkly, almost sullenly; but at this, seeing the tears

gather in her eyes, he forced a laugh. "Why, you are as bad as M. de

Rosny and the Vidame!" he said. "And they are as full of fears as an

egg is of meat! Since the Admiral was wounded by that scoundrel on

Friday, they think all Paris is in a league against us."

"And why not!" she asked, her cheek grown pale, her eyes reading his

eyes.

"Why not? Why, because it is a monstrous thing even to think of!"

Tignonville answered, with the confidence of one who did not use the

argument for the first time. "Could they insult the King more deeply

than by such a suspicion? A Borgia may kill his guests, but it was

never a practice of the Kings of France! Pardieu, I have no patience

with them! They may lodge where they please, across the river, or

without the walls if they choose, the Rue de l'Arbre Sec is good

enough for me, and the King's name sufficient surety!"

"I know you are not apt to be fearful," she answered, smiling; and she

looked at him with a woman's pride in her lover. "All the same, you

will not desert me again, sir, will you?"

He vowed he would not, kissed her hand, looked into her eyes; then

melting to her, stammering, blundering, he named Madame St. Lo. She

stopped him.

"There is no need," she said, answering his look with kind eyes, and

refusing to hear his protestations. "In a fortnight will you not be my

husband? How should I distrust you? It was only that while she talked,

I waited--I waited; and--and that Madame St. Lo is Count Hannibal's

cousin. For a moment I was mad enough to dream that she held you on

purpose. You do not think it was so?"

"She!" he cried sharply; and he winced, as if the thought hurt him.

"Absurd! The truth is, Mademoiselle," he continued with a little heat,

"you are like so many of our people! You think a Catholic capable of

the worst."

"We have long thought so at Vrillac," she answered gravely.

"That's over now, if people would only understand. This wedding has

put an end to all that. But I'm harking back," he continued awkwardly;

and he stopped. "Instead, let me take you home."

"If you please. Carlat and the servants should be below."

He took her left hand in his right after the wont of the day, and with

his other hand touching his sword-hilt, he led her down the staircase,

that by a single turn reached the courtyard of the palace. Here a mob

of armed servants, of lacqueys, and foot-boys, some bearing torches,

and some carrying their masters' cloaks and _galoshes_, loitered to

and fro. Had M. de Tignonville been a little more observant, or a

trifle less occupied with his own importance, he might have noted more

than one face which looked darkly on him; he might have caught more

than one overt sneer at his expense. But in the business of summoning

Carlat--Mademoiselle de Vrillac's steward and major-domo--he lost the

contemptuous "Christaudins!" that hissed from a footboy's lips, and

the "Southern dogs!" that died in the moustachios of a bully in the

livery of the King's brother. He was engaged in finding the steward,

and in aiding him to cloak his mistress; then with a ruffling air, a

new acquirement, which he had picked up since he came to Paris, he

made a way for her through the crowd. A moment, and the three,

followed by half a dozen armed servants, bearing pikes and torches,

detached themselves from the throng, and crossing the courtyard, with

its rows of lighted windows, passed out by the gate between the Tennis

Courts, and so into the Rue des Fosses de St. Germain.

Before them, against a sky in which the last faint glow of evening

still contended with the stars, the spire and pointed arches of the

church of St. Germain rose darkly graceful. It was something after

nine; the heat of the August day brooded over the crowded city, and

dulled the faint distant ring of arms and armour that yet would make

itself heard above the hush; a hush which was not silence so much as a

subdued hum. As Mademoiselle passed the closed house beside the

Cloister of St. Germain where only the day before Admiral Coligny, the

leader of the Huguenots, had been wounded, she pressed her escort's

hand, and involuntarily drew nearer to him. But he laughed at her.

"It was a private blow," he said, answering her unspoken thought. "It

is like enough the Guises sped it. But they know now what is the

King's will, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn themselves. It

will not happen again, Mademoiselle. For proof, see the guards"--they

were passing the end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which,

abutting on the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his lodgings--"whom

the King has placed for his security. Fifty pikes under Cosseins."

"Cosseins?" she repeated. "But I thought Cosseins----"

"Was not wont to love us!" Tignonville answered with a confident

chuckle. "He was not. But the dogs lick where the master wills,

Mademoiselle. He was not, but he does. This marriage has altered all."

"I hope it may not prove an unlucky one!" she murmured. She felt

impelled to say it.

"Not it!" he answered confidently. "Why should it?"

They stopped, as he spoke, before the last house, at the corner of the

Rue St. Honore opposite the Croix du Tiroir; which rose shadowy in the

middle of the four ways. He hammered on the door.

"But," she said softly, looking in his face, "the change is sudden, is

it not? The King was not wont to be so good to us!"

"The King was not King until now," he answered "That is what I am

trying to persuade our people. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you may sleep

without fear; and early in the morning I will be with you. Carlat,

have a care of your mistress until morning, and let Madame lie in her

chamber. She is nervous to-night. There, sweet, until morning! God

keep you, and pleasant dreams!"

He uncovered, and bowing over her hand, kissed it; and the door being

open he would have turned away. But she lingered as if unwilling to

enter. "There is--do you hear it--a stir in _that_ quarter?" she said,

pointing across the Rue St. Honore. "What lies there?"

"Northward? The markets," he answered. "'Tis nothing. They say, you

know, that Paris never sleeps. Good-night, sweet, and a fair

awakening!"

She shivered as she had shivered under Tavannes' eye. And still she

lingered, keeping him. "Are you going to your lodging at once?" she

asked--for the sake, it seemed, of saying something.

"I?" he answered a little hurriedly. "No, I was thinking of paying

Rochefoucauld the compliment of seeing him home. He has taken a new

lodging to be near the Admiral; a horrid bare place in the Rue

Bethizy, without furniture, but he would go into it to-day. And he has

a sort of claim on my family, you know."

"Yes," she said simply. "Of course. Then I must not detain you. God

keep you safe," she continued, with a faint quiver in her tone; and

her lip trembled. "Good-night, and fair dreams, Monsieur."

He echoed the words gallantly. "Of you, sweet!" he cried; and turning

away with a gesture of farewell, he set off on his return.

He walked briskly, nor did he look back, though she stood awhile

gazing after him. She was not aware that she gave thought to this; nor

that it hurt her. Yet when bolt and bar had shot behind her, and she

had mounted the cold, bare staircase of that day--when she had heard

the dull echoing footsteps of her attendants as they withdrew to their

lairs and sleeping-places, and still more when she had crossed the

threshold of her chamber, and signed to Madame Carlat and her woman to

listen--it is certain she felt a lack of something.

Perhaps the chill that possessed her came of that lack, which she

neither defined nor acknowledged. Or possibly it came of the night

air, August though it was; or of sheer nervousness, or of the

remembrance of Count Hannibal's smile. Whatever its origin, she took

it to bed with her; and long after the house slept round her, long

after the crowded quarter of the Halles had begun to heave and the

Sorbonne to vomit a black-frocked band, long after the tall houses in

the gabled streets, from St. Antoine to Montmartre and from St. Denis

on the north to St. Jacques on the south, had burst into rows of

twinkling lights--nay, long after the Quarter of the Louvre alone

remained dark, girdled by this strange midnight brightness--she lay

awake. At length she too slept, and dreamed of home and the wide skies

of Poitou, and her castle of Vrillac washed day and night by the

Biscay tides.

CHAPTER II.

HANNIBAL DE SAULX, COMTE DE TAVANNES.

"Tavannes!"

"Sire."

Tavannes, we know, had been slow to obey the summons. Emerging from

the crowd he found that the King, with Retz and Rambouillet, his

Marshal des Logis, had retired to the farther end of the Chamber;

apparently Charles had forgotten that he had called. His head a little

bent--he was tall and had a natural stoop--the King seemed to be

listening to a low but continuous murmur of voices which proceeded

from the door of his closet. One voice frequently raised was beyond

doubt a woman's; a foreign accent, smooth and silky, marked another; a

third, that from time to time broke in, wilful and impetuous, was the

voice of Monsieur, the King's brother, Catherine de Medicis' favourite

son. Tavannes, waiting respectfully two paces behind the King, could

catch little that was said; but Charles, something more, it seemed,

for on a sudden he laughed, a violent, mirthless laugh. And he clapped

Rambouillet on the shoulder.

"There!" he said, with one of his horrible oaths, "'tis settled! 'Tis

settled! Go, man, and take your orders! And you, M. de Retz," he

continued, in a tone of savage mockery, "go, my lord, and give them!"

"I, sire?" the Italian Marshal answered in accents of deprecation.

There were times when the young King would show his impatience of the

Italian ring, the Retzs and Biragues, the Strozzis and Gondys, with

whom his mother surrounded him.

"Yes, you!" Charles answered. "You and my lady mother! And in God's

name answer for it at the day!" he continued vehemently. "You will

have it! You will not let me rest till you have it! Then have it, only

see to it, it be done thoroughly! There shall not be one left to cast

it in the King's teeth and cry, 'Et tu, Carole!' Swim, swim in blood

if you will," he continued with growing wildness. "Oh, 'twill be a

merry night! And it's true so far, you may kill fleas all day, but

burn the coat, and there's an end. So burn it, burn it, and----" He

broke off with a start as he discovered Tavannes at his elbow. "God's

death, man!" he cried roughly, "who sent for you?"

"Your Majesty called me," Tavannes answered; while, partly urged by

the King's hand, and partly anxious to escape, the others slipped into

the closet and left them together.

"I sent for you? I called your brother, the Marshal!"

"He is within, sire," Tavannes answered, indicating the closet. "A

moment ago I heard his voice."

Charles passed his shaking hand across his eyes. "Is he?" he muttered.

"So he is! I heard it too. And--and a man cannot be in two places at

once!" Then while his haggard gaze, passing by Tavannes, roved round

the Chamber, he laid his hand on Count Hannibal's breast. "They give

me no peace, Madame and the Guises," he whispered, his face hectic

with excitement. "They will have it. They say that Coligny--they say

that he beards me in my own palace. And--and, _mordieu_," with sudden

violence, "it's true! It's true enough! It was but to-day he was for

making terms with me! With me, the King! Making terms! So it shall be,

by God and Devil, it shall! But not six or seven! No, no. All! All!

There shall not be one left to say to me, 'You did it!'"

"Softly, sire," Tavannes answered; for Charles had gradually raised

his voice. "You will be observed."

For the first time the young King--he was but twenty-two years old,

God pity him!--looked at his companion. "To be sure," he whispered;

and his eyes grew cunning. "Besides, and after all, there's another

way, if I choose. Oh, I've thought and thought, I'd have you know."

And shrugging his shoulders, almost to his ears, he raised and lowered

his open hands alternately, while his back hid the movement from the

Chamber. "See-saw! See-saw!" he muttered. "And the King between the

two, you see. That's Madame's king-craft. She's shown me that a

hundred times. But look you, it is as easy to lower the one as the

other," with a cunning glance at Tavannes' face, "or to cut off the

right as the left. And--and the Admiral's an old man and will pass;

and for the matter of that I like to hear him talk. He talks well.

While the others, Guise and his kind, are young, and I've thought,

oh, yes, I've thought--but there," with a sudden harsh laugh, "my lady

mother will have it her own way. And for this time she shall, but,

All! All! Even Foucauld, there! Do you mark him? He's sorting the

cards. Do you see him--as he will be to-morrow, with the slit in his

throat and his teeth showing? Why, God!" his voice rising almost to a

scream, "the candles by him are burning blue!" And with a shaking

hand, his face convulsed, the young King clutched his companion's arm,

and pinched it.

Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders, but answered nothing.

"D'you think we shall see them afterwards?" Charles resumed, in a

sharp, eager whisper. "In our dreams, man? Or when the watchman cries,

and we awake, and the monks are singing lauds at St. Germain, and--and

the taper is low?"

Tavannes' lip curled. "I don't dream, sire," he answered coldly, "and

I seldom wake. For the rest, I fear my enemies neither alive nor

dead."

"Don't you? By G--d, I wish I didn't," the young man exclaimed. His

brow was wet with sweat. "I wish I didn't. But there, it's settled.

They've settled it, and I would it were done! What do you think of--of

it, man? What do you think of it, yourself?"

Count Hannibal's face was inscrutable. "I think nothing, sire," he

said drily. "It is for your Majesty and your council to think. It is

enough for me that it is the King's will."

"But you'll not flinch?" Charles muttered, with a quick look of

suspicion. "But there," with a monstrous oath, "I know you'll not! I

believe you'd as soon kill a monk--though, thank God," and he crossed

himself devoutly, "there is no question of that--as a man. And sooner

than a maiden."

"Much sooner, sire," Tavannes answered grimly. "If you have any orders

in the monkish direction--no? Then your Majesty must not talk to me

longer. M. de Rochefoucauld is beginning to wonder what is keeping

your Majesty from your game. And others are marking you, sire."

"By the Lord!" Charles exclaimed, a ring of wonder mingled with horror

in his tone, "if they knew what was in our minds they'd mark us more!

Yet, see Nancay there beside the door? He is unmoved. He looks to-day

as he looked yesterday. Yet he has charge of the work in the

palace----"

For the first time Tavannes allowed a movement of surprise to escape

him. "In the palace?" he muttered. "Is it to be done here, too, sire?"

"Would you let some escape, to return by-and-by and cut our throats?"

the King retorted with a strange spirt of fury; an incapacity to

maintain the same attitude of mind for two minutes together was the

most fatal weakness of his ill-balanced nature. "No. All! All!" he

repeated with vehemence. "Didn't Noah people the earth with eight? But

I'll not leave eight! My cousins, for they are blood-royal, shall live

if they will recant. And my old nurse whether or no. And Pare, for no

one else understands my complexion. And----"

"And Rochefoucauld, doubtless, sire?"

The King, whose eye had sought his favourite companion, withdrew it.

He darted a glance at Tavannes. "Foucauld? Who said so?" he muttered

jealously. "Not I! But we shall see. We shall see! And do you see that

you spare no one, M. le Comte, without an order. That is your

business."

"I understand, sire," Tavannes answered coolly. And after a moment's

silence, seeing that the King had done with him, he bowed low and

withdrew; watched by the circle, as all about a King were watched in

the days when a King's breath meant life or death, and his smile made

the fortunes of men. As he passed Rochefoucauld, the latter looked up

and nodded.

"What keeps brother Charles?" he muttered. "He's madder than ever

to-night. Is it a masque or a murder he is planning?"

"The vapours," Tavannes answered with a sneer. "Old tales his old

nurse has stuffed him withal. He'll come by-and-by, and 'twill be well

if you can divert him."

"I will if he come," Rochefoucauld answered, shuffling the cards. "If

not 'tis Chicot's business and he should attend to it. I'm tired and

shall to bed."

"He will come," Tavannes answered, and moved, as if to go on. Then he

paused for a last word. "He will come," he muttered, stooping and

speaking under his breath, his eyes on the other's face. "But play him

lightly. He is in an ugly mood. Please him, if you can, and it may

serve."

The eyes of the two met an instant, and those of Foucauld--so the King

called his Huguenot favourite--betrayed some surprise; for Count

Hannibal and he were not intimate. But seeing that the other was in

earnest, he raised his brows in acknowledgment. Tavannes nodded

carelessly in return, looked an instant at the cards on the table, and

passed on, pushed his way through the circle, and reached the door. He

was lifting the curtain to go out, when Naucay, the Captain of the

Guard, plucked his sleeve.

"What have you been saying to Foucauld, M. de Tavannes?" he muttered.

"I?"

"Yes," with a jealous glance, "you, M. le Comte." Count Hannibal

looked at him with the sudden ferocity that made the man a proverb at

Court. "What I chose, M. le Capitaine des Suisses!" he hissed. And his

hand closed like a vice on the other's wrist. "What I chose, look you!

And remember, another time, that I am not a Huguenot, and say what I

please."

"But there is great need of care," Nancay protested, stammering and

flinching. "And--and I have orders, M. le Comte."

"Your orders are not for me," Tavannes answered, releasing his arm

with a contemptuous gesture. "And look you, man, do not cross my path

to-night. You know our motto? Who touches my brother, touches

Tavannes! Be warned by it."

Nancay scowled. "But the priests say, 'If your hand offend you, cut it

off!'" he muttered.

Tavannes laughed, a sinister laugh. "If you offend me I'll cut your

throat," he said; and with no ceremony he went out, and dropped the

curtain behind him.

Nancay looked after him, his face pale with rage. "Curse him!" he

whispered, rubbing his wrist. "If he were anyone else I would teach

him! But he would as soon run you through in the presence as in the

Pre aux Clercs! And his brother, the Marshal, has the King's ear! And

Madame Catherine's too, which is worse!"

He was still fuming when an officer in the colours of Monsieur, the

King's brother, entered hurriedly, and keeping his hand on the

curtain, looked anxiously round the Chamber. As soon as his eye found

Nancay, his face cleared. "Have you the reckoning?" he muttered.

"There are seventeen Huguenots in the palace besides their

Highnesses," Nancay replied, in the same cautious tone. "Not counting

two or three who are neither the one thing nor the other. In addition,

there are the two Montmorencies; but they are to go safe for fear of

their brother, who is not in the trap. He is too like his father, the

old Bench-burner, to be lightly wronged! And besides, there is Pare,

who is to go to his Majesty's closet as soon as the gates are shut. If

the King decides to save anyone else, he will send him to his closet.

So 'tis all clear and arranged here. If you are as forward outside, it

will be well! Who deals with the gentleman with the toothpick?"

"The Admiral? Monsieur, Guise, and the Grand Prior; Cosseins and Besme

have charge. 'Tis to be done first. Then the Provost will raise the

town. He will have a body of stout fellows ready at three or four

rendezvous, so that the fire may blaze up everywhere at once. Marcel,

the ex-provost, has the same commission south of the river. Orders to

light the town as for a frolic have been given, and the Halles will be

ready."

Nancay nodded, reflected a moment, and then with an involuntary

shudder, "God!" he exclaimed, "it will shake the world!"

"You think so?"

"Ay, will it not!" His next words showed that he bore Tavannes'

warning in mind. "For me, my friend, I go in mail to-night," he said.

"There will be many a score paid before morning, besides his

Majesty's. And many a left-handed blow will be struck in the _melee!_"

The other crossed himself. "Grant none light here!" he said devoutly.

And with a last look he nodded and went out.

In the doorway he jostled a person who was in the act of entering. It

was M. de Tignonville, who, seeing Nancay at his elbow, saluted him,

and stood looking round. The young man's face was flushed, his eyes

were bright with unwonted excitement. "M. de Rochefoucauld?" he asked

eagerly. "He has not left yet?"

Nancay caught the thrill in his voice, and marked the young man's

flushed face, and altered bearing. He noted, too, the crumpled paper

he carried half-hidden in his hand; and the Captain's countenance grew

dark. He drew a step nearer and his hand reached softly for his

dagger. But his voice when he spoke was smooth as the surface of the

pleasure-loving Court, smooth as the externals of all things in Paris

that summer evening. "He is here still," he said. "Have you news, M.

de Tignonville?"

"News?"

"For M. de Rochefoucauld?"

Tignonville laughed. "No," he said. "I am here to see him to his

lodging, that is all. News, Captain? What made you think so?"

"That which you have in your hand," Nancay answered, his fears

relieved.

The young man blushed to the roots of his hail "It is not for him," he

said.

"I can see that, Monsieur," Nancay answered politely. "He has his

successes, but all the billets-doux do not go one way."

The young man laughed, a conscious, flattered laugh. He was handsome,

with such a face as women love, but there was a lack of ease in the

way he wore his Court suit. It was a trifle finer, too, than accorded

with Huguenot taste; or it looked the finer for the way he wore it,

even as Teliguy's and Foucauld's velvet capes and stiff brocades lost

their richness and became but the adjuncts, fitting and graceful, of

the men. Odder still, as Tignonville laughed, half hiding and half

revealing the dainty, scented paper in his hand, his clothes seemed

smarter and he more awkward than usual. "It is from a lady," he

admitted. "But a bit of badinage, I assure you, nothing more."

"Understood!" M. de Nancay murmured politely. "I congratulate you."

"But----"

"I say I congratulate you!"

"But it is nothing."

"Oh, I understand. And see, the King is about to rise. Go forward,

Monsieur," he continued benevolently. "A young man should show

himself. Besides his Majesty likes you well," he added with a leer. He

had an unpleasant sense of humour, had his Majesty's Captain of the

Guard; and this evening somewhat more than ordinary on which to

exercise it.

Tignonville held too good an opinion of himself to suspect the other

of badinage; and thus encouraged he pushed his way to the front of the

circle. During his absence with his betrothed, the crowd in the

Chamber had grown thin, the candles had burned an inch shorter in the

sconces. But though many who had been there, had left, the more select

remained, and the King's return to his seat had given the company a

fillip. An air of feverish gaiety, common in the unhealthy life of the

Court, prevailed. At a table abreast of the King, Montpensier and

Marshal Cosse were dicing and disputing, with now a yell of glee,

and now an oath, that betrayed which way fortune inclined. At the

back of the King's chair, Chicot, his gentleman-jester, hung over

Charles's shoulder, now scanning his cards, and now making hideous

faces that threw the onlookers into fits of laughter. Farther up the

Chamber, at the end of the alcove, Marshal Tavannes--our Hannibal's

brother--occupied a low stool, which was set opposite the open door of

the closet. Through this doorway a slender foot, silk-clad, shot now

and again into sight; it came, it vanished, it came again, the gallant

Marshal striving at each appearance to rob it of its slipper, a dainty

jewelled thing of crimson velvet. He failed thrice, a peal of laughter

greeting each failure. At the fourth essay, he upset his stool and

fell to the floor, but held the slipper. And not the slipper only, but

the foot. Amid a flutter of silken skirts and dainty laces--while the

hidden beauty shrilly protested--he dragged first the ankle, and then

a shapely leg into sight. The circle applauded; the lady, feeling

herself still drawn on, screamed loudly and more loudly. All save the

King and his opponent turned to look. And then the sport came to a

sudden end. A sinewy hand appeared, interposed, released; for an

instant the dark, handsome face of Guise looked through the doorway.

It was gone as soon as seen; it was there a second only. But more than

one recognised it, and wondered. For was not the young Duke in evil

odour with the King by reason of the attack on the Admiral? And had he

not been chased from Paris only that morning and forbidden to return?

They were still wondering, still gazing, when abruptly--as he did all

things--Charles thrust back his chair. "Foucauld, you owe me ten

pieces!" he cried with glee, and he slapped the table. "Pay, my

friend; pay!"

"To-morrow, little master; to-morrow!" Rochefoucauld answered in the

same tone. And he rose to his feet.

"To-morrow!" Charles repeated. "To-morrow?" And on the word his jaw

fell. He looked wildly round. His face was ghastly.

"Well, sire, and why not?" Rochefoucauld answered in astonishment. And

in his turn he looked round, wondering; and a chill fell on him. "Why

not?" he repeated.

For a moment no one answered him: the silence in the Chamber was

intense. Where he looked, wherever he looked, he met solemn, wondering

eyes, such eyes as gaze on men in their coffins. "What has come to you

all?" he cried with an effort. "What is the jest, for faith, sire, I

don't see it?"

The King seemed incapable of speech, and it was Chicot who filled the

gap. "It is pretty apparent," he said with a rude laugh. "The cock

will lay and Foucauld will pay--to-morrow!"

The young nobleman's colour rose; between him and the Gascon gentleman

was no love lost. "There are some debts I pay to-day," he cried

haughtily. "For the rest, farewell my little master! When one does not

understand the jest it is time to be gone."

He was half-way to the door, watched by all, when the King spoke.

"Foucauld!" he cried in an odd, strangled voice. "Foucauld!" And the

Huguenot favourite turned back, wondering.

"One minute!" the King continued in the same forced voice. "Stay till

morning--in my closet. It is late now. We'll play away the rest of the

night!"

"Your Majesty must excuse me," Rochefoucauld answered frankly. "I am

dead asleep."

"You can sleep in the Garde-Robe," the King persisted.

"Thank you for nothing, sire!" was the gay answer. "I know that bed! I

shall sleep longer and better in my own."

The King shuddered, but strove to hide the movement under a shrug of

his shoulders. He turned away. "It is God's will!" he muttered. He was

white to the lips.

Rochefoucauld did not catch the words. "Good night, sire," he cried.

"Farewell, little master." And with a nod here and there, he passed to

the door, followed by Mergey and Chamont, two gentlemen of his suite.

Nancay raised the curtain with an obsequious gesture. "Pardon me, M.

le Comte," he said, "do you go to his Highness's?"

"For a few minutes, Nancay."

"Permit me to go with you. The guards may be set."

"Do so, my friend," Rochefoucauld answered. "Ah, Tignonville, is it

you!"

"I am come to attend you to your lodging," the young man said. And he

ranged up beside the other, as, the curtain fallen behind them, they

walked along the gallery.

Rochefoucauld stopped and laid his hand on Tignonville's sleeve.

"Thanks, dear lad," he said, "but I am going to the Princess

Dowager's. Afterwards to his Highness's. I may be detained an hour or

more. You will not like to wait so long."

M. de Tignonville's face fell ludicrously. "Well, no," he said. "I--I

don't think I could wait so long--to-night."

"Then come to-morrow night," Rochefoucauld answered with good nature.

"With pleasure," the other cried heartily, his relief evident.

"Certainly. With pleasure." And, nodding good-night, they parted.

While Rochefoucauld, with Nancay at his side and his gentlemen

attending him, passed along the echoing and now empty gallery, the

younger man bounded down the stairs to the great hall of the

Caryatides, his face radiant. He for one was not sleepy.

CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID."

We have it on record that before the Comte de la Rochefoucauld left

the Louvre that night he received the strongest hints of the peril

which threatened him; and at least one written warning was handed to

him by a stranger in black, and by him in turn was communicated to the

King of Navarre. We are told further that when he took his final

leave, about the hour of eleven, he found the courtyard brilliantly

lighted, and the three companies of guards--Swiss, Scotch, and

French--drawn up in ranked array from the door of the great hall to

the gate which opened on the street. But, the chronicler adds, neither

this precaution, sinister as it appeared to some of his suite, nor the

grave farewell which Rambouillet, from his post at the gate, took of

one of his gentlemen, shook that chivalrous soul or sapped its

generous confidence. M. de Tignonville was young and less versed in

danger than the Governor of Rochelle; with him, had he seen so much,

it might have been different. But he left the Louvre an hour

earlier--at a time when the precincts of the palace, gloomy-seeming to

us in the light cast by coming events, wore their wonted aspect. His

thoughts, moreover, as he crossed the courtyard, were otherwise

employed. So much so, indeed, that though he signed to his two

servants to follow him, he seemed barely conscious what he was doing;

nor did he shake off his reverie until he reached the corner of the

Rue Baillet. Here the voices of the Swiss who stood on guard opposite

Coligny's lodgings, at the end of the Rue Bethizy, could be plainly

heard. They had kindled a fire in an iron basket set in the middle of

the road, and knots of them were visible in the distance, moving to

and fro about their piled arms.

Tignonville paused before he came within the radius of the firelight,

and turning, bade his servants take their way home. "I shall follow,

but I have business first," he added curtly.

The elder of the two demurred. "The streets are not too safe," he

said. "In two hours or less, my lord, it will be midnight. And

then----"

"Go, booby; do you think I am a child?" his master retorted angrily.

"I've my sword and can use it. I shall not be long. And do you hear,

men, keep a still tongue, will you?"

The men, country fellows, obeyed reluctantly, and with a full

intention of sneaking after him the moment he had turned his back. But

he suspected them of this, and stood where he was until they had

passed the fire, and could no longer detect his movements. Then he

plunged quickly into the Rue Baillet, gained through it the Rue du

Roule, and traversing that also turned to the right into the Rue

Ferronerie, the main thoroughfare, east and west, of Paris. Here he

halted in front of the long, dark outer wall of the Cemetery of the

Innocents, in which, across the tombstones and among the sepulchres of

dead Paris, the living Paris of that day, bought and sold, walked,

gossiped, and made love.

About him things were to be seen that would have seemed stranger to

him had he been less strange to the city. From the quarter of the

markets north of him, a quarter which fenced in the cemetery on two

sides, the same dull murmur proceeded, which Mademoiselle de Vrillac

had remarked an hour earlier. The sky above the cemetery glowed with

reflected light, the cause of which was not far to seek, for every

window of the tall houses that overlooked it, and the huddle of booths

about it, contributed a share of the illumination. At an hour late

even for Paris, an hour when honest men should have been sunk in

slumber, this strange brilliance did for a moment perplex him; but the

past week had been so full of fetes, of masques and frolics, often

devised on the moment and dependent on the King's whim, that he set

this also down to such a cause, and wondered and no more.

The lights in the houses flung their radiance high, and did not serve

his purpose; but beside the closed gate of the cemetery, between two

stalls, was a votive lamp burning before an image of the Mother and

Child. He crossed to this, and assuring himself by a glance to right

and left that he stood in no danger from prowlers, he drew a note from

his breast. It had been slipped into his hand in the gallery before he

saw Mademoiselle to her lodging; it had been in his possession barely

an hour. But brief as its contents were, and easily committed to

memory, he had perused it thrice already.

"At the house next the 'Golden Maid,' Rue Cinq Diamants, an hour

before midnight, you may find the door open should you desire to talk

farther with C. St. L."

As he read it for the fourth time the light of the lamp fell athwart

his face; and even as his fine clothes had never seemed to fit him

worse than when he faintly denied the imputations of gallantry

launched at him by Nancay, so his features had never looked less

handsome than they did now. The glow of vanity which warmed his cheek

as he read the message, the smile of conceit which wreathed his lips,

bespoke a nature not of the most noble; or the lamp did him less than

justice. Presently he kissed the note, and hid it. He waited until the

clock of St. Jacques struck the hour before midnight; and then moving

forward he turned to the right by way of the narrow neck leading to

the Rue Lombard. He walked in the kennel here, his sword in his hand

and his eyes looking to right and left; for the place was notorious

for robberies. But though he saw more than one figure lurking in a

doorway or under the arch that led to a passage, it vanished on his

nearer approach. In less than a minute he reached the southern end of

the street that bore the odd title of the Five Diamonds.

Situate in the crowded quarter of the butchers, and almost in the

shadow of their famous church, this street--which farther north was

continued in the Rue Quimcampoix--presented in those days a not

uncommon mingling of poverty and wealth. On one side of the street a

row of lofty gabled houses built under Francis the First, sheltered

persons of good condition; on the other, divided from these by the

width of the road and a reeking kennel, a row of pent-houses, the

hovels of cobblers and sausage-makers, leaned against shapeless timber

houses which tottered upwards in a medley of sagging roofs and bulging

gutters. Tignonville was strange to the place, and nine nights out of

ten he would have been at a disadvantage. But, thanks to the tapers

that to-night shone in many windows, he made out enough to see that he

need search only the one side; and with a beating heart he passed

along the row of newer houses, looking eagerly for the sign of the

"Golden Maid."

He found it at last; and then for a moment he stood puzzled. The note

said, next door to the "Golden Maid," but it did not say on which

side. He scrutinised the nearer house, but he saw nothing to determine

him; and he was proceeding to the farther, when he caught sight of two

men, who, ambushed behind a horse-block on the opposite side of the

roadway, seemed to be watching his movements. Their presence flurried

him; but much to his relief his next glance at the houses showed him

that the door of the farther one was unlatched. It stood slightly

ajar, permitting a beam of light to escape into the street.

He stepped quickly to it--the sooner he was within the house the

better--pushed the door open and entered. As soon as he was inside he

tried to close the entrance behind him, but he found he could not; the

door would not shut. After a brief trial he abandoned the attempt and

passed quickly on, through a bare lighted passage which led to the

foot of a staircase, equally bare. He stood at this point an instant

and listened, in the hope that Madame's maid would come to him. At

first he heard nothing save his own breathing; then a gruff voice from

above startled him, "This way, Monsieur," it said. "You are early, but

not too soon!"

So Madame trusted her footman! M. de Tignonville shrugged his

shoulders; but after all, it was no affair of his, and he went up.

Half-way to the top, however, he stood, an oath on his lips. Two men

had entered by the open door below--even as he had entered! And as

quietly!

The imprudence of it! The imprudence of leaving the door so that it

could not be closed! He turned and descended to meet them, his teeth

set, his hand on his sword, one conjecture after another whirling in

his brain. Was he beset? Was it a trap? Was it a rival? Was it chance?

Two steps he descended; and then the voice he had heard before cried

again, but more imperatively, "No, Monsieur, this way! Did you not

hear me? This way and be quick, if you please. By-and-by there will be

a crowd, and then the more we have dealt with the better!"

He knew now that he had made a mistake, that he had entered the wrong

house; and naturally his impulse was to continue his descent and

secure his retreat. But the pause had brought the two men who had

entered face to face with him, and they showed no signs of giving way.

On the contrary.

"The room is above, Monsieur," the foremost said, in a matter-of-fact

tone, and with a slight salutation. "After you, if you please," and he

signed to him to return.

He was a burly man, grim and truculent in appearance, and his follower

was like him. Tignonville hesitated, then turned and ascended. But as

soon as he had reached the landing where they could pass him, he

turned again.

"I have made a mistake, I think," he said. "I have entered the wrong

house."

"Are you for the house next the 'Golden Maid,' Monsieur?"

"Yes."

"Rue Cinq Diamants, Quarter of the Boucherie?"

"Yes."

"No mistake then," the stout man replied firmly. "You are early, that

is all. You have arms, I see. Maillard!"--to the person whose voice

Tignonville had heard at the head of the stairs--"A white sleeve, and

a cross for Monsieur's hat, and his name on the register. Come, make a

beginning! Make a beginning, man."

"To be sure, Monsieur. All is ready."

"Then lose no time, I say. Here are others, also early in the good

cause. Gentlemen, welcome! Welcome all who are for the true faith!

Death to the heretics! 'Kill, and no quarter!' is the word to-night!"

"Death to the heretics!" the last comers cried in chorus. "Kill and no

quarter! At what hour, M. le Prevot?"

"At day-break," the Provost answered importantly. "But have no fear,

the tocsin will sound. The King and our good man M. de Guise have all

in hand. A white sleeve, a white cross, and a sharp knife shall rid

Paris of the vermin! Gentlemen of the quarter, the word of the night

is 'Kill, and no quarter! Death to the Huguenots!'"

"Death! Death to the Huguenots! Kill, and no quarter!" A dozen--the

room was beginning to fill--waved their weapons and echoed the cry.

Tignonville had been fortunate enough to apprehend the position--and

the peril in which he stood--before Maillard advanced to him bearing a

white linen sleeve. In the instant of discovery his heart had stood a

moment, the blood had left his cheeks; but with some faults, he was no

coward, and he managed to hide his emotion. He held out his left arm,

and suffered the beadle to pass the sleeve over it and to secure the

white linen above the elbow. Then at a gesture he gave up his velvet

cap, and saw it decorated with a white cross of the same material.

"Now the register, Monsieur," Maillard continued briskly; and waving

him in the direction of a clerk, who sat at the end of the long table,

having a book and an ink-horn before him, he turned to the next comer.

Tignonville would fain have avoided the ordeal of the register, but

the clerk's eye was on him. He had been fortunate so far, but he knew

that the least breath of suspicion would destroy him, and summoning

his wits together he gave his name in a steady voice. "Anne

Desmartins." It was his mother's maiden name, and the first that came

into his mind.

"Of Paris?"

"Recently; by birth, of the Limousin."

"Good, Monsieur," the clerk answered, writing in the name. And he

turned to the next. "And you, my friend?"

CHAPTER IV.

THE EVE OF THE FEAST.

IT was Tignonville's salvation that the men who crowded the long

white-walled room, and exchanged vile boasts under the naked flaring

lights, were of all classes. There were butchers, natives of the

surrounding quarter whom the scent of blood had drawn from their

lairs; and there were priests with hatchet faces, who whispered in the

butchers' ears. There were gentlemen of the robe, and plain mechanics,

rich merchants in their gowns, and bare-armed ragpickers, sleek

choristers, and shabby led-captains; but differ as they might in other

points, in one thing all were alike. From all, gentle or simple, rose

the same cry for blood, the same aspiration to be first equipped for

the fray. In one corner a man of rank stood silent and apart, his hand

on his sword, the working of his face alone betraying the storm that

reigned within. In another, a Norman horse-dealer talked in low

whispers with two thieves. In a third, a gold-wire drawer addressed an

admiring group from the Sorbonne; and meantime the middle of the floor

grew into a seething mass of muttering, scowling men, through whom the

last comers, thrust as they might, had much ado to force their way.

And from all under the low ceiling rose a ceaseless hum, though none

spoke loud. "Kill! kill! kill!" was the burden; the accompaniment such

profanities and blasphemies as had long disgraced the Paris pulpits,

and day by day had fanned the bigotry--already at a white heat--of the

Parisian populace. Tignonville turned sick as he listened, and would

fain have closed his ears. But for his life he dared not. And

presently a cripple in a beggar's garb, a dwarfish, filthy creature

with matted hair, twitched his sleeve, and offered him a whetstone.

"Are you sharp, noble sir?" he asked with a leer. "Are you sharp? It's

surprising how the edge goes on the bone. A cut and thrust? Well,

every man to his taste. But give me a broad butcher's knife and I'll

ask no help, be it man, woman, or child!"

A bystander, a lean man in rusty black, chuckled as he listened. "But

the woman or the child for choice, eh, Jehan?" he said. And he looked

to Tignonville to join in the jest.

"Ay, give me a white throat for choice!" the cripple answered, with

horrible zest. "And there'll be delicate necks to prick to-night!

Lord, I think I hear them squeal! You don't need it, sir?" he

continued, again proffering the whetstone. "No? Then I'll give my

blade another whet, in the name of our Lady, the Saints, and good

Father Pezelay!"

"Ay, and give me a turn!" the lean man cried, proffering his weapon.

"May I die if I do not kill one of the accursed for every finger of my

hands!"

"And toe of my feet!" the cripple answered, not to be outdone. "And

toe of my feet! A full score!"

"'Tis according to your sins!" the other, who had something of the air

of a Churchman, answered. "The more heretics killed, the more sins

forgiven. Remember that, brother, and spare not if your soul be

burdened! They blaspheme God and call Him paste! In the paste of their

own blood," he continued ferociously, "I will knead them and roll them

out, saith the good Father Pezelay, my master!"

The cripple crossed himself. "Whom God keep," he said. "He is a good

man. But you are looking ill, noble sir?" he continued, peering

curiously at the young Huguenot.

"'Tis the heat," Tignonville muttered. "The night is stifling, and the

lights make it worse. I will go nearer the door."

He hoped to escape them; he had some hope even of escaping from the

room and giving the alarm. But when he had forced his way to the

threshold, he found it guarded by two pikemen; and glancing back to

see if his movements were observed--for he knew that his agitation

might have awakened suspicion--he found that the taller of the two

whom he had left, the black-garbed man with the hungry face, was

watching him a-tiptoe, over the shoulders of the crowd.

With that, and the sense of his impotence, the lights began to swim

before his eyes. The catastrophe that overhung his party, the fate so

treacherously prepared for all whom he loved and all with whom his

fortunes were bound up, confused his brain almost to delirium. He

strove to think, to calculate chances, to imagine some way in which he

might escape from the room, or from a window might cry the alarm. But

he could not bring his mind to a point. Instead, in lightning flashes

he foresaw what must happen: his betrothed in the hands of the

murderers, the fair face that had smiled on him frozen with terror;

brave men, the fighters of Montauban, the defenders of Angely, strewn

dead through the dark lanes of the city. And now a gust of passion,

and now a shudder of fear, seized him; and in any other assembly his

agitation must have led to detection. But in that room were many

twitching faces and trembling hands. Murder, cruel, midnight, and most

foul, wrung even from the murderers her toll of horror. While some, to

hide the nervousness they felt, babbled of what they would do, others

betrayed by the intentness with which they awaited the signal, the

dreadful anticipations that possessed their souls.

Before he had formed any plan, a movement took place near the door.

The stairs shook beneath the sudden trampling of feet, a voice

cried "De par le Roi! De par le Roi!" and the babel of the room died

down. The throng swayed and fell back on either hand, and Marshal

Tavannes entered, wearing half armour, with a white sash; he was

followed by six or eight gentlemen in like guise. Amid cries of

"Jarnac! Jarnac!"--for to him the credit of that famous fight,

nominally won by the King's brother, was popularly given--he advanced

up the room, met the Provost of the merchants, and began to confer

with him. Apparently he asked the latter to select some men who could

be trusted on a special mission, for the Provost looked round and

beckoned to his side one or two of higher rank than the herd, and then

one or two of the most truculent aspect.

Tignonville trembled lest he should be singled out. He had hidden

himself as well as he could at the rear of the crowd by the door; but

his dress, so much above the common, rendered him conspicuous. He

fancied that the Provost's eye ranged the crowd for him; and to avoid

it and efface himself he moved a pace to his left.

The step was fatal. It saved him from the Provost, but it brought him

face to face and eye to eye with Count Hannibal, who stood in the

first rank at his brother's elbow. Tavannes stared an instant as if he

doubted his eyesight. Then, as doubt gave slow place to certainty, and

surprise to amazement, he smiled. And after a moment he looked another

way.

Tignonville's heart gave a great bump and seemed to stand still. The

lights whirled before his eyes, there was a roaring in his ears. He

waited for the word that should denounce him. It did not come. And

still it did not come; and Marshal Tavannes was turning. Yes, turning,

and going; the Provost, bowing low, was attending him to the door; his

suite were opening on either side to let him pass. And Count Hannibal?

Count Hannibal was following also, as if nothing had occurred. As if

he had seen nothing!

The young man caught his breath. Was it possible that he had imagined

the start of recognition, the steady scrutiny, the sinister smile? No;

for as Tavannes followed the others, he hung an instant on his heel,

their eyes met again, and once more he smiled. In the next breath he

was gone through the doorway, his spurs rang on the stairs; and the

babel of the crowd, unchecked by the great man's presence, broke out

anew, and louder.

Tignonville shuddered. He was saved as by a miracle, saved he did not

know how. But the respite, though its strangeness diverted his

thoughts for a while, brought short relief. The horrors which impended

over others surged afresh into his mind, and filled him with a

maddening sense of impotence. To be one hour, only one short half-hour

without! To run through the sleeping streets, and scream in the dull

ears which a King's flatteries had stopped as with wool! To go up and

down and shake into life the guests whose royal lodgings daybreak

would turn to a shambles reeking with their blood! They slept, the

gentle Teligny, the brave Pardaillan, the gallant Rochefoucauld, Piles

the hero of St. Jean, while the cruel city stirred rustling about

them, and doom crept whispering to the door. They slept, they and a

thousand others, gentle and simple, young and old; while the half-mad

Valois shifted between two opinions, and the Italian woman, accursed

daughter of an accursed race, cried "Hark!" at her window, and looked

eastwards for the dawn.

And the women? The woman he was to marry? And the others? In an access

of passion he thrust aside those who stood between, he pushed his way,

disregarding complaints, disregarding opposition, to the door. But the

pikes lay across it, and he could not utter a syllable to save his

life. He would have flung himself on the door-keepers, for he was

losing control of himself; but as he drew back for the spring, a hand

clutched his sleeve, and a voice he loathed hummed in his ear.

"No, fair play, noble sir; fair play!" the cripple Jehan muttered,

forcibly drawing him aside. "All start together, and it's no man's

loss. But if there is any little business," he continued, lowering his

tone and peering with a cunning look into the other's face, "of your

own, noble sir, or your friends', anything or anybody you want

despatched, count on me. It were better, perhaps, you didn't appear in

it yourself, and a man you can trust----"

"What do you mean?" the young man cried, recoiling from him.

"No need to look surprised, noble sir," the lean man, who had joined

them, answered in a soothing tone. "Who kills to-night does God

service, and who serves God much may serve himself a little. 'Thou

shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn,' says good Father

Pezelay."

"Hear, hear!" the cripple chimed in eagerly, his impatience such that

he danced on his toes. "He preaches as well as the good father his

master! So frankly, noble sir, what is it? What is it? A woman grown

ugly? A rich man grown old, with perchance a will in his chest? Or a

young heir that stands in my lord's way? Whichever it be, or whatever

it be, trust me and our friend here, and my butcher's gully shall cut

the knot."

Tignonville shook his head.

"But something there is," the lean man persisted obstinately; and he

cast a suspicious glance at Tignonville's clothes. It was evident that

the two had discussed him, and the motives of his presence there.

"Have the dice proved fickle, my lord, and are you for the jewellers'

shops on the bridge to fill your purse again? If so, take my word, it

were better to go three than one, and we'll enlist."

"Ay, we know shops on the bridge where you can plunge your arm

elbow-deep in gold," the cripple muttered, his eyes sparkling

greedily. "There's Baillet's, noble sir! There's a shop for you! And

there's the man's shop who works for the King. He's lame like me. And

I know the way to all. Oh, it will be a merry night if they ring

before the dawn. It must be near daybreak now. And what's that?"

Ay, what was it? A score of voices called for silence; a breathless

hush fell on the crowd. A moment the fiercest listened, with parted

lips and starting eyes. Then, "It was the bell!" cried one, "let us

out!" "It was not!" cried, another. "It was a pistol shot!" "Anyhow

let us out!" the crowd roared in chorus; "let us out!" And they

pressed in a furious mass towards the door, as if they would force it,

signal or no signal.

But the pikemen stood fast, and the throng, checked in their first

rush, turned on one another, and broke into wrangling and disputing;

boasting, and calling Heaven and the saints to witness how thoroughly,

how pitilessly, how remorselessly they would purge Paris of this

leprosy when the signal did sound. Until again above the babel a man

cried "Silence!" and again they listened. And this time, dulled by

walls and distance, but unmistakable by the ears of fear or hate, the

heavy note of a bell came to them on the hot night-air. It was the

boom, sullen and menacing, of the death signal.

The door-keepers lowered their pikes, and with a wild rush as of

wolves swarming on their prey, the band stormed the door, and thrust

and struggled and battled a way down the narrow staircase, and along

the narrow passage. "A bas les Huguenots! Mort aux Huguenots!" they

shouted; and shrieking, sweating, spurning with vile hands viler

faces, they poured pell-mell into the street, and added their clamour

to the boom of the tocsin that, as by magic and in a moment, turned

the streets of Paris into a hell of blood and cruelty. For as it was

here, so it was in a dozen other quarters.

Quickly as they streamed out--and to have issued more quickly would

have been impossible--fiercely as they pushed and fought and clove

their way, Tignonville was of the foremost. And for a moment, seeing

the street clear before him and almost empty, the Huguenot thought

that he might do something. He might outstrip the stream of rapine, he

might carry the alarm; at worst he might reach his betrothed before

harm befel her. But when he had sped fifty yards, his heart sank.

True, none passed him; but under the spell of the alarm-bell the

stones themselves seemed to turn to men. Houses, courts, alleys, the

very churches vomited men. In a twinkling the street was alive with

men, roared with them as with a rushing tide, gleamed with their

lights and weapons, thundered with the volume of their thousand

voices. He was no longer ahead, men were running before him, behind

him, on his right hand and on his left. In every side-street, every

passage, men were running; and not men only, but women, children,

furious creatures without age or sex. And all the time the bell tolled

overhead, tolled faster and faster, and louder and louder; and shots

and screams, and the clash of arms, and the fall of strong doors began

to swell the maelstrom of sound.

He was in the Rue St. Honore now, and speeding westward. But the flood

still rose with him, and roared abreast of him. Nay, it outstripped

him. When he came, panting, within sight of his goal, and lacked but a

hundred paces of it, he found his passage barred by a dense mass of

people moving slowly to meet him. In the heart of the press the light

of a dozen torches shone on half as many riders mailed and armed;

whose eyes, as they moved on, and the furious gleaming eyes of the

rabble about them, never left the gabled roofs on their right. On

these from time to time a white-clad figure showed itself, and passed

from chimney-stack to chimney-stack, or, stooping low, ran along the

parapet. Every time that this happened, the men on horseback pointed

upwards and the mob foamed with rage.

Tignonville groaned, but he could not help. Unable to go forward, he

turned, and with others hurrying, shouting, and brandishing weapons,

he pressed into the Rue du Roule, passed through it, and gained the

Bethizy. But here, as he might have foreseen, all passage was barred

at the Hotel Pouthieu by a horde of savages, who danced and yelled and

sang songs round the Admiral's body, which lay in the middle of the

way; while to right and left men were bursting into houses and forcing

new victims into the street. The worst had happened there, and he

turned panting, regained the Rue St. Honore and, crossing it and

turning left-handed, darted through side streets until he came again

into the main thoroughfare a little beyond the Croix du Tiroir, that

marked the corner of Mademoiselle's house.

Here his last hope left him. The street swarmed with bands of men

hurrying to and fro as in a sacked city. The scum of the Halles, the

rabble of the quarter poured this way and that, here at random, there

swayed and directed by a few knots of men-at-arms, whose corselets

reflected the glare of a hundred torches. At one time and within

sight, three or four houses were being stormed. On every side rose

heartrending cries, mingled with brutal laughter, with savage jests,

with cries of "To the river!" The most cruel of cities had burst its

bounds and was not to be stayed; nor would be stayed until the Seine

ran red to the sea, and leagues below, in pleasant Normandy hamlets,

men, for fear of the pestilence, pushed the corpses from the bridges

with poles and boat-hooks.

All this Tignonville saw, though his eyes, leaping the turmoil, looked

only to the door at which he had left Mademoiselle a few hours

earlier. There a crowd of men pressed and struggled; but from the spot

where he stood he could see no more. That was enough, however. Rage

nerved him, and despair; his world was dying round him. If he could

not save her he would avenge her. Recklessly he plunged into the

tumult; blade in hand, with vigorous blows he thrust his way through,

his white sleeve and the white cross in his hat gaining him passage

until he reached the fringe of the band who beset the door. Here his

first attempt to pass failed; and he might have remained hampered by

the crowd if a squad of archers had not ridden up. As they spurred to

the spot, heedless over whom they rode, he clutched a stirrup, and was

borne with them into the heart of the crowd. In a twinkling he stood

on the threshold of the house, face to face and foot to foot with

Count Hannibal, who stood also on the threshold, but with his back to

the door, which, unbarred and unbolted, gaped open behind him.

CHAPTER V.

A ROUGH WOOING.

The young man had caught the delirium that was abroad that night. The

rage of the trapped beast was in his heart, his hand held a sword. To

strike blindly, to strike without question the first who withstood him

was the wild-beast instinct; and if Count Hannibal had not spoken on

the instant, the Marshal's brother had said his last word in the

world.

Yet as he stood there, a head above the crowd, he seemed unconscious

alike of Tignonville and the point that all but pricked his breast.

Swart and grim-visaged, his harsh features distorted by the glare

which shone upon him, he looked beyond the Huguenot to the sea of

tossing arms and raging faces that surged about the saddles of the

horsemen. It was to these he spoke.

"Begone, dogs!" he cried, in a voice that startled the nearest, "or I

will whip you away with my stirrup-leathers! Do you hear? Begone! This

house is not for you! Burn, kill, plunder where you will, but go

hence!"

"But 'tis on the list!" one of the wretches yelled. "'Tis on the

list!" And he pushed forward until he stood at Tignonville's elbow.

"And has no cross!" shrieked another, thrusting himself forward in his

turn. "See you, let us by, whoever you are! In the King's name, kill!

It has no cross!"

"Then," Tavannes thundered, "will I nail you for a cross to the front

of it! No cross, say you? I will make one of you, foul crow!"

And as he spoke, his arm shot out; the man recoiled, his fellow

likewise. But one of the mounted archers took up the matter.

"Nay, but, my lord," he said--he knew Tavannes--"it is the King's will

there be no favour shown to-night to any, small or great. And this

house is registered, and is full of heretics."

"And has no cross!" the rabble urged in chorus. And they leapt up and

down in their impatience, and to see the better. "And has no cross!"

they persisted. They could understand that. Of what use crosses, if

they were not to kill where there was no cross? Daylight was not

plainer.

Tavannes' face grew dark, and he shook his finger at the archer who

had spoken. "Rogue," he cried, "does the King's will run here only?

Are there no other houses to sack or men to kill, that you must beard

me? And favour? You will have little of mine, if you do not budge and

take your vile tail with you! Off! Or must I cry 'Tavannes!' and bid

my people sweep you from the streets?"

The foremost rank hesitated, awed by his manner and his name; while

the rearmost, attracted by the prospect of easier pillage, had gone

off already. The rest wavered; and another and another broke away. The

archer who had put himself forward saw which way the wind was blowing,

and he shrugged his shoulders. "Well, my lord, as you will," he said

sullenly. "All the same I would advise you to close the door and bolt

and bar. We shall not be the last to call to-day." And he turned his

horse in ill-humour, and forced it, snorting and plunging, through the

crowd.

"Bolt and bar?" Tavannes cried after him in fury. "See you my answer

to that!" And turning on the threshold, "Within there!" he cried.

"Open the shutters and set lights, and the table! Light, I say; light!

And lay on quickly, if you value your lives! And throw open, for I sup

with your mistress tonight, if it rain blood without! Do you hear me,

rogues? Set on!"

He flung the last word at the quaking servants; then he turned again

to the street. He saw that the crowd was melting, and, looking in

Tignonville's face, he laughed aloud. "Does Monsieur sup with us?" he

said. "To complete the party? Or will he choose to sup with our

friends yonder? It is for him to say. I confess, for my part," with an

awful smile, "their hospitality seems a trifle crude, and boisterous."

Tignonville looked behind him and shuddered. The same horde which had

so lately pressed about the door had found a victim lower down the

street, and, as Tavannes spoke, came driving back along the roadway, a

mass of tossing lights and leaping, running figures, from the heart of

which rose the screams of a creature in torture. So terrible were the

sounds that Tignonville leant half swooning against the door-post; and

even the iron heart of Tavannes seemed moved for a moment.

For a moment only: then he looked at his companion, and his lip

curled. "You'll join us, I think?" he said with an undisguised sneer.

"Then, after you, Monsieur. They are opening the shutters. Doubtless

the table is laid, and Mademoiselle is expecting us. After you,

Monsieur, if you please. A few hours ago I should have gone first, for

you, in this house"--with a sinister smile--"were at home! Now, we

have changed places."

Whatever he meant by the gibe--and some smack of an evil jest lurked

in his tone--he played the host so far as to urge his bewildered

companion along the passage and into the living-chamber on the left,

where he had seen from without that his orders to light and lay were

being executed. A dozen candles shone on the board, and lit up the

apartment. What the house contained of food and wine had been

got together and set on the table; from the low, wide window,

beetle-browed and diamond-paned, which extended the whole length of

the room and looked on the street at the height of a man's head above

the roadway, the shutters had been removed--doubtless by trembling and

reluctant fingers. To such eyes of passers-by as looked in, from the

inferno of driving crowds and gleaming weapons which prevailed

outside--and not outside only, but throughout Paris--the brilliant

room and the laid table must have seemed strange indeed!

To Tignonville, all that had happened, all that was happening, seemed

a dream: a dream his entrance under the gentle impulsion of this man

who dominated him; a dream Mademoiselle standing behind the table with

blanched face and stony eyes; a dream the cowering servants huddled in

a corner beyond her; a dream his silence, her silence, the moment of

waiting before Count Hannibal spoke.

When he did speak it was to count the servants. "One, two, three,

four, five," he said. "And two of them women. Mademoiselle is but

poorly attended. Are there not"--and he turned to her--"some lacking?"

The girl opened her lips twice, but no sound issued. The third time,

"Two went out," she muttered in a hoarse, strangled voice, "and have

not returned."

"And have not returned?" he answered, raising his eyebrows. "Then I

fear we must not wait for them. We might wait long!" And turning

sharply to the panic-stricken servants, "Go you to your places! Do you

not see that Mademoiselle waits to be served?"

The girl shuddered and spoke.

"Do you wish me," she muttered, in the same strangled tone, "to play

this farce--to the end?"

"The end may be better, Mademoiselle, than you think," he answered,

bowing. And then to the miserable servants, who hung back afraid to

leave the shelter of their mistress's skirts, "To your places!" he

cried. "Set Mademoiselle's chair. Are you so remiss on other days? If

so," with a look of terrible meaning, "you will be the less loss! Now,

Mademoiselle, may I have the honour? And when we are at table we can

talk."

He extended his hand, and, obedient to his gesture, she moved to the

place at the head of the table, but without letting her fingers come

into contact with his. He gave no sign that he noticed this, but he

strode to the place on her right, and signed to Tignonville to take

that on her left. "Will you not be seated?" he continued. For she kept

her feet.

She turned her head stiffly, until for the first time her eyes looked

into his. A shudder more violent than the last shook her. "Had you not

better--kill us at once?" she whispered. The blood had forsaken even

her lips. Her face was the face of a statue--white, beautiful,

lifeless.

"I think not," he said gravely. "Be seated, and let us hope for the

best. And you, sir," he continued, turning to Carlat, "serve your

mistress with wine. She needs it."

The steward filled for her, and then for each of the men, his shaking

hand spilling as much as it poured. Nor was this strange. Above the

din and uproar of the street, above the crash of distant doors, above

the tocsin that still rang from the reeling steeple of St. Germain's,

the great bell of the Palais on the island had just begun to hurl its

note of doom upon the town. A woman crouching at the end of the

chamber burst into hysterical weeping, but, at a glance from Tavannes'

terrible eye, was mute again.

Tignonville found voice at last. "Have they--killed the Admiral?" he

muttered, his eyes on the table.

"M. Coligny! An hour ago."

"And Teligny?"

"Him also."

"M. de Rochefoucauld?"

"They are dealing with M. le Comte now, I believe," Tavannes answered.

"He had his chance, and cast it away." And he began to eat.

The man at the table shuddered. The woman continued to look before

her, but her lips moved as if she prayed. Suddenly a rush of feet, a

roar of voices surged past the window; for a moment the glare of the

torches which danced ruddily on the walls of the room, showed a

severed head borne above the multitude on a pike. Mademoiselle, with a

low cry, made an effort to rise, but Count Hannibal grasped her wrist

and she sank back half fainting. Then the nearer clamour sank a

little, and the bells, unchallenged, flung their iron tongues above

the maddened city. In the east the dawn was growing; soon its grey

light would fall on cold hearths, on battered doors and shattered

weapons, on hordes of wretches drunk with greed and hate.

When he could be heard, "What are you going to do with us?" the man

asked hoarsely.

"That depends," Count Hannibal replied after a moment's thought.

"On what?"

"On Mademoiselle de Vrillac."

The other's eyes gleamed with passion. He leaned forward. "What has

she to do with it?" he cried. And he stood up and sat down again in a

breath.

Tavannes raised his eyebrows with a blandness that seemed at odds with

his harsh visage. "I will answer that question by another question,"

he replied. "How many are there in the house, my friend?"

"You can count."

Tavannes counted again. "Seven?" he said.

Tignonville nodded impatiently.

"Seven lives?"

"Well?"

"Well, Monsieur, you know the King's will?"

"I can guess it," the other replied furiously. And he cursed the King,

and the King's mother, calling her Jezebel.

"You can guess it?" Tavannes answered; and then with sudden heat, as

if that which he had to say could not be said even by him in cold

blood, "Nay, you know it! You heard it from the archer at the door.

You heard him say, 'No favour, no quarter for man, for woman, or for

child. So says the King.' You heard it, but you fence with me.

Foucauld, with whom his Majesty played to-night, hand to hand and face

to face--Foucauld is dead! And you think to live? You?" he continued,

lashing himself into passion. "I know not by what chance you came

where I saw you an hour gone, nor by what chance you came by that and

that"--pointing with accusing finger to the badges the Huguenot wore.

"But this I know! I have but to cry your name from yonder casement,

nay, Monsieur, I have but to stand aside when the mob go their rounds

from house to house, as they will go presently, and you will perish as

certainly as you have hitherto escaped!"

For the second time Mademoiselle turned and looked at him. "Then," she

whispered, with white lips, "to what end this--mockery?"

"To the end that seven lives may be saved, Mademoiselle," he answered,

bowing.

"At a price?" she muttered.

"At a price," he answered. "A price which women do not find it hard to

pay--at Court. 'Tis paid every day for pleasure or a whim, for rank or

the _entree_, for robes and gewgaws. Few, Mademoiselle, are privileged

to buy a life; still fewer, seven!"

She began to tremble. "I would rather die--seven times!" she cried,

her voice quivering. And she tried to rise, but sat down again.

"And these?" he said, indicating the servants.

"Far, far rather!" she repeated passionately.

"And Monsieur? And Monsieur!" he urged with stern persistence, while

his eyes passed lightly from her to Tignonville and back to her again,

their depths inscrutable. "If you love Monsieur, Mademoiselle, and I

believe you do----"

"I can die with him!" she cried.

"And he with you!"

She writhed in her chair.

"And he with you?" Count Hannibal repeated, with emphasis; and he

thrust forward his head. "For that is the question. Think, think,

Mademoiselle. It is in my power to save from death him whom you love;

to save you; to save this _canaille_, if it so please you. It is in my

power to save him, to save you, to save all; and I will save all--at a

price! If, on the other hand, you deny me that price, I will as

certainly leave all to perish, as perish they will, before the sun

that is now rising sets to-night!"

Mademoiselle looked straight before her, the flicker of a dreadful

prescience in her eyes. "And the price?" she muttered. "The price?"

"You, Mademoiselle."

"Yes, you! Nay, why fence with me?" he continued gently. "You knew it,

you have said it. You have read it in my eyes these seven days."

She did not speak, move, or seem to breathe. As he said, she had

foreseen, she had known the answer. But Tignonville, it seemed, had

not. He sprang to his feet. "M. de Tavannes," he cried, "you are a

villain!"

"Monsieur?"

"You are a villain! But you shall pay for this!" the young man

continued vehemently. "You shall not leave this room alive! You shall

pay for this insult!"

"Insult?" Tavannes answered in apparent surprise; and then, as if

comprehension broke upon him, "Ah! Monsieur mistakes me," he said,

with a generous sweep of his hand. "And Mademoiselle also, perhaps?

Oh! be content, she shall have bell, book, and candle; she shall be

tied as tight as Holy Church can tie her! Or, if she please, and one

survive, she shall have a priest of her own church--you call it a

church? She shall have whichever of the two will serve her better.

'Tis one to me! But for paying me, Monsieur," he continued with irony

in voice and manner; "when, I pray you? In Eternity! For if you refuse

my offer, you have done with time. Now? I have but to sound this

whistle"--he touched a silver whistle which hung at his breast--"and

there are those within hearing will do your business before you make

two passes. Dismiss the notion, sir, and understand. You are in my

power. Paris runs with blood, as noble as yours, as innocent as hers.

If you would not perish with the rest, decide! And quickly! For what

you have seen are but the forerunners, what you have heard are but the

gentle whispers that predict the gale. Do not parley too long; so long

that even I may no longer save you."

"I would rather die!" Mademoiselle moaned, her face covered. "I would

rather die!"

"And see him die?" he answered quietly. "And see these die? Think,

think, child!"

"You will not do it!" she gasped. She shook from head to foot.

"I shall do nothing," he answered firmly. "I shall but leave you to

your fate, and these to theirs. In the King's teeth I dare save my

wife and her people; but no others. You must choose--and quickly."

One of the frightened women--it was Mademoiselle's tiring-maid, a girl

called Javette--made a movement, as if to throw herself at her

mistress's feet. Tignonville drove her to her place with a word. He

turned to Count Hannibal. "But, M. le Comte," he said, "you must be

mad! Mad, to wish to marry her in this way! You do not love her. You

do not want her. What is she to you more than other women?"

"What is she to you more than other women?" Tavannes retorted in a

tone so sharp and incisive that Tignonville started, and a faint touch

of colour crept into the wan cheek of the girl, who sat between them,

the prize of the contest. "What is she more to you than other women?

Is she more? And yet--you want her!"

"She is more to me," Tignonville answered.

"Is she?" the other retorted, with a ring of keen meaning. "Is she?

But we bandy words and the storm is rising, as I warned you it would

rise. Enough for you that I _do_ want her. Enough for you that I will

have her. She shall be the wife, the willing wife, of Hannibal de

Tavannes--or I leave her to her fate, and you to yours!"

"Ah, God!" she moaned. "The willing wife!"

"Ay, Mademoiselle, the willing wife," he answered sternly. "Or no

man's wife!"

CHAPTER VI.

WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES?

In saying that the storm was rising Count Hannibal had said no more

than the truth. A new mob had a minute before burst from the eastward

into the Rue St. Honore; and the roar of its thousand voices swelled

louder than the importunate clangour of the bells. Behind its moving

masses the dawn of a new day--Sunday, the 24th of August, the feast of

St. Bartholomew--was breaking over the Bastille, as if to aid the

crowd in its cruel work. The gabled streets, the lanes, and gothic

courts, the stifling wynds, where the work awaited the workers, still

lay in twilight; still the gleam of the torches, falling on the

house-fronts, heralded the coming of the crowd. But the dawn was

growing, the sun was about to rise. Soon the day would be here, giving

up the lurking fugitive whom darkness, more pitiful, had spared, and

stamping with legality the horrors that night had striven to hide.

And with day, with the full light, killing would grow more easy,

escape more hard. Already they were killing on the bridge where the

rich goldsmiths lived, on the wharves, on the river. They were killing

at the Louvre, in the courtyard under the King's eyes, and below the

windows of the Medicis. They were killing in St. Martin and St. Denis

and St. Antoine; wherever hate, or bigotry, or private malice impelled

the hand. From the whole city went up a din of lamentation, and wrath,

and foreboding. From the Cour des Miracles, from the markets, from the

Boucherie, from every haunt of crime and misery, hordes of wretched

creatures poured forth; some to rob on their own account, and where

they listed, none gainsaying; more to join themselves to one of the

armed bands whose business it was to go from street to street, and

house to house, quelling resistance, and executing through Paris the

high justice of the King.

It was one of these swollen bands which had entered the street while

Tavannes spoke; nor could he have called to his aid a more powerful

advocate. As the deep "A bas! A bas!" rolled like thunder along the

fronts of the houses, as the more strident "Tuez! Tuez!" drew nearer

and nearer, and the lights of the oncoming multitude began to flicker

on the shuttered gables, the fortitude of the servants gave way.

Madame Carlat, shivering in every limb, burst into moaning; the

tiring-maid, Javette, flung herself in terror at Mademoiselle's knees,

and, writhing herself about them, shrieked to her to save her, only to

save her! One of the men moved forward on impulse, as if he would

close the shutters; and only old Carlat remained silent, praying

mutely with moving lips and a stern, set face.

And Count Hannibal? As the glare of the links in the street grew

brighter, and ousted the sickly daylight, his form seemed to dilate.

He stilled the shrieking woman by a glance. "Choose! Mademoiselle, and

quickly!" he said. "For I can only save my wife and her people! Quick,

for the pinch is coming, and 'twill be no boy's play."

A shot, a scream from the street, a rush of racing feet before the

window seconded his words.

"Quick, Mademoiselle!" he cried. And his breath came a little faster.

"Quick, before it be too late! Will you save life, or will you kill!"

She looked at her lover with eyes of agony, dumbly questioning him.

But he made no sign, and only Tavannes marked the look. "Monsieur has

done what he can to save himself," he said with a sneer. "He has

donned the livery of the King's servants; he has said, 'Whoever

perishes, I will live!' But--"

"Curse you!" the young man cried, and, stung to madness, he tore the

cross from his cap and flung it on the ground. He seized his white

sleeve and ripped it from shoulder to elbow. Then, when it hung by the

string only, he held his hand.

"Curse you!" he cried furiously. "I will not at your bidding! I may

save her yet! I will save her!"

"Fool!" Tavannes answered--but his words were barely audible above the

deafening uproar. "Can you fight a thousand? Look! Look!" and seizing

the other's wrist he pointed to the window. The street glowed like a

furnace in the red light of torches, raised on poles above a sea of

heads; an endless sea of heads, and gaping faces, and tossing arms

which swept on and on, and on and by. For a while it seemed that the

torrent would flow past them and would leave them safe. Then came a

check, a confused outcry, a surging this way and that; the torches

reeled to and fro, and finally with a dull roar of "Open! Open!" the

mob faced about to the house and the lighted window.

For a second it seemed that even Count Hannibal's iron nerves shook a

little. He stood between the sullen group that surrounded the

disordered table and the maddened rabble, that gloated on the victims

before they tore them to pieces. "Open! Open!" the mob howled: and a

man dashed in the window with his pike.

In that crisis Mademoiselle's eyes met Tavannes' for the fraction of a

second. She did not speak; nor, had she retained the power to frame

the words, would they have been audible. But something she must have

looked, and something of import, though no other than he marked or

understood it. For in a flash he was at the window and his hand was

raised for silence.

"Back!" he thundered. "Back, knaves!" And he whistled shrilly. "Do

what you will," he continued in the same tone, "but not here! Pass on!

Pass on!--do you hear?"

But the crowd were not to be lightly diverted. With a persistence

brutal and unquestioning they continued to howl "Open! Open!" while

the man who had broken the window the moment before, Jehan, the

cripple with the hideous face, seized the lead-work, and tore away a

great piece of it. Then laying hold of a bar, he tried to drag it out,

setting one foot against the wall below.

Tavannes saw what he did, and his frame seemed to dilate with the fury

and violence of his character. "Dogs!" he shouted, "must I call out my

riders and scatter you? Must I flog you through the streets with

stirrup-leathers? I am Tavannes, beware of me! I have claws and teeth

and I bite!" he continued, the scorn in his words exceeding even the

rage of the crowd, at which he flung them. "Kill where you please, rob

where you please, but not where I am! Or I will hang you by the heels

on Montfaucon, man by man! I will flay your backs. Go! go! I am

Tavannes!"

But the mob, cowed for a moment by the thunder of his voice, by his

arrogance and recklessness, showed at this that their patience was

exhausted. With a yell which drowned his tones they swayed forward; a

dozen thundered on the door, crying, "In the King's name!" As many

more tore out the remainder of the casement, seized the bars of the

window, and strove to pull them out or to climb between them. Jehan,

the cripple, with whom Tignonville had rubbed elbows at the

rendezvous, led the way.

Count Hannibal watched them a moment, his harsh face bent down to

them, his features plain in the glare of the torches. But when the

cripple, raised on the others' shoulders, and emboldened by his

adversary's inactivity, began to squeeze himself through the bars,

Tavannes raised a pistol, which he had held unseen behind him, cocked

it at leisure, and levelled it at the foul face which leered close to

his. The dwarf saw the weapon and tried to retreat; but it was too

late. A flash, a scream, and the wretch, shot through the throat,

flung up his hands, and fell back into the arms of a lean man in black

who had lent him his shoulder to ascend.

For a few seconds the smoke of the pistol filled the window and the

room. There was a cry that the Huguenots were escaping, that the

Huguenots were resisting, that it was a plot; and some shouted to

guard the back and some to watch the roof, and some to be gone. But

when the fumes cleared away, the mob saw, with stupor, that all was as

it had been. Count Hannibal stood where he had stood before, a grim

smile on his lips.

"Who comes next!" he cried in a tone of mockery. "I have more

pistols!" And then with a sudden change to ferocity, "You dogs!" he

went on. "You scum of a filthy city, sweepings of the Halles! Do you

think to beard me? Do you think to frighten me or murder me? I am

Tavannes, and this is my house, and were there a score of Huguenots in

it, you should not touch one, nor harm a hair of his head! Begone, I

say again, while you may! Seek women and children, and kill them. But

not here!"

For an instant the mingled scorn and brutality of his words silenced

them. Then from the rear of the crowd came an answer--the roar of an

arquebuse. The ball whizzed past Count Hannibal's head, and, splashing

the plaster from the wall within a pace of Tignonville, dropped to the

ground.

Tavannes laughed. "Bungler!" he cried. "Were you in my troop I would

dip your trigger-finger in boiling oil to teach you to shoot! But you

weary me, dogs. I must teach you a lesson, must I?" And he lifted a

pistol and levelled it. The crowd did not know whether it was the one

he had discharged or another, but they gave back with a sharp gasp. "I

must teach you, must I?" he continued with scorn. "Here Bigot,

Badelon, drive me these blusterers! Rid the street of them! A

Tavannes! A Tavannes!"

Not by word or look had he before this betrayed that he had supports.

But as he cried the name, a dozen men armed to the teeth, who had

stood motionless under the Croix du Tiroir, fell in a line on the

right flank of the crowd. The surprise for those nearest them was

complete. With the flash of the pikes before their eyes, with the cold

steel in fancy between their ribs, they fled every way, uncertain how

many pursued, or if any pursuit there was. For a moment the mob, which

a few minutes before had seemed so formidable that a regiment might

have quailed before it, bade fair to be routed by a dozen pikes.

And so, had all in the crowd been what he termed them, the rabble and

sweepings of the streets, it would have been. But in the heart of it,

and felt rather than seen, were a handful of another kidney; Sorbonne

students and fierce-eyed priests, with three or four mounted archers,

the nucleus that, moving through the streets, had drawn together this

concourse. And these with threats and curses and gleaming eyes stood

fast, even Tavannes' dare-devils recoiling before the tonsure. The

check thus caused allowed those who had budged a breathing space. They

rallied behind the black robes, and began to stone the pikes; who in

their turn withdrew until they formed two groups, standing on their

defence, the one before the window the other before the door.

Count Hannibal had watched the attack and the check, as a man watches

a play; with smiling interest. In the panic, the torches had been

dropped or extinguished, and now between the house and the sullen

crowd which hung back, yet grew moment by moment more dangerous, the

daylight fell cold on the littered street and the cripple's huddled

form prone in the gutter. A priest raised on the shoulders of the lean

man in black began to harangue the mob, and the dull roar of assent,

the brandished arms which greeted his appeal, had their effect on

Tavannes' men. They looked to the window, and muttered among

themselves. It was plain that they had no stomach for a fight with the

Church, and were anxious for the order to withdraw.

But Count Hannibal gave no order, and, much as his people feared the

cowls, they feared him more. Meanwhile the speaker's eloquence rose

higher; he pointed with frenzied gestures to the house. The mob

groaned, and suddenly a volley of stones fell among the pikemen, whose

corselets rattled under the shower. The priest seized that moment. He

sprang to the ground, and to the front. He caught up his robe and

waved his hand, and the rabble, as if impelled by a single will,

rolled forward in a huge one-fronted thundering wave, before which the

two handfuls of pikemen--afraid to strike, yet afraid to fly--were

swept away like straws upon the tide.

But against the solid walls and oak-barred door of the house the wave

beat, only to fall back again, a broken, seething mass of brandished

arms and ravening faces. One point alone was vulnerable, the window,

and there in the gap stood Tavannes. Quick as thought he fired two

pistols into the crowd; then, while the smoke for a moment hid all, he

whistled.

Whether the signal was a summons to his men to fight their way

back--as they were doing to the best of their power--or he had

resources still unseen, was not to be known. For as the smoke began to

rise, and while the rabble before the window, cowed by the fall of two

of their number, were still pushing backward instead of forward, there

rose behind them strange sounds--yells, and the clatter of hoofs,

mingled with screams of alarm. A second, and into the loose skirts of

the crowd came charging helter-skelter, pell-mell, a score of

galloping, shrieking, cursing horsemen, attended by twice as many

footmen, who clung to their stirrups or to the tails of the horses,

and yelled and whooped, and struck in unison with the maddened riders.

"On! on!" the foremost shrieked, rolling in his saddle, and foaming at

the mouth. "Bleed in August, bleed in May! Kill!" And he fired a

pistol among the rabble, who fled every way to escape his rearing,

plunging charger.

"Kill! Kill!" cried his followers, cutting the air with their swords,

and rolling to and fro on their horses in drunken emulation. "Bleed in

August, bleed in May!"

"On! On!" cried the leader, as the crowd which beset the house fled

every way before his reckless onset. "Bleed in August, bleed in May!"

The rabble fled, but not so quickly but that one or two were ridden

down, and this for an instant checked the riders. Before they could

pass on, "Ohe!" cried Count Hannibal from his window. "Ohe!" with a

shout of laughter, "ride over them, dear brother! Make me a clean

street for my wedding!"

Marshal Tavannes--for he, the hero of Jarnac, was the leader of this

wild orgy--turned that way, and strove to rein in his horse. "What

ails them?" he cried, as the maddened animal reared upright, its iron

hoofs striking fire from the slippery pavement.

"They are rearing like thy Bayard!" Count Hannibal answered. "Whip

them, whip them for me! Tavannes! Tavannes!"

"What? This canaille!"

"Ay, that canaille!"

"Who touches my brother, touches Tavannes!" the Marshal replied, and

spurred his horse among the rabble, who had fled to the sides of the

street and now strove hard to efface themselves against the walls.

"Begone, dogs; begone!" he cried, still hunting them. And then, "You

would bite, would you?" And snatching another pistol from his boot, he

fired it among them, careless whom he hit. "Ha! ha! That stirs you,

does it!" he continued as the wretches fled headlong. "Who touches my

brother, touches Tavannes! On! On!"

Suddenly, from a doorway near at hand, a sombre figure darted into the

roadway, caught the Marshal's rein, and for a second checked his

course. The priest--for a priest it was, Father Pezelay, the same who

had addressed the mob--held up a warning hand. "Halt!" he cried, with

burning eyes. "Halt, my lord! It is written, thou shalt not spare the

Canaanitish woman. 'Tis not to spare the King has given command and a

sword, but to kill! 'Tis not to harbour, but to smite! To smite!"

"Then smite I will!" the Marshal retorted, and with the butt of his

pistol struck the zealot down. Then, with as much indifference as he

would have treated a Huguenot, he spurred his horse over him, with a

mad laugh at his jest. "Who touches my brother, touches Tavannes!" he

yelled. "Touches Tavannes! On! On! Bleed in August, bleed in May!"

"On!" shouted his followers, striking about them in the same desperate

fashion. They were young nobles who had spent the night feasting at

the Palace, and, drunk with wine and mad with excitement, had left the

Louvre at daybreak to rouse the city. "A Jarnac! A Jarnac!" they

cried, and some saluted Count Hannibal as they passed. And so,

shouting and spurring and following their leader, they swept away down

the now empty street, carrying terror and a flame wherever their

horses bore them that morning.

Tavannes, his hands on the ledge of the shattered window, leaned out

laughing, and followed them with his eyes. A moment, and the mob was

gone, the street was empty; and one by one, with sheepish faces, his

pikemen emerged from the doorways and alleys in which they had taken

refuge. They gathered about the three huddled forms which lay prone

and still in the gutter: or, not three--two. For even as they

approached them, one, the priest, rose slowly and giddily to his feet.

He turned a face bleeding, lean, and relentless towards the window at

which Tavannes stood. Solemnly, with the sign of the cross, and with

uplifted hands, he cursed him in bed and at board, by day and by

night, in walking, in riding, in standing, in the day of battle, and

at the hour of death. The pikemen fell back appalled, and hid their

eyes; and those who were of the north crossed themselves, and those

who came from the south bent two fingers horse-shoe fashion. But

Hannibal de Tavannes laughed; laughed in his moustache, his teeth

showing, and bade them move that carrion to a distance, for it would

smell when the sun was high. Then he turned his back on the street,

and looked into the room.

CHAPTER VII.

IN THE AMPHITHEATRE.

The movements of the women had overturned two of the candles; a third

had guttered out. The three which still burned, contending pallidly

with the daylight that each moment grew stronger, imparted to the

scene the air of a debauch too long sustained. The disordered board,

the wan faces of the servants cowering in their corner, Mademoiselle's

frozen look of misery, all increased the likeness; which a common

exhaustion so far strengthened that when Tavannes turned from the

window, and, flushed with his triumph, met the others' eyes, his

seemed the only vigour, and he the only man in the company. True,

beneath the exhaustion, beneath the collapse of his victims, there

burned passions, hatreds, repulsions, as fierce as the hidden fires of

the volcano; but for the time they smouldered ash-choked and inert.

He flung the discharged pistols on the table. "If yonder raven speak

truth," he said, "I am like to pay dearly for my wife, and have short

time to call her wife. The more need, Mademoiselle, for speed,

therefore. You know the old saying, 'Short signing, long seisin? Shall

it be my priest, or your minister?"

M. de Tignonville started forward. "She promised nothing!" he cried.

And he struck his hand on the table.

Count Hannibal smiled, his lip curling. "That," he replied, "is for

Mademoiselle to say."

"But if she says it? If she says it, Monsieur? What then?"

Tavannes drew forth a comfit-box, such as it was the fashion of the

day to carry, as men of a later time carried a snuff-box. He slowly

chose a prune. "If she says it?" he answered. "Then M. de Tignonville

has regained his sweetheart. And M. de Tavannes has lost his bride."

"You say so!"

"Yes. But----"

"But what?"

"But she will not say it," Tavannes replied coolly.

"Why not?"

"Yes, Monsieur, why not?" the younger man repeated trembling.

"Because, M. de Tignonville, it is not true."

"But she did not speak!" Tignonville retorted, with passion--the

futile passion of the bird which beats its wings against a cage. "She

did not speak. She could not promise, therefore."

Tavannes ate the prune slowly, seemed to give a little thought to its

flavour, approved it a true Agen plum, and at last spoke. "It is not

for you to say whether she promised," he returned drily, "nor for me.

It is for Mademoiselle."

"You leave it to her?"

"I leave it to her to say whether she promised."

"Then she must say No!" Tignonville cried in a tone of triumph and

relief. "For she did not speak. Mademoiselle, listen!" he continued,

turning with outstretched hands and appealing to her with passion. "Do

you hear? Do you understand? You have but to speak to be free! You

have but to say the word, and Monsieur lets you go! In God's name,

speak! Speak then, Clotilde! Oh!" with a gesture of despair, as she

did not answer, but continued to sit stony and hopeless, looking

straight before her, her hands picking convulsively at the fringe of

her girdle. "She does not understand! Fright has stunned her! Be

merciful, Monsieur. Give her time to recover, to know what she does.

Fright has turned her brain."

Count Hannibal smiled. "I knew her father and her uncle," he said,

"and in their time the Vrillacs were not wont to be cowards. Monsieur

forgets, too," he continued with fine irony, "that he speaks of my

betrothed."

"It is a lie!"

Tavannes raised his eyebrows. "You are in my power," he said. "For the

rest, if it be a lie, Mademoiselle has but to say so."

"You hear him?" Tignonville cried. "Then speak, Mademoiselle!

Clotilde, speak! Say you never spoke, you never promised him!"

The young man's voice quivered with indignation, with rage, with pain;

but most, if the truth be told, with shame--the shame of a position

strange and unparalleled. For in proportion as the fear of death

instant and violent was lifted from him, reflection awoke, and the

situation in which he stood took uglier shape. It was not so much love

that cried to her, love that suffered, anguished by the prospect of

love lost; as in the highest natures it might have been. Rather it was

the man's pride which suffered; the pride of a high spirit which found

itself helpless between the hammer and the anvil, in a position so

false that hereafter men might say of the unfortunate that he had

bartered his mistress for his life. He had not! But he had perforce to

stand by; he had to be passive under stress of circumstances, and by

the sacrifice, if she consummated it, he would in fact be saved.

There was the pinch. No wonder that he cried to her in a voice which

roused even the servants from their lethargy of fear. "Say it!" he

cried. "Say it, before it be too late. Say you did not promise!"

Slowly she turned her face to him. "I cannot," she whispered; "I

cannot. Go," she continued, a spasm distorting her features. "Go,

Monsieur. Leave me. It is over."

"What?" he exclaimed. "You promised him?"

She bowed her head.

"Then," the young man cried, in a transport of resentment, "I will be

no part of the price. See! There! And there!" He tore the white sleeve

wholly from his arm, and, rending it in twain, flung it on the floor

and trampled on it. "It shall never be said that I stood by and let

you buy my life! I go into the street and I take my chance." And he

turned to the door.

But Tavannes was before him. "No!" he said; "you will stay here, M. de

Tignonville!" And he set his back against the door.

The young man looked at him, his face convulsed with passion. "I shall

stay here?" he cried. "And why, Monsieur? What is it to you if I

choose to perish?"

"Only this," Tavannes retorted. "I am answerable to Mademoiselle now,

in an hour I shall be answerable to my wife--for your life. Live,

then, Monsieur; you have no choice. In a month you will thank me--and

her."

"I am your prisoner?"

"Precisely."

"And I must stay here--to be tortured?" Tignonville cried.

Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled. Sudden stormy changes, from

indifference to ferocity, from irony to invective, were characteristic

of the man. "Tortured!" he repeated grimly. "You talk of torture while

Piles and Pardaillan, Teligny and Rochefoucauld lie dead in the

street! While your cause sinks withered in a night, like a gourd!

While your servants fall butchered, and France rises round you in a

tide of blood! Bah!"--with a gesture of disdain--"you make me also

talk, and I have no love for talk, and small time. Mademoiselle, you

at least act and do not talk. By your leave I return in an hour, and I

bring with me--shall it be my priest, or your minister?"

She looked at him with the face of one who awakes slowly to the full

horror, the full dread, of her position. For a moment she did not

answer. Then, "A minister," she murmured, her voice scarcely audible.

He nodded. "A minister?" he said lightly. "Very well, if I can find

one." And walking to the shattered, gaping casement--through which the

cool morning air blew into the room and gently stirred the hair of the

unhappy girl--he said some words to the man on guard outside. Then he

turned to the door, but on the threshold he paused, looked with a

strange expression at the pair, and signed to Carlat and the servants

to go out before him.

"Up, and lie close above!" he growled. "Open a window or look out,

and you will pay dearly for it! Do you hear? Up! Up! You, too, old

crop-ears. What! would you?"--with a sudden glare as Carlat

hesitated--"that is better! Mademoiselle, until my return."

He saw them all out, followed them, and closed the door on the two;

who, left together, alone with the gaping window and the disordered

feast, maintained a strange silence. The girl, gripping one hand in

the other as if to quell her rising horror, sat looking before her,

and seemed barely to breathe. The man, leaning against the wall at a

little distance, bent his eyes not on her, but on the floor, his face

gloomy and distorted.

His first thought should have been of her and for her; his first

impulse to console, if he could not save her. His it should have been

to soften, were that possible, the fate before her; to prove to her by

words of farewell, the purest and most sacred, that the sacrifice she

was making, not to save her own life but the lives of others, was

appreciated by him who paid with her the price.

And all these things, and more, may have been in M. de Tignonville's

mind; they may even have been uppermost in it, but they found no

expression. The man remained sunk in a sombre reverie. He had the

appearance of thinking of himself, not of her; of his own position,

not of hers. Otherwise he must have looked at her, he must have turned

to her; he must have owned the subtle attraction of her unspoken

appeal when she drew a deep breath and slowly turned her eyes on him,

mute, asking, waiting what he should offer.

Surely he should have! Yet it was long before he responded. He sat

buried in thought of himself, and his position, the vile, the unworthy

position in which her act had placed him. At length the constraint of

her gaze wrought on him, or his thoughts became unbearable, and he

looked up and met her eyes, and with an oath he sprang to his feet.

"It shall not be!" he cried, in a tone low, but full of fury. "You

shall not do it! I will kill him first! I will kill him with this

hand! Or----" a step took him to the window, a step brought him

back--ay, brought him back exultant, and with a changed face. "Or

better, we will thwart him yet. See, Mademoiselle, do you see? Heaven

is merciful! For a moment the cage is open!" His eyes shone with

excitement, the sweat of sudden hope stood on his brow as he pointed

to the unguarded casement. "Come! it is our one chance!" And he caught

her by her arm, and strove to draw her to the window.

But she hung back, staring at him. "Oh, no, no!" she cried.

"Yes, yes! I say!" he responded. "You do not understand. The way is

open! We can escape, Clotilde, we can escape!"

"I cannot! I cannot!" she wailed, still resisting him.

"You are afraid?"

"Afraid?" she repeated the word in a tone of wonder. "No, but I

cannot. I promised him. I cannot. And, O God!" she continued, in a

sudden outburst of grief, as the sense of general loss, of the great

common tragedy broke on her and whelmed for the moment her private

misery. "Why should we think of ourselves? They are dead, they are

dying, who were ours, whom we loved! Why should we think to live? What

does it matter how it fares with us? We cannot be happy. Happy?" she

continued wildly. "Are any happy now? Or is the world all changed in a

night? No, we could not be happy. And at least you will live,

Tignonville. I have that to console me."

"Live!" he responded vehemently. "I live? I would rather die a

thousand times. A thousand times rather than live shamed! Than see you

sacrificed to that devil! Than go out with a brand on my brow, for

every man to point at me! I would rather die a thousand times!"

"And do you think that I would not?" she answered, shivering. "Better,

far better die than--than live with him!"

"Then why not die?"

She stared at him, wide-eyed, and a sudden stillness possessed her.

"How?" she whispered. "What do you mean?"

"That!" he said. As he spoke, he raised his hand and signed to her to

listen. A sullen murmur, distant as yet, but borne to the ear on the

fresh morning air, foretold the rising of another storm. The sound

grew in intensity, even while she listened; and yet for a moment she

misunderstood him. "O God!" she cried, out of the agony of nerves

overwrought, "will that bell never stop? Will it never stop? Will no

one stop it?"

"'Tis not the bell!" he cried, seizing her hand as if to focus her

attention. "It is the mob you hear. They are returning. We have but to

stand a moment at this open window, we have but to show ourselves to

them, and we need live no longer! Mademoiselle! Clotilde!--if you mean

what you say, if you are in earnest, the way is open!"

"And we shall die--together!"

"Yes, together. But have you the courage?"

"The courage!" she cried, a brave smile lighting the whiteness of her

face. "The courage were needed to live. The courage were needed to do

that. I am ready, quite ready. It can be no sin! To live with that in

front of me were the sin! Come!" For the moment she had forgotten her

people, her promise, all! It seemed to her that death would absolve

her from all. "Come!"

He moved with her under the impulse of her hand until they stood at

the gaping window. The murmur, which he had heard indistinctly a

moment before, had grown to a roar of voices. The mob, on its return

eastward along the Rue St. Honore, was nearing the house. He stood,

his arm supporting her, and they waited, a little within the window.

Suddenly he stooped, his face hardly less white than hers; their eyes

met, and he would have kissed her.

She did not withdraw from his arm, but she drew back her face, her

eyes half shut. "No!" she murmured. "No! While I live I am his. But we

die together, Tignonville! We die together. It will not last long,

will it? And afterwards----"

She did not finish the sentence, but her lips moved in prayer, and

over her features came a far-away look; such a look as that which on

the face of another Huguenot lady, Philippine de Luns--vilely done to

death in the Place Maubert fourteen years before--silenced the ribald

jests of the lowest rabble in the world. An hour or two earlier, awed

by the abruptness of the outburst, Mademoiselle had shrunk from her

fate; she had known fear. Now that she stood out voluntarily to meet

it, she, like many a woman before and since, feared no longer. She was

lifted out of and above herself.

But death was long in coming. Some cause beyond their knowledge stayed

the onrush of the mob along the street. The din, indeed, persisted,

deafened, shook them; but the crowd seemed to be at a stand a few

doors down the Rue St. Honore. For a half-minute, a long half-minute,

which appeared an age, it drew no nearer. Would it draw nearer? Would

it come on? Or would it turn again?

The doubt, so much worse than despair, began to sap that courage of

the man which is always better fitted to do than to suffer. The sweat

rose on Tignonville's brow as he stood listening, his arm round the

girl--as he stood listening and waiting. It is possible that when he

had said a minute or two earlier that he would rather die a thousand

times than live thus shamed, he had spoken beyond the mark. Or it is

possible that he had meant his words to the full. But in this case he

had not pictured what was to come, he had not gauged correctly his

power of passive endurance. He was as brave as the ordinary man, as

the ordinary soldier; but martyrdom, the apotheosis of resignation,

comes more naturally to women than to men, more hardly to men than to

women. Yet had the crisis come quickly he might have met it. But he

had to wait, and to wait with that howling of wild beasts in his ears;

and for this he was not prepared. A woman might be content to die

after this fashion; but a man? His colour went and came, his eyes

began to rove hither and thither. Was it even now too late to escape?

Too late to avoid the consequences of the girl's silly persistence?

Too late to----? Her eyes were closed, she hung half lifeless on his

arm. She would not know, she need not know until afterwards. And

afterwards she would thank him! Afterwards--meantime the window was

open, the street was empty, and still the crowd hung back and did not

come.

He remembered that two doors away was a narrow passage, which leaving

the Rue St. Honore turned at right angles under a beetling archway, to

emerge in the Rue du Roule. If he could gain that passage unseen by

the mob! He would gain it. With a swift movement, his mind made up, he

took a step forward. He tightened his grasp of the girl's waist, and,

seizing with his left hand the end of the bar which the assailants had

torn from its setting in the window jamb, he turned to lower himself.

One long step would land him in the street.

At that moment she awoke from the stupor of exaltation. She opened her

eyes with a startled movement; and her eyes met his.

He was in the act of stepping backwards and downwards, dragging her

after him. But it was not this betrayed him. It was his face, which in

an instant told her all, and that he sought not death, but life! She

struggled upright and strove to free herself. But he had the purchase

of the bar, and by this time he was furious as well as determined.

Whether she would or no, he would save her, he would drag her out.

Then, as consciousness fully returned, she, too, took fire. "No!" she

cried, "I will not!" and she struggled more violently.

"You shall!" he retorted between his teeth. "You shall not perish

here."

But she had her hands free, and as he spoke she thrust him from her

passionately, desperately, with all her strength. He had his one foot

in the air at the moment, and in a flash it was done. With a cry of

rage he lost his balance, and, still holding the bar, reeled backwards

through the window; while Mademoiselle, panting and half fainting,

recoiled--recoiled into the arms of Hannibal de Tavannes, who, unseen

by either, had entered the room a long minute before. From the

threshold, and with a smile, all his own, he had watched the contest

and the result.

CHAPTER VIII.

TWO HENS AND AN EGG.

M. de Tignonville was shaken by the fall, and in the usual course of

things he would have lain where he was, and groaned. But when a man

has once turned his back on death he is apt to fancy it at his

shoulder. He has small stomach for surprises, and is in haste to set

as great a distance as possible between the ugly thing and himself. So

it was with the Huguenot. Shot suddenly into the full publicity of the

street, he knew that at any instant danger might take him by the nape;

and he was on his legs and glancing up and down before the clatter of

his fall had travelled the length of three houses.

The rabble were still a hundred paces away, piled up and pressed about

a house where men were being hunted as men hunt rats. He saw that he

was unnoted, and apprehension gave place to rage. His thoughts turned

back hissing hot to the thing that had happened, and in a paroxysm of

shame he shook his fist at the gaping casement and the sneering face

of his rival, dimly seen in the background. If a look would have

killed Tavannes--and her--it had not been wanting.

For it was not only the man M. de Tignonville hated at this moment; he

hated Mademoiselle also, the unwitting agent of the other's triumph.

She had thrust him from her; she had refused to be guided by him; she

had resisted, thwarted, shamed him. Then let her take the

consequences. She willed to perish: let her perish!

He did not acknowledge even to himself the real cause of offence, the

proof to which she had put his courage, and the failure of that

courage to stand the test. Yet it was this, though he had himself

provoked the trial, which burned up his chivalry, as the smuggler's

fire burns up the dwarf heath upon the Landes. It was the discovery

that in an heroic hour he was no hero that gave force to his

passionate gesture, and next moment sent him storming down the

beetling passage to the Rue du Roule, his heart a maelstrom of fierce

vows and fiercer menaces.

He had reached the further end of the alley and was on the point of

entering the street before he remembered that he had nowhere to go.

His lodgings were no longer his, since his landlord knew him to be a

Huguenot, and would doubtless betray him. To approach those of his

faith whom he had frequented was to expose them to danger; and, beyond

the religion, he had few acquaintances and those of the newest. Yet

the streets were impossible. He walked them on the utmost edge of

peril; he lurked in them under the blade of an impending axe. And,

whether he walked or lurked, he went at the mercy of the first comers

bold enough to take his life.

The sweat stood on his brow as he paused under the low arch of the

alley-end, tasting the bitter forlornness of the dog banned and set

for death in that sunlit city. In every window of the gable end which

faced his hiding-place he fancied an eye watching his movements; in

every distant step he heard the footfall of doom coming that way to

his discovery. And while he trembled, he had to reflect, to think, to

form some plan.

In the town was no place for him, and short of the open country no

safety. And how could he gain the open country? If he succeeded in

reaching one of the gates--St. Antoine, or St. Denis, in itself a task

of difficulty--it would only be to find the gate closed, and the guard

on the alert. At last it flashed on him that he might cross the river;

and at the notion hope awoke. It was possible that the massacre had

not extended to the southern suburb; possible, that if it had, the

Huguenots who lay there--Frontenay, and Montgomery, and Chartres, with

the men of the North--might be strong enough to check it, and even to

turn the tables on the Parisians.

His colour returned. He was no coward, as soldiers go; if it came to

fighting he had courage enough. He could not hope to cross the river

by the bridge, for there, where the goldsmiths lived, the mob were

like to be most busy. But if he could reach the bank he might procure

a boat at some deserted point, or, at the worst, he might swim across.

From the Louvre at his back came the sound of gun-shots; from every

quarter the murmur of distant crowds, or the faint lamentable cries of

victims. But the empty street before him promised an easy passage, and

he ventured into it and passed quickly through it. He met no one, and

no one molested him; but as he went he had glimpses of pale faces that

from behind the casements watched him come and turned to watch him go;

and so heavy on his nerves was the pressure of this silent ominous

attention, that he blundered at the end of the street. He should have

taken the southerly turning; instead he held on, found himself in the

Rue Ferronerie, and a moment later was all but in the arms of a band

of city guards, who were making a house-to-house visitation.

He owed his safety rather to the condition of the street than to his

presence of mind. The Rue Ferronerie, narrow in itself, was so choked

at this date by stalls and bulkheads, that an edict directing the

removal of those which abutted on the cemetery had been issued a

little before. Nothing had been done on it, however, and this neck of

Paris, this main thoroughfare between the east and the west, between

the fashionable quarter of the Marais and the fashionable quarter of

the Louvre, was still a devious huddle of sheds and pent-houses.

Tignonville slid behind one of these, found that it masked the mouth

of an alley, and, heedless whither the passage led, ran hurriedly

along it. Every instant he expected to hear the hue and cry behind

him, and he did not halt or draw breath until he had left the soldiers

far in the rear, and found himself astray at the junction of four

noisome lanes, over two of which the projecting gables fairly met.

Above the two others a scrap of sky appeared, but this was too small

to indicate in which direction the river lay.

Tignonville hesitated, but not for long; a burst of voices heralded a

new danger, and he shrank into a doorway. Along one of the lanes a

troop of children, the biggest not twelve years old, came dancing and

leaping round something which they dragged by a string. Now one of the

hindmost would hurl it onward with a kick, now another, amid screams

of childish laughter, tripped headlong over the cord; now at the

crossways they stopped to wrangle and question which way they should

go, or whose turn it was to pull and whose to follow. At last they

started afresh with a whoop, the leader singing and all plucking the

string to the cadence of the air. Their plaything leapt and dropped,

sprang forward, and lingered like a thing of life. But it was no thing

of life, as Tignonville saw with a shudder when they passed him. The

object of their sport was the naked body of a child, an infant!

His gorge rose at the sight. Fear such as he had not before

experienced chilled his marrow. This was hate indeed, a hate before

which the strong man quailed; the hate of which Mademoiselle had

spoken when she said that the babes crossed themselves, at her

passing, and the houses tottered to fall upon her!

He paused a minute to recover himself, so deeply had the sight moved

him; and as he stood, he wondered if that hate already had its cold

eye fixed on him. Instinctively his gaze searched the opposite

wall, but save for two small double-grated windows it was blind;

time-stained and stone-built, dark with the ordure of the city lane,

it seemed but the back of a house, which looked another way. The outer

gates of an arched doorway were open, and a loaded hay-cart, touching

either side and brushing the arch above, blocked the passage. His

gaze, leaving the windows, dropped to this, he scanned it a moment;

and on a sudden he stiffened. Between the hay and the arch a hand

flickered an instant, then vanished.

Tignonville stared. At first he thought his eyes had tricked him. Then

the hand appeared again, and this time it conveyed an unmistakable

invitation. It is not from the unknown or the hidden that the fugitive

has aught to fear, and Tignonville, after casting a glance down the

lane--which revealed a single man standing with his face the other

way--slipped across and pushed between the hay and the wall. He

coughed.

A voice whispered to him to climb up; a friendly hand clutched him in

the act, and aided him. In a second he was lying on his face, tight

squeezed between the hay and the roof of the arch. Beside him lay a

man whose features his eyes, unaccustomed to the gloom, could not

discern. But the man knew him and whispered his name.

"You know me?" Tignonville muttered in astonishment.

"I marked you, M. de Tignonville, at the preaching last Sunday," the

stranger answered placidly.

"You were there?"

"I preached."

"Then you are M. la Tribe!"

"I am," the clergyman answered quietly. "They seized me on my

threshold, but I left my cloak in their hands and fled. One tore my

stocking with his point, another my doublet, but not a hair of my head

was injured. They hunted me to the end of the next street, but I lived

and still live, and shall live to lift up my voice against this wicked

city."

The sympathy between the Huguenot by faith and the Huguenot by

politics was imperfect. Tignonville, like most men of rank of the

younger generation, was a Huguenot by politics; and he was in a bitter

humour. He felt, perhaps, that it was men such as this who had driven

the other side to excesses such as these; and he hardly repressed a

sneer. "I wish I felt as sure!" he muttered bluntly. "You know that

all our people are dead?"

"He can save by few or by many," the preacher answered devoutly. "We

are of the few, blessed be God, and shall see Israel victorious, and

our people as a flock of sheep!"

"I see small chance of it," Tignonville answered contemptuously.

"I know it as certainly as I knew before you came, M. de Tignonville,

that you would come!"

"That I should come?"

"That some one would come," La Tribe answered, correcting himself. "I

knew not who it would be until you appeared and placed yourself in the

doorway over against me, even as Obadiah in the Holy Book passed

before the hiding-place of Elijah."

The two lay on their faces side by side, the rafters of the archway

low on their heads. Tignonville lifted himself a little, and peered

anew at the other. He fancied that La Tribe's mind, shaken by the

horrors of the morning and his narrow escape, had given way. "You

rave, man," he said. "This is no time for visions."

"I said naught of visions," the other answered.

"Then why so sure that we shall escape?"

"I am certified of it," La Tribe replied. "And more than that, I know

that we shall lie here some days. The time has not been revealed to

me, but it will be days and a day. Then we shall leave this place

unharmed, as we entered it, and, whatever betide others, we shall

live."

Tignonville shrugged his shoulders. "I tell you, you rave, M. la

Tribe," he said petulantly. "At any moment we may be discovered. Even

now I hear footsteps."

"They tracked me well-nigh to this place," the minister answered

placidly.

"The deuce they did!" Tignonville muttered, with irritation. He dared

not raise his voice. "I would you had told me that before I joined

you, Monsieur, and I had found some safer hiding-place! When we are

discovered----"

"Then," the other continued calmly, "you will see."

"In any case we shall be better farther back," Tignonville retorted.

"Here, we are within an ace of being seen from the lane." And he began

to wriggle himself backwards.

The minister laid his hand on him. "Have a care!" he muttered. "And do

not move, but listen. And you will understand. When I reached this

place--it would be about five o'clock this morning--breathless, and

expecting each minute to be dragged forth to make my confession before

men, I despaired as you despair now. Like Elijah under the juniper

tree, I said 'It is enough, O Lord! Take my soul also, for I am no

better than my fellows!' All the sky was black before my eyes, and my

ears were filled with the wailings of the little ones and the

lamentations of women. 'O Lord, it is enough,' I prayed. 'Take my

soul, or, if it be Thy will, then, as the angel was sent to take the

cakes to Elijah, give me also a sign that I shall live.'"

For a moment he paused, struggling with overpowering emotion. Even his

impatient listener, hitherto incredulous, caught the infection, and in

a tone of awe murmured, "Yes? And then, M. la Tribe!"

"The sign was given me. The words were scarcely out of my mouth when a

hen flew up, and, scratching a nest in the hay at my feet, presently

laid an egg."

Tignonville stared. "It was timely, I admit," he said. "But it is no

uncommon thing. Probably it has its nest here and lays daily."

"Young man, this is new-mown hay," the minister answered solemnly.

"This cart was brought here no further back than yesterday. It smells

of the meadow, and the flowers hold their colour. No, the fowl was

sent. To-morrow it will return, and the next, and the next, until the

plague be stayed and I go hence. But that is not all. A while later a

second hen appeared, and I thought it would lay in the same nest. But

it made a new one, on the side on which you lie and not far from your

foot. Then I knew that I was to have a companion, and that God had

laid also for him a table in the wilderness."

"It did lay, then?"

"It is still on the nest, beside your foot."

Tignonville was about to reply when the preacher grasped his arm and

by a sign enjoined silence. He did so not a moment too soon.

Preoccupied by the story, narrator and listener had paid no heed to

what was passing in the lane, and the voices of men speaking close at

hand took them by surprise. From the first words which reached them,

it was clear that the speakers were the same who had chased La Tribe

as far as the meeting of the four ways, and, losing him there, had

spent the morning in other business. Now they had returned to hunt him

down, and but for a wrangle which arose among them and detained them,

they had stolen on their quarry before their coming was suspected.

"'Twas this way he ran!" "No, 'twas the other!" they contended; and

their words, winged with vile threats and oaths, grew noisy and hot.

The two listeners dared scarcely to breathe. The danger was so near,

it was so certain that if the men came three paces farther, they would

observe and search the hay-cart, that Tignonville fancied the steel

already at his throat. He felt the hay rustle under his slightest

movement, and gripped one hand with the other to restrain the tremor

of overpowering excitement. Yet when he glanced at the minister he

found him unmoved, a smile on his face. And M. de Tignonville could

have cursed him for his folly.

For the men were coming on! An instant, and they perceived the cart,

and the ruffian who had advised this route pounced on it in triumph.

"There! Did I not say so?" he cried. "He is curled up in that hay, for

the Satan's grub he is! That is where he is, see you!"

"Maybe," another answered grudgingly, as they gathered before it. "And

maybe not, Simon!"

"To hell with your maybe not!" the first replied. And he drove his

pike deep into the hay and turned it viciously.

The two on the top controlled themselves. Tignonville's face was

livid; of himself he would have slid down amongst them and taken his

chance, preferring to die fighting, to die in the open, rather than to

perish like a rat in a stack. But La Tribe had gripped his arm and

held him fast.

The man whom the others called Simon thrust again, but too low and

without result. He was for trying a third time, when one of his

comrades who had gone to the other side of the lane announced that the

men were on the top of the hay.

"Can you see them!"

"No, but there's room and to spare."

"Oh, a curse on your room!" Simon retorted.

"Well, you can look."

"If that's all, I'll soon look!" was the answer. And the rogue,

forcing himself between the hay and the side of the gateway, found the

wheel of the cart, and began to raise himself on it. Tignonville, who

lay on that hand, heard, though he could not see his movements. He

knew what they meant, he knew that in a twinkling he must be

discovered; and with a last prayer he gathered himself for a spring.

It seemed an age before the intruder's head appeared on a level with

the hay; and then the alarm came from another quarter. The hen which

had made its nest at Tignonville's feet, disturbed by the movement or

by the newcomer's hand, flew out with a rush and flutter as of a great

firework. Upsetting the startled Simon, who slipped swearing to the

ground, it swooped scolding and clucking over the heads of the other

men, and reaching the street in safety scuttled off at speed, its

outspread wings sweeping the earth in its rage.

They laughed uproariously as Simon emerged, rubbing his elbow.

"There's for you! There's your preacher!" his opponent jeered.

"D----n her! she gives tongue as fast as any of them!" gibed a second.

"Will you try again, Simon? You may find another love-letter there!"

"Have done!" a third cried impatiently. "He'll not be where the hen

is! Let's back! Let's back! I said before that it wasn't this way he

turned! He's made for the river."

"The plague in his vitals!" Simon replied furiously. "Wherever he is,

I'll find him!" And reluctant to confess himself wrong, he lingered,

casting vengeful glances at the hay. But one of the other men cursed

him for a fool; and presently, forced to accept his defeat or be left

alone, he rejoined his fellows. Slowly the footsteps and voices

receded along the lane; slowly, until silence swallowed them, and on

the quivering strained senses of the two who remained behind,

descended the gentle influence of twilight and the sweet scent of the

new-mown hay on which they lay.

La Tribe turned to his companion, his eyes shining. "Our soul is

escaped," he murmured, "even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler.

The snare is broken and we are delivered!" His voice shook as he

whispered the ancient words of triumph.

But when they came to look in the nest at Tignonville's feet there was

no egg!

CHAPTER IX.

UNSTABLE.

And that troubled M. la Tribe no little, although he did not impart

his thoughts to his companion. Instead they talked in whispers of the

things which had happened; of the Admiral, of Teligny, whom all loved,

of Rochefoucauld the accomplished, the King's friend; of the princes

in the Louvre whom they gave up for lost, and of the Huguenot nobles

on the farther side of the river, of whose safety there seemed some

hope. Tignonville--he best knew why--said nothing of the fate of his

betrothed, or of his own adventures in that connection. But each told

the other how the alarm had reached him, and painted in broken words

his reluctance to believe in treachery so black. Thence they passed to

the future of the cause, and of that took views as opposite as light

and darkness, as Papegot and Huguenot. The one was confident, the

other in despair. And some time in the afternoon, worn out by the

awful experiences of the last twelve hours, they fell asleep, their

heads on their arms, the hay tickling their faces; and, with death

stalking the lane beside them, slept soundly until after sundown.

When they awoke hunger awoke with them, and urged on La Tribe's mind

the question of the missing egg. It was not altogether the prick of

appetite which troubled him, but regarding the hiding-place in which

they lay as an ark of refuge providentially supplied, protected and

victualled, he could not refrain from asking reverently what the

deficiency meant. It was not as if one hen only had appeared; as if no

farther prospect had been extended. But up to a certain point the

message was clear. Then when the Hand of Providence had shown itself

most plainly, and in a manner to melt the heart with awe and

thankfulness, the message had been blurred. Seriously the Huguenot

asked himself what it portended.

To Tignonville, if he thought of it at all, the matter was the matter

of an egg, and stopped there. An egg might alleviate the growing pangs

of hunger; its non-appearance was a disappointment, but he traced the

matter no farther. It must be confessed that the hay-cart was to him

only a hay-cart--and not an ark; and the sooner he was safely away

from it the better he would be pleased. While La Tribe, lying snug and

warm beside him, thanked God for a lot so different from that of such

of his fellows as had escaped--whom he pictured crouching in dank

cellars, or on roof-trees exposed to the heat by day and the dews by

night--the young man grew more and more restive.

Hunger pricked him, and the meanness of the part he had played moved

him to action. About midnight, resisting the dissuasions of his

companion, he would have sallied out in search of food if the passage

of a turbulent crowd had not warned him that the work of murder was

still proceeding. He curbed himself after that and lay until daylight.

But, ill content with his own conduct, on fire when he thought of his

betrothed, he was in no temper to bear hardship cheerfully or long;

and gradually there rose before his mind the picture of Madame St.

Lo's smiling face, and the fair hair which curled low on the white of

her neck.

He would, and he would not. Death that had stalked so near him

preached its solemn sermon. But death and pleasure are never far

apart; and at no time and nowhere have they jostled one another more

familiarly than in that age, wherever the influence of Italy and

Italian art and Italian hopelessness extended. Again, on the one side,

La Tribe's example went for something with his comrade in misfortune;

but in the other scale hung relief from discomfort, with the prospect

of a woman's smiles and a woman's flatteries, of dainty dishes,

luxury, and passion. If he went now, he went to her from the jaws of

death, with the glamour of adventure and peril about him; and the very

going into her presence was a lure. Moreover, if he had been willing

while his betrothed was still his, why not now when he had lost her?

It was this last reflection--and one other thing which came on a

sudden into his mind--which turned the scale. About noon he sat up in

the hay, and, abruptly and sullenly, "I'll lie here no longer," he

said; and he dropped his legs over the side. "I shall go."

The movement was so unexpected that La Tribe stared at him in silence.

Then, "You will run a great risk, M. de Tignonville," he said gravely,

"if you do. You may go as far under cover of night as the river, or

you may reach one of the gates. But as to crossing the one or passing

the other, I reckon it a thing impossible."

"I shall not wait until night," Tignonville answered curtly, a ring of

defiance in his tone. "I shall go now! I'll lie here no longer!"

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

"You will be mad if you do," the other replied. He thought it the

petulant outcry of youth tired of inaction; a protest, and nothing

more.

He was speedily undeceived. "Mad or not, I am going!" Tignonville

retorted. And he slid to the ground, and from the covert of the

hanging fringe of hay looked warily up and down the lane. "It is

clear, I think," he said. "Good-bye." And with no more, without one

upward glance or a gesture of the hand, with no further adieu or word

of gratitude, he walked out into the lane, turned briskly to the left,

and vanished.

The minister uttered a cry of astonishment, and made as if he would

descend also. "Come back, sir!" he called, as loudly as he dared. "M.

de Tignonville, come back! This is folly or worse!"

But M. de Tignonville was gone.

La Tribe listened a while, unable to believe it, and still expecting

his return. At last, hearing nothing, he slid, greatly excited, to the

ground and looked out. It was not until he had peered up and down the

lane and made sure that it was empty that he could persuade himself

that the other had gone for good. Then he climbed slowly and seriously

to his place again, and sighed as he settled himself. "Unstable as

water thou shalt not excel!" he muttered. "Now I know why there was

only one egg."

Meanwhile Tignonville, after putting a hundred yards between himself

and his bedfellow, plunged into the first dark entry which presented

itself. Hurriedly, and with a frowning face, he cut off his left

sleeve from shoulder to wrist; and this act, by disclosing his linen,

put him in possession of the white sleeve which he had once

involuntarily donned, and once discarded. The white cross on the cap

he could not assume, for he was bareheaded. But he had little doubt

that the sleeve would suffice, and with a bold demeanour he made his

way northward until he reached again the Rue Ferronerie.

Excited groups were wandering up and down the street, and, fearing to

traverse its crowded narrows, he went by lanes parallel with it as far

as the Rue St. Denis, which he crossed. Everywhere he saw houses

gutted and doors burst in, and traces of a cruelty and a fanaticism

almost incredible. Near the Rue des Lombards he saw a dead child,

stripped stark and hanged on the hook of a cobbler's shutter. A

little further on in the same street he stepped over the body of a

handsome young woman, distinguished by the length and beauty of her

hair. To obtain her bracelets, her captors had cut off her hands;

afterwards--but God knows how long afterwards--a passer-by, more

pitiful than his fellows, had put her out of her misery with a spit,

which still remained plunged in her body.

M. de Tignonville shuddered at the sight, and at others like it. He

loathed the symbol he wore, and himself for wearing it; and more than

once his better nature bade him return and play the nobler part. Once

he did turn with that intention. But he had set his mind on comfort

and pleasure, and the value of these things is raised, not lowered, by

danger and uncertainty. Quickly his stoicism oozed away; he turned

again. Barely avoiding the rush of a crowd of wretches who were

bearing a swooning victim to the river, he hurried through the Rue des

Lombards and reached in safety the house beside the "Golden Maid."

He had no doubt now on which side of the "Maid" Madame St. Lo lived;

the house was plain before him. He had only to knock. But in

proportion as he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose all,

with all in his grasp, to fail upon the threshold, was a thing which

bore no looking at; and it was with a nervous hand and eyes cast

fearfully behind him that he plied the heavy iron knocker which

adorned the door.

He could not turn his gaze from a knot of ruffians, who were gathered

under one of the tottering gables on the farther side of the street.

They seemed to be watching him, and he fancied--though the distance

rendered this impossible--that he could see suspicion growing in their

eyes. At any moment they might cross the roadway, they might approach,

they might challenge him. And at the thought he knocked and knocked

again. Why did not the porter come?

Ay, why? For now a score of contingencies came into the young man's

mind and tortured him. Had Madame St. Lo withdrawn to safer quarters

and closed the house? Or, good Catholic as she was, had she given way

to panic, and determined to open to no one? Or was she ill? Or had she

perished in the general disorder? Or----

And then, even as the men began to slink towards him, his heart leapt.

He heard a footstep heavy and slow move through the house. It came

nearer and nearer. A moment, and an iron-grated Judas-hole in the door

slid open, and a servant, an elderly man, sleek and respectable,

looked out at him.

Tignonville could scarcely speak for excitement. "Madame St. Lo?" he

muttered tremulously. "I come to her from her cousin the Comte de

Tavannes. Quick! quick! if you please. Open to me!"

"Monsieur is alone?"

"Yes! Yes!"

The man nodded gravely and slid back the bolts. He allowed M. de

Tignonville to enter, then with care he secured the door, and led the

way across a small square court, paved with red tiles and enclosed by

the house, but open above to the sunshine and the blue sky. A gallery

which ran round the upper floor looked on this court, in which a great

quiet reigned, broken only by the music of a fountain. A vine climbed

on the wooden pillars which supported the gallery, and, aspiring

higher, embraced the wide carved eaves, and even tapestried with green

the three gables that on each side of the court broke the sky-line.

The grapes hung nearly ripe, and amid their clusters and the green

lattice of their foliage Tignonville's gaze sought eagerly but in vain

the laughing eyes and piquant face of his new mistress. For with the

closing of the door, and the passing from him of the horrors of the

streets, he had entered, as by magic, a new and smiling world; a world

of tennis and roses, of tinkling voices and women's wiles, a world

which smacked of Florence and the South, and love and life; a world

which his late experiences had set so far away from him, his memory of

it seemed a dream. Now, as he drank in its stillness and its

fragrance, as he felt its safety and its luxury lap him round once

more, he sighed. And with that breath he rid himself of much.

The servant led him to a parlour, a cool shady room on the farther

side of the tiny quadrangle, and, muttering something inaudible,

withdrew. A moment later a frolicsome laugh, and the light flutter of

a woman's skirt as she tripped across the court, brought the blood to

his cheeks. He went a step nearer to the door, and his eyes grew

bright.

CHAPTER X.

MADAME ST. LO.

So far excitement had supported Tignonville in his escape. It was only

when he knew himself safe, when he heard Madame St. Lo's footstep in

the courtyard and knew that in a moment he would see her, that he knew

also that he was failing for want of food. The room seemed to go round

with him; the window to shift, the light to flicker. And then again,

with equal abruptness, he grew strong and steady and perfectly master

of himself. Nay, never had he felt a confidence in himself so

overwhelming or a capacity so complete. The triumph of that which he

had done, the knowledge that of so many he, almost alone, had escaped,

filled his brain with a delicious and intoxicating vanity. When the

door opened, and Madame St. Lo appeared on the threshold, he advanced

holding out his arms. He expected that she would fall into them.

But Madame only backed and curtseyed, a mischievous light in her eyes.

"A thousand thanks, Monsieur!" she said, "but you are more ready than

I!" And she remained by the door.

"I have come to you through all!" he cried, speaking loudly because of

a humming in his ears. "They are lying in the streets! They are dying,

are dead, are hunted, are pursued, are perishing! But I have come

through all to you!"

She curtseyed anew. "So I see, Monsieur!" she answered. "I am

nattered!" But she did not advance, and gradually, light-headed as he

was, he began to see that she looked at him with an odd closeness. And

he took offence.

"I say, Madame, I have come to you!" he repeated. "And you do not seem

pleased!"

She came forward a step and looked at him still more oddly. "Oh, yes,"

she said. "I am pleased, M. de Tignonville. It is what I intended. But

tell me how you have fared. You are not hurt?"

"Not a hair!" he cried boastfully. And he told her in a dozen windy

sentences of the adventure of the hay-cart and his narrow escape. He

wound up with a foolish meaningless laugh.

"Then you have not eaten for thirty-six hours?" she said. And when he

did not answer, "I understand," she continued, nodding and speaking as

to a child. And she rang a silver handbell and gave an order. She

addressed the servant in her usual tone, but to Tignonville's ear her

voice seemed to fall to a whisper. Her figure--she was small and

fairy-like--began to sway before him; and then in a moment, as it

seemed to him, she was gone, and he was seated at a table, his

trembling fingers grasping a cup of wine which the elderly servant who

had admitted him was holding to his lips. On the table before him were

a spit of partridges and a cake of white bread. When he had swallowed

a second mouthful of wine--which cleared his eyes as by magic--the man

urged him to eat. And he fell to with an appetite that grew as he ate.

By and by, feeling himself again, he became aware that two of Madame's

women were peering at him through the open doorway. He looked that way

and they fled giggling into the court; but in a moment they were back

again, and the sound of their tittering drew his eyes anew to the

door. It was the custom of the day for ladies of rank to wait on their

favourites at table; and he wondered if Madame were with them, and why

she did not come and serve him herself.

But for a while longer the savour of the roasted game took up the

major part of his thoughts; and when prudence warned him to desist,

and he sat back, satisfied after his long fast, he was in no mood

to be critical. Perhaps--for somewhere in the house he heard a

lute--Madame was entertaining those whom she could not leave? Or

deluding some who might betray him if they discovered him?

From that his mind turned back to the streets and the horrors through

which he had passed; but for a moment and no more. A shudder, an

emotion of prayerful pity, and he recalled his thoughts. In the quiet

of the cool room, looking on the sunny, vine-clad court, with the

tinkle of the lute and the murmurous sound of women's voices in his

ears, it was hard to believe that the things from which he had emerged

were real. It was still more unpleasant, and as futile, to dwell on

them. A day of reckoning would come, and, if La Tribe were right, the

cause would rally, bristling with pikes and snorting with war-horses,

and the blood spilled in this wicked city would cry aloud for

vengeance. But the hour was not yet. He had lost his mistress, and for

that atonement must be exacted. But in the present another mistress

awaited him, and as a man could only die once, and might die at any

minute, so he could only live once and in the present. Then _vogue la

galere!_

As he roused himself from this brief reverie and fell to wondering how

long he was to be left to himself, a rosebud tossed by an unseen hand

struck him on the breast and dropped to his knees. To seize it and

kiss it gallantly, to spring to his feet and look about him were

instinctive movements. But he could see no one; and, in the hope of

surprising the giver, he stole to the window. The sound of the lute

and the distant tinkle of laughter persisted. The court, save for a

page, who lay asleep on a bench in the gallery, was empty. Tignonville

scanned the boy suspiciously; a male disguise was often adopted by the

court ladies, and if Madame would play a prank on him, this was a

thing to be reckoned with. But a boy it seemed to be, and after a

while the young man went back to his seat.

Even as he sat down, a second flower struck him more sharply in the

face, and this time he darted not to the window but to the door. He

opened it quickly and looked out, but again he was too late.

"I shall catch you presently, _ma reine!_" he murmured tenderly, with

intent to be heard. And he closed the door. But, wiser this time, he

waited with his hand on the latch until he heard the rustling of a

skirt, and saw the line of light at the foot of the door darkened by a

shadow. That moment he flung the door wide, and, clasping the wearer

of the skirt in his arms, kissed her lips before she had time to

resist.

Then he fell back as if he had been shot! For the wearer of the skirt,

she whom he had kissed, was Madame St. Lo's woman, and behind her

stood Madame herself, laughing, laughing, laughing with all the gay

abandonment of her light little heart. "Oh, the gallant gentleman!"

she cried, and clapped her hands effusively. "Was ever recovery so

rapid? Or triumph so speedy? Suzanne, my child, you surpass Venus.

Your charms conquer before they are seen!"

M. de Tignonville had put poor Suzanne from him as if she burned; and

hot and embarrassed, cursing his haste, he stood looking awkwardly at

them. "Madame," he stammered at last, "you know quite well that I----"

"Seeing is believing!"

"That I thought it was you!"

"Oh, what I have lost!" she replied. And she looked archly at Suzanne,

who giggled and tossed her head.

He was growing angry. "But, Madame," he protested, "you know----"

"I know what I know, and I have seen what I have seen!" Madame

answered merrily. And she hummed,

"Ce fut le plus grand jour d'este

Que m'embrassa la belle Suzanne!

"Oh, yes, I know what I know!" she repeated. And she fell again to

laughing immoderately; while the pretty piece of mischief beside her

hung her head, and, putting a finger in her mouth, mocked him with an

affectation of modesty.

The young man glowered at them between rage and embarrassment. This

was not the reception, nor this the hero's return to which he had

looked forward. And a doubt began to take form in his mind. The

mistress he had pictured would not laugh at kisses given to another;

nor forget in a twinkling the straits through which he had come to

her, the hell from which he had plucked himself! Possibly the court

ladies held love as cheap as this, and lovers but as playthings, butts

for their wit, and pegs on which to hang their laughter. But--but he

began to doubt, and, perplexed and irritated, he showed his feelings.

"Madame," he said stiffly, "a jest is an excellent thing. But pardon

me if I say that it is ill played on a fasting man."

Madame desisted from laughter that she might speak. "A fasting man?"

she cried. "And he has eaten two partridges!"

"Fasting from love, Madame."

Madame St. Lo held up her hands. "And it's not two minutes since he

took a kiss!"

He winced, was silent a moment, and then seeing that he got nothing by

the tone he had adopted he cried for quarter. "A little mercy, Madame,

as you are beautiful," he said, wooing her with his eyes. "Do not

plague me beyond what a man can bear. Dismiss, I pray you, this good

creature--whose charms do but set off yours as the star leads the eye

to the moon--and make me the happiest man in the world by so much of

your company as you will vouchsafe to give me."

"That may be but a very little," she answered, letting her eyes fall

coyly, and affecting to handle the tucker of her low ruff. But he saw

that her lip twitched; and he could have sworn that she mocked him to

Suzanne, for the girl giggled.

Still by an effort he controlled his feelings. "Why so cruel?" he

murmured, in a tone meant for her alone, and with a look to match.

"You were not so hard when I spoke with you in the gallery, two

evenings ago, Madame."

"Was I not?" she asked. "Did I look like this? And this?" And,

languishing, she looked at him very sweetly after two fashions.

"Something."

"Oh, then I meant nothing!" she retorted with sudden vivacity. And she

made a face at him, laughing under his nose. "I do that when I mean

nothing, Monsieur! Do you see? But you are Gascon, and given, I fear,

to flatter yourself."

Then he saw clearly that she played with him: and resentment, chagrin,

pique got the better of his courtesy. "I flatter myself?" he cried,

his voice choked with rage. "It may be I do now, Madame, but did I

flatter myself when you wrote me this note?" And he drew it out and

flourished it in her face. "Did I imagine when I read this? Or is it

not in your hand? It is a forgery, perhaps," he continued bitterly.

"Or it means nothing? Nothing, this note bidding me be at Madame St.

Lo's at an hour before midnight--it means nothing? At an hour before

midnight, Madame!"

"On Saturday night? The night before last night?"

"On Saturday night, the night before last night! But Madame knows

nothing of it? Nothing, I suppose?"

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled cheerfully on him. "Oh, yes, I

wrote it," she said. "But what of that, M. de Tignonville?"

"What of that?"

"Yes, Monsieur, what of that? Did you think it was written out of love

for you?"

He was staggered for the moment by her coolness. "Out of what, then?"

he cried hoarsely. "Out of what, then, if not out of love?"

"Why, out of pity, my little gentleman!" she answered sharply. "And

trouble thrown away it seems. Love!" And she laughed so merrily and

spontaneously it cut him to the heart. "No; but you said a dainty

thing or two, and smiled a smile; and like a fool, and like a woman, I

was sorry for the innocent calf that bleated so prettily on its way to

the butcher's! And I would lock you up and save your life, I thought,

until the blood-letting was over. Now you have it, M. de Tignonville,

and I hope you like it."

Like it, when every word she uttered stripped him of the selfish

illusions in which he had wrapped himself against the blasts of

ill-fortune? Like it, when the prospect of her charms had bribed him

from the path of fortitude, when for her sake he had been false to his

mistress, to his friends, to his faith, to his cause? Like it, when he

knew as he listened that all was lost, and nothing gained--not even

this poor, unworthy, shameful compensation? Like it? No wonder that

words failed him, and he glared at her in rage, in misery, in shame.

"Oh, if you don't like it," she continued, tossing her head after a

momentary pause, "then you should not have come! It is of no profit to

glower at me, Monsieur. You do not frighten me."

"I would--I would to God I had not come!" he groaned.

"And, I dare say, that you had never seen me--since you cannot win

me!"

"That too," he exclaimed.

She was of an extraordinary levity, and at that after staring at him a

moment she broke into shrill laughter. "A little more, and I'll send

you to my cousin Hannibal!" she said. "You do not know how anxious he

is to see you. Have you a mind," with a waggish look, "to play bride's

man, M. de Tignonville? Or will you give away the bride? It is not too

late, though soon it will be!"

He winced, and from red grew pale. "What do you mean?" he stammered.

And, averting his eyes in shame, seeing now all the littleness, all

the baseness of his position, "Has he--married her?" he continued.

"Ho, ho!" she cried in triumph. "I've hit you now, have I, Monsieur?

I've hit you!" And mocking him, "Has he--married her?" she lisped.

"No; but he will marry her, have no fear of that! He will marry her.

He waits but to get a priest. Would you like to see what he says?" she

continued, playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse. "I had a note

from him yesterday. Would you like to see how welcome you'll be at the

wedding?" And she flaunted a piece of paper before his eyes.

"Give it me," he said.

She let him seize it the while she shrugged her shoulders. "It's your

affair, not mine," she said. "See it if you like, and keep it if you

like. Cousin Hannibal wastes few words."

That was true, for the paper contained but a dozen or fifteen words,

and an initial by way of signature. "I may need your shoveling

to-morrow afternoon. Send him, and Tignonville in safeguard if he

come.--H."

"I can guess what use he has for a priest," she said. "It is not to

confess him, I warrant. It's long, I fear, since Hannibal told his

beads."

M. de Tignonville swore. "I would I had the confessing of him!" he

said between his teeth.

She clapped her hands in glee. "Why should you not?" she cried. "Why

should you not? 'Tis time yet, since I am to send to-day and have not

sent. Will you be the shaveling to go confess or marry him?" And she

laughed recklessly. "Will you, M. de Tignonville? The cowl will mask

you as well as another, and pass you through the streets better than a

cut sleeve. He will have both his wishes, lover and clerk in one then.

And it will be pull monk, pull Hannibal with a vengeance."

Tignonville gazed at her, and as he gazed courage and hope awoke in

his eyes. What if, after all, he could undo the past? What if, after

all, he could retrace the false step he had taken, and place himself

again where he had been--by her side? "If you meant it!" he exclaimed,

his breath coming fast. "If you only meant what you say, Madame."

"If?" she answered, opening her eyes. "And why should I not mean it?"

"Because," he replied slowly, "cowl or no cowl, when I meet your

cousin----"

"'Twill go hard with him?" she cried, with a mocking laugh. "And you

think I fear for him. That is it, is it?"

He nodded.

"I fear just _so much_ for him!" she retorted with contempt. "Just so

much!" And coming a step nearer to Tignonville she snapped her small

white fingers under his nose. "Do you see? No, M. de Tignonville," she

continued, "you do not know Count Hannibal if you think that he fears,

or that any fear for him. If you will beard the lion in his den, the

risk will be yours, not his!"

The young man's face glowed. "I take the risk!" he cried. "And I thank

you for the chance; that, Madame, whatever betide. But----"

"But what?" she asked, seeing that he hesitated and that his face

fell.

"If he afterwards learn that you have played him a trick," he said,

"will he not punish you?"

"Punish me?"

He nodded.

Madame laughed her high disdain. "You do not yet know Hannibal de

Tavannes," she said. "He does not war with women."

CHAPTER XI.

A BARGAIN.

It is the wont of the sex to snatch at an ell where an inch is

offered, and to press an advantage in circumstances in which a man,

acknowledging the claims of generosity, scruples to ask for more. The

habit, now ingrained, may have sprung from long dependence on the

male, and is one which a hundred instances, from the time of Judith

downward, prove to be at its strongest where the need is greatest.

When Mademoiselle de Vrillac came out of the hour-long swoon into

which her lover's defection had cast her, the expectation of the worst

was so strong upon her that she could not at once credit the respite

which Madame Carlat hastened to announce. She could not believe that

she still lay safe, in her own room above stairs; that she was in the

care of her own servants, and that the chamber held no presence more

hateful than that of the good woman who sat weeping beside her.

As was to be expected, she came to herself sighing and shuddering,

trembling with nervous exhaustion. She looked for _him_, as soon as

she looked for any; and even when she had seen the door locked and

double-locked, she doubted--doubted, and shook and hid herself in the

hangings of the bed. The noise of the riot and rapine which prevailed

in the city, and which reached the ear even in that locked room--and

although the window, of paper, with an upper pane of glass, looked

into a courtyard--was enough to drive the blood from a woman's cheeks.

But it was fear of the house, not of the street, fear from within, not

from without, which impelled the girl into the darkest corner and

shook her wits. She could not believe that even this short respite was

hers, until she had repeatedly heard the fact confirmed at Madame

Carlat's mouth.

"You are deceiving me!" she cried more than once. And each time she

started up in fresh terror. "He never said that he would not return

until to-morrow!"

"He did, my lamb, he did!" the old woman answered with tears. "Would I

deceive you?"

"He said he would not return?"

"He said he would not return until to-morrow. You had until to-morrow,

he said."

"And then?"

"He would come and bring the priest with him," Madame Carlat replied

sorrowfully.

"The priest? To-morrow!" Mademoiselle cried. "The priest!" and she

crouched anew with hot eyes behind the hangings of the bed, and,

shivering, hid her face.

But this for a time only. As soon as she had made certain of the

respite, and that she had until the morrow, her courage rose, and with

it the instinct of which mention has been made. Count Hannibal had

granted a respite; short as it was, and no more than the barest

humanity required, to grant one at all was not the act of the mere

butcher who holds the trembling lamb, unresisting, in his hands. It

was an act--no more, again be it said, than humanity required--and yet

an act which bespoke an expectation of some return, of some

correlative advantage. It was not in the part of the mere brigand.

Something had been granted. Something short of the utmost in the

captor's power had been exacted. He had shown that there were things

he would not do.

Then might not something more be won from him? A further delay,

another point; something, no matter what, which could be turned to

advantage. With the brigand it is not possible to bargain. But who

gives a little may give more; who gives a day may give a week; who

gives a week may give a month. And a month? Her heart leapt up. A

month seemed a lifetime, an eternity, to her who had but until

to-morrow!

Yet there was one consideration which might have daunted a spirit

less brave. To obtain aught from Tavannes it was needful to ask him,

and to ask him it was needful to see him; and to see him _before_ that

to-morrow which meant so much to her. It was necessary, in a word, to

run some risk; but without risk the card could not be played, and she

did not hesitate. It might turn out that she was wrong, that the man

was not only pitiless and without bowels of mercy, but lacked also the

shred of decency for which she gave him credit, and on which she

counted. In that case, if she sent for him--but she would not consider

that case.

The position of the window, while it increased the women's safety,

debarred them from all knowledge of what was going forward, except

that which their ears afforded them. They had no means of judging

whether Tavannes remained in the house or had sallied forth to

play his part in the work of murder. Madame Carlat, indeed, had no

desire to know anything. In that room above stairs, with the door

double-locked, lay a hope of safety in the present, and of ultimate

deliverance; there she had a respite from terror, as long as she kept

the world outside. To her, therefore, the notion of sending for

Tavannes, or communicating with him, came as a thunderbolt. Was her

mistress mad? Did she wish to court her fate? To reach Tavannes they

must apply to his riders, for Carlat and the men-servants were

confined above. Those riders were grim, brutal men, who might resort

to rudeness on their own account. And Madame, clinging in a paroxysm

of terror to her mistress, suggested all manner of horrors, one on top

of the other, until she increased her own terror tenfold. And yet, to

do her justice, nothing that even her frenzied imagination suggested

exceeded the things which the streets of Paris, fruitful mother of

horrors, were witnessing at that very hour. As we now know.

For it was noon--or a little more--of Sunday, August the twenty-fourth,

"a holiday, and therefore the people could more conveniently find

leisure to kill and plunder." From the bridges, and particularly

from the stone bridge of Notre Dame--while they lay safe in that

locked room, and Tignonville crouched in his haymow--Huguenots less

fortunate were being cast, bound hand and foot, into the Seine. On the

river bank Spire Niquet, the bookman, was being burnt over a slow

fire, fed with his own books. In their houses, Ramus the scholar and

Goujon the sculptor--than whom Paris has neither seen nor deserved a

greater--were being butchered like sheep; and in the Valley of Misery,

now the Quai de la Megisserie, seven hundred persons who had sought

refuge in the prisons were being beaten to death with bludgeons. Nay,

at this hour--a little sooner or a little later, what matters it?--M.

Tignonville's own cousin, Madame d'Yverne, the darling of the Louvre

the day before, perished in the hands of the mob; and the sister of M.

de Taverny, equally ill-fated, died in the same fashion, after being

dragged through the streets.

Madame Carlat, then, went not a whit beyond the mark in her argument.

But Mademoiselle had made up her mind, and was not to be dissuaded.

"If I am to be Monsieur's wife," she said with quivering nostrils,

"shall I fear his servants?"

And opening the door herself, for the others would not, she called.

The man who answered was a Norman; and short of stature, and wrinkled

and low-browed of feature, with a thatch of hair and a full beard, he

seemed the embodiment of the women's apprehensions. Moreover, his

_patois_ of the cider-land was little better than German to them;

their southern, softer tongue was sheer Italian to him. But he seemed

not ill-disposed, or Mademoiselle's air overawed him; and presently

she made him understand, and with a nod he descended to carry her

message.

Then Mademoiselle's heart began to beat; and beat more quickly when

she heard _his_ step--alas! she knew it already, knew it from all

others--on the stairs. The table was set, the card must be played, to

win or lose. It might be that with the low, opinion he held of women

he would think her reconciled to her lot; he would think this an

overture, a step towards kinder treatment, one more proof of the

inconstancy of the lower and the weaker sex, made to be men's

playthings. And at that thought her eyes grew hot with rage. But if it

were so, she must still put up with it. She must still put up with it!

She had sent for him, and he was coming--he was at the door!

He entered, and she breathed more freely. For once his face lacked the

sneer, the look of smiling possession, which she had come to know and

hate. It was grave, expectant, even suspicious; still harsh and dark,

akin, as she now observed, to the low-browed, furrowed face of the

rider who had summoned him. But the offensive look was gone, and she

could breathe.

He closed the door behind him, but he did not advance into the room.

"At your pleasure, Mademoiselle?" he said simply. "You sent for me, I

think."

She was on her feet, standing before him with something of the

submissiveness of Roxana before her conqueror. "I did," she said; and

stopped at that, her hand to her side as if she could not continue.

But presently in a low voice, "I have heard," she went on, "what you

said, Monsieur, after I lost consciousness."

"Yes?" he said; and was silent. Nor did he lose his watchful look.

"I am obliged to you for your thought of me," she continued in a faint

voice, "and I shall be still further obliged--I speak to you thus

quickly and thus early--if you will grant me a somewhat longer time."

"Do you mean--if I will postpone our marriage?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"It is impossible!"

"Do not say that," she cried, raising her voice impulsively. "I appeal

to your generosity. And for a short, a very short, time only."

"It is impossible," he answered quietly. "And for reasons,

Mademoiselle. In the first place I can more easily protect my wife. In

the second, I am even now summoned to the Louvre, and should be on my

way thither. By to-morrow evening, unless I am mistaken in the

business on which I am required, I shall be on my way to a distant

province with royal letters. It is essential that our marriage take

place before I go."

"Why?" she asked stubbornly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Why?" he repeated. "Can you ask,

Mademoiselle, after the events of last night? Because, if you please,

I do not wish to share the fate of M. de Tignonville. Because in these

days life is uncertain, and death too certain. Because it was our turn

last night, and it may be the turn of your friends--to-morrow night!"

"Then some have escaped?" she cried.

He smiled. "I am glad to find you so shrewd," he replied. "In an

honest wife it is an excellent quality. Yes, Mademoiselle; one or

two."

"Who? Who? I pray you tell me."

"M. de Montgomery, who slept beyond the river, for one; and the

Vidame, and some with him. M. de Biron, whom I count a Huguenot, and

who holds the Arsenal in the King's teeth, for another. And a few

more. Enough, in a word, Mademoiselle, to keep us wakeful. It is

impossible, therefore, for me to postpone the fulfilment of your

promise."

"A promise on conditions!" she retorted, in rage that she could win no

more. And every line of her splendid figure, every tone of her voice

flamed sudden, hot rebellion. "I do not go for nothing! You gave me

the lives of all in the house, Monsieur! Of all!" she repeated with

passion. "And all are not here! Before I marry you, you must show me

M. de Tignonville alive and safe!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "He has taken himself off," he said. "It is

naught to me what happens to him now."

"It is all to me!" she retorted.

At that he glared at her, the veins of his forehead swelling suddenly.

But after a seeming struggle with himself he put the insult by,

perhaps for future reckoning and account. "I did what I could," he

said sullenly. "Had I willed it he had died there and then in the room

below. I gave him his life. If he has risked it anew and lost it, it

is naught to me."

"It was his life you gave me," she repeated stubbornly. "His life--and

the others. But that is not all," she continued; "you promised me a

minister."

He nodded, smiling sourly to himself, as if this confirmed a suspicion

he had entertained. "Or a priest," he said.

"No, a minister."

"If one could be obtained. If not, a priest."

"No, it was to be at my will; and I will a minister! I will a

minister!" she cried passionately. "Show me M. Tignonville alive, and

bring me a minister of my faith, and I will keep my promise, M. de

Tavannes. Have no fear of that. But otherwise, I will not."

"You will not?" he cried. "You will not?"

"No!"

"You will not marry me?"

"No!"

The moment she had said it fear seized her, and she could have fled

from him, screaming. The flash of his eyes, the sudden passion of his

face, burned themselves into her memory. She thought for a second that

he would spring on her and strike her down. Yet though the women

behind her held their breath, she faced him, and did not quail; and to

that, she fancied, she owed it that he controlled himself. "You will

not?" he repeated, as if he could not understand such resistance to

his will--as if he could not credit his ears. "You will not?" But

after that, when he had said it three times, he laughed; a laugh,

however, with a snarl in it that chilled her blood.

"You bargain, do you?" he said. "You will have the last tittle of the

price, will you? And have thought of this and that to put me off, and

to gain time until your lover, who is all to you, come to save you?

Oh, clever girl! clever! But have you thought where you stand--woman?

Do you know that if I gave the word to my people they would treat you

as the commonest baggage that tramps the Froidmantel? Do you know that

it rests with me to save you, or to throw you to the wolves whose

ravening you hear?" And he pointed to the window. "Minister? Priest?"

he continued. "_Mon Dieu_, Mademoiselle, I stand astonished at my

moderation. You chatter to me of ministers and priests, and the one or

the other, when it might be neither! When you are as much and as

hopelessly in my power to-day as the wench in my kitchen! You! You

flout me, and make terms with me! You!"

And he came so near her with his dark harsh face, his tone rose so

menacing on the last word, that her nerves, shattered before, gave

way, and, unable to control herself, she flinched with a low cry,

thinking he would strike her.

He did not follow, nor move to follow; but he laughed a low laugh of

content. And his eyes devoured her. "Ho! ho!" he said. "We are not so

brave as we pretend to be, it seems. And yet you dared to chaffer with

me? You thought to thwart me--Tavannes! _Mon Dieu_, Mademoiselle, to

what did you trust? To what did you trust? Ay, and to what do you

trust?"

She knew that by the movement, which fear had forced from her, she had

jeopardised everything. That she stood to lose all and more than all

which she had thought to win by a bold front. A woman less brave, of a

spirit less firm, would have given up the contest, and have been glad

to escape so. But this woman, though her bloodless face showed that

she knew what cause she had for fear, and though her heart was,

indeed, sick with sheer terror, held her ground at the point to which

she had retreated. She played her last card. "To what do I trust?" she

muttered with trembling lips.

"Yes, Mademoiselle," he answered, between his teeth. "To what do you

trust--that you play with Tavannes?"

"To his honour, Monsieur," she answered faintly. "And to your

promise."

He looked at her with his mocking smile. "And yet," he sneered, "you

thought a moment ago that I was going to strike you. You thought that

I should beat you! And now it is my honour and my promise! Oh, clever,

clever, Mademoiselle! 'Tis so that women make fools of men. I knew

that something of this kind was on foot when you sent for me, for I

know women and their ways. But, let me tell you, it is an ill time to

speak of honour when the streets are red! And of promises when the

King's word is 'No faith with a heretic!'"

"Yet you will keep yours," she said bravely.

He did not answer at once, and hope which was almost dead in her

breast began to recover; nay, presently sprang up erect. For the man

hesitated, it was evident; he brooded with a puckered brow and gloomy

eyes; an observer might have fancied that he traced pain as well as

doubt in his face. At last: "There is a thing," he said slowly and

with a sort of glare at her, "which, it may be, you have not reckoned.

You press me now, and will stand on your terms and your conditions,

your _ifs_ and your _unlesses!_ You will have the most from me, and

the bargain and a little beside the bargain! But I would have you

think if you are wise. Bethink you how it will be between us when you

are my wife--if you press me so now, Mademoiselle. How will it sweeten

things then? How will it soften them? And to what, I pray you, will

you trust for fair treatment then, if you will be so against me now?"

She shuddered. "To the mercy of my husband," she said in a low voice.

And her chin sank on her breast.

"You will be content to trust to that?" he answered grimly. And his

tone and the lifting of his brow promised little clemency. "Bethink

you! 'Tis your rights now, and your terms, Mademoiselle! And then it

will be only my mercy--Madame."

"I am content," she muttered faintly.

"And the Lord have mercy on my soul, is what you would add," he

retorted, "so much trust have you in my mercy! And you are right! You

are right, since you have played this trick on me. But as you will. If

you will have it so, have it so! You shall stand on your conditions

now; you shall have your pennyweight and full advantage, and the

rigour of the pact. But afterwards--afterwards, Madame de

Tavannes----"

He did not finish his sentence, for at the first word which granted

her petition, Mademoiselle had sunk down on the low wooden window-seat

beside which she stood, and, cowering into its farthest corner, her

face hidden on her arms, had burst into violent weeping. Her hair,

hastily knotted up in the hurry of the previous night, hung in a thick

plait to the curve of her waist; the nape of her neck showed beside it

milk-white. The man stood awhile contemplating her in silence, his

gloomy eyes watching the pitiful movement of her shoulders, the

convulsive heaving of her figure. But he did not offer to touch her,

and at length he turned about. First one and then the other of her

women quailed and shrank under his gaze; he seemed about to add

something. But he did not speak. The sentence he had left unfinished,

the long look he bent on the weeping girl as he turned from her, spoke

more eloquently of the future than a score of orations.

"_Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes!_"

CHAPTER XII.

IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVRE.

It is a strange thing that love--or passion, if the sudden fancy for

Mademoiselle which had seized Count Hannibal be deemed unworthy of the

higher name--should so entirely possess the souls of those who harbour

it that the greatest events and the most astounding catastrophes, even

measures which set their mark for all time on a nation, are to them of

importance only so far as they affect the pursuit of the fair one.

As Tavannes, after leaving Mademoiselle, rode through the paved lanes,

beneath the gabled houses, and under the shadow of the Gothic spires

of his day, he saw a score of sights, moving to pity, or wrath, or

wonder. He saw Paris as a city sacked; a slaughterhouse, where for a

week a masque had moved to stately music; blood on the nailed doors

and the close-set window bars; and at the corners of the ways strewn

garments, broken weapons, the livid dead in heaps. But he saw all with

eyes which in all and everywhere, among living and dead, sought only

Tignonville; Tignonville first, and next a heretic minister, with

enough of life in him to do his office.

Probably it was to this that one man hunted through Paris owed his

escape that day. He sprang from a narrow passage full in Tavannes'

view, and, hair on end, his eyes starting from his head, ran

blindly--as a hare will run when chased--along the street to meet

Count Hannibal's company. The man's face was wet with the dews of

death, his lungs seemed cracking, his breath hissed from him as he

ran. His pursuers were hard on him, and, seeing him headed by Count

Hannibal's party, yelled in triumph, holding him for dead. And dead he

would have been within thirty seconds had Tavannes played his part.

But his thoughts were elsewhere. Either he took the poor wretch for

Tignonville, or for the minister on whom his mind was running; at any

rate he suffered him to slip under the belly of his horse; then, to

make matters worse, he wheeled to follow him in so untimely and clumsy

a fashion that his horse blocked the way and stopped the pursuers in

their tracks. The quarry slipped into an alley and vanished. The

hunters stood and blasphemed, and even for a moment seemed inclined to

resent the mistake. But Tavannes smiled; a broader smile lightened the

faces of the six iron-clad men behind him; and for some reason the

gang of ruffians thought better of it and slunk aside.

There are hard men, who feel scorn of the things which in the breasts

of others excite pity. Tavannes' lip curled as he rode on through the

streets, looking this way and that, and seeing what a King twenty-two

years old had made of his capital. His lip curled most of all when he

came, passing between the two tennis-courts, to the east gate of the

Louvre, and found the entrance locked and guarded, and all

communication between city and palace cut off. Such a proof of

unkingly panic, in a crisis wrought by the King himself, astonished

him less a few minutes later, when, the keys having been brought and

the door opened, he entered the courtyard of the fortress.

Within and about the door of the gatehouse some three-score archers

and arquebusiers stood to their arms; not in array, but in disorderly

groups, from which the babble of voices, of feverish laughter, and

strained jests rose without ceasing. The westering sun, of which the

beams just topped the farther side of the quadrangle, fell slantwise

on their armour, and heightened their exaggerated and restless

movements. To a calm eye they seemed like men acting in a nightmare.

Their fitful talk and disjointed gestures, their sweating brows and

damp hair, no less than the sullen, brooding silence of one here and

there, bespoke the abnormal and the terrible. There were livid faces

among them, and twitching cheeks, and some who swallowed much; and

some again who bared their crimson arms and bragged insanely of the

part they had played. But perhaps the most striking thing was the

thirst, the desire, the demand for news, and for fresh excitement. In

the space of time it took him to pass through them, Count Hannibal

heard a dozen rumours of what was passing in the city; that Montgomery

and the gentlemen who had slept beyond the river had escaped on

horseback in their shirts; that Guise had been shot in the pursuit;

that he had captured the Vidame de Chartres and all the fugitives;

that he had never left the city; that he was even then entering by the

Porte de Bucy. Again that Biron had surrendered the Arsenal, that he

had threatened to fire on the city, that he was dead, that with the

Huguenots who had escaped he was marching on the Louvre, that----

And then Tavannes passed out of the blinding sunshine, and out of

earshot of their babble, and had plain in his sight across the

quadrangle, the new facade, Italian, graceful, of the Renaissance;

which rose in smiling contrast with the three dark Gothic sides that

now, the central tower removed, frowned unimpeded at one another. But

what was this which lay along the foot of the new Italian wall? This,

round which some stood, gazing curiously, while others strewed fresh

sand about it, or after long downward-looking glanced up to answer the

question of a person at a window?

Death; and over death--death in its most cruel aspect--a cloud of

buzzing, whirling flies, and the smell, never to be forgotten, of much

spilled blood. From a doorway hard by came shrill bursts of hysterical

laughter; and with the laughter plumped out, even as Tavannes crossed

the court, a young girl, thrust forth it seemed by her fellows, for

she turned about and struggled as she came. Once outside she hung

back, giggling and protesting, half willing, half unwilling; and

meeting Tavannes' eye thrust her way in again with a whirl of her

petticoats, and a shriek. But before he had taken four paces she was

out again.

He paused to see who she was, and his thoughts involuntarily went back

to the woman he had left weeping in the upper room. Then he turned

about again and stood to count the dead. He identified Piles,

identified Pardaillan, identified Soubise--whose corpse the murderers

had robbed of the last rag--and Touchet and St. Galais. He made his

reckoning with an unmoved face, and with the same face stopped and

stared, and moved from one to another; had he not seen the slaughter

about "_le petit home_" at Jarnac, and the dead of three pitched

fields? But when a bystander, smirking obsequiously, passed him a jest

on Soubise, and with his finger pointed the jest, he had the same hard

unmoved face for the gibe as for the dead. And the jester shrank away,

abashed and perplexed by his stare and his reticence.

Half way up the staircase to the great gallery or guardroom above,

Count Hannibal found his brother, the Marshal, huddled together in

drunken slumber on a seat in a recess. In the gallery to which he

passed on without awakening him, a crowd of courtiers and ladies, with

arquebusiers and captains of the quarters, walked to and fro, talking

in whispers; or peeped over shoulders towards the inner end of the

hall, where the querulous voice of the King rose now and again above

the hum. As Tavannes moved that way, Nancay, in the act of passing

out, booted and armed for the road, met him and almost jostled him.

"Ah, well met, M. le Comte," he sneered, with as much hostility as he

dared betray. "The King has asked for you twice."

"I am going to him. And you? Whither in such a hurry, M. Nancay?"

"To Chatillon."

"On pleasant business?"

"Enough that it is on the King's!" Nancay replied with unexpected

temper. "I hope that you may find yours as pleasant!" he added with a

grin. And he went on.

The gleam of malice in the man's eye warned Tavannes to pause. He

looked round for someone who might be in the secret, saw the Provost

of the Merchants and approached him. "What's amiss, M. le Charron?" he

asked. "Is not the affair going as it should?"

"'Tis about the Arsenal, M. le Comte," the Provost answered busily.

"M. de Biron is harbouring the vermin there. He has lowered the

portcullis and pointed his culverins over the gate and will not yield

it or listen to reason. The King would bring him to terms, but no one

will venture himself inside with the message. Rats in a trap, you

know, bite hard, and care little whom they bite."

"I begin to understand."

"Precisely, M. le Comte. His Majesty would have sent M. de Nancay. But

he elected to go to Chatillon, to seize the young brood there. The

Admiral's children, you comprehend."

"Whose teeth are not yet grown! He was wise."

"To be sure, M. de Tavannes, to be sure. But the King was annoyed, and

on top of that came a priest with complaints, and if I may make so

bold as to advise you, you will not----"

But Tavannes fancied that he had caught the gist of the difficulty,

and with a nod he moved on; and so he missed the point of the warning

which the other had it in his mind to give. A moment and he reached

the inner circle, and there halted, disconcerted, nay, taken aback.

For as soon as he showed his face, the King, who was pacing to and fro

like a caged beast, before a table at which three clerks knelt on

cushions, espied him and stood still. With a glare of something like

madness in his eyes, Charles raised his hand with a shaking finger and

singled him out.

"So, by G--d, you are there!" he cried, with a volley of blasphemy.

And he signed to those about Count Hannibal to stand away from him.

"You are there, are you? And you are not afraid to show your face? I

tell you, it's you and such as you bring us into contempt! so that it

is said everywhere Guise does all and serves God, and we follow

because we must! It's you, and such as you, are stumbling-blocks to

our good folk of Paris! Are you traitor, sirrah?" he continued with

passion, "or are you of our brother Alencon's opinions, that you

traverse our orders to the damnation of your soul and our discredit?

Are you traitor? Or are you heretic? Or what are you? God in heaven,

will you answer me, man, or shall I send you where you will find your

tongue?"

"I know not of what your Majesty accuses me," Count Hannibal answered,

with a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders.

"I? 'Tis not I," the King retorted. His hair hung damp on his brow,

and he dried his hands continually; while his gestures had the

ill-measured and eccentric violence of an epileptic. "Here, you!

Speak, father, and confound him!"

Then Tavannes discovered on the farther side of the circle the priest

whom his brother had ridden down that morning. Father Pezelay's pale

hatchet-face gleamed paler than ordinary; and a great bandage hid one

temple and part of his face. But, below the bandage, the flame of his

eyes was not lessened, nor the venom of his tongue. To the King he had

come--for no other would deal with his violent opponent; to the King's

presence! and, as he prepared to blast his adversary, now his chance

was come, his long lean frame, in its narrow black cassock, seemed to

grow longer, leaner, more baleful, more snake-like. He stood there a

fitting representative of the dark fanaticism of Paris, which Charles

and his successor--the last of a doomed line--alternately used as tool

or feared as master; and to which the most debased and the most

immoral of courts paid, in its sober hours, a vile and slavish homage.

Even in the midst of the drunken, shameless courtiers--who stood, if

they stood for anything, for that other influence of the day, the

Renaissance--he was to be reckoned with; and Count Hannibal knew it.

He knew that in the eyes not of Charles only, but of nine out of ten

who listened to him, a priest was more sacred than a virgin, and a

tonsure than all the virtues of spotless innocence.

"Shall the King give with one hand and withdraw with the other?" the

priest began, in a voice hoarse yet strident, a voice borne high above

the crowd on the wings of passion. "Shall he spare of the best of the

men and the maidens whom God hath doomed, whom the Church hath

devoted, whom the King hath given? Is the King's hand shortened or his

word annulled that a man does as he forbiddeth and leaves undone what

he commandeth? Is God mocked? Woe, woe unto you," he continued,

turning swiftly, arms uplifted, towards Tavannes, "who please yourself

with the red and white of their maidens and take of the best of the

spoil, sparing where the King's word is 'Spare not!' Who strike at

Holy Church with the sword! Who----"

"Answer, sirrah!" Charles cried, spurning the floor in his fury. He

could not listen long to any man. "Is it so? Is it so? Do you do these

things?"

Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders and was about to answer, when a

thick, drunken voice rose from the crowd behind him. "Is it what? Eh!

Is it what?" it droned. And a figure with bloodshot eyes, disordered

beard, and rich clothes awry, forced its way through the obsequious

circle. It was Marshal Tavannes. "Eh, what? You'd beard the King,

would you?" he hiccoughed truculently, his eyes on Father Pezelay, his

hand on his sword. "Were you a priest ten times--

"Silence!" Charles cried, almost foaming with rage at this fresh

interruption. "It's not he, fool! 'Tis your pestilent brother."

"Who touches my brother touches Tavannes!" the Marshal answered with a

menacing gesture. He was sober enough, it appeared, to hear what was

said, but not to comprehend its drift; and this caused a titter, which

immediately excited his rage. He turned and seized the nearest laugher

by the ear. "Insolent!" he cried. "I will teach you to laugh when the

King speaks! Puppy! Who laughs at his Majesty or touches my brother

has to do with Tavannes!"

The King, in a rage that almost deprived him of speech, stamped the

floor twice. "Idiot!" he cried. "Imbecile! Let the man go! 'Tis not

he! 'Tis your heretic brother, I tell you! By all the Saints! By the

body of----" and he poured forth a flood of oaths. "Will you listen to

me and be silent! Will you--your brother----"

"If he be not your Majesty's servant, I will kill him with this

sword!" the irrepressible Marshal struck in. "As I have killed ten

to-day! Ten!" And, staggering back, he only saved himself from falling

by clutching Chicot about the neck.

"Steady, my pretty Marechale!" the jester cried, chucking him under

the chin with one hand, while with some difficulty he supported him

with the other--for he, too, was far from sober--

"Pretty Margot, toy with me,

Maiden bashful----"

"Silence!" Charles cried, darting forth his long arms in a fury of

impatience. "God, have I killed every man of sense? Are you all gone

mad? Silence! Do you hear? Silence! And let me hear what he has to

say," with a movement towards Count Hannibal. "And look you, sirrah,"

he continued with a curse, "see that it be to the purpose!"

"If it be a question of your Majesty's service," Tavannes answered.

"And obedience to your Majesty's orders, I am deeper in it than he who

stands there!" with a sign towards the priest. "I give my word for

that. And I will prove it."

"How, sir?" Charles cried. "How, how, how? How will you prove it?"

"By doing for you, sire, what he will not do!" Tavannes answered

scornfully. "Let him stand out, and if he will serve his Church as I

will serve my King----

"Blaspheme not!" cried the priest.

"Chatter not!" Tavannes retorted hardily, "but do! Better is he," he

continued, "who takes a city than he who slays women! Nay, sire," he

went on hurriedly, seeing the King start, "be not angry, but hear me!

You would send to Biron, to the Arsenal? You seek a messenger, sire?

Then let the good father be the man. Let him take your Majesty's will

to Biron, and let him see the Grand Master face to face, and bring him

to reason. Or, if he will not, I will! Let that be the test!"

"Ay, ay!" cried Marshal de Tavannes, "you say well, brother! Let him!"

"And if he will not, I will!" Tavannes repeated. "Let that be the

test, sire."

The King wheeled suddenly to Father Pezelay.

"You hear, father?" he said. "What say you!"

The priest's face grew sallow, and more sallow. He knew that the walls

of the Arsenal sheltered men whose hands no convention and no order of

Biron's would keep from his throat, were the grim gate and frowning

culverins once passed; men who had seen their women and children,

their wives and sisters immolated at his word, and now asked naught

but to stand face to face and eye to eye with him and tear him limb

from limb before they died! The challenge, therefore, was one-sided

and unfair; but for that very reason it shook him. The astuteness of

the man who, taken by surprise, had conceived this snare filled him

with dread. He dared not accept, and he scarcely dared to refuse the

offer. And meantime the eyes of the courtiers, who grinned in their

beards, were on him. At length he spoke, but it was in a voice which

had lost its boldness and assurance.

"It is not for me to clear myself," he cried, shrill and violent, "but

for those who are accused, for those who have belied the King's word,

and set at naught his Christian orders. For you, Count Hannibal,

heretic, or no better than heretic, it is easy to say 'I go.' For you

go but to your own, and your own will receive you!"

"Then you will not go?" with a jeer.

"At your command? No!" the priest shrieked with passion. "His Majesty

knows whether I serve him."

"I know," Charles cried, stamping his foot in a fury, "that you all

serve me when it pleases you! That you are all sticks of the same

faggot, wood of the same bundle, hell-babes in your own business, and

sluggards in mine! You kill to-day and you'll lay it to me to-morrow!

Ay, you will! you will!" he repeated frantically, and drove home the

asseveration with a fearful oath. "The dead are as good servants as

you! Foucauld was better! Foucauld? Foucauld? Ah, my God!"

And abruptly in presence of them all, with the sacred name, which he

so often defiled, on his lips, Charles turned, and covering his face

burst into childish weeping; while a great silence fell on all--on

Bussy with the blood of his cousin Resnel on his point, on Fervacques,

the betrayer of his friend, on Chicot, the slayer of his rival, on

Cocconnas the cruel--on men with hands unwashed from the slaughter,

and on the shameless women who lined the walls; on all who used this

sobbing man for their stepping-stone, and, to attain their ends and

gain their purposes, trampled his dull soul in blood and mire.

One looked at another in consternation. Fear grew in eyes that a

moment before were bold; cheeks turned pale that a moment before were

hectic. If he changed as rapidly as this, if so little dependence

could be placed on his moods or his resolutions, who was safe? Whose

turn might it not be to-morrow? Or who might not be held accountable

for the deeds done this day? Many, from whom remorse had seemed far

distant a while before, shuddered and glanced behind them. It was as

if the dead who lay stark without the doors, ay, and the countless

dead of Paris, with whose shrieks the air was laden, had flocked in

shadowy shape into the hall; and there, standing beside their

murderers, had whispered with their cold breath in the living ears, "A

reckoning! A reckoning! As I am, thou shalt be!"

It was Count Hannibal who broke the spell and the silence, and with

his hand on his brother's shoulder stood forward. "Nay, sire," he

cried, in a voice which rang defiant in the roof, and seemed to

challenge alike the living and the dead, "if all deny the deed, yet

will not I! What we have done we have done! So be it! The dead are

dead! So be it! For the rest, your Majesty has still one servant who

will do your will, one soldier whose life is at your disposition! I

have said I will go, and I go, sire. And you, churchman," he

continued, turning in bitter scorn to the priest, "do you go too--to

church! To church, shaveling! Go, watch and pray for us! Fast and flog

for us! Whip those shoulders, whip them till the blood runs down! For

it is all, it seems, you will do for your King!"

Charles turned. "Silence, railer!" he said in a broken voice. "Sow no

more troubles! Already," a shudder shook his tall ungainly form, "I

see blood, blood, blood everywhere! Blood! Ah, God, shall I from this

time see anything else? But there is no turning back. There is no

undoing. So, do you go to Biron. And do you," he went on, sullenly

addressing Marshal Tavannes, "take him and tell him what it is needful

he should know."

"'Tis done, sire!" the Marshal cried with a hiccough. "Come, brother!"

But when the two, the courtiers making quick way for them, had passed

down the hall to the door, the Marshal tapped Hannibal's sleeve. "It

was touch and go," he muttered; it was plain he had been more sober

than he seemed. "Mind you, it does not do to thwart our little master

in his fits! Remember that another time, or worse will come of it,

brother. As it is, you came out of it finely and tripped that black

devil's heels to a marvel! But you won't be so mad as to go to Biron?"

"Yes," Count Hannibal answered coldly. "I shall go."

"Better not! Better not!" the Marshal answered. "'Twill be easier to

go in than to come out--with a whole throat! Have you taken wild cats

in the hollow of a tree? The young first, and then the she-cat? Well,

it will be that! Take my advice, brother. Have after Montgomery, if

you please, ride with Nancay to Chatillon--he is mounting now--go

where you please out of Paris, but don't go there! Biron hates us,

hates me. And for the King, if he do not see you for a few days,

'twill blow over in a week."

Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders. "No," he said, "I shall go."

The Marshal stared a moment. "Morbleu!" he said, "why? 'Tis not to

please the King, I know. What do you think to find there, brother?"

"A minister," Hannibal answered gently. "I want one with life in him,

and they are scarce in the open. So I must to covert after him." And,

twitching his sword-belt a little nearer to his hand, he passed across

the court to the gate, and to his horses. The Marshal went back

laughing, and, slapping his thigh as he entered the hall, jostled by

accident a gentleman who was passing out.

"What is it?" the Gascon cried hotly; for it was Chicot he had

jostled.

"Who touches my brother touches Tavannes!" the Marshal hiccoughed.

And, smiting his thigh anew, he went off into another fit of laughter.

CHAPTER XIII.

DIPLOMACY.

Where the old wall of Paris, of which no vestige remains, ran down on

the east to the north bank of the river, the space in the angle

between the Seine and the ramparts beyond the Rue St. Pol wore at this

date an aspect typical of the troubles of the time. Along the

waterside the gloomy old Palace of St. Pol, once the residence of the

mad King Charles the Sixth--and his wife, the abandoned Isabeau de

Baviere--sprawled its maze of mouldering courts and ruined galleries,

a dreary monument of the Gothic days which were passing from France.

Its spacious curtilage and dark pleasaunces covered all the ground

between the river and the Rue St. Antoine; and north of this, under

the shadow of the eight great towers of the Bastille, which looked,

four outward to check the stranger, four inward to bridle the town, a

second palace, beginning where St. Pol ended, carried the realm of

decay to the city wall.

This second palace was the Hotel des Tournelles, a fantastic medley of

turrets, spires, and gables, that equally with its neighbour recalled

the days of the English domination; it had been the abode of the

Regent Bedford. From his time it had remained for a hundred years the

town residence of the kings of France; but the death of Henry II.,

slain in its lists by the lance of the same Montgomery who was this

day fleeing for his life before Guise, had given his widow a distaste

for it. Catherine de Medicis, her sons, and the Court had abandoned

it; already its gardens lay a tangled wilderness, its roofs let in the

rain, rats played where kings had slept; and in "our palace of the

Tournelles" reigned only silence and decay. Unless, indeed, as was

whispered abroad, the grim shade of the eleventh Louis sometimes

walked in its desolate precincts.

In the innermost angle between the ramparts and the river, shut off

from the rest of Paris by the decaying courts and enceintes of these

forsaken palaces, stood the Arsenal. Destroyed in great part by the

explosion of a powder-mill a few years earlier, it was in the main

new; and by reason of its river frontage, which terminated at the

ruined tower of Billy, and its proximity to the Bastille, it was

esteemed one of the keys of Paris. It was the appanage of the Master

of the Ordnance, and within its walls M. de Biron, a Huguenot in

politics, if not in creed, who held the office at this time, had

secured himself on the first alarm. During the day he had admitted a

number of refugees, whose courage or good luck had led them to his

gate; and as night fell--on such a carnage as the hapless city had not

beheld since the great slaughter of the Armagnacs, one hundred and

fifty-four years earlier--the glow of his matches through the dusk,

and the sullen tramp of his watchmen as they paced the walls,

indicated that there was still one place in Paris where the King's

will did not run.

In comparison of the disorder which prevailed in the city, a deadly

quiet reigned here; a stillness so chill that a timid man must have

stood and hesitated to approach. But a stranger who about nightfall

rode down the street towards the entrance, a single footman running at

his stirrup, only nodded a stern approval of the preparations. As he

drew nearer he cast an attentive eye this way and that; nor stayed

until a hoarse challenge brought him up when he had come within six

horses' lengths of the Arsenal gate. He reined up then, and raising

his voice, asked in clear tones for M. de Biron.

"Go," he continued boldly, "tell the Grand Master that one from the

King is here, and would speak with him."

"From the King of France?" the officer on the gate asked.

"Surely! Is there more than one King in France?"

A curse and a bitter cry of "King? King Herod!" were followed by a

muttered discussion that, in the ears of one of the two who waited in

the gloom below, boded little good. The two could descry figures

moving to and fro before the faint red light of the smouldering

matches; and presently a man on the gate kindled a torch, and held it

so as to fling its light downward. The stranger's attendant cowered

behind the horse. "Have a care, my lord!" he whispered. "They are

aiming at us!"

If so the rider's bold front and unmoved demeanour gave them pause.

Presently, "I will send for the Grand Master" the man who had spoken

before announced. "In whose name, monsieur?"

"No matter," the stranger answered. "Say, one from the King."

"You are alone?"

"I shall enter alone."

The assurance seemed to be satisfactory, for the man answered "Good!"

and after a brief delay a wicket in the gate was opened, the

portcullis creaked upward, and a plank was thrust across the ditch.

The horseman waited until the preparations were complete; then he slid

to the ground, threw his rein to the servant, and boldly walked

across. In an instant he left behind him the dark street, the river,

and the sounds of outrage, which the night breeze bore from the

farther bank, and found himself within the vaulted gateway, in a

bright glare of light, the centre of a ring of gleaming eyes and angry

faces.

The light blinded him for a few seconds; but the guards, on their

side, were in no better case. For the stranger was masked; and in

their ignorance who it was looked at them through the slits in the

black velvet they stared, disconcerted, and at a loss. There were some

there with naked weapons in their hands who would have struck him

through had they known who he was; and more who would have stood aside

while the deed was done. But the uncertainty--that and the masked

man's tone paralysed them. For they reflected that he might be any

one. Conde, indeed, stood too small, but Navarre, if he lived, might

fill that cloak; or Guise, or Anjou, or the King himself. And while

some would not have scrupled to strike the blood royal, more would

have been quick to protect and avenge it. And so before the dark

uncertainty of the mask, before the riddle of the smiling eyes which

glittered through the slits, they stared irresolute; until a hand, the

hand of one bolder than his fellows, was raised to pluck away the

screen.

The unknown dealt the fellow a buffet with his fist. "Down, rascal!"

he said hoarsely. "And you"--to the officer--"show me instantly to M.

de Biron!"

But the lieutenant, who stood in fear of his men, looked at him

doubtfully. "Nay," he said, "not so fast!" And one of the others,

taking the lead, cried, "No! We may have no need of M. de Biron. Your

name, monsieur, first."

With a quick movement the stranger gripped the officer's wrist. "Tell

your master," he said, "that he who clasped his wrist _thus_ on the

night of Pentecost is here, and would speak with him! And say, mark

you, that I will come to him, not he to me!"

The sign and the tone imposed upon the boldest. Two-thirds of the

watch were Huguenots, who burned to avenge the blood of their fellows;

and these, overriding their officer, had agreed to deal with the

intruder, if a Papegot, without recourse to the Grand Master, whose

moderation they dreaded. A knife-thrust in the ribs, and another body

in the ditch--why not, when such things were done outside? But even

these doubted now; and M. Peridol, the lieutenant, reading in the eyes

of his men the suspicions which he had himself conceived, was only

anxious to obey, if they would let him. So gravely was he impressed,

indeed, by the bearing of the unknown that he turned when he had

withdrawn, and came back to assure himself that the men meditated no

harm in his absence; nor until he had exchanged a whisper with one of

them would he leave them and go.

While he was gone on his errand the envoy leaned against the wall of

the gateway, and, with his chin sunk on his breast and his mind fallen

into reverie, seemed unconscious of the dark glances of which he was

the target. He remained in this position until the officer came back,

followed by a man with a lantern. Their coming roused the unknown,

who, invited to follow Peridol, traversed two courts without remark,

and in the same silence entered a building in the extreme eastern

corner of the enceinte abutting on the ruined Tour de Billy. Here, in

an upper floor, the Governor of the Arsenal had established his

temporary lodging.

The chamber into which the stranger was introduced betrayed the haste

in which it had been prepared for its occupant. Two silver lamps which

hung from the beams of the unceiled roof shed light on a medley of

arms and inlaid armour, of parchments, books, and steel caskets, which

encumbered not the tables only, but the stools and chests that, after

the fashion of that day, stood formally along the arras. In the midst

of the disorder, on the bare floor, walked the man who, more than any

other, had been instrumental in drawing the Huguenots to Paris--and to

their doom. It was not wonderful that the events of the day, the

surprise and horror still rode his mind; nor that even he who passed

for a model of stiffness and reticence betrayed for once the

indignation which filled his breast. Until the officer had withdrawn

and closed the door he did, indeed, keep silence; standing beside the

table and eyeing his visitor with a lofty port and a stern glance. But

the moment he was assured that they were alone he spoke.

"Your Highness may unmask now," he said, making no effort to hide his

contempt. "Yet were you well advised to take the precaution, since you

had hardly come at me in safety without it. Had those who keep the

gate seen you, I would not have answered for your Highness's life! The

more shame," he continued vehemently, "on the deeds of this day which

have compelled the brother of a King of France to hide his face in his

own capital and in his own fortress. For I dare to say, Monsieur, what

no other will say, now the Admiral is dead. You have brought back the

days of the Armagnacs. You have brought bloody days and an evil name

on France, and I pray God that you may not pay in your turn what you

have exacted. But if you continue to be advised by M. de Guise, this I

will say, Monsieur"--and his voice fell low and stern. "Burgundy slew

Orleans, indeed; but he came in his turn to the Bridge of Montereau."

"You take me for Monsieur?" the unknown asked. And it was plain that

he smiled under his mask.

Biron's face altered. "I take you," he answered sharply, "for him

whose sign you sent me."

"The wisest are sometimes astray," the other answered with a low

laugh. And he took off his mask.

The Grand Master started back, his eyes sparkling with anger. "M. de

Tavannes?" he cried, and for a moment he was silent in sheer

astonishment. Then, striking his hand on the table, "What means this

trickery!" he asked.

"It is of the simplest," Tavannes answered coolly. "And yet, as you

just now said, I had hardly come at you without it. And I had to come

at you. No, M. de Biron," he added quickly, as Biron in a rage laid

his hand on a bell which stood beside him on the table, "you cannot

that way undo what is done."

"I can at least deliver you," the Grand Master answered, in heat, "to

those who will deal with you as you have dealt with us and ours."

"It will avail you nothing," Count Hannibal replied soberly. "For see

here, Grand Master, I come from the King. If you are at war with him,

and hold his fortress in his teeth, I am his ambassador and

sacrosanct. If you are at peace with him and hold it at his will, I

am his servant, and safe also."

"At peace and safe?" Biron cried, his voice trembling with

indignation. "And are those safe or at peace who came here trusting to

_his_ word, who lay in his palace and slept in his beds? Where are

they, and how have they fared, that you dare appeal to the law of

nations, or he to the loyalty of Biron? And for you to beard me, whose

brother to-day hounded the dogs of this vile city on the noblest in

France, who have leagued yourself with a crew of foreigners to do a

deed which will make our country stink in the nostrils of the world

when we are dust! You, to come here and talk of peace and safety! M.

de Tavannes"--and he struck his hand on the table--"you are a bold

man. I know why the King had a will to send you, but I know not why

you had the will to come."

"That I will tell you later," Count Hannibal answered coolly. "For the

King, first. My message is brief, M. de Biron. Have you a mind to hold

the scales in France?"

"Between?" Biron asked contemptuously.

"Between the Lorrainers and the Huguenots."

The Grand Master scowled fiercely. "I have played the go-between once

too often," he growled.

"It is no question of going between, it is a question of holding

between," Tavannes answered coolly. "It is a question--but, in a word,

have you a mind, M. de Biron, to be Governor of Rochelle? The King,

having dealt the blow that has been struck to-day, looks to follow up

severity, as a wise ruler should, with indulgence. And to quiet the

minds of the Rochellois he would set over them a ruler at once

acceptable to them--or war must come of it--and faithful to his

Majesty. Such a man, M. de Biron, will in such a post be Master of the

Kingdom; for he will hold the doors of Janus, and as he bridles his

sea-dogs, or unchains them, there will be peace or war in France."

"Is all that from the King's mouth?" Biron asked with sarcasm. But his

passion had died down. He was grown thoughtful, suspicious; he eyed

the other intently as if he would read his heart.

"The offer is his, and the reflections are mine," Tavannes answered

drily. "Let me add one more. The Admiral is dead. The King of Navarre

and the Prince of Conde are prisoners. Who is now to balance the

Italians and the Guises? The Grand Master--if he be wise and content

to give the law to France from the citadel of Rochelle."

Biron stared at the speaker in astonishment at his frankness. "You are

a bold man," he cried at last. "But _timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_,"

he continued bitterly. "You offer, sir, too much."

"The offer is the King's."

"And the conditions? The price?"

"That you remain quiet, M. de Biron."

"In the Arsenal?"

"In the Arsenal. And do not too openly counteract the King's will.

That is all."

The Grand Master looked puzzled. "I will give up no one," he said. "No

one! Let that be understood."

"The King requires no one."

A pause. Then, "Does M. de Guise know of the offer?" Biron inquired;

and his eye grew bright. He hated the Guises and was hated by them. It

was _there_ he was a Huguenot.

"He has gone far to-day," Count Hannibal answered drily. "And if no

worse come of it should be content. Madame Catherine knows of it."

The Grand Master was aware that Marshal Tavannes depended on the

Queen-mother; and he shrugged his shoulders. "Ay, 'tis like her

policy," he muttered. "'Tis like her!" And pointing his guest to a

cushioned chest which stood against the wall, he sat down in a chair

beside the table and thought awhile, his brow wrinkled, his eyes

dreaming. By-and-by he laughed sourly. "You have lighted the fire," he

said, "and would fain I put it out."

"We would have you hinder it spreading."

"You have done the deed and are loth to pay the blood-money. That is

it, is it?"

"We prefer to pay it to M. de Biron," Count Hannibal answered civilly.

Again the Grand Master was silent awhile. At length he looked up and

fixed Tavannes with eyes keen as steel. "What is behind?" he growled.

"Say, man, what is it? What is behind?"

"If there be aught behind, I do not know it," Tavannes answered

steadfastly.

M. de Biron relaxed the fixity of his gaze. "But you said that you had

an object?" he returned.

"I had--in being the bearer of the message."

"What was it?"

"My object? To learn two things."

"The first, if it please you?" The Grand Master's chin stuck out a

little, as he spoke.

"Have you in the Arsenal a M. de Tignonville, a gentleman of Poitou?"

"I have not," Biron answered curtly. "The second?"

"Have you here a Huguenot minister?"

"I have not. And if I had I should not give him up," he added firmly.

Tavannes shrugged his shoulders. "I have a use for one," he said

carelessly. "But it need not harm him."

"For what, then, do you need him?"

"To marry me."

The other stared. "But you are a Catholic," he said.

"But she is a Huguenot," Tavannes answered.

The Grand Master did not attempt to hide his astonishment. "And she

sticks on that?" he exclaimed. "To-day?"

"She sticks on that. To-day."

"To-day? _Nom de Dieu!_ To-day! Well," brushing the matter aside after

a pause of bewilderment, "any way, I cannot help her. I have no

minister here. If there be aught else I can do for her----"

"Nothing, I thank you," Tavannes answered. "Then it only remains for

me to take your answer to the King?" And he rose politely, and taking

his mask from the table prepared to assume it.

M. de Biron gazed at him a moment without speaking, as if he pondered

on the answer he should give. At length he nodded, and rang the bell

which stood beside him.

"The mask!" he muttered in a low voice as footsteps sounded without.

And, obedient to the hint, Tavannes disguised himself. A second later

the officer who had introduced him opened the door and entered.

"Peridol," M. de Biron said--he had risen to his feet--"I have

received a message which needs confirmation; and to obtain this I must

leave the Arsenal. I am going to the house--you will remember this--of

Marshal Tavannes, who will be responsible for my person; in the

meantime this gentleman will remain under strict guard in the south

chamber upstairs. You will treat him as a hostage, with all respect,

and will allow him to preserve his _incognito_. But if I do not return

by noon to-morrow, you will deliver him to the men below, who will

know how to deal with him."

Count Hannibal made no attempt to interrupt him, nor did he betray the

discomfiture which he undoubtedly felt. But as the Grand Master

paused, "M. de Biron," he said, in a voice harsh and low, "you will

answer to me for this!" And his eyes glittered through the slits in

the mask.

"Possibly, but not to-day or to-morrow!" Biron replied, shrugging his

shoulders contemptuously. "Peridol! see the gentleman bestowed as I

have ordered, and then return to me. Monsieur," with a bow, half

courteous, half ironical, "let me commend to you the advantages of

silence and your mask." And he waved his hand in the direction of the

door.

A moment Count Hannibal hesitated. He was in the heart of a hostile

fortress where the resistance of a single man armed to the teeth must

have been futile; and he was unarmed, save for a poniard.

Nevertheless, for a moment the impulse to spring on Biron, and with

the dagger at his throat to make his life the price of a safe passage,

was strong. Then--for with the warp of a harsh and passionate

character were interwrought an odd shrewdness and some things little

suspected--he resigned himself. Bowing gravely, he turned with

dignity, and in silence followed the officer from the room.

Peridol had two men with lanterns in waiting at the door. From one of

these the lieutenant took the light, and, with an air at once sullen

and deferential, led the way up the stone staircase to the floor over

that in which M. de Biron had his lodging. Tavannes followed; the two

guards came last, carrying the second lantern. At the head of the

staircase, whence a bare passage ran north and south, the procession

turned right-handed, and, passing two doors, halted before the third

and last, which faced them at the end of the passage. The lieutenant

unlocked it with a key which he took from a hook beside the doorpost.

Then, holding up his light, he invited his charge to enter.

The room was not small, but it was low in the roof, and prison-like,

it had bare walls and smoke-marks on the ceiling. The window, set in a

deep recess, the floor of which rose a foot above that of the room,

was unglazed; and through the gloomy orifice the night wind blew in,

laden even on that August evening with the dank mist of the river

flats. A table, two stools, and a truckle bed without straw or

covering made up the furniture; but Peridol, after glancing round,

ordered one of the men to fetch a truss of straw and the other to

bring up a pitcher of wine. While they were gone Tavannes and he stood

silently waiting, until, observing that the captive's eyes sought the

window, the lieutenant laughed.

"No bars?" he said. "No, monsieur, and no need of them. You will not

go by that road, bars or no bars."

"What is below?" Count Hannibal asked carelessly. "The river?"

"Yes, monsieur," with a grin, "but not water. Mud, and six feet of it,

soft as Christmas porridge, but not so sweet. I've known two puppies

thrown in under this window that did not weigh more than a fat pullet

apiece. One was gone before you could count fifty, and the other did

not live thrice as long--nor would have lasted that time, but that it

fell on the first and clung to it."

Tavannes dismissed the matter with a shrug, and, drawing his cloak

about him, set a stool against the wall and sat down. The men who

brought in the wine and the bundle of straw were inquisitive, and

would have loitered, scanning him stealthily; but Peridol hurried them

away. The lieutenant himself stayed only to cast a glance round the

room and to mutter that he would return when his lord returned; then,

with a "Good night" which said more for his manners than his good

will, he followed them out. A moment later the grating of the key in

the lock and the sound of the bolts as they sped home told Tavannes

that he was a prisoner.

CHAPTER XIV.

TOO SHORT A SPOON.

Count Hannibal remained seated, his chin sunk on his breast, until his

ear assured him that the three men had descended the stairs to the

floor below. Then he rose, and, taking the lantern from the table, on

which Peridol had placed it, he went softly to the door, which, like

the window, stood in a recess--in this case the prolongation of the

passage. A brief scrutiny satisfied him that escape that way was

impossible, and he turned, after a cursory glance at the floor and

ceiling, to the dark, windy aperture which yawned at the end of the

apartment. Placing the lantern on the table, and covering it with his

cloak, he mounted the window recess, and, stepping to the unguarded

edge, looked out.

He knew, rather than saw, that Peridol had told the truth. The smell

of the aguish flats which fringed that part of Paris rose strong in

his nostrils. He guessed that the sluggish arm of the Seine which

divided the Arsenal from the Ile des Louviers crawled below; but the

night was dark, and it was impossible to discern land from water. He

fancied that he could trace the outline of the island--an uninhabited

place, given up to wood piles; but the lights of the college quarter

beyond it, which rose feebly twinkling, to the crown of St. Genevieve,

confused his sight and rendered the nearer gloom more opaque. From

that direction and from the Cite to his right came sounds which told

of a city still heaving in its blood-stained sleep, and even in its

dreams planning further excesses. Now a distant shot, and now a faint

murmur on one of the bridges, or a far-off cry, raucous, sudden,

curdled the blood. But even of what was passing under cover of the

darkness, he could learn little; and after standing awhile with a hand

on either side of the window he found the night air chill. He stepped

back, and, descending to the floor, uncovered the lantern and set it

on the table. His thoughts travelled back to the preparations he had

made the night before with a view to securing Mademoiselle's person,

and he considered, with a grim smile, how little he had foreseen that

within twenty-four hours he would himself be a prisoner. Presently,

finding his mask oppressive, he removed it, and, laying it on the

table before him, sat scowling at the light.

Biron had jockeyed him cleverly. Well, the worse for Armand de Gontaut

de Biron if after this adventure the luck went against him! But in the

meantime? In the meantime his fate was sealed if harm befell Biron.

And what the King's real mind in Biron's case was, and what the

Queen-Mother's, he could not say; just as it was impossible to predict

how far, when they had the Grand Master at their mercy, they would

resist the temptation to add him to the victims. If Biron placed

himself at once in Marshal Tavannes' hands, all might be well. But if

he ventured within the long arm of the Guises, or went directly to the

Louvre, the fact that with the Grand Master's fate Count Hannibal's

was bound up, would not weigh a straw. In such crises the great

sacrificed the less great, the less great the small, without a

scruple. And the Guises did not love Count Hannibal; he was not loved

by many. Even the strength of his brother the Marshal stood rather in

the favour of the King's heir, for whom he had won the battle of

Jarnac, than intrinsically; and, durable in ordinary times, might snap

in the clash of forces and interests which the desperate madness of

this day had let loose on Paris.

It was not the peril in which he stood, however--though, with the cold

clear eye of the man who had often faced peril, he appreciated it to a

nicety--that Count Hannibal found least bearable, but his enforced

inactivity. He had thought to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm,

and out of the danger of others to compact his own success. Instead he

lay here, not only powerless to guide his destiny, which hung on the

discretion of another, but unable to stretch forth a finger to further

his plans.

As he sat looking darkly at the lantern, his mind followed Biron and

his riders through the midnight streets: along St. Antoine and La

Verrerie, through the gloomy narrows of the Rue la Ferronerie, and so

past the house in the Rue St. Honore where Mademoiselle sat awaiting

the morrow--sat awaiting Tignonville, the minister, the marriage!

Doubtless there were still bands of plunderers roaming to and fro; at

the barriers troops of archers stopping the suspected; at the windows

pale faces gazing down; at the gates of the Temple, and of the walled

enclosures which largely made up the city, strong guards set to

prevent invasion. Biron would go with sufficient to secure himself;

and unless he encountered with the bodyguard of Guise his passage

would quiet the town. But was it so certain that _she_ was safe? He

knew his men, and while he had been free he had not hesitated to leave

her in their care. But now that he could not go, now that he could not

raise a hand to help, the confidence which had not failed him in

straits more dangerous grew weak. He pictured the things which might

happen, at which, in his normal frame of mind, he would have laughed.

Now they troubled him so that he started at a shadow, so that he

quailed at a thought. He, who last night, when free to act, had timed

his coming and her rescue to a minute! Who had rejoiced in the peril,

since with the glamour of such things foolish women were taken! Who

had not flinched when the crowd roared most fiercely for her blood!

Why had he suffered himself to be trapped! Why indeed? And thrice in

passion he paced the room. Long ago the famous Nostradamus had told

him that he would live to be a king, but of the smallest kingdom in

the world. "Every man is a king in his coffin," he had answered. "The

grave is cold and your kingdom shall be warm," the wizard had

rejoined. On which the courtiers had laughed, promising him a Moorish

island and a black queen. And he had gibed with the rest, but secretly

had taken note of the sovereign counties of France, their rulers and

their heirs. Now he held the thought in horror, foreseeing no county,

but the cage under the stifling tiles at Loches, in which Cardinal

Balue and many another had worn out their hearts.

He came to that thought not by way of his own peril, but of

Mademoiselle's; which affected him in so novel a fashion that he

wondered at his folly. At last, tired of watching the shadows which

the draught set dancing on the wall, he drew his cloak about him and

lay down on the straw. He had kept vigil the previous night, and in a

few minutes, with a campaigner's ease, he was asleep.

Midnight had struck. About two the light in the lantern burned low in

the socket, and with a soft sputtering went out. For an hour after

that the room lay still, silent, dark; then slowly the grey dawn, the

greyer for the river mist which wrapped the neighbourhood in a clammy

shroud, began to creep into the room and discover the vague shapes of

things. Again an hour passed, and the sun was rising above Montreuil,

and here and there the river began to shimmer through the fog. But in

the room it was barely daylight when the sleeper awoke, and sat up,

his face expectant. Something had roused him. He listened.

His ear, and the habit of vigilance which a life of danger instils,

had not deceived him. There were men moving in the passage; men who

shuffled their feet impatiently. Had Biron returned! Or had aught

happened to him, and were these men come to avenge him? Count Hannibal

rose and stole across the boards to the door, and, setting his ear to

it, listened.

He listened while a man might count a hundred and fifty, counting

slowly. Then, for the third part of a second, he turned his head, and

his eyes travelled the room. He stooped again and listened more

closely, scarcely breathing. There were voices as well as feet to be

heard now; one voice--he thought it was Peridol's--which held on long,

now low, now rising into violence. Others were audible at intervals,

but only in a growl or a bitter exclamation, that told of minds made

up and hands which would not be restrained. He caught his own name,

Tavannes--the mask was useless then! And once a noisy movement which

came to nothing, foiled, he fancied, by Peridol.

He knew enough. He rose to his full height, and his eyes seemed a

little closer together; an ugly smile curved his lips. His gaze

travelled over the objects in the room, the bare stools and table, the

lantern, the wine pitcher; beyond these, in a corner, the cloak and

straw on the low bed. The light, cold and grey, fell cheerlessly on

the dull chamber, and showed it in harmony with the ominous whisper

which grew in the gallery; with the stern-faced listener who stood,

his one hand on the door. He looked, but he found nothing to his

purpose, nothing to serve his end, whatever his end was; and with a

quick light step he left the door, mounted the window recess, and,

poised on the very edge, looked down.

If he thought to escape that way his hope was desperate. The depth to

the water-level was not, he judged, twelve feet. But Peridol had told

the truth. Below lay not water, but a smooth surface of viscid slime,

here luminous with the florescence of rottenness, there furrowed by a

tiny runnel of moisture which sluggishly crept across it to the slow

stream beyond. This quicksand, vile and treacherous, lapped the wall

below the window, and more than accounted for the absence of bars or

fastenings. But, leaning far out, he saw that it ended at the angle of

the building, at a point twenty feet or so to the right of his

position.

He sprang to the floor again, and listened an instant; then, with

guarded movements--for there was fear in the air, fear in the silent

room, and at any moment the rush might be made, the door burst in--he

set the lantern and wine pitcher on the floor, and took up the table

in his arms. He began to carry it to the window, but, halfway thither,

his eye told him that it would not pass through the opening, and he

set it down again and glided to the bed. Again he was thwarted; the

bed was screwed to the floor. Another might have despaired at that,

but he rose with no sign of dismay, and listening, always listening,

he spread his cloak on the floor, and deftly, with as little noise and

rustling as might be, he piled the straw in it, compressed the bundle,

and, cutting the bed-cords with his dagger, bound all together with

them. In three steps he was in the embrasure of the window, and, even

as the men in the passage thrust the lieutenant aside and with a

sudden uproar came down to the door, he flung the bundle lightly and

carefully to the right--so lightly and carefully, and with so nice and

deliberate a calculation, that it seemed odd it fell beyond the reach

of an ordinary leap.

An instant and he was on the floor again. The men had to unlock, to

draw back the bolts, to draw back the door which opened outwards;

their numbers, as well as their savage haste, impeded them. When they

burst in at last, with a roar of "To the river! To the river!"--burst

in a rush of struggling shoulders and lowered pikes, they found him

standing, a solitary figure, on the further side of the table, his

arms folded. And the sight of the passive figure for a moment stayed

them.

"Say your prayers, child of Satan!" cried the leader, waving his

weapon. "We give you one minute!"

"Ay, one minute!" his followers chimed in. "Be ready!"

"You would murder me?" he said with dignity. And when they shouted

assent, "Good!" he answered. "It is between you and M. de Biron, whose

guest I am. But"--with a glance which passed round the ring of glaring

eyes and working features--"I would leave a last word for some one. Is

there any one here who values a safe-conduct from the King? 'Tis for

two men coming and going for a fortnight." And he held up a slip of

paper.

The leader cried "To hell with his safe-conduct! Say your prayers!"

But all were not of his mind; on one or two of the crimson savage

faces--the faces, for the most part, of honest men maddened by their

wrongs--flashed an avaricious gleam. A safe-conduct? To avenge, to

slay, to kill--and to go safe! For some minds such a thing has an

invincible fascination. A man thrust himself forward. "Ay, I'll have

it!" he cried. "Give it here!"

"It is yours," Count Hannibal answered, "if you will carry ten words

to Marshal Tavannes--when I am gone."

The man's neighbour laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. "And

Marshal Tavannes will pay you finely," he said.

But Maudron, the man who had offered, shook off the hand. "If I take

the message!" he muttered in a grim aside. "Do you think me mad?" And

then aloud he cried, "Ay, I'll take your message! Give me the paper."

"You swear you will take it?"

The man had no intention of taking it, but he perjured himself and

went forward. The others would have pressed round too, half in envy,

half in scorn; but Tavannes by a gesture stayed them. "Gentlemen, I

ask a minute only," he said. "A minute for a dying man is not much.

Your friends had as much." And the fellows, acknowledging the claim

and assured that their victim could not escape, let Maudron go round

the table to him.

The man was in haste and ill at ease, conscious of his evil intentions

and the fraud he was practising; and at once greedy to have, yet

ashamed of the bargain he was making. His attention was divided

between the slip of paper, on which his eyes fixed themselves, and the

attitude of his comrades; he paid little heed to Count Hannibal, whom

he knew to be unarmed. Only when Tavannes seemed to ponder on his

message, and to be fain to delay, "Go on," he muttered with brutal

frankness; "your time is up!"

Tavannes started, the paper slipped from his fingers. Maudron saw a

chance of getting it without committing himself, and quick as the

thought leapt up in his mind he stooped, and grasped the paper, and

would have leapt back with it! But quick as he, and quicker, Tavannes

too stooped, gripped him by the waist, and with a prodigious effort,

and a yell in which all the man's stormy nature, restrained to a part

during the last few minutes, broke forth, he flung the ill-fated

wretch head first through the window.

The movement carried Tavannes himself--even while his victim's scream

rang through the chamber--into the embrasure. An instant he hung on

the verge; then, as the men, a moment thunderstruck, sprang forward to

avenge their comrade, he leapt out, jumping for the struggling body

that had struck the mud, and now lay in it face downwards.

He alighted on it, and drove it deep into the quaking slime; but he

himself bounded off right-handed. The peril was appalling, the

possibility untried, the chance one which only a doomed man would have

taken. But he reached the straw-bale, and it gave him a momentary, a

precarious footing. He could not regain his balance, he could not even

for an instant stand upright on it. But from its support he leapt on

convulsively, and as a pike, flung from above, wounded him in the

shoulder, he fell his length in the slough--but forward, with his

outstretched hands resting on soil of a harder nature. They sank, it

is true, to the elbow, but he dragged his body forward on them, and

forward, and freeing one by a last effort of strength--he could not

free both, and, as it was, half his face was submerged--he reached out

another yard, and gripped a balk of wood, which projected from the

corner of the building for the purpose of fending off the stream in

flood-time.

The men at the window shrieked with rage as he slowly drew himself

from the slough, and stood from head to foot a pillar of mud. Shout as

they might, they had no firearms, and, crowded together in the narrow

embrasure, they could take no aim with their pikes. They could only

look on in furious impotence, flinging curses at him until he passed

from their view, behind the angle of the building.

Here for a score of yards a strip of hard foreshore ran between mud

and wall. He struggled along it until he reached the end of the wall;

then with a shuddering glance at the black heaving pit from which he

had escaped, and which yet gurgled above the body of the hapless

Maudron--a tribute to horror which even his fierce nature could not

withhold--he turned and painfully climbed the river-bank. The

pike-wound in his shoulder was slight, but the effort had been

supreme; the sweat poured from his brow, his visage was grey and

drawn. Nevertheless, when he had put fifty paces between himself and

the buildings of the Arsenal he paused, and turned. He saw that the

men had run to other windows which looked that way; and his face

lightened and his form dilated with triumph.

He shook his fist at them. "Ho, fools!" he cried, "you kill not

Tavannes so! Till our next meeting at Montfaucon, fare you well!"

CHAPTER XV.

THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE.

As the exertion of power is for the most part pleasing, so the

exercise of that which a woman possesses over a man is especially

pleasant. When in addition a risk of no ordinary kind has been run,

and the happy issue has been barely expected--above all when the

momentary gain seems an augury of final victory--it is impossible that

a feeling akin to exultation should not arise in the mind, however

black the horizon, and however distant the fair haven.

The situation in which Count Hannibal left Mademoiselle de Vrillac

will be remembered. She had prevailed on him; but in return he had

bowed her to the earth, partly by subtle threats, and partly by sheer

savagery. He had left her weeping, with the words "Madame de Tavannes"

ringing doom in her ears, and the dark phantom of his will pointing

onward to an inevitable future. Had she abandoned hope, it would have

been natural.

But the girl was of a spirit not long nor easily cowed; and Tavannes

had not left her half an hour before the reflection, that so far the

honours of the day were hers, rose up to console her. In spite of his

power and her impotence, she had imposed her will upon his; she had

established an influence over him, she had discovered a scruple which

stayed him, and a limit beyond which he would not pass. In the result

she might escape; for the conditions which he had accepted with an ill

grace, might prove beyond his fulfilling. She might escape! True, many

in her place would have feared a worse fate and harsher handling. But

there lay half the merit of her victory. It had left her not only in a

better position, but with a new confidence in her power over her

adversary. He would insist on the bargain struck between them; within

its four corners she could look for no indulgence. But if the

conditions proved to be beyond his power, she believed that he would

spare her: with an ill grace, indeed, with such ferocity and coarse

reviling as her woman's pride might scarcely support. But he would

spare her.

And if the worst befell her? She would still have the consolation of

knowing that from the cataclysm which had overwhelmed her friends she

had ransomed those most dear to her. Owing to the position of her

chamber, she saw nothing of the excesses to which Paris gave itself up

during the remainder of that day, and to which it returned with

unabated zest on the following morning. But the Carlats and her women

learned from the guards below what was passing; and quaking and

cowering in their corners fixed frightened eyes on her, who was their

stay and hope. How could she prove false to them? How doom them to

perish, had there been no question of her lover?

Of him she sat thinking by the hour together. She recalled with solemn

tenderness the moment in which he had devoted himself to the death

which came but halfway to seize them; nor was she slow to forgive his

subsequent withdrawal, and his attempt to rescue her in spite of

herself. She found the impulse to die glorious; the withdrawal--for

the actor was her lover--a thing done for her, which he would not have

done for himself, and which she quickly forgave him. The revulsion of

feeling which had conquered her at the time, and led her to tear

herself from him, no longer moved her much; while all in his action

that might have seemed in other eyes less than heroic, all in his

conduct--in a crisis demanding the highest--that smacked of common or

mean, vanished, for she still clung to him. Clung to him, not so much

with the passion of the mature woman, as with the maiden and

sentimental affection of one who has now no hope of possessing, and

for whom love no longer spells life but sacrifice.

She had leisure for these musings, for she was left to herself all

that day, and until late on the following day. Her own servants waited

on her, and it was known that below stairs Count Hannibal's riders

kept sullen ward behind barred doors and shuttered windows, refusing

admission to all who came. Now and again echoes of the riot which

filled the streets with bloodshed reached her ears: or word of the

more striking occurrences was brought to her by Madame Carlat. And

early on this second day, Monday, it was whispered that M. de Tavannes

had not returned, and that the men below were growing uneasy.

At last, when the suspense below and above was growing tense, it was

broken. Footsteps and voices were heard ascending the stairs, the

trampling and hubbub were followed by a heavy knock; perforce the door

was opened. While Mademoiselle, who had risen, awaited with a beating

heart she knew not what, a cowled father, in the dress of the monks of

St. Magloire, stood on the threshold, and, crossing himself, muttered

the words of benediction. He entered slowly.

No sight could have been more dreadful to Mademoiselle; for it set at

naught the conditions which she had so hardly exacted. What if Count

Hannibal were behind, were even now mounting the stairs, prepared to

force her to a marriage before this shaveling? Or ready to proceed, if

she refused, to the last extremity? Sudden terror taking her by the

throat choked her; her colour fled, her hand flew to her breast. Yet,

before the door had closed on Bigot, she had recovered herself.

"This intrusion is not by M. de Tavannes' orders!" she cried, stepping

forward haughtily. "This person has no business here. How dare you

admit him?"

The Norman showed his bearded visage a moment at the door. "My lord's

orders," he muttered sullenly. And he closed the door on them.

She had a Huguenot's hatred of a cowl; and, in this crisis, her

reasons for fearing it. Her eyes blazed with indignation. "Enough!"

she cried, pointing with a gesture of dismissal to the door. "Go back

to him who sent you! If he will insult me, let him do it to my face!

If he will perjure himself, let him forswear himself in person. Or, if

you come on your own account," she continued, flinging prudence to the

winds, "as your brethren came to Philippa de Luns, to offer me the

choice you offered her, I give you her answer! If I had thought of

myself only, I had not lived so long! And rather than bear your

presence or hear your arguments----"

She came to a sudden, odd, quavering pause on the word; her lips

remained parted, she swayed an instant on her feet. The next moment

Madame Carlat, to whom the visitor had turned his shoulder, doubted

her eyes, for Mademoiselle was in the monk's arms!

"Clotilde! Clotilde!" he cried, and held her to him.

For the monk was M. de Tignonville! Under the cowl was the lover with

whom Mademoiselle's thoughts had been engaged. In this disguise, and

armed with Tavannes' note to Madame St. Lo--which the guards below

knew for Count Hannibal's hand, though they were unable to decipher

the contents--he had found no difficulty in making his way to her.

He had learned before he entered that Tavannes was abroad, and was

aware therefore that he ran little risk. His betrothed, on the other

hand, who knew nothing of his adventures in the interval, saw in him

one who came to her at the greatest risk, across unnumbered perils,

through streets swimming with blood. And though she had never embraced

him save in the crisis of the massacre, though she had never called

him by his Christian name, in the joy of this meeting she abandoned

herself to him, she clung to him weeping, she forgot for the time his

defection, and thought only of him who had returned to her so

gallantly, who brought into the room a breath of Poitou, and the sea,

and the old days, and the old life; and at the sight of whom the

horrors of the last two days fell from her--for the moment.

And Madame Carlat wept also, and in the room was a sound of weeping.

The least moved was, for a certainty, M. de Tignonville himself, who,

as we know, had gone through much that day. But even his heart

swelled, partly with pride, partly with thankfulness that he had

returned to one who loved him so well. Fate had been kinder to him

than he deserved; but he need not confess that now. When he had

brought off the _coup_ which he had in his mind, he would hasten to

forget that he had entertained other ideas.

Mademoiselle had been the first to be carried away; she was also the

first to recover herself. "I had forgotten," she cried suddenly. "I

had forgotten," and she wrested herself from his embrace with

violence, and stood panting, her face white, her eyes affrighted. "I

must not! And you--I had forgotten that too! To be here, monsieur, is

the worst office you can do me. You must go! Go, monsieur, in mercy I

beg of you, while it is possible. Every moment you are here, every

moment you spend in this house, I shudder."

"You need not fear for me," he said, in a tone of bravado. He did not

understand.

"I fear for myself!" she answered. And then, wringing her hands,

divided between her love for him and her fear for herself, "Oh,

forgive me!" she said. "You do not know that he has promised to spare

me, if he cannot produce you, and--and--a minister! He has granted me

that; but I thought when you entered that he had gone back on his

word, and sent a priest, and it maddened me! I could not bear to think

that I had gained nothing. Now you understand, and you will pardon me,

monsieur? If he cannot produce you I am saved. Go then, leave me, I

beg, without a moment's delay."

He laughed derisively as he turned back his cowl and squared his

shoulders. "All that is over!" he said, "over and done with, sweet! M.

de Tavannes is at this moment a prisoner in the Arsenal. On my way

hither I fell in with M. de Biron, and he told me. The Grand Master,

who would have had me join his company, had been all night at Marshal

Tavannes' hotel, where he had been detained longer than he expected.

He stood pledged to release Count Hannibal on his return, but at my

request he consented to hold him one hour, and to do also a little

thing for me."

The glow of hope which had transfigured her face faded slowly. "It

will not help," she said, "if he find you here."

"He will not! Nor you!"

"How, monsieur?"

"In a few minutes," he explained--he could not hide his exultation, "a

message will come from the Arsenal in the name of Tavannes, bidding

the monk he sent to you bring you to him. A spoken message,

corroborated by my presence, should suffice: '_Bid the monk who is now

with Mademoiselle_,' it will run, '_bring her to me at the Arsenal,

and let four pikes guard them hither_.' When I begged M. de Biron to

do this, he laughed. 'I can do better,' he said. 'They shall bring one

of Count Hannibal's gloves, which he left on my table. Always

supposing my rascals have done him no harm, which God forbid, for I am

answerable.'"

Tignonville, delighted with the stratagem which the meeting with Biron

had suggested, could see no flaw in it. She could, and though she

heard him to the end, no second glow of hope softened the lines of her

features. With a gesture full of dignity, which took in not only

Madame Carlat and the waiting-woman who stood at the door but the

absent servants, "And what of these?" she said. "What of these? You

forgot them, monsieur. You do not think, you cannot have thought, that

I would abandon them? That I would leave them to such mercy as he,

defeated, might extend to them? No, you forgot them."

He did not know what to answer, for the jealous eyes of the frightened

waiting-woman, fierce with the fierceness of a hunted animal, were on

him. The Carlat and she had heard, could hear. At last, "Better one

than none!" he muttered, in a voice so low that if the servants caught

his meaning it was but indistinctly. "I have to think of you."

"And I of them," she answered firmly. "Nor is that all. Were they not

here, it could not be. My word is passed--though a moment ago,

monsieur, in the joy of seeing you I forgot it. And how," she

continued, "if I keep not my word, can I expect him to keep his? Or

how, if I am ready to break the bond, on this happening which I never

expected, can I hold him to conditions which he loves as little--as

little as I love him?"

Her voice dropped piteously on the last words; her eyes, craving her

lover's pardon, sought his. But rage, not pity or admiration, was the

feeling roused in Tignonville's breast. He stood staring at her,

struck dumb by folly so immense. At last, "You cannot mean this," he

blurted out. "You cannot mean, Mademoiselle, that you intend to stand

on that! To keep a promise wrung from you by force, by treachery, in

the midst of such horrors as he and his have brought upon us! It is

inconceivable!"

She shook her head. "I promised," she said.

"You were forced to it."

"But the promise saved our lives."

"From murderers! From assassins!" he protested.

She shook her head. "I cannot go back," she said firmly; "I cannot."

"Then you are willing to marry him," he cried in ignoble anger. "That

is it! Nay, you must wish to marry him! For, as for his conditions,

Mademoiselle," the young man continued, with an insulting laugh, "you

cannot think seriously of them. _He_ keep conditions and you in his

power! He, Count Hannibal! But for the matter of that, and were he in

the mind to keep them, what are they? There are plenty of ministers. I

left one only this morning. I could lay my hand on one in five

minutes. He has only to find one therefore--and to find me!"

"Yes, monsieur," she cried, trembling with wounded pride, "it is for

that reason I implore you to go. The sooner you leave me, the sooner

you place yourself in a position of security, the happier for me!

Every moment that you spend here, you endanger both yourself and me!"

"If you will not be persuaded----"

"I shall not be persuaded," she answered firmly, "and you do

but"--alas! her pride began to break down, her voice to quiver, she

looked piteously at him--"by staying here make it harder for me

to--to----"

"Hush!" cried Madame Carlat, "Hush!" And as they started and turned

towards her--she was at the end of the chamber by the door, almost out

of earshot--she raised a warning hand. "Listen!" she muttered, "some

one has entered the house."

"'Tis my messenger from Biron," Tignonville answered sullenly. And he

drew his cowl over his face, and, hiding his hands in his sleeves,

moved towards the door. But on the threshold he turned and held out

his arms. He could not go thus. "Mademoiselle! Clotilde!" he cried

with passion, "for the last time, listen to me, come with me. Be

persuaded!"

"Hush!" Madame Carlat interposed again, and turned a scared face on

them. "It is no messenger! It is Tavannes himself: I know his voice."

And she wrung her hands. "_Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu_, what are we to

do?" she continued, panic-stricken. And she looked all ways about the

room.

CHAPTER XVI.

AT CLOSE QUARTERS.

Fear leapt into Mademoiselle's eyes, but she commanded herself. She

signed to Madame Carlat to be silent, and they listened, gazing at one

another, hoping against hope that the woman was mistaken. A long

moment they waited, and some were beginning to breathe again, when the

strident tones of Count Hannibal's voice rolled up the staircase, and

put an end to doubt. Mademoiselle grasped the table and stood

supporting herself by it. "What are we to do?" she muttered. "What are

we to do?" and she turned distractedly towards the women. The courage

which had supported her in her lover's absence had abandoned her now.

"If he finds him here I am lost! I am lost!"

"He will not know me," Tignonville muttered. But he spoke uncertainly;

and his gaze, shifting hither and thither, belied the boldness of his

words.

Madame Carlat's eyes flew round the room; on her for once the burden

seemed to rest. Alas! the room had no second door, and the windows

looked on a courtyard guarded by Tavannes' people. And even now Count

Hannibal's step rang on the stair! his hand was almost on the latch.

The woman wrung her hands; then, a thought striking her, she darted to

a corner where Mademoiselle's robes hung on pegs against the wall.

"Here!" she cried, raising them. "Behind these! He may not be seen

here! Quick, monsieur, quick! Hide yourself!"

It was a forlorn hope--the suggestion of one who had not thought out

the position; and, whatever its promise, Mademoiselle's pride revolted

against it.

"No," she cried. "Not there!" while Tignonville, who knew that the

step was useless, since Count Hannibal must have learned that a monk

had entered, held his ground.

"You could not deny yourself!" he muttered hurriedly.

"And a priest with me?" she answered; and she shook her head.

There was no time for more, and even as Mademoiselle spoke Count

Hannibal's knuckles tapped the door. She cast a last look at her

lover. He had turned his back on the window; the light no longer fell

on his face. It was possible that he might pass unrecognised, if

Tavannes' stay was brief; at any rate the risk must be run. In a

half-stifled voice she bade her woman, Javette, open the door.

Count Hannibal bowed low as he entered; and he deceived the others.

But he did not deceive her. He had not crossed the threshold before

she repented that she had not acted on Tignonville's suggestion, and

denied herself. For what could escape those hard keen eyes, which

swept the room, saw all, and seemed to see nothing--those eyes in

which there dwelt even now a glint of cruel humour? He might deceive

others, but she who panted within his grasp, as the wild bird

palpitates in the hand of the fowler, was not deceived! He saw, he

knew! although, as he bowed, and smiling, stood upright, he looked

only at her.

"I expected to be with you before this," he said courteously, "but I

have been detained. First, Mademoiselle, by some of your friends, who

were reluctant to part with me; then by some of your enemies, who,

finding me in no handsome case, took me for a Huguenot escaped from

the river, and drove me to shifts to get clear of them. However, now I

am come, I have news."

"News?" she muttered with dry lips. It could hardly be good news.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, of M. de Tignonville," he answered. "I have little

doubt that I shall be able to produce him this evening, and so to

satisfy one of your scruples. And as I trust that this good father,"

he went on, turning to the ecclesiastic, and speaking with the sneer

from which he seldom refrained, Catholic as he was, when he mentioned

a priest, "has by this time succeeded in removing the other, and

persuading you to accept his ministrations----"

"No!" she cried impulsively.

"No?" with a dubious smile, and a glance from one to the other. "Oh, I

had hoped better things. But he still may? He still may. I am sure he

may. In which case, Mademoiselle, your modesty must pardon me if I

plead urgency, and fix the hour after supper this evening for the

fulfilment of your promise."

She turned white to the lips. "After supper?" she gasped.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, this evening. Shall I say--at eight o'clock?"

In horror of the thing which menaced her, of the thing from which only

two hours separated her, she could find no words but those which she

had already used. The worst was upon her; worse than the worst could

not befall her. "But he has not persuaded me!" she cried, clenching

her hands in passion. "He has not persuaded me!"

"Still he may, Mademoiselle."

"He will not!" she cried wildly. "He will not!"

The room was going round with her. The precipice yawned at her feet;

its naked terrors turned her brain. She had been pushed nearer, and

nearer, and nearer; struggle as she might she was on the verge. A mist

rose before her eyes, and though they thought she listened she

understood nothing of what was passing. When she came to herself after

the lapse of a minute, Count Hannibal was speaking.

"Permit him another trial," he was saying in a tone of bland irony. "A

short time longer, Mademoiselle! One more assault, father! The weapons

of the Church could not be better directed or to a more worthy object;

and, successful, shall not fail of due recognition and an earthly

reward."

And while she listened, half fainting, with a humming in her ears, he

was gone. The door closed on him, and the three--Mademoiselle's woman

had withdrawn when she opened to him--looked at one another. The girl

parted her lips to speak, but she only smiled piteously; and it was M.

de Tignonville who broke the silence, in a tone which betrayed rather

relief than any other feeling.

"Come, all is not lost yet," he said briskly. "If I can escape from

the house----"

"He knows you," she answered.

"What?"

"He knows you," Mademoiselle repeated in a tone almost apathetic. "I

read it in his eyes. He knew you at once: and knew, too," she added

bitterly, "that he had here under his hand one of the two things he

required."

"Then why did he hide his knowledge?" the young man retorted sharply.

"Why?" she answered. "To induce me to waive the other condition in the

hope of saving you. Oh!" she continued in a tone of bitter raillery,

"he has the cunning of hell, of the priests! You are no match for him,

monsieur. Nor I; nor any of us. And"--with a gesture of despair--"he

will be my master! He will break me to his will and to his hand! I

shall be his! His, body and soul, body and soul!" she continued

drearily, as she sank into a chair and, rocking herself to and fro,

covered her face. "I shall be his! His till I die!"

The man's eyes burned, and the pulse in his temples beat wildly. "But

you shall not," he exclaimed. "I may be no match for him in cunning,

you say well. But I can kill him. And I will!" He paced up and down.

"I will!"

"You should have done it when he was here," she answered, half in

scorn, half in earnest.

"It is not too late," he cried; and then he stopped, silenced by the

opening door. It was Javette who entered.

They looked at her, and before she spoke were on their feet. Her face,

white and eager, marking something besides fear, announced that she

brought news. She closed the door behind her, and in a moment it was

told.

"Monsieur can escape, if he is quick," she cried in a low tone; and

they saw that she trembled with excitement. "They are at supper. But

he must be quick! He must be quick!"

"Is not the door guarded!"

"It is, but----"

"And he knows! Your mistress says that he knows that I am here."

For a moment Javette looked startled. "It is possible," she muttered.

"But he has gone out."

Madame Carlat clapped her hands. "I heard the door close," she said,

"three minutes ago."

"And if monsieur can reach the room in which he supped last night, the

window that was broken is only blocked"--she swallowed once or twice

in her excitement--"with something he can move. And then monsieur is

in the street, where his cowl will protect him."

"But Count Hannibal's men?" he asked eagerly.

"They are eating in the lodge by the door."

"Ha! And they cannot see the other room from there?"

Javette nodded. Her tale told, she seemed to be unable to add a word.

Mademoiselle, who knew her for a craven, wondered that she had found

courage either to note what she had or to bring the news. But as

Providence had been so good to them as to put it into this woman's

head to act as she had, it behoved them to use the opportunity--the

last, the very last opportunity they might have.

She turned to Tignonville. "Oh, go!" she cried feverishly. "Go, I beg!

Go now, monsieur! The greatest kindness you can do me is to place

yourself as quickly as possible beyond his reach." A faint colour, the

flush of hope, had returned to her cheeks. Her eyes glittered.

"Right, Mademoiselle!" he cried, obedient for once. "I go! And do you

be of good courage." He held her hand an instant, then, moving to the

door, he opened it and listened. They all pressed behind him to hear.

A murmur of voices, low and distant, mounted the staircase and bore

out the girl's tale; apart from this the house was silent. Tignonville

cast a last look at Mademoiselle, and, with a gesture of farewell,

glided a-tiptoe to the stairs and began to descend, his face hidden in

his cowl. They watched him reach the angle of the staircase, they

watched him vanish beyond it; and still they listened, looking at one

another when a board creaked or the voices below were hushed for a

moment.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DUEL.

At the foot of the staircase Tignonville paused. The droning Norman

voices of the men on guard issued from an open door a few paces before

him on the left. He caught a jest, the coarse chuckling laughter which

attended it, and the gurgle of applause which followed; and he knew

that at any moment one of the men might step out and discover him.

Fortunately the door of the room with the shattered window was almost

within reach of his hand on the right side of the passage, and he

stepped softly to it. He stood an instant hesitating, his hand on the

latch; then, alarmed by a movement in the guard-room, as if some were

rising, he pushed the door in a panic, slid into the room, and shut

the door behind him. He was safe, and he had made no noise; but at the

table, at supper, with his back to him and his face to the partly

closed window, sat Count Hannibal!

The young man's heart stood still. For a long minute he gazed at the

Count's back, spellbound and unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on

without looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly he had

entered so quietly that he had not been heard, or possibly his

entrance was taken for that of a servant. In either case, there was a

chance that he might retire after the same fashion; and he had

actually raised the latch, and was drawing the door to him with

infinite precaution, when Tavannes' voice struck him, as it were, in

the face.

"Pray do not admit the draught, M. de Tignonville," he said, without

looking round. "In your cowl you do not feel it, but it is otherwise

with me."

The unfortunate Tignonville stood transfixed, glaring at the back of

the other's head. For an instant he could not find his voice. At last

"Curse you!" he hissed in a transport of rage. "Curse you! You did

know, then? And she was right."

"If you mean that I expected you, to be sure, monsieur," Count

Hannibal answered. "See, your place is laid. You will not feel the air

from without there. The very becoming dress which you have adopted

secures you from cold. But--do you not find it somewhat oppressive

this summer weather?"

"Curse you!" the young man cried, trembling.

Tavannes turned and looked at him with a dark smile. "The curse may

fall," he said, "but I fancy it will not be in consequence of your

petitions, monsieur. And now, were it not better you played the man?"

"If I were armed," the other cried passionately, "you would not insult

me!"

"Sit down, sir, sit down," Count Hannibal answered sternly. "We will

talk of that presently. In the meantime I have something to say to

you. Will you not eat?"

But Tignonville would not.

"Very well," Count Hannibal answered; and he went on with his supper,

"I am indifferent whether you eat or not. It is enough for me that you

are one of the two things I lacked an hour ago; and that I have you,

M. de Tignonville. And through you I look to obtain the other."

"What other?" Tignonville cried.

"A minister," Tavannes answered, smiling. "A minister. There are not

many left in Paris--of your faith. But you met one this morning, I

know!"

"I? I met one?"

"Yes, monsieur, you! And can lay your hand on him in five minutes, you

know."

M. de Tignonville gasped. His face turned a shade paler. "You have a

spy," he cried. "You have a spy upstairs!"

Tavannes raised his cup to his lips, and drank. When he had set it

down, "It may be," he said, and he shrugged his shoulders. "I know, it

boots not how I know. It is my business to make the most of my

knowledge--and of yours!"

M. de Tignonville laughed rudely. "Make the most of your own," he

said; "you will have none of mine."

"That remains to be seen," Count Hannibal answered. "Carry your mind

back two days, M. de Tignonville. Had I gone to Mademoiselle de

Vrillac last Saturday and said to her 'Marry me, or promise to marry

me,' what answer would she have given?"

"She would have called you an insolent!" the young man replied hotly.

"And I----"

"No matter what you would have done!" Tavannes said. "Suffice it that

she would have answered as you suggest. Yet to-day she has given me

her promise."

"Yes," the young man retorted, "in circumstances in which no man of

honour----"

"Let us say in peculiar circumstances."

"Well?"

"Which still exist! Mark me, M. de Tignonville," Count Hannibal

continued, leaning forward and eyeing the young man with meaning,

"_which still exist!_ And may have the same effect on another's will

as on hers! Listen! Do you hear?" And rising from his seat with a

darkening face, he pointed to the partly shuttered window, through

which the measured tramp of a body of men came heavily to the ear. "Do

you hear, monsieur? Do you understand? As it was yesterday it is

to-day! They killed the President La Place this morning! And they are

searching! They are still searching! The river is not yet full, nor

the gibbet glutted! I have but to open that window and denounce you,

and your life would hang by no stronger thread than the life of a mad

dog which they chase through the streets!"

The younger man had risen also. He stood confronting Tavannes, the

cowl fallen back from his face, his eyes dilated. "You think to

frighten me!" he cried. "You think that I am craven enough to

sacrifice her to save myself. You----"

"You were craven enough to draw back yesterday, when you stood at this

window and waited for death!" Count Hannibal answered brutally. "You

flinched then, and may flinch again!"

"Try me!" Tignonville retorted, trembling with passion. "Try me!" And

then, as the other stared at him and made no movement, "But you dare

not!" he cried. "You dare not!"

"No?"

"No! For if I die you lose her!" Tignonville replied in a voice of

triumph. "Ha, ha! I touch you there!" he continued. "You dare not, for

my safety is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to

myself! You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you may bluster, and shout

and point to the window"--and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry,

the other's gesture--"but my safety is more to you than to me! And

'twill end there!"

"You believe that?"

"I know it!"

In two strides Count Hannibal was at the window. He seized a great

piece of the boarding which closed one half of the opening; he

wrenched it away. A flood of evening light burst in through the

aperture, and fell on and heightened the flushed passion of his

features, as he turned again to his opponent. "Then if you know it,"

he cried vehemently, "in God's name act upon it!" And he pointed to

the window.

"Act upon it?"

"Ay, act upon it!" Tavannes repeated, with a glance of flame. "The

road is open! If you would save your mistress, behold the way! If you

would save her from the embrace she abhors, from the eyes under which

she trembles, from the hand of a master, there lies the way! And it is

not her glove only you will save, but herself, her soul, her body!

So," he continued with a certain wildness and in a tone wherein

contempt and bitterness were mingled, "to the lions, brave lover! Will

you your life for her honour? Will you death that she may live a maid?

Will you your head to save her finger? Then, leap down! leap down! The

lists are open, the sand is strewed! Out of your own mouth I have it

that if you perish she is saved! Then out, monsieur! Cry 'I am a

Huguenot!' And God's will be done!"

Tignonville was livid. "Rather, your will!" he panted. "Your will, you

devil! Nevertheless----"

"You will go! Ha! ha! You will go!"

For an instant it seemed that he would go. Stung by the challenge,

wrought on by the contempt in which Tavannes held him, he shot a look

of hate at the tempter; he caught his breath, and laid his hand on the

edge of the shuttering as if he would leap out.

But it goes hard with him who has once turned back from the foe. The

evening light, glancing cold on the burnished pike-points of a group

of archers who stood near, caught his eye and went chill to his heart.

Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of shouting thousands, but

in this darkening street, with an enemy laughing from the window,

death with no revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she

would be safe, such a death could be compassed only by pure love--the

love of a child for a parent, of a parent for a child, of a man for

the one woman in the world!

He recoiled. "You would not spare her!" he cried, his face damp with

sweat--for he knew now that he would not go. "You want to be rid of

me! You would fool me, and then----"

"Out of your own mouth you are convict!" Count Hannibal retorted

gravely. "It was you who said it! But still I swear it! Shall I swear

it to you?"

But Tignonville recoiled another step and was silent.

"No? O _preux chevalier_, O gallant knight! I knew it! Do you think

that I did not know with whom I had to deal?" And Count Hannibal burst

into harsh laughter, turning his back on the other, as if he no longer

counted. "You will neither die with her nor for her! You were better

in her petticoats and she in your breeches! Or no, you are best as you

are, good father! Take my advice, M. de Tignonville, have done with

arms; and with a string of beads, and soft words, and talk of Holy

Mother Church, you will fool the women as surely as the best of them!

They are not all like my cousin, a flouting, gibing, jeering

woman--you had poor fortune there, I fear?"

"If I had a sword!" Tignonville hissed, his face livid with rage. "You

call me coward, because I will not die to please you. But give me a

sword, and I will show you if I am a coward!"

Tavannes stood still. "You are there, are you?" he said in an altered

tone. "I----"

"Give me a sword," Tignonville repeated, holding out his open

trembling hands. "A sword! A sword! 'Tis easy taunting an unarmed man,

but----"

"You wish to fight?"

"I ask no more! No more! Give me a sword," he urged, his voice

quivering with eagerness. "It is you who are the coward!"

Count Hannibal stared at him. "And what am I to get by fighting you?"

he reasoned slowly. "You are in my power. I can do with you as I

please. I can call from this window and denounce you, or I can summon

my men----"

"Coward! Coward!"

"Ay? Well, I will tell you what I will do," with a subtle smile. "I

will give you a sword, M. de Tignonville, and I will meet you foot to

foot here, in this room, on a condition."

"What is it? What is it?" the young man cried with incredible

eagerness. "Name your condition!"

"That if I get the better of you, you find me a minister."

"I find you a----"

"A minister. Yes, that is it. Or tell me where I can find one."

The young man recoiled. "Never!" he said.

"You know where to find one."

"Never! Never!"

"You can lay your hand on one in five minutes, you know."

"I will not."

"Then I shall not fight you!" Count Hannibal answered coolly; and he

turned from him, and back again. "You will pardon me if I say, M. de

Tignonville, that you are in as many minds about fighting as about

dying! I do not think that you would have made your fortune at Court.

Moreover, there is a thing which I fancy you have not considered. If

we fight you may kill me, in which case the condition will not help me

much. Or I--which is more likely--" he added with a harsh smile, "may

kill you, and again I am no better placed."

The young man's, pallid features betrayed the conflict in his breast.

To do him justice, his hand itched for the sword-hilt--he was brave

enough for that; he hated, and only so could he avenge himself. But

the penalty if he had the worse! And yet what of it? He was in hell

now, in a hell of humiliation, shame, defeat, tormented by this fiend!

'Twas only to risk a lower hell.

At last, "I will do it!" he cried hoarsely. "Give me a sword and look

to yourself."

"You promise?"

"Yes, yes, I promise!"

"Good," Count Hannibal answered suavely; "but we cannot fight so, we

must have more light," and striding to the door he opened it, and

calling the Norman bade him move the table and bring caudles--a dozen

candles; for in the narrow streets the light was waning, and in the

half-shuttered room it was growing dusk. Tignonville, listening with a

throbbing brain, wondered that the attendant expressed no surprise and

said no word--until Tavannes added to his orders one for a pair of

swords.

Then, "Monsieur's sword is here," Bigot answered in his

half-intelligible patois. "He left it here yester morning."

"You are a good fellow, Bigot," Tavannes answered, with a gaiety and

good-humour which astonished Tignonville. "And one of these days you

shall marry Suzanne."

The Norman smiled sourly and went in search of the weapon.

"You have a poniard?" Count Hannibal continued in the same tone of

unusual good temper, which had already struck Tignonville. "Excellent!

Will you strip, then, or--as we are? Very good, monsieur; in the

unlikely event of fortune declaring for you, you will be in a better

condition to take care of yourself. A man running through the streets

in his shirt is exposed to inconveniences!" And he laughed gaily.

While he laughed the other listened; and his rage began to give place

to wonder. A man who regarded as a pastime a sword and dagger conflict

between four walls, who, having his adversary in his power, was ready

to discard the advantage, to descend into the lists, and to risk life

for a whim, a fancy--such a man was outside his experience, though in

Poitou in those days of war were men reckoned brave. For what, he

asked himself as he waited, had Tavannes to gain by fighting? The

possession of Mademoiselle? But Mademoiselle, if his passion for

her overwhelmed him, was in his power; and if his promise were

a barrier--which seemed inconceivable in the light of his

reputation--he had only to wait, and to-morrow, or the next day, or

the next, a minister would be found, and without risk he could gain

that for which he was now risking all.

Tignonville did not know that it was in the other's nature to find

pleasure in such utmost ventures. Nevertheless the recklessness to

which Tavannes' action bore witness had its effect upon him. By the

time the young man's sword arrived something of his passion for the

conflict had evaporated; and though the touch of the hilt restored his

determination, the locked door, the confined space, and the

unaccustomed light went a certain distance towards substituting

despair for courage.

The use of the dagger in the duels of that day, however, rendered

despair itself formidable. And Tignonville, when he took his place,

appeared anything but a mean antagonist. He had removed his robe and

cowl, and lithe and active as a cat he stood as it were on springs,

throwing his weight now on this foot and now on that, and was

continually in motion. The table bearing the candles had been pushed

against the window, the boarding of which had been replaced by Bigot

before he left the room. Tignonville had this, and consequently the

lights, on his dagger hand; and he plumed himself on the advantage,

considering his point the more difficult to follow.

Count Hannibal did not seem to notice this, however. "Are you ready?"

he asked. And then,

"On guard!" he cried, and he stamped the echo to the word. But, that

done, instead of bearing the other down with a headlong rush

characteristic of the man--as Tignonville feared--he held off warily,

stooping low; and when his slow opening was met by one as cautious, he

began to taunt his antagonist.

"Come!" he cried, and feinted half-heartedly. "Come, monsieur, are we

going to fight, or play at fighting?"

"Fight yourself, then!" Tignonville answered, his breath quickened by

excitement and growing hope. "'Tis not I hold back!" And he lunged,

but was put aside.

"Ca! ca!" Tavannes retorted; and he lunged and parried in his turn,

but loosely and at a distance. After which the two moved nearer the

door, their eyes glittering as they watched one another, their knees

bent, the sinews of their backs straining for the leap. Suddenly

Tavannes thrust, and leapt away, and as his antagonist thrust in

return the Count swept the blade aside with a strong parry, and for a

moment seemed to be on the point of falling on Tignonville with the

poniard. But Tignonville retired his right foot nimbly, which brought

them front to front again. And the younger man laughed.

"Try again, M. le Comte!" he said. And, with the word, he dashed in

himself quick as light; for a second the blades ground on one another,

the daggers hovered, the two suffused faces glared into one another;

then the pair disengaged again. The blood trickled from a scratch on

Count Hannibal's neck; half an inch to the right and the point had

found his throat. And Tignonville, elated, laughed anew, and swaying

from side to side on his hips, watched with growing confidence for a

second chance. Lithe as one of the leopards Charles kept at the

Louvre, he stooped lower and lower, and more and more with each moment

took the attitude of the assailant, watching for an opening; while

Count Hannibal, his face dark and his eyes vigilant, stood

increasingly on the defence. The light was waning a little, the wicks

of the caudles were burning long; but neither noticed it or dared to

remove his eyes from the other's. Their laboured breathing found an

echo on the farther side of the door, but this again neither observed.

"Well?" Count Hannibal said at last. "Are you coming?"

"When I please," Tignonville answered; and he feinted but drew back.

The other did the same, and again they watched one another, their

eyes seeming to grow smaller and smaller. Gradually a smile had

birth on Tignonville's lips. He thrust! It was parried! He thrust

again--parried! Tavannes, grown still more cautious, gave a yard.

Tignonville pushed on, but did not allow confidence to master caution.

He began, indeed, to taunt his adversary; to flout and jeer him. But

it was with a motive.

For suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he repeated the peculiar

thrust which had been successful before. This time, however, Tavannes

was ready. He put aside the blade with a quick parade, and instead of

making a riposte sprang within the other's guard. The two came face to

face and breast to shoulder, and struck furiously with their daggers.

Count Hannibal was outside his opponent's sword and had the advantage.

Tignonville's dagger fell, but glanced off the metalwork of the

other's hilt; Tavannes' fell swift and hard between the young man's

eyes. The Huguenot flung up his hands and staggered back, falling his

length on the floor.

In an instant Count Hannibal was on his breast, and had knocked away

his dagger. Then, "You own yourself vanquished?" he cried.

The young man, blinded by the blood which trickled down his face, made

a sign with his hands. Count Hannibal rose to his feet again, and

stood a moment looking at his foe without speaking. Presently he

seemed to be satisfied. He nodded, and going to the table dipped a

napkin in water. He brought it, and carefully supporting Tignonville's

head, laved his brow. "It is as I thought," he said, when he had

stanched the blood. "You are not hurt, man. You are stunned. It is no

more than a bruise."

The young man was coming to himself. "But I thought----" he muttered,

and broke off to pass his hand over his face. Then he got up slowly,

reeling a little, "I thought it was the point," he muttered.

"No, it was the pommel," Tavannes answered drily. "It would not have

served me to kill you. I could have done that ten times."

Tignonville groaned, and, sitting down at the table, held the napkin

to his aching head. One of the candles had been overturned in the

struggle and lay on the floor, flaring in a little pool of grease.

Tavannes set his heel upon it; then, striding to the farther end of

the room, he picked up Tignonville's dagger and placed it beside his

sword on the table. He looked about to see if aught else remained to

do, and, finding nothing, he returned to Tignonville's side.

"Now, monsieur," he said in a voice hard and constrained, "I must ask

you to perform your part of the bargain."

A groan of anguish broke from the unhappy man. And yet he had set his

life on the cast; what more could he have done? "You will not harm

him?" he muttered.

"He shall go safe," Count Hannibal replied gravely.

"And----" he fought a moment with his pride, then blurted out the

words, "you will not tell her--that it was through me--you found him?"

"I will not," Tavannes answered in the same tone. He stooped and

picked up the other's robe and cowl, which had fallen from a chair--so

that as he spoke his eyes were averted. "She shall never know through

me," he said.

And Tignonville, his face hidden in his hands, told him.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT.

Little by little--while they fought below--the gloom had thickened,

and night had fallen in the room above. But Mademoiselle would not

have candles brought. Seated in the darkness, on the uppermost step of

the stairs, her hands clasped about her knees, she listened and

listened, as if by that action she could avert misfortune; or as if,

by going so far forward to meet it, she could turn aside the worst.

The women shivering in the darkness about her would fain have struck a

light and drawn her back into the room, for they felt safer there. But

she was not to be moved. The laughter and chatter of the men in the

guard-room, the coming and going of Bigot as he passed, below but out

of sight, had no terrors for her; nay, she breathed more freely on the

bare open landing of the staircase than in the close confines of a

room which her fears made hateful to her. Here at least she could

listen, her face unseen; and listening she bore the suspense more

easily.

A turn in the staircase, with the noise which proceeded from the

guard-room, rendered it difficult to hear what happened in the closed

room below. But she thought that if an alarm were raised there she

must hear it; and as the moments passed and nothing happened, she

began to feel confident that her lover had made good his escape by the

window.

Presently she got a fright. Three or four men came from the guard-room

and went, as it seemed to her, to the door of the room with the

shattered casement. She told herself that she had rejoiced too soon,

and her heart stood still. She waited for a rush of feet, a cry, a

struggle. But except an uncertain muffled sound which lasted for some

minutes, and was followed by a dull shock, she heard nothing more. And

presently the men went back whispering, the noise in the guard-room

which had been partially hushed broke forth anew, and perplexed but

relieved she breathed again. Surely he had escaped by this time.

Surely by this time he was far away, in the Arsenal, or in some place

of refuge! And she might take courage, and feel that for this day the

peril was overpast.

"Mademoiselle will have the lights now?" one of the women ventured.

"No! no!" she answered feverishly, and she continued to crouch where

she was on the stairs, bathing herself and her burning face in the

darkness and coolness of the stairway. The air entered freely through

a window at her elbow and the place was fresher, were that all, than

the room she had left. Javette began to whimper, but she paid no heed

to her; a man came and went along the passage below, and she heard the

outer door unbarred, and the jarring tread of three or four men who

passed through it. But all without disturbance; and afterwards the

house was quiet again. And as on this Monday evening the prime

virulence of the massacre had begun to abate--though it held after a

fashion to the end of the week--Paris without was quiet also. The

sounds which had chilled her heart at intervals during two days were

no longer heard. A feeling almost of peace, almost of comfort--a

drowsy feeling, that was three parts a reaction from excitement--took

possession of her. In the darkness her head sank lower and lower on

her knees. And half an hour passed, while Javette whimpered, and

Madame Carlat slumbered, her broad back propped against the wall.

Suddenly Mademoiselle opened her eyes, and saw, three steps below her,

a strange man whose upward way she barred. Behind him came Carlat, and

behind him Bigot, lighting both; and in the confusion of her thoughts

as she rose to her feet the three, all staring at her in a common

amazement, seemed a company. The air entering through the open window

beside her blew the flame of the candle this way and that, and added

to the nightmare character of the scene; for by the shifting light the

men seemed to laugh one moment and scowl the next, and their shadows

were now high and now low on the wall. In truth they were as much

amazed at coming on her in that place as she at their appearance; but

they were awake, and she newly roused from sleep; and the advantage

was with them.

"What is it?" she cried in a panic. "What is it?"

"If Mademoiselle will return to her room?" one of the men said

courteously.

"But--what is it?" She was frightened.

"If Mademoiselle----"

Then she turned without more and went back into the room, and the

three followed, and her woman and Madame Carlat. She stood resting one

hand on the table while Javette with shaking fingers lighted the

candles. Then, "Now, monsieur," she said in a hard voice, "if you will

tell me your business?"

"You do not know me?" The stranger's eyes dwelt kindly and pitifully

on her.

She looked at him steadily, crushing down the fears which knocked at

her heart. "No," she said. "And yet I think I have seen you."

"You saw me a week last Sunday," the stranger answered sorrowfully.

"My name is La Tribe. I preached that day, Mademoiselle, before the

King of Navarre. I believe that you were there."

For a moment she stared at him in silence, her lips parted. Then she

laughed, a laugh which set the teeth on edge. "Oh, he is clever!" she

cried. "He has the wit of the priests! Or the devil! But you come too

late, monsieur! You come too late! The bird has flown."

"Mademoiselle----"

"I tell you the bird has flown!" she repeated vehemently. And her

laugh of joyless triumph rang through the room. "He is clever, but I

have outwitted him! I have----"

She paused and stared about her wildly, struck by the silence; struck,

too, by something solemn, something pitiful in the faces that were

turned on her. And her lip began to quiver. "What?" she muttered. "Why

do you look at me so? He has not"--she turned from one to another--"he

has not been taken?"

"M. Tignonville?"

She nodded.

"He is below."

"Ah!" she said.

They expected to see her break down, perhaps to see her fall. But she

only groped blindly for a chair and sat. And for a moment there was

silence in the room. It was the Huguenot minister who broke it in a

tone formal and solemn.

"Listen, all present!" he said slowly. "The ways of God are past

finding out. For two days in the midst of great perils I have been

preserved by His hand and fed by His bounty, and I am told that I

shall live if, in this matter, I do the will of those who hold me in

their power. But be assured--and hearken all," he continued, lowering

his voice to a sterner note. "Rather than marry this woman to this man

against her will--if indeed in His sight such marriage can be--rather

than save my life by such base compliance, I will die not once but ten

times! See. I am ready! I will make no defence!" And he opened his

arms as if to welcome the stroke. "If there be trickery here, if there

has been practising below, where they told me this and that, it shall

not avail! Until I hear from Mademoiselle's own lips that she is

willing, I will not say over her so much as Yea, yea, or Nay, nay!"

"She is willing!"

La Tribe turned sharply, and beheld the speaker. It was Count

Hannibal, who had entered a few seconds earlier, and had taken his

stand within the door.

"She is willing!" Tavannes repeated quietly. And if, in this moment of

the fruition of his schemes, he felt his triumph, he masked it under a

face of sombre purpose. "Do you doubt me, man?"

"From her own lips!" the other replied, undaunted--and few could say

as much--by that harsh presence. "From no other's!"

"Sirrah, you----"

"I can die. And you can no more, my lord!" the minister answered

bravely. "You have no threat can move me."

"I am not sure of that," Tavannes answered, more blandly. "But had you

listened to me and been less anxious to be brave, M. La Tribe, where

no danger is, you had learned that here is no call for heroics!

Mademoiselle is willing, and will tell you so."

"With her own lips?"

Count Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "With her own lips, if you will,"

he said. And then, advancing a step and addressing her, with unusual

gravity, "Mademoiselle de Vrillac," he said, "you hear what this

gentleman requires. Will you be pleased to confirm what I have said?"

She did not answer, and in the intense silence which held the room in

its freezing grasp a woman choked, another broke into weeping. The

colour ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men fidgeted on

their feet.

Count Hannibal looked round, his head high. "There is no call for

tears," he said; and whether he spoke in irony or in a strange

obtuseness was known only to himself. "Mademoiselle is in no

hurry--and rightly--to answer a question so momentous. Under the

pressure of utmost peril, she passed her word; the more reason that,

now the time has come to redeem it, she should do so at leisure and

after thought. Since she gave her promise, monsieur, she has had more

than one opportunity of evading its fulfilment. But she is a Vrillac,

and I know that nothing is farther from her thoughts."

He was silent a moment; and then "Mademoiselle," he said, "I would not

hurry you."

Her eyes were closed, but at that her lips moved.

"I am--willing," she whispered. And a fluttering sigh, of relief, of

pity, of God knows what, filled the room.

"You are satisfied, M. La Tribe?"

"I do not----"

"Man!" With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hannibal dropped the mask. In

two strides he was at the minister's side, his hand gripped his

shoulder; his face, flushed with passion, glared into his. "Will you

play with lives!" he hissed. "If you do not value your own, have you

no thought of others? Of these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If

she will save them, will not you?"

"My own I do not value."

"Curse your own!" Tavannes cried in furious scorn. And he shook the

other to and fro. "Who thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will

you give them to the butcher?"

"My lord," La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of himself, "if she be

willing----"

"She is willing."

"I have nought to say. But I caught her words indistinctly. And

without her consent----

"She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle----"

She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood looking straight before

her, seeing nothing. "I am willing," she muttered with a strange

gesture, "if it must be."

He did not answer.

"If it must be," she repeated slowly, and with a heavy sigh. And her

chin dropped on her breast. Then, abruptly, suddenly--it was a strange

thing to see--she looked up. A change as complete as the change which

had come over Count Hannibal a minute before came over her. She sprang

to his side; she clutched his arm and devoured his face with her eyes.

"You are not deceiving me?" she cried. "You have Tignonville below?

You--oh, no, no!" And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her

voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, "You have not! You are

deceiving me! He has escaped, and you have lied to me!"

"I?"

"Yes, you have lied to me!" It was the last fierce flicker of hope

when hope seemed dead: the last clutch of the drowning at the straw

that floated before the eyes.

He laughed harshly. "You will be my wife in five minutes," he said,

"and you give me the lie? A week, and you will know me better! A

month, and--but we will talk of that another time. For the present,"

he continued, turning to La Tribe, "do you, sir, tell her that the

gentleman is below. Perhaps she will believe you. For you know him."

La Tribe looked at her sorrowfully; his heart bled for her. "I have

seen M. de Tignonville," he said. "And M. le Comte says truly. He is

in the same case with ourselves, a prisoner."

"You have seen him?" she wailed.

"I left him in the room below, when I mounted the stairs."

Count Hannibal laughed, the grim mocking laugh which seemed to revel

in the pain it inflicted. "Will you have him for a witness?" he cried.

"There could not be a better, for he will not forget. Shall I fetch

him?"

She bowed her head, shivering. "Spare me that," she said. And she

pressed her hands to her eyes while an uncontrollable shudder passed

over her frame. Then she stepped forward: "I am ready," she whispered.

"Do with me as you will!"

* * * * *

When they had all gone out and closed the door behind them, and the

two whom the minister had joined were left together, Count Hannibal

continued for a time to pace the room, his hands clasped at his back,

and his head sunk somewhat on his chest. His thoughts appeared to run

in a new channel, and one, strange to say, widely diverted from his

bride and from that which he had just done. For he did not look her

way, or, for a time, speak to her. He stood once to snuff a candle,

doing it with an absent face; and once to look, but still absently, as

if he read no word of it, at the marriage writing which lay, the ink

still wet, upon the table. After each of these interruptions he

resumed his steady pacing to and fro, to and fro, nor did his eye

wander once in the direction of her chair.

And she waited. The conflict of emotions, the strife between hope and

fear, the final defeat had stunned her; had left her exhausted, almost

apathetic. Yet not quite, nor wholly. For when in his walk he came a

little nearer to her, a chill perspiration broke out on her brow, and

shudderings crept over her; and when he passed farther from her--and

then only, it seemed--she breathed again. But the change lay beneath

the surface, and cheated the eye. Into her attitude, as she sat, her

hands clasped on her lap, her eyes fixed, came no apparent change or

shadow of movement.

Suddenly, with a dull shock, she became aware that he was speaking.

"There was need of haste," he said, his tone strangely low and free

from emotion, "for I am under bond to leave Paris to-morrow for

Angers, whither I bear letters from the King. And as matters stood,

there was no one with whom I could leave you. I trust Bigot; he is

faithful, and you may trust him, Madame, fair or foul! But he is not

quick-witted. Badelon also you may trust. Bear it in mind. Your woman

Javette is not faithful; but as her life is guaranteed she must stay

with us until she can be securely placed. Indeed, I must take all with

me--with one exception--for the priests and monks rule Paris, and they

do not love me, nor would spare aught at my word."

He was silent a few moments. Then he resumed in the same tone, "You

ought to know how we, Tavannes, stand. It is by Monsieur and the

Queen-Mother; and _contra_ the Guises. We have all been in this

matter; but the latter push and we are pushed, and the old crack will

reopen. As it is, I cannot answer for much beyond the reach of my arm.

Therefore, we take all with us except M. Tignonville, who desires to

be conducted to the Arsenal."

She had begun to listen with averted eyes. But as he continued

to speak surprise awoke in her, and something stronger than

surprise--amazement, stupefaction. Slowly her eyes came to him, and

when he ceased to speak, "Why do you tell me these things!" she

muttered, her dry lips framing the words with difficulty.

"Because it behoves you to know them," he answered, thoughtfully

tapping the table. "I have no one, save my brother, whom I can trust."

She would not ask him why he trusted her, nor why he thought he could

trust her. For a moment or two she watched him, while he, with his

eyes lowered, stood in deep thought. At last he looked up and his eyes

met hers. "Come!" he said abruptly and in a different tone, "we must

end this! Is it to be a kiss or a blow between us?"

She rose, though her knees shook under her; and they stood face to

face, her face white as paper. "What--do you mean?" she whispered.

"Is it to be a kiss or a blow?" he repeated. "A husband must be a

lover, Madame, or a master, or both! I am content to be the one or the

other, or both, as it shall please you. But the one I will be."

"Then, a thousand times, a blow," she cried, her eyes flaming, "from

you!"

He wondered at her courage, but he hid his wonder. "So be it!" he

answered. And before she knew what he would be at, he struck her

sharply across the cheek with the glove which he held in his hand. She

recoiled with a low cry, and her cheek blazed scarlet where he had

struck it. "So be it!" he continued sombrely. "The choice shall be

yours, but you will come to me daily for the one or the other. If I

cannot be lover, Madame, I will be master. And by this sign I will

have you know it, daily, and daily remember it."

She stared at him, her bosom rising and falling, in an astonishment

too deep for words. But he did not heed her. He did not look at her

again. He had already turned to the door, and while she looked he

passed through it, he closed it behind him. And she was alone.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN THE ORLEANNAIS.

"But you fear him?"

"Fear him?" Madame St. Lo answered; and, to the surprise of the

Countess, she made a little face of contempt. "No; why should I fear

him? I fear him no more than the puppy leaping at old Sancho's bridle

fears his tall playfellow! Or than the cloud you see above us fears

the wind before which it flies!" She pointed to a white patch, the

size of a man's hand, which hung above the hill on their left hand and

formed the only speck in the blue summer sky. "Fear him! Not I!" And,

laughing gaily, she put her horse at a narrow rivulet which crossed

the grassy track on which they rode.

"But he is hard!" the Countess murmured in a low voice, as she

regained her companion's side.

"Hard!" Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture of pride. "Ay, hard as

the stones in my jewelled ring! Hard as flint, or the nether

millstone--to his enemies! But to women! Bah! Who ever heard that he

hurt a woman!"

"Why then is he so feared!" the Countess asked, her eyes on the

subject of their discussion; a solitary figure, riding some fifty

paces in front of them.

"Because he counts no cost!" her companion answered. "Because he

killed Savillon in the court of the Louvre, though he knew his life

the forfeit. He would have paid the forfeit too, or lost his right

hand, if Monsieur, for his brother the Marshal's sake, had not

intervened. But Savillon had whipped his dog, you see. Then he killed

the Chevalier de Millaud, but 'twas in fair fight, in the snow, in

their shirts. For that, Millaud's son lay in wait for him with two, in

the passage under the Chatelet; but Hannibal wounded one, and the

others saved themselves. Undoubtedly he is feared!" she added with the

same note of pride in her voice.

The two, who talked, rode at the rear of the little company

which had left Paris at daybreak two days before, by the Porte St.

Jacques. Moving steadily south-westward by the lesser roads and

bridle-tracks--for Count Hannibal seemed averse from the great

road--they had lain the second night in a village three leagues from

Bonneval. A journey of two days on fresh horses is apt to change

scenery and eye alike; but seldom has an alteration--in themselves and

all about them--as great as that which blessed this little company,

been wrought in so short a time. From the stifling wynds and

evil-smelling lanes of Paris, they had passed to the green uplands,

the breezy woods and babbling streams of the upper Orleannais; from

sights and sounds the most appalling, to the solitude of the sandy

heath, haunt of the great bustard, or the sunshine of the hillside,

vibrating with the songs of larks; from an atmosphere of terror and

gloom to the freedom of God's earth and sky. Numerous enough--they

numbered a score of armed men--to defy the lawless bands which had

their lairs in the huge forest of Orleans, they halted where they

pleased: at mid-day under a grove of chestnut-trees, or among the

willows beside a brook; at night, if they willed it, under God's

heaven. Far, not only from Paris, but from the great road, with its

gibbets and pillories--the great road which at that date ran through a

waste, no peasant living willingly within sight of it--they rode in

the morning and in the evening, resting in the heat of the day. And

though they had left Paris with much talk of haste, they rode more at

leisure with every league.

For whatever Tavannes' motive, it was plain that he was in no hurry to

reach his destination. Nor for that matter were any of his company.

Madame St. Lo, who had seized the opportunity of escaping from the

capital under her cousin's escort, was in an ill-humour with cities,

and declaimed much on the joys of a cell in the woods. For the time

the coarsest nature and the dullest rider had had enough of alarums

and conflicts.

The whole company, indeed, though it moved in some fashion of array

with an avant and a rearguard, the ladies riding together, and Count

Hannibal proceeding solitary in the midst, formed as peaceful a band,

and one as innocently diverted, as if no man of them had ever grasped

pike or blown a match. There was an old rider among them who had seen

the sack of Rome, and the dead face of the great Constable, the idol

of the Free Companies. But he had a taste for simples and much skill

in them; and when Madame had once seen Badelon on his knees in the

grass searching for plants, she lost her fear of him. Bigot, with his

low brow and matted hair, was the abject slave of Suzanne, Madame St.

Lo's woman, who twitted him mercilessly on his Norman _patois_, and

poured the vials of her scorn on him a dozen times a day. In all, with

La Tribe and the Carlats, Madame St. Lo's servants, and the Countess's

following, they numbered not far short of two score; and when they

halted at noon, and under the shadow of some leafy tree, ate their

mid-day meal, or drowsed to the tinkle of Madame St. Lo's lute, it was

difficult to believe that Paris existed, or that these same people had

so lately left its blood-stained pavements.

They halted this morning a little earlier than usual. Madame St. Lo

had barely answered her companion's question before the subject of

their discussion swung himself from old Sancho's back, and stood

waiting to assist them to dismount. Behind him, where the green valley

through which the road passed narrowed to a rocky gate, an old mill

stood among willows at the foot of a mound. On the mound behind it a

ruined castle which had stood siege in the Hundred Years' War raised

its grey walls; and beyond this the stream which turned the mill

poured over rocks with a cool rushing sound that proved irresistible.

The men, their horses watered and hobbled, went off, shouting like

boys, to bathe below the falls; and after a moment's hesitation Count

Hannibal rose from the grass on which he had flung himself.

"Guard that for me, Madame," he said. And he dropped a packet, bravely

sealed and tied with a silk thread, into the Countess's lap. "'Twill

be safer than leaving it in my clothes. Ohe!" And he turned to Madame

St. Lo. "Would you fancy a life that was all gipsying, cousin?" And if

there was irony in his voice, there was desire in his eyes.

"There is only one happy man in the world," she answered, with

conviction.

"By name?"

"The hermit of Compiegne."

"And in a week you would be wild for a masque!" he said cynically. And

turning on his heel he followed the men.

Madame St. Lo sighed complacently. "Heigho!" she said. "He's right! We

are never content, _ma mie!_ When I am trifling in the Gallery my

heart is in the greenwood. And when I have eaten black bread and drunk

spring water for a fortnight I do nothing but dream of Zamet's, and

white mulberry tarts! And you are in the same case. You have saved

your round white neck, or it has been saved for you, by not so much as

the thickness of Zamet's pie-crust--I declare my mouth is beginning to

water for it!--and instead of being thankful and making the best of

things, you are thinking of poor Madame d'Yverne, or dreaming of your

calf-love!"

The girl's face--for a girl she was, though they called her

Madame--began to work. She struggled a moment with her emotion, and

then broke down, and fell to weeping silently. For two days she had

sat in public and not given way. But the reference to her lover was

too much for her strength.

Madame St. Lo looked at her with eyes which were not unkindly. "Sits

the wind in that quarter!" she murmured. "I thought so! But there, my

dear, if you don't put that packet in your gown you'll wash out the

address! Moreover, if you ask me, I don't think the young man is worth

it. It is only that which we have not got--we want!"

But the young Countess had borne to the limit of her powers. With an

incoherent word she rose to her feet, and walked hurriedly away. The

thought of what was and of what might have been, the thought of the

lover who still--though he no longer seemed, even to her, the perfect

hero--held a place in her heart, filled her breast to overflowing. She

longed for some spot where she could weep unseen, where the sunshine

and the blue sky would not mock her grief; and seeing in front of her

a little clump of alders, which grew beside the stream, in a bend that

in winter was marshy, she hastened towards it.

Madame St. Lo saw her figure blend with the shadow of the

trees--"Quite _a la_ Ronsard, I give my word!" she murmured. "And now

she is out of sight! _La, la!_ I could play at the game myself, and

carve sweet sorrow on the barks of trees, if it were not so lonesome!

And if I had a man!"

And gazing pensively at the stream and the willows, my lady tried to

work herself into a proper frame of mind; now murmuring the name of

one gallant, and now, finding it unsuited, the name of another. But

the soft inflection would break into a giggle, and finally into a

yawn; and, tired of the attempt, she began to pluck grass and throw it

from her. By-and-by she discovered that Madame Carlat and the women,

who had their place a little apart, had disappeared; and affrighted by

the solitude and silence--for neither of which she was made--she

sprang up and stared about her, hoping to discern them. Right and

left, however, the sweep of hillside curved upward to the skyline,

lonely and untenanted; behind her the castled rock frowned down on the

rugged gorge and filled it with dispiriting shadow. Madame St. Lo

stamped her foot on the turf.

"The little fool!" she murmured, pettishly. "Does she think that I am

to be murdered that she may fatten on sighs? Oh, come up, Madame, you

must be dragged out of this!" And she started briskly towards the

alders, intent on gaining company as quickly as possible.

She had gone about fifty yards, and had as many more to traverse when

she halted. A man, bent double, was moving stealthily along the

farther side of the brook a little in front of him. Now she saw him,

now she lost him; now she caught a glimpse of him again, through a

screen of willow branches. He moved with the utmost caution, as a man

moves who is pursued or in danger; and for a moment she deemed him a

peasant whom the bathers had disturbed and who was bent on escaping.

But when he came opposite to the alder-bed she saw that that was his

point, for he crouched down, sheltered by a willow, and gazed eagerly

among the trees, always with his back to her; and then he waved his

hand to someone in the wood.

Madame St. Lo drew in her breath. As if he had heard the sound--which

was impossible--the man dropped down where he stood, crawled a yard or

two on his face, and disappeared.

Madame stared a moment, expecting to see him or hear him. Then, as

nothing happened, she screamed. She was a woman of quick impulses,

essentially feminine; and she screamed three or four times, standing

where she was, her eyes on the edge of the wood. "If that does not

bring her out, nothing will!" she thought.

It brought her. An instant, and the Countess appeared, and hurried in

dismay to her side. "What is it?" the younger woman asked, glancing

over her shoulder; for all the valley, all the hills were peaceful,

and behind Madame St. Lo--but the lady had not discovered it--the

servants who had returned were laying the meal. "What is it?" she

repeated anxiously.

"Who was it?" Madame St. Lo asked curtly. She was quite calm now.

"Who was--who?"

"The man in the wood?"

The Countess stared a moment, then laughed. "Only the old soldier they

call Badelon, gathering simples. Did you think that he would harm me?"

"It was not old Badelon whom I saw!" Madame St. Lo retorted. "It was a

younger man, who crept along the other side of the brook, keeping

under cover. When I first saw him he was there," she continued,

pointing to the place. "And he crept on and on until he came opposite

to you. Then he waved his hand."

"To me!"

Madame nodded.

"But if you saw him, who was he?" the Countess asked.

"I did not see his face," Madame St. Lo answered. "But he waved to

you. That I saw."

The Countess had a thought which slowly flooded her face with crimson.

Madame St. Lo saw the change, saw the tender light which on a sudden

softened the other's eyes; and the same thought occurred to her. And

having a mind to punish her companion for her reticence--for she did

not doubt that the girl knew more than she acknowledged--she proposed

that they should return and find Badelon, and learn if he had seen the

man.

"Why?" Madame Tavannes asked. And she stood stubbornly, her head high.

"Why should we?"

"To clear it up," the elder woman answered mischievously. "But

perhaps, it were better to tell your husband and let his men search

the coppice."

The colour left the Countess's face as quickly as it had come. For a

moment she was tongue-tied. Then, "Have we not had enough of seeking

and being sought?" she cried; more bitterly than befitted the

occasion. "Why should we hunt him? I am not timid, and he did me no

harm. I beg, Madame, that you will do me the favour of being silent on

the matter."

"Oh, if you insist? But what a pother--"

"I did not see him, and he did not see me," Madame de Tavannes

answered vehemently. "I fail, therefore, to understand why we should

harass him, whoever he be. Besides, M. de Tavannes is waiting for us."

"And M. de Tignonville--is following us!" Madame St. Lo

muttered--under her breath. And she made a face at the other's back.

She was silent, however; they returned to the others; and nothing of

import, it would seem, had happened. The soft summer air played on the

meal laid under the willows as it had played on the meal of yesterday

laid under the chestnut-trees. The horses grazed within sight, moving

now and again, with a jingle of trappings or a jealous neigh; the

women's chatter vied with the unceasing sound of the mill-stream.

After dinner, Madame St. Lo touched the lute, and Badelon--Badelon who

had seen the sack of the Colonna's Palace, and been served by

cardinals on the knee--fed a water-rat, which had its home in one of

the willow-stumps, with carrot-parings. One by one the men laid

themselves to sleep with their faces on their arms; and to the eyes

all was as all had been yesterday in this camp of armed men living

peacefully.

But not to the Countess! She had accepted her life, she had resigned

herself, she had marvelled that it was no worse. After the horrors of

Paris the calm of the last two days had fallen on her as balm on a

wound. Worn out in body and mind, she had rested, and only rested;

without thought, almost without emotion, save for the feeling, half

fear, half curiosity, which stirred her in regard to the strange man,

her husband. Who on his side left her alone.

But the last hour had wrought a change. Her eyes were grown restless,

her colour came and went. The past stirred in its shallow--ah, so

shallow--grave; and dead hopes and dead forebodings, strive as she

might, thrust out hands to plague and torment her. If the man who

sought to speak with her by stealth, who dogged her footsteps and hung

on the skirts of her party, were Tignonville--her lover, who at his

own request had been escorted to the Arsenal before their departure

from Paris--then her plight was a sorry one. For what woman, wedded as

she had been wedded, could think otherwise than indulgently of his

persistence? And yet, lover and husband! What peril, what shame the

words had often spelled! At the thought only she trembled and her

colour ebbed. She saw, as one who stands on the brink of a precipice,

the depth which yawned before her. She asked herself, shivering, if

she would ever sink to that.

All the loyalty of a strong nature, all the virtue of a good woman

revolted against the thought. True, her husband--husband she must call

him--had not deserved her love; but his bizarre magnanimity, the

gloomy, disdainful kindness with which he had crowned possession, even

the unity of their interests, which he had impressed upon her in so

strange a fashion, claimed a return in honour.

To be paid--how? how? That was the crux which perplexed, which

frightened, which harassed her. For, if she told her suspicions, she

exposed her lover to capture by one who had no longer a reason to be

merciful. And if she sought occasion to see Tignonville and so to

dissuade him, she did it at deadly risk to herself. Yet what other

course lay open to her if she would not stand by? If she would not

play the traitor? If she----

"Madame,"--it was her husband, and he spoke to her suddenly,--"are you

not well?" And, looking up guiltily, she found his eyes fixed

curiously on hers.

Her face turned red and white and red again, and she faltered

something and looked from him, but only to meet Madame St. Lo's eyes.

My lady laughed softly in sheer mischief.

"What is it?" Count Hannibal asked sharply.

But Madame St. Lo's answer was a line of Ronsard.

CHAPTER XX.

ON THE CASTLE HILL.

Thrice she hummed it, bland and smiling. Then from the neighbouring

group came an interruption. The wine he had drunk had put it into

Bigot's head to snatch a kiss from Suzanne; and Suzanne's modesty,

which was very nice in company, obliged her to squeal. The uproar

which ensued, the men backing the man and the women the woman, brought

Tavannes to his feet. He did not speak, but a glance from his eyes was

enough. There was not one who failed to see that something was amiss

with him, and a sudden silence fell on the party.

He turned to the Countess. "You wished to see the castle?" he said.

"You had better go now, but not alone." He cast his eyes over the

company, and summoned La Tribe, who was seated with the Carlats. "Go

with Madame," he said curtly. "She has a mind to climb the hill. Bear

in mind, we start at three, and do not venture out of hearing."

"I understand, M. le Comte," the minister answered. He spoke quietly,

but there was a strange light in his face as he turned to go with her.

None the less he was silent until Madame's lagging feet--for all her

interest in the expedition was gone--had borne her a hundred paces

from the company. Then, "Who knoweth our thoughts and forerunneth all

our desires," he murmured. And when she turned to him, astonished,

"Madame," he continued, "I have prayed, ah, how I have prayed, for

this opportunity of speaking to you! And it has come. I would it had

come this morning, but it has come. Do not start or look round; many

eyes are on us, and alas! I have that to say to you which it will move

you to hear, and that to ask of you which it must task your courage to

perform."

She began to tremble, and stood, looking up the green slope to the

broken grey wall which crowned its summit. "What is it?" she

whispered, commanding herself with an effort. "What is it? If it have

aught to do with M. Tignonville----"

"It has not!"

In her surprise--for although she had put the question she had felt no

doubt of the answer--she started and turned to him. "It has not?" she

exclaimed almost incredulously.

"No."

"Then what is it, monsieur?" she replied, a little haughtily. "What

can there be that should move me so?"

"Life or death, Madame," he answered solemnly. "Nay, more; for since

Providence has given me this chance of speaking to you, a thing of

which, I despaired, I know that the burden is laid on us, and that it

is guilt or it is innocence, according as we refuse the burden or bear

it."

"What is it then?" she cried impatiently. "What is it?"

"I tried to speak to you this morning."

"Was it you then, whom Madame St. Lo saw stalking me before dinner?"

"It was."

She clasped her hands and heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God,

monsieur!" she replied. "You have lifted a weight from me. I fear

nothing in comparison of that. Nothing!"

"Alas," he answered sombrely, "there is much to fear, for others if

not for ourselves! Do you know what that is which M. de Tavannes bears

always in his belt? What it is he carries with such care? What it was

he handed to you to keep while he bathed to-day?"

"Letters from the King."

"Yes, but the import of those letters?"

"No."

"And yet should they be written in letters of blood!" the minister

exclaimed, his face kindling. "They should scorch the hands that hold

them and blister the eyes that read them. They are the fire and the

sword! They are the King's order to do at Angers as they have done in

Paris. To slay all of the religion who are found there--and they are

many! To spare none, to have mercy neither on the old man nor the

unborn child! See yonder hawk!" he continued, pointing with a shaking

hand to a falcon which hung light and graceful above the valley, the

movement of its wings invisible. "How it disports itself in the face

of the sun! How easy its way, how smooth its flight! But see, it drops

upon its prey in the rushes beside the brook, and the end of its

beauty is slaughter! So is it with yonder company!" His finger sank

until it indicated the little camp seated toy-like in the green meadow

four hundred feet below them, with every man and horse, and the very

camp-kettle, clear-cut and visible, though diminished by distance to

fairy-like proportions. "So it is with yonder company!" he repeated

sternly. "They play and are merry, and one fishes and another sleeps!

But at the end of the journey is death. Death for their victims, and

for them the judgment!"

She stood, as he spoke, in the ruined gateway, a walled grass-plot

behind her and at her feet the stream, the smiling valley, the alders,

and the little camp. The sky was cloudless, the scene drowsy with the

stillness of an August afternoon. But his words went home so truly

that the sunlit landscape before the eyes added one more horror to the

picture he called up before the mind.

The Countess turned white and sick. "Are you sure?" she whispered at

last.

"Quite sure."

"Ah, God!" she cried, "are we never to have peace?" And turning from

the valley, she walked some distance into the grass court, and stood.

After a time, she turned to him; he had followed her doggedly, pace

for pace. "What do you want me to do?" she cried, despair in her

voice. "What can I do?"

"Were the letters he bears destroyed----"

"The letters?"

"Yes, were the letters destroyed," La Tribe answered relentlessly, "he

could do nothing! Nothing! Without that authority the magistrates of

Angers would not move. He could do nothing. And men and women and

children--men and women and children whose blood will otherwise cry

for vengeance, perhaps for vengeance on us who might have saved

them--will live! Will live!" he repeated with a softening eye. And

with an all-embracing gesture he seemed to call to witness the open

heavens, the sunshine and the summer breeze which wrapped them round.

"Will live!"

She drew a deep breath. "And you have brought me here," she said, "to

ask me to do this?"

"I was sent here to ask you to do this."

"Why me? Why me!" she wailed, and she held out her open hands to him,

her face wan and colourless. "You come to me, a woman! Why to me?"

"You are his wife!"

"And he is my husband!"

"Therefore he trusts you," was the unyielding, the pitiless answer.

"You, and you alone, have the opportunity of doing this."

She gazed at him in astonishment. "And it is you who say that?" she

faltered, after a pause. "You who made us one, who now bid me betray

him, whom I have sworn to love? To ruin him whom I have sworn to

honour?"

"I do!" he answered solemnly. "On my head be the guilt, and on yours

the merit."

"Nay, but--" she cried quickly, and her eyes glittered with

passion--"do you take both guilt and merit! You are a man," she

continued, her words coming quickly in her excitement, "he is but a

man! Why do you not call him aside, trick him apart on some pretence

or other, and when there are but you two, man to man, wrench the

warrant from him? Staking your life against his, with all those lives

for prize? And save them or perish? Why I, even I, a woman, could find

it in my heart to do that, were he not my husband! Surely you, you who

are a man, and young----"

"Am no match for him in strength or arms," the minister answered

sadly. "Else would I do it."

"Else would I stake my life, Heaven knows, as gladly to save their

lives as I sit down to meat! But I should fail, and if I failed all

were lost. Moreover," he continued solemnly, "I am certified that this

task has been set for you. It was not for nothing, Madame, nor to save

one poor household that you were joined to this man; but to ransom all

these lives and this great city. To be the Judith of our faith, the

saviour of Angers, the----"

"Fool! Fool!" she cried. "Will you be silent?" And she stamped the

turf passionately, while her eyes blazed in her white face. "I am no

Judith, and no madwoman as you are fain to make me. Mad?" she

continued, overwhelmed with agitation. "My God, I would I were, and I

should be free from this!" And, turning, she walked a little way from

him with the gesture of one under a crushing burden.

He waited a minute, two minutes, three minutes, and still she did not

return. At length she came back, her bearing more composed; she looked

at him and her eyes seized his and seemed as if they would read his

soul. "Are you sure," she said, "of what you have told me? Will you

swear that the contents of these letters are as you say?"

"As I live," he answered gravely. "As God lives."

"And you know--of no other way, monsieur? Of no other way?" she

repeated slowly and piteously.

"Of none, Madame, of none, I swear."

She sighed deeply, and stood sunk in thought. Then, "When do we reach

Angers?" she asked heavily.

"The day after to-morrow."

"I have--until the day after to-morrow?"

"Yes. To-night we lie near Vendome."

"And to-morrow night?"

"Near a place called La Fleche. It is possible," he went on with

hesitation--for he did not understand her--"that he may bathe

to-morrow, and may hand the packet to you, as he did to-day when I

vainly sought speech with you. If he does that----"

"Yes?" she said, her eyes on his face.

"The taking will be easy. But when he finds you have it not--" he

faltered anew--"it may go hard with you."

She did not speak.

"And there, I think, I can help you. If you will stray from the party,

I will meet you and destroy the letter. That done--and would God it

were done already--I will take to flight as best I can, and you will

raise the alarm and say that I robbed you of it! And if you tear your

dress----"

"No," she said.

He looked a question.

"No!" she repeated in a low voice. "If I betray him I will not lie to

him! And no other shall pay the price! If I ruin him it shall be

between him and me, and no other shall have part in it!"

He shook his head. "I do not know," he murmured, "what he may do to

you!"

"Nor I," she said proudly. "That will be for him."

* * * * *

Curious eyes had watched the two as they climbed the hill. For the

path ran up the slope to the gap which served for gate, much as the

path leads up to the Castle Beautiful in old prints of the Pilgrim's

journey; and Madame St. Lo had marked the first halt and the second,

and, noting every gesture, had lost nothing of the interview save the

words. But until the two, after pausing a moment, passed out of sight

she made no sign. Then she laughed. And as Count Hannibal, at whom the

laugh was aimed, did not heed her, she laughed again. And she hummed

the line of Ronsard.

Still he would not be roused, and, piqued, she had recourse to words.

"I wonder what you would do," she said, "if the old lover followed us,

and she went off with him!"

"She would not go," he answered coldly, and without looking up.

"But if he rode off with her?"

"She would come back on her feet!"

Madame St. Lo's prudence was not proof against that. She had the

woman's inclination to hide a woman's secret; and she had not

intended, when she laughed, to do more than play with the formidable

man with whom so few dared to play. Now, stung by his tone and his

assurance, she must needs show him that his trustfulness had no base.

And, as so often happens in the circumstances, she went a little

farther than the facts bore her. "Any way, he has followed us so far!"

she cried viciously.

"M. de Tignonville?"

"Yes. I saw him this morning while you were bathing. She left me and

went into the little coppice. He came down the other side of the

brook, stooping and running, and went to join her."

"How did he cross the brook?"

Madame St. Lo blushed. "Old Badelon was there, gathering simples," she

said. "He scared him. And he crawled away."

"Then he did not cross?"

"No. I did not say he did!"

"Nor speak to her?"

"No. But if you think it will pass so next time--you do not know much

of women!"

"Of women generally, not much," he answered, grimly polite. "Of this

woman a great deal!"

"You looked in her big eyes, I suppose!" Madame St. Lo cried with

heat. "And straightway fell down and worshipped her!" She liked rather

than disliked the Countess; but she was of the lightest, and the least

opposition drove her out of her course. "And you think you know her!

And she, if she could save you from death by opening an eye, would go

with a patch on it till her dying day! Take my word for it, monsieur,

between her and her lover you will come to harm."

Count Hannibal's swarthy face darkened a tone, and his eyes grew a

very little smaller. "I fancy that he runs the greater risk," he

muttered.

"You may deal with him, but, for her----"

"I can deal with her. You deal with some women with a whip"

"You would whip me, I suppose?"

"Yes," he said quietly. "It would do you good, Madame. And with other

women otherwise. There are women who, if they are well frightened,

will not deceive you. And there are others who will not deceive you

though they are frightened. Madame de Tavannes is of the latter kind."

"Wait! Wait and see!" Madame cried in scorn.

"I am waiting."

"Yes! And whereas if you had come to me I could have told her that

about M. Tignonville which would have surprised her, you will go on

waiting and waiting and waiting until one fine day you'll wake up and

find Madame gone, and----"

"Then I'll take a wife I can whip!" he answered, with a look which

apprised her how far she had carried it. "But it will not be you,

sweet cousin. For I have no whip heavy enough for your case."

CHAPTER XXI.

SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT.

We noted some way back the ease with which women use one concession as

a stepping-stone to a second; and the lack of magnanimity, amounting

almost to unscrupulousness, which the best display in their dealings

with a retiring foe. But there are concessions which touch even a good

woman's conscience; and Madame de Tavannes, free by the tenure of a

blow, and with that exception treated from hour to hour with rugged

courtesy, shrank appalled before the task which confronted her.

To ignore what La Tribe had told her, to remain passive when a

movement on her part might save men, women, and children from death,

and a whole city from massacre--this was a line of conduct so craven,

so selfish that from the first she knew herself incapable of it. But

to take the only other course open to her, to betray her husband and

rob him of that, the loss of which might ruin him, this needed not

courage only, not devotion only, but a hardness proof against

reproaches as well as against punishment. And the Countess was no

fanatic. No haze of bigotry glorified the thing she contemplated, or

dressed it in colours other than its own. Even while she acknowledged

the necessity of the act and its ultimate righteousness, even while

she owned the obligation which lay upon her to perform it, she saw it

as he would see it, and saw herself as he would see her.

True, he had done her a great wrong; and this in the eyes of some

might pass for punishment. But he had saved her life where many had

perished; and, the wrong done, he had behaved to her with fantastic

generosity. In return for which she was to ruin him! It was not hard

to imagine what he would say of her, and of the reward with which she

had requited him.

She pondered over it as they rode that evening, with the westering sun

in their eyes and the lengthening shadows of the oaks falling athwart

the bracken which fringed the track. Across breezy heaths and over

downs, through green bottoms and by hamlets, from which every human

creature fled at their approach, they ambled on by twos and threes;

riding in a world of their own, so remote, so different from the real

world--from which they came and to which they must return--that she

could have wept in anguish, cursing God for the wickedness of man

which lay so heavy on creation. The gaunt troopers riding at ease with

swinging legs and swaying stirrups--and singing now a refrain from

Ronsard, and now one of those verses of Marot's psalms which all the

world had sung three decades before--wore their most lamblike aspect.

Behind them Madame St. Lo chattered to Suzanne of a riding mask which

had not been brought, or planned expedients, if nothing sufficiently

in the mode could be found at Angers. And the other women talked and

giggled, screamed when they came to fords, and made much of steep

places, where the men must help them. In time of war death's shadow

covers but a day, and sorrow out of sight is out of mind. Of all the

troop whom the sinking sun left within sight of the lofty towers and

vine-clad hills of Vendome, three only wore faces attuned to the cruel

August week just ending; three only, like dark beads strung far apart

on a gay nun's rosary, rode, brooding and silent, in their places. The

Countess was one; the others were the two men whose thoughts she

filled, and whose eyes now and again sought her, La Tribe's with

sombre fire in their depths, Count Hannibal's fraught with a gloomy

speculation, which belied his brave words to Madame St. Lo.

He, moreover, as he rode, had other thoughts; dark ones, which did not

touch her. And she, too, had other thoughts at times, dreams of her

young lover, spasms of regret, a wild revolt of heart, a cry out of

the darkness which had suddenly whelmed her. So that of the three only

La Tribe was single-minded.

This day they rode a long league after sunset, through a scattered

oak-wood, where the rabbits sprang up under their horses' heads and

the squirrels made angry faces at them from the lower branches. Night

was hard upon them when they reached the southern edge of the forest,

and looked across the dusky open slopes to a distant light or two

which marked where Vendome stood. "Another league," Count Hannibal

muttered; and he bade the men light fires where they were, and unload

the packhorses. "'Tis pure and dry here," he said. "Set a watch,

Bigot, and let two men go down for water. I hear frogs below. You do

not fear to be moonstruck, Madame!"

"I prefer this," she answered in a low voice.

"Houses are for monks and nuns!" he rejoined heartily. "Give me God's

heaven."

"The earth is His, but we deface it," she murmured, reverting to her

thoughts, and unconscious that it was to him she spoke.

He looked at her sharply, but the fire was not yet kindled; and in the

gloaming her face was a pale blot undecipherable. He stood a moment,

but she did not speak again; and Madame St. Lo bustling up, he moved

away to give an order. By-and-by the fires burned up, and showed the

pillared aisle in which, they sat, small groups dotted here and there

on the floor of Nature's cathedral. Through the shadowy Gothic

vaulting, the groining of many boughs which met overhead, a rare star

twinkled, as through some clerestory window; and from the dell below

rose in the night, now the monotonous chanting of the frogs, and now,

as some great bull-frog took the note, a diapason worthy of a Brescian

organ. The darkness walled all in; the night was still; a falling

caterpillar sounded. Even the rude men at the farthest fire stilled

their voices at times; awed, they knew not why, by the silence and

vastness of the night.

The Countess long remembered that vigil--for she lay late awake; the

cool gloom, the faint wood-rustlings, the distant cry of fox or wolf,

the soft glow of the expiring fires that at last left the world to

darkness and the stars; above all, the silent wheeling of the planets,

which spoke indeed of a supreme Ruler, but crushed the heart under a

sense of its insignificance, and of the insignificance of all human

revolutions. "Yet, I believe!" she cried, wrestling upwards, wrestling

with herself. "Though I have seen what I have seen, yet I believe!"

And though she had to bear what she had to bear, and do that from

which her soul shrank! The woman, indeed, within her continued to cry

out against this tragedy ever renewed in her path, against this

necessity for choosing evil or good, ease for herself or life for

others. But the moving heavens, pointing onward to a time when good

and evil alike should be past, strengthened a nature essentially

noble; and before she slept no shame and no suffering seemed--for the

moment at least--too great a price to pay for the lives of little

children. Love had been taken from her life; the pride which would

fain answer generosity with generosity--that must go, too!

She felt no otherwise when the day came, and the bustle of the start

and the common round of the journey put to flight the ideals of the

night. But things fell out in a manner she had not pictured. They

halted before noon on the north bank of the Loir, in a level meadow

with lines of poplars running this way and that, and filling all the

place with the soft shimmer of leaves. Blue succory, tiny mirrors of

the summer sky, flecked the long grass, and the women picked bunches

of them, or, Italian fashion, twined the blossoms in their hair. A

road ran across the meadow to a ferry, but the ferryman, alarmed by

the aspect of the party, had conveyed his boat to the other side and

hidden himself.

Presently Madame St. Lo espied the boat, clapped her hands and must

have it. The poplars threw no shade, the flies teased her, the life of

a hermit--in a meadow--was no longer to her taste. "Let us go on the

water!" she cried. "Presently you will go to bathe, monsieur, and

leave us to grill!"

"Two livres to the man who will fetch the boat!" Count Hannibal cried.

In less than half a minute three men had thrown off their boots, and

were swimming across, amid the laughter and shouts of their fellows.

In five minutes the boat was brought.

It was not large and would hold no more than four. Tavannes' eye fell

on Carlat. "You understand a boat," he said. "Go with Madame St. Lo.

And you, M. La Tribe."

"But you are coming?" Madame St. Lo cried, turning to the Countess.

"Oh, Madame," with a curtsey, "you are not? You----"

"Yes, I will come," the Countess answered.

"I shall bathe a short distance up the stream," Count Hannibal said.

He took from his belt the packet of letters, and as Carlat held the

boat for Madame St. Lo to enter, he gave it to the Countess, as he had

given it to her yesterday. "Have a care of it, Madame," he said in a

low voice, "and do not let it pass out of your hands. To lose it may

be to lose my head."

The colour ebbed from her cheeks. In spite of herself her shaking hand

put back the packet. "Had you not better then--give it to Bigot?" she

faltered.

"He is bathing."

"Let him bathe afterwards."

"No," he answered almost harshly; he found a species of pleasure in

showing her that, strange as their relations were, he trusted her.

"No; take it, Madame. Only have a care of it."

She took it then, hid it in her dress, and he turned away; and she

turned towards the boat. La Tribe stood beside the stern, holding it

for her to enter, and as her fingers rested an instant on his arm

their eyes met. His were alight, his arm even quivered; and she

shuddered.

She avoided looking at him a second time, and this was easy, since he

took his seat in the bows beyond Carlat, who handled the oars.

Silently the boat glided out on the surface of the stream, and floated

downwards, Carlat now and again touching an oar, and Madame St. Lo

chattering gaily in a voice which carried far on the water. Now it was

a flowering rush she must have, now a green bough to shield her face

from the sun's reflection; and now they must lie in some cool, shadowy

pool under fern-clad banks, where the fish rose heavily, and the

trickle of a rivulet fell down over stones.

It was idyllic. But not to the Countess. Her face burned, her temples

throbbed, her fingers gripped the side of the boat in the vain attempt

to steady her pulses. The packet within her dress scorched her. The

great city and its danger, Tavannes and his faith in her, the need of

action, the irrevocableness of action hurried through her brain. The

knowledge that she must act now--or never--pressed upon her with

distracting force. Her hand felt the packet, and fell again nerveless.

"The sun has caught you, _ma mie_," Madame St. Lo said. "You should

ride in a mask as I do."

"I have not one with me," she muttered, her eyes on the water.

"And I but an old one. But at Angers----"

The Countess heard no more; on that word she caught La Tribe's eye. He

was beckoning to her behind Carlat's back, pointing imperiously to the

water, making signs to her to drop the packet over the side. When she

did not obey--she felt sick and faint--she saw through a mist his brow

grow dark. He menaced her secretly. And still the packet scorched her;

and twice her hand went to it, and dropped again empty.

On a sudden Madame St. Lo cried out. The bank on one side of the

stream was beginning to rise more boldly above the water, and at the

head of the steep thus formed she had espied a late rose-bush in

bloom; nothing would now serve but she must land at once and plunder

it. The boat was put in therefore, she jumped ashore, and began to

scale the bank.

"Go with Madame!" La Tribe cried, roughly nudging Carlat in the back.

"Do you not see that she cannot climb the bank! Up, man, up!"

The Countess opened her mouth to cry "No!" but the word died

half-born on her lips; and when the steward looked at her, uncertain

what she had said, she nodded. "Yes, go!" she muttered. She was pale.

"Yes, man, go!" cried the minister, his eyes burning. And he almost

pushed the other out of the boat.

The next second the craft floated from the bank, and began to drift

downwards. La Tribe waited until a tree interposed and hid them from

the two whom they had left; then he leaned forward. "Now, Madame!" he

cried imperiously. "In God's name, now!"

"Oh!" she cried. "Wait! Wait! I want to think."

"To think?"

"He trusted me!" she wailed. "He trusted me! How can I do it?"

Nevertheless, and even while she spoke, she drew forth the packet.

"Heaven has given you the opportunity!"

"If I could have stolen it!" she answered.

"Fool!" he returned rocking himself to and fro and fairly beside

himself with impatience. "Why steal it? It is in your hands! You have

it! It is Heaven's own opportunity, it is God's opportunity given to

you!"

For he could not read her mind nor comprehend the scruple which held

her hand. He was single-minded. He had but one aim, one object. He saw

the haggard faces of brave men hopeless; he heard the dying cries of

women and children. Such an opportunity of saving God's elect, of

redeeming the innocent, was in his eyes a gift from Heaven. And having

these thoughts and seeing her hesitate--hesitate when every movement

caused him agony, so imperative was haste, so precious the

opportunity--he could bear the suspense no longer. When she did not

answer he stooped forward, until his knees touched the thwart on which

Carlat had sat; then without a word he flung himself forward, and,

with one hand far extended, grasped the packet.

Had he not moved, she would have done his will; almost certainly she

would have done it. But, thus attacked, she resisted instinctively;

she clung to the letters. "No!" she cried. "No! Let go, monsieur!" And

she tried to drag the packet from him.

"Give it me!"

"Let go, monsieur! Do you hear!" she repeated. And with a vigorous

jerk she forced it from him--he had caught it by the edge only--and

held it behind her. "Go back, and----"

"Give it me!" he panted.

"I will not!"

"Then throw it overboard!"

"I will not!" she cried again, though his face, dark with passion,

glared into hers, and it was clear that the man, possessed by one idea

only, was no longer master of himself. "Go back to your place!"

"Give it me," he gasped, "or I will upset the boat!" And seizing her

by the shoulder he reached over her, striving to take hold of the

packet which she held behind her. The boat rocked; and as much in rage

as fear she screamed.

A cry uttered wholly in rage answered hers; it came from Carlat. La

Tribe, however, whose whole mind was fixed on the packet, did not

heed, nor would have heeded, the steward. But the next moment a second

cry, fierce as that of a wild beast, clove the air from the lower and

farther bank; and the Huguenot, recognising Count Hannibal's voice,

involuntarily desisted and stood erect. A moment the boat rocked

perilously under him; then--for unheeded it had been drifting that

way--it softly touched the bank on which Carlat stood staring and

aghast.

La Tribe's chance was gone; he saw that the steward must reach him

before he could succeed in a second attempt. On the other hand, the

undergrowth on the bank was thick, he could touch it with his hand,

and if he fled at once he might escape.

He hung an instant irresolute; then, with a look which went to the

Countess's heart, he sprang ashore, plunged among the alders, and in a

moment was gone.

"After him! After him!" thundered Count Hannibal. "After him, man!"

and Carlat, stumbling down the steep slope and through the rough

briars, did his best to obey. But in vain. Before he reached the

water's edge, the noise of the fugitive's retreat had grown faint. A

few seconds and it died away.

CHAPTER XXII.

PLAYING WITH FIRE.

The impulse of La Tribe's foot as he landed had driven the boat into

the stream. It drifted slowly downward, and if naught intervened would

take the ground on Count Hannibal's side, a hundred and fifty yards

below him. He saw this, and walked along the bank, keeping pace with

it, while the Countess sat motionless, crouching in the stern of the

craft, her fingers strained about the fatal packet. The slow glide of

the boat, as almost imperceptibly it approached the low bank; the

stillness of the mirror-like surface on which it moved, leaving only

the faintest ripple behind it; the silence--for under the influence of

emotion Count Hannibal too was mute--all were in tremendous contrast

with the storm which raged in her breast.

Should she--should she even now, with his eyes on her, drop the

letters over the side? It needed but a movement. She had only to

extend her hand, to relax the tension of her fingers, and the deed was

done. It needed only that; but the golden sands of opportunity were

running out--were running out fast. Slowly and more slowly, silently

and more silently, the boat slid in towards the bank on which he

stood, and still she hesitated. The stillness, and the waiting figure,

and the watching eyes now but a few feet distant, weighed on her and

seemed to paralyse her will. A foot, another foot! A moment and it

would be too late, the last of the sands would have run out. The bow

of the boat rustled softly through the rushes; it kissed the bank. And

her hand still held the letters.

"You are not hurt?" he asked curtly.

"No."

"The scoundrel might have drowned you. Was he mad?"

She was silent. He held out his hand, and she gave him the packet. "I

owe you much," he said, a ring of gaiety, almost of triumph, in his

tone. "More than you guess, Madame. God made you for a soldier's wife,

and a mother of soldiers. What? You are not well, I am afraid?"

"If I could sit down a minute," she faltered. She was swaying on her

feet.

He supported her across the belt of meadow which fringed the bank, and

made her recline against a tree. Then as his men began to come up--for

the alarm had reached them--he would have sent two of them in the boat

to fetch Madame St. Lo to her. But she would not let him. "Your maid,

then?" he said.

"No, monsieur, I need only to be alone a little! Only to be alone,"

she repeated, her face averted; and believing this he sent the men

away, and, taking the boat himself, he crossed over, took in Madame

St. Lo and Carlat, and rowed them to the ferry. Here the wildest

rumours were current. One held that the Huguenot had gone out of his

senses; another, that he had watched for this opportunity of avenging

his brethren; a third, that his intention had been to carry off the

Countess and hold her to ransom. Only Tavannes himself, from his

position on the farther bank, had seen the packet of letters, and the

hand which withheld them; and he said nothing. Nay, when some of the

men would have crossed to search for the fugitive, he forbade them, he

scarcely knew why, save that it might please her; and when the women

would have hurried to join her and hear the tale from her lips he

forbade them also.

"She wishes to be alone," he said curtly.

"Alone?" Madame St. Lo cried, in a fever of curiosity. "You'll find

her dead, or worse! What? Leave a woman alone after such a fright as

that!"

"She wishes it."

Madame laughed cynically; and the laugh brought a tinge of colour to

his brow. "Oh, does she?" she sneered. "Then I understand! Have a

care, have a care, or one of these days, monsieur, when you leave her

alone, you'll find them together!"

"Be silent!"

"With pleasure," she returned. "Only when it happens don't say that

you were not warned. You think that she does not hear from him----"

"How can she hear?" The words were wrung from him.

Madame St. Lo's contempt passed all limits. "How can she!" she

retorted. "You trail a woman across France, and let her sit by

herself, and lie by herself, and all but drown by herself, and you ask

how she hears from her lover? You leave her old servants about her,

and you ask how she communicates with him?"

"You know nothing!" he snarled.

"I know this," she retorted. "I saw her sitting this morning, and

smiling and weeping at the same time! Was she thinking of you,

monsieur? Or of him? She was looking at the hills through tears; a

blue mist hung over them, and I'll wager she saw some one's eyes

gazing and some one's hand beckoning out of the blue!"

"Curse you!" he cried, tormented in spite of himself. "You love to

make mischief!"

"No!" she answered swiftly. "For 'twas not I made the match. But go

your way, go your way, monsieur, and see what kind of a welcome you'll

get!"

"I will," Count Hannibal growled. And he started along the bank to

rejoin his wife.

The light in his eyes had died down. Yet would they have been more

sombre, and his face more harsh, had he known the mind of the woman to

whom he was hastening. The Countess had begged to be left alone;

alone, she found the solitude she had craved a cruel gift. She had

saved the packet. She had fulfilled her trust. But only to experience,

the moment it was too late, the full poignancy of remorse. Before the

act, while the choice had lain with her, the betrayal of her husband

had loomed large; now she saw that to treat him as she had treated him

was the true betrayal, and that even for his own sake, and to save him

from a fearful sin, it had become her to destroy the letters.

Now, it was no longer her duty to him which loomed large, but her duty

to the innocent, to the victims of the massacre which she might have

stayed, to the people of her faith whom she had abandoned, to the

women and children whose death-warrant she had preserved. Now, she

perceived that a part more divine had never fallen to woman, nor a

responsibility so heavy been laid upon woman. Nor guilt more dread!

She writhed in misery, thinking of it. What had she done? She could

hear afar off the sounds of the camp; an occasional outcry, a snatch

of laughter. And the cry and the laughter rang in her ears, a bitter

mockery. This summer camp, to what was it the prelude? This

forbearance on her husband's part, in what would it end? Were not the

one and the other cruel make-believes? Two days, and the men who

laughed beside the water would slay and torture with equal zest. A

little, and the husband who now chose to be generous would show

himself in his true colours. And it was for the sake of such as these

that she had played the coward. That she had laid up for herself

endless remorse. That henceforth the cries of the innocent would haunt

her dreams.

Racked by such thoughts she did not hear his step, and it was his

shadow falling across her feet which first warned her of his presence.

She looked up, saw him, and involuntarily recoiled. Then, seeing the

change in his face, "Oh! monsieur," she stammered affrighted, her hand

pressed to her side, "I ask your pardon! You startled me!"

"So it seems," he answered. And he stood over her regarding her drily.

"I am not quite--myself yet," she murmured. His look told her that her

start had betrayed her feelings.

Alas, the plan of taking a woman by force has drawbacks, and among

others this one: that he must be a sanguine husband who deems her

heart his, and a husband without jealousy, whose suspicions are not

aroused by the faintest flush or the lightest word. He knows that she

is his unwillingly, a victim, not a mistress; and behind every bush

beside the road and behind every mask in the crowd be espies a rival.

Moreover, where women are in question, who is always strong? Or who

can say how long he will pursue this plan or that? A man of sternest

temper, Count Hannibal had set out on a path of conduct carefully and

deliberately chosen; knowing--and he still knew--that if he abandoned

it he had little to hope, if the less to fear. But the proof of

fidelity which the Countess had just given him had blown to a white

heat the smouldering flame in his heart, and Madame St. Lo's gibes,

which should have fallen as cold water alike on his hopes and his

passion, had but fed the desire to know the best. For all that, he

might not have spoken now, if he had not caught her look of affright;

strange as it sounds, that look, which of all things should have

silenced him and warned him that the time was not yet, stung him out

of patience. Suddenly the man in him carried him away.

"You still fear me, then!" he said, in a voice hoarse and unnatural.

"Is it for what I do or for what I leave undone that you hate me,

Madame? Tell me, I beg, for----"

"For neither!" she said, trembling. His eyes, hot and passionate, were

on her, and the blood had mounted to his brow. "For neither! I do not

hate you, monsieur!"

"You fear me then! I am right in that."

"I fear--that which you carry with you," she stammered, speaking on

impulse and scarcely knowing what she said.

He started, and his expression changed. "So?" he exclaimed. "So? You

know what I carry, do you? And from whom? From whom?" he continued in

a tone of menace, "if you please, did you get that knowledge?"

"From M. La Tribe," she muttered. She had not meant to tell him. Why

had she told him?

He nodded. "I might have known it," he said. "I more than suspected

it. Therefore I should be the more beholden to you for saving the

letters. But"--he paused and laughed harshly--"it was out of no love

for me you saved them. That, too, I know."

She did not answer or protest; and when he had waited a moment in vain

expectation of her protest, a cruel look crept into his eyes.

"Madame," he said slowly, "do you never reflect that you may push the

part you play too far? That the patience, even of the worst of men,

does not endure for ever?"

"I have your word!" she answered.

"And you do not fear?"

"I have your word," she repeated. And now she looked him bravely in

the face, her eyes full of the courage of her race.

The lines of his mouth hardened as he met her look. "And what have I

of yours?" he said in a low voice. "What have I of yours?"

Her face began to burn at that, her eyes fell and she faltered. "My

gratitude," she murmured, with an upward look that craved for pity.

"God knows, monsieur, you have that!"

"God knows I do not want it!" he answered. And he laughed derisively.

"Your gratitude!" And he mocked her tone rudely and coarsely. "Your

gratitude?" Then for a minute--for so long a time that she began to

wonder and to quake--he was silent. At last, "A fig for your

gratitude," he said. "I want your love! I suppose--cold as you are,

and a Huguenot--you can love like other women!"

It was the first, the very first time he had used the word to her; and

though it fell from his lips like a threat, though he used it as a man

presents a pistol, she flushed anew from throat to brow. But she did

not quail. "It is not mine to give," she said.

"It is his!"

"Yes, monsieur," she answered, wondering at her courage, at her

audacity, her madness. "It is his."

"And it cannot be mine--at any time?"

She shook her head, trembling.

"Never?" And, suddenly reaching forward, he gripped her wrist in an

iron grasp. There was passion in his tone. His eyes burned her.

Whether it was that set her on another track, or pure despair, or the

cry in her ears of little children and of helpless women, something in

a moment inspired her, flashed in her eyes and altered her voice. She

raised her head and looked him firmly in the face. "What," she said,

"do you mean by love?"

"You!" he answered brutally.

"Then--it may be, monsieur," she returned. "There is a way if you

will."

"Away!"

"If you will!" As she spoke she rose slowly to her feet; for in his

surprise he had released her wrist. He rose with her, and they stood

confronting one another on the strip of grass between the river and

the poplars.

"If I will?" His form seemed to dilate, his eyes devoured her. "If I

will?"

"Yes," she replied. "If you will give me the letters that are in your

belt, the packet which I saved to-day--that I may destroy them--I will

be yours freely and willingly."

He drew a deep breath, still devouring her with his eyes. "You mean

it?" he said at last.

"I do." She looked him in the face as she spoke, and her cheeks were

white, not red. "Only--the letters! Give me the letters."

"And for them you will give me your love?"

Her eyes flickered, and involuntarily she shivered. A faint blush rose

and dyed her cheeks. "Only God can give love," she said, her tone

lower.

"And yours is given?"

"Yes."

"To another?"

"I have said it."

"It is his. And yet for these letters----"

"For these lives!" she cried proudly.

"You will give yourself?"

"I swear it," she answered, "if you will give them to me! If you will

give them to me," she repeated. And she held out her hands; her face,

full of passion, was bright with a strange light. A close observer

might have thought her distraught; still excited by the struggle in

the boat, and barely mistress of herself.

But the man whom she tempted, the man who held her price at his belt,

after one searching look at her turned from her; perhaps because he

could not trust himself to gaze on her. Count Hannibal walked a dozen

paces from her and returned, and again a dozen paces and returned; and

again a third time, with something fierce and passionate in his gait.

At last he stopped before her.

"You have nothing to offer for them," he said, in a cold, hard tone.

"Nothing that is not mine already, nothing that is not my right,

nothing that I cannot take at my will. My word?" he continued, seeing

her about to interrupt him. "True, Madame, you have it, you had it.

But why need I keep my word to you, who tempt me to break my word to

the King?"

She made a weak gesture with her hands. Her head had sunk on her

breast--she seemed dazed by the shock of his contempt, dazed by his

reception of her offer.

"You saved the letters?" he continued, interpreting her action. "True,

but the letters are mine, and that which you offer for them is mine

also. You have nothing to offer. For the rest, Madame," he went on,

eyeing her cynically, "you surprise me! You, whose modesty and virtue

are so great, would corrupt your husband, would sell yourself, would

dishonour the love of which you boast so loudly, the love that only

God gives!" He laughed derisively as he quoted her words. "Ay, and,

after showing at how low a price you hold yourself, you still look, I

doubt not, to me to respect you, and to keep my word. Madame!" in a

terrible voice, "do not play with fire! You saved my letters, it is

true! And for that, for this time, you shall go free, if God will help

me to let you go! But tempt me not! Tempt me not!" he repeated,

turning from her and turning back again with a gesture of despair, as

if he mistrusted the strength of the restraint which he put upon

himself. "I am no more than other men! Perhaps I am less. And you--you

who prate of love, and know not what love is--could love! could love!"

He stopped on that word as if the word choked him--stopped, struggling

with his passion. At last, with a half-stifled oath, he flung away

from her, halted and hung a moment, then, with a swing of rage, went

off again violently. His feet as he strode along the river-bank

trampled the flowers, and slew the pale water forget-me-not, which

grew among the grasses.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A MIND, AND NOT A MIND.

La Tribe tore through the thicket, imagining Carlat and Count Hannibal

hot on his heels. He dared not pause even to listen. The underwood

tripped him, the lissom branches of the alders whipped his face and

blinded him; once he fell headlong over a moss-grown stone, and picked

himself up groaning. But the hare hard-pushed takes no account of the

briars, nor does the fox heed the mud through which it draws itself

into covert. And for the time he was naught but a hunted beast. With

elbows pinned to his sides, or with hands extended to ward off the

boughs, with bursting lungs and crimson face, he plunged through the

tangle, now slipping downwards, now leaping upwards, now all but

prostrate, now breasting a mass of thorns. On and on he ran, until he

came to the verge of the wood, saw before him an open meadow devoid of

shelter or hiding-place, and with a groan of despair cast himself

flat. He listened. How far were they behind him?

He heard nothing. Nothing, save the common noises of the wood, the

angry chatter of a disturbed blackbird as it flew low into hiding, or

the harsh notes of a flock of starlings as they rose from the meadow.

The hum of bees filled the air, and the August flies buzzed about his

sweating brow, for he had lost his cap. But behind him--nothing.

Already the stillness of the wood had closed upon his track.

He was not the less panic-stricken. He supposed that Tavannes' people

were getting to horse, and calculated that if they surrounded and beat

the wood, he must be taken. At the thought, though he had barely got

his breath, he rose, and keeping within the coppice crawled down the

slope towards the river. Gently, when he reached it, he slipped into

the water, and stooping below the level of the bank, his head and

shoulders hidden by the bushes, he waded down stream until he had put

another hundred and fifty yards between himself and pursuit. Then he

paused and listened. Still he heard nothing, and he waded on again,

until the water grew deep. At this point he marked a little below

him a clump of trees on the farther side; and reflecting that that

side--if he could reach it unseen--would be less suspect, he swam

across, aiming for a thorn bush which grew low to the water. Under its

shelter he crawled out, and, worming himself like a snake across the

few yards of grass which intervened, he stood at length within the

shadow of the trees. A moment he paused to shake himself, and then,

remembering that he was still within a mile of the camp, he set off,

now walking, and now running in the direction of the hills which his

party had crossed that morning.

For a time he hurried on, thinking only of escape. But when he had

covered a mile or two, and escape seemed probable, there began to

mingle with his thankfulness a bitter--a something which grew more

bitter with each moment. Why had he fled and left the work undone? Why

had he given way to unworthy fear, when the letters were within his

grasp? True, if he had lingered a few seconds longer, he would have

failed to make good his escape; but what of that if in those seconds

he had destroyed the letters, he had saved Angers, he had saved his

brethren? Alas! he had played the coward. The terror of Tavannes'

voice had unmanned him. He had saved himself and left the flock to

perish; he, whom God had set apart by many and great signs for this

work!

He had commonly courage enough. He could have died at the stake for

his convictions. But he had not the presence of mind which is proof

against a shock, nor the cool judgment which, in the face of death,

sees to the end of two roads. He was no coward, but now he deemed

himself one, and in an agony of remorse he flung himself on his face

in the long grass. He had known trials and temptations, but hitherto

he had held himself erect; now, like Peter, he had betrayed his Lord.

He lay an hour groaning in the misery of his heart, and then he fell

on the text "Thou art Peter, and on this rock----" and he sat up. Peter

had betrayed his trust through cowardice--as he had. But Peter had not

been held unworthy. Might it not be so with him? He rose to his feet,

a new light in his eyes. He would return! He would return, and at all

costs, even at the cost of surrendering himself, he would obtain

access to the letters. And then--not the fear of Count Hannibal, not

the fear of instant death, should turn him from his duty.

He had cast himself down in a woodland glade which lay near the path

along which he had ridden that morning. But the mental conflict from

which he rose had shaken him so violently that he could not recall the

side on which he had entered the clearing, and he turned himself

about, endeavouring to remember. At that moment the light jingle of a

bridle struck his ear; he caught through the green bushes the flash

and sparkle of harness. They had tracked him then, they were here! So

had he clear proof that this second chance was to be his. In a happy

fervour he stood forward where the pursuers could not fail to see him.

Or so he thought. Yet the first horseman, riding carelessly with his

face averted and his feet dangling, would have gone by and seen

nothing if his horse, more watchful, had not shied. The man turned

then; and for a moment the two stared at one another between the

pricked ears of the horse. At last,

"M. de Tignonville!" the minister ejaculated.

"La Tribe!"

"It is truly you?"

"Well--I think so," the young man answered.

The minister lifted up his eyes and seemed to call the trees and the

clouds and the birds to witness. "Now," he cried, "I know that I am

chosen! And that we were instruments to do this thing from the day

when the hen saved us in the hay-cart in Paris! Now I know that all is

forgiven and all is ordained, and that the faithful of Angers shall

to-morrow live and not die!" And with a face radiant, yet solemn, he

walked to the young man's stirrup.

An instant Tignonville looked sharply before him. "How far ahead are

they?" he asked. His tone, hard and matter-of-fact, was little in

harmony with the other's enthusiasm.

"They are resting a league before you, at the ferry. You are in

pursuit of them?"

"Yes."

"Not alone?"

"No." The young man's look as he spoke was grim. "I have five behind

me--of your kidney, M. La Tribe. They are from the Arsenal. They have

lost one his wife, and one his son. The three others----"

"Yes?"

"Sweethearts," Tignonville answered drily. And he cast a singular look

at the minister.

But La Tribe's mind was so full of one matter, he could think only of

that. "How did you hear of the letters?" he asked.

"The letters?"

"Yes."

"I do not know what you mean."

La Tribe stared. "Then why are you following him?" he asked.

"Why?" Tignonville echoed, a look of hate darkening his face. "Do you

ask why we follow----" But on the name he seemed to choke and was

silent.

By this time his men had come up, and one answered for him. "Why are

we following Hannibal de Tavannes?" he said sternly. "To do to him as

he has done to us! To rob him as he has robbed us--of more than gold!

To kill him as he has killed ours, foully and by surprise! In his bed

if we can! In the arms of his wife if God wills it!"

The speaker's face was haggard from brooding and lack of sleep, but

his eyes glowed and burned, as his fellows growled assent.

"'Tis simple why we follow," a second put in. "Is there a man of our

faith who will not, when he hears the tale, rise up and stab the

nearest of this black brood--though it be his brother? If so, God's

curse on him!"

"Amen! Amen!"

"So, and so only," cried the first, "shall there be faith in our land!

And our children, our little maids, shall lie safe in their beds!"

"Amen! Amen!"

The speaker's chin sank on his breast, and with his last word the

light died out of his eyes. La Tribe looked at him curiously, then at

the others. Last of all at Tignonville, on whose face he fancied that

he surprised a faint smile. Yet Tignonville's tone when he spoke was

grave enough. "You have heard," he said. "Do you blame us?"

"I cannot," the minister answered, shivering. "I can not." He had been

for a while beyond the range of these feelings; and in the greenwood,

under God's heaven, with the sunshine about him, they jarred on him.

Yet he could not blame men who had suffered as these had suffered; who

were maddened, as these were maddened, by the gravest wrongs which it

is possible for one man to inflict on another. "I dare not," he

continued sorrowfully. "But in God's name I offer you a higher and a

nobler errand."

"We need none," Tignonville muttered impatiently.

"Yet may others need you," La Tribe answered in a tone of rebuke. "You

are not aware that the man you follow bears a packet from the King for

the hands of the magistrates of Angers?"

"Ha! Does he?"

"Bidding them do at Angers as his Majesty has done in Paris?"

The men broke into cries of execration. "But he shall not see Angers!"

they swore. "The blood that he has shed shall choke him by the way!

And as he would do to others it shall be done to him."

La Tribe shuddered as he listened, as he looked. Try as he would, the

thirst of these men for vengeance appalled him. "How?" he said. "He

has a score and more with him: and you are only six."

"Seven now," Tignonville answered with a smile.

"True, but----"

"And he lies to-night at La Fleche? That is so!"

"It was his intention this morning."

"At the old King's Inn at the meeting of the great roads?"

"It was mentioned," La Tribe admitted, with a reluctance he did not

comprehend. "But if the night be fair he is as like as not to lie in

the fields."

One of the men pointed to the sky. A dark bank of cloud fresh risen

from the ocean, and big with tempest, hung low in the west. "See! God

will deliver him into our hands!" he cried.

Tignonville nodded. "If he lie there," he said, "He will." And then to

one of his followers, as he dismounted, "Do you ride on," he said,

"and stand guard that we be not surprised. And do you, Perrot, tell

monsieur. Perrot here, as God wills it," he added with a faint smile

which did not escape the minister's eye, "married his wife from the

great inn at La Fleche, and he knows the place."

"None better," the man growled. He was a sullen, brooding knave, whose

eyes when he looked up surprised by their savage fire.

La Tribe shook his head. "I know it, too," he said. "'Tis strong as a

fortress, with a walled court, and all the windows look inwards. The

gates are closed an hour after sunset, no matter who is without. If

you think, M. de Tignonville, to take him there----"

"Patience, monsieur, you have not heard me," Perrot interposed. "I

know it after another fashion. Do you remember a rill of water which

runs through the great yard and the stables?"

La Tribe nodded.

"Grated with iron at either end, and no passage for so much as a dog?

You do? Well, monsieur, I have hunted rats there, and where the water

passes under the wall is a culvert, a man's height in length. In it is

a stone, one of those which frame the grating at the entrance, which a

strong man can remove--and the man is in!"

"Ay, in! But where!" La Tribe asked, his eyebrows drawn together.

"Well said, monsieur, where?" Perrot rejoined in a tone of triumph.

"There lies the point. In the stables, where will be sleeping men, and

a snorer on every truss? No, but in a fairway between two stables

where the water at its entrance runs clear in a stone channel; a

channel deepened in one place that they may draw for the chambers

above with a rope and a bucket. The rooms above are the best in the

house, four in one row, opening all on the gallery; which was

uncovered, in the common fashion, until Queen-Mother Jezebel, passing

that way to Nantes, two years back, found the chambers draughty; and

that end of the gallery was closed in against her return. Now,

monsieur, he and his madame will lie there; and he will feel safe, for

there is but one way to those four rooms---through the door which

shuts off the covered gallery from the open part. But----" he glanced

up an instant and La Tribe caught the smouldering fire in his

eyes--"we shall not go in by the door."

"The bucket rises through a trap?"

"In the gallery? To be sure, monsieur. In the corner beyond the fourth

door. There shall he fall into the pit which he dug for others, and

the evil that he planned rebound on his own head!"

La Tribe was silent. "What think you of it?" Tignonville asked.

"That it is cleverly planned," the minister answered.

"No more than that!"

"No more until I have eaten."

"Get him something!" Tignonville replied in a surly tone. "And we may

as well eat, ourselves. Lead the horses into the wood. And do you,

Perrot, call Tuez-les-Moines, who is forward. Two hours' riding should

bring us to La Fleche. We need not leave here, therefore, until the

sun is low. To dinner! To dinner!"

Probably he did not feel the indifference he affected, for his face as

he ate grew darker, and from time to time he shot a glance, barbed

with suspicion, at the minister. La Tribe on his side remained silent,

although the men ate apart. He was in doubt, indeed, as to his own

feelings. His instinct and his reason were at odds. Through all,

however, a single purpose, the rescue of Angers, held good, and

gradually other things fell into their places. When the meal was at an

end, and Tignonville challenged him, he was ready.

"Your enthusiasm seems to have waned," the younger man said with a

sneer, "since we met, monsieur! May I ask now if you find any fault

with the plan?"

"With the plan, none."

"If it was Providence brought us together, was it not Providence

furnished me with Perrot who knows La Fleche? If it was Providence

brought the danger of the faithful in Angers to your knowledge, was it

not Providence set us on the road--without whom you had been

powerless?"

"I believe it!"

"Then, in His name, what is the matter?" Tignonville rejoined with a

passion of which the other's manner seemed an inadequate cause. "What

will you? What is it?"

"I would take your place," La Tribe answered quietly.

"My place?"

"Yes."

"What, are we too many?"

"We are enough without you, M. Tignonville," the minister answered.

"These men, who have wrongs to avenge, God will justify them."

Tignonville's eyes sparkled with anger. "And have I no wrongs to

avenge?" he cried. "Is it nothing to lose my mistress, to be robbed of

my wife, to see the woman I love dragged off to be a slave and a toy?

Are these no wrongs?"

"He spared your life, if he did not save it," the minister said

solemnly. "And hers. And her servants."

"To suit himself."

La Tribe spread out his hands.

"To suit himself! And for that you wish him to go free?" Tignonville

cried in a voice half-choked with rage. "Do you know that this man,

and this man alone, stood forth in the great Hall of the Louvre, and

when even the King flinched, justified the murder of our people? After

that is he to go free?"

"At your hands," La Tribe answered quietly. "You alone of our people

must not pursue him." He would have added more, but Tignonville would

not listen.

Brooding on his wrongs behind the wall of the Arsenal, he had let

hatred eat away his more generous instincts. Vain and conceited, he

fancied that the world laughed at the poor figure he had cut; and the

wound in his vanity festered until nothing would serve but to see the

downfall of his enemy. Instant pursuit, instant vengeance--only these,

he fancied, could restore him in his fellows' eyes.

In his heart he knew what would become him better. But vanity is a

potent motive: and his conscience, even when supported by La Tribe,

struggled but weakly. From neither would he hear more. "You have

travelled with him, until you side with him!" he cried violently.

"Have a care, monsieur, have a care lest we think you papist!" And

walking over to the men he bade them saddle; adding a sour word which

turned their eyes, in no friendly gaze, on the minister.

After that La Tribe said no more. Of what use would it have been?

But as darkness came on and cloaked the little troop, and the storm

which the men had foreseen began to rumble in the west, his distaste

for the business waxed. The summer lightning which presently began to

play across the sky revealed not only the broad gleaming stream,

between which and a wooded hill their road ran, but the faces of his

companions; and these in their turn shed a grisly light on the bloody

enterprise towards which they were set. Nervous and ill at ease, the

minister's mind dwelt on the stages of that enterprise; the stealthy

entrance through the waterway, the ascent through the trap, the

surprise, the slaughter in the sleeping-chamber. And either because he

had lived for days in the victim's company, or was swayed by the

arguments he had addressed to another, the prospect shook his soul.

In vain he told himself that this was the oppressor; he saw only the

man, fresh roused from sleep, with the horror of impending dissolution

in his eyes. And when the rider, behind whom he sat, pointed to a

faint spark of light, at no great distance before them, and whispered

that it was St. Agnes 's Chapel, hard by the inn, he could have cried

with the best Catholic of them all, "Inter pontem et fontem, Domine!"

Nay, some such words did pass his lips.

For the man before him turned half-way in his saddle. "What?" he

asked.

But the Huguenot did not explain.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AT THE KING'S INN.

The Countess sat up in the darkness of the chamber. She had writhed

since noon under the stings of remorse; she could bear them no longer.

The slow declension of the day, the evening light, the signs of coming

tempest which had driven her company to the shelter of the inn at the

cross-roads, all had racked her, by reminding her that the hours were

flying, and that soon the fault she had committed would be

irreparable. One impulsive attempt to redeem it she had made, we know;

but it had failed, and, by rendering her suspect, had made reparation

more difficult. Still, by daylight it had seemed possible to rest

content with the trial made; not so now, when night had fallen, and

the cries of little children and the haggard eyes of mothers peopled

the darkness of her chamber. She sat up, and listened with throbbing

temples.

To shut out the lightning which played at intervals across the

heavens, Madame St. Lo, who shared the room, had covered the window

with a cloak; and the place was dark. To exclude the dull roll of the

thunder was less easy, for the night was oppressively hot, and behind

the cloak the casement was open. Gradually, too, another sound, the

hissing fall of heavy rain, began to make itself heard, and to mingle

with the regular breathing which proved that Madame St. Lo slept.

Assured of this fact, the Countess presently heaved a sigh, and

slipped from the bed. She groped in the darkness for her cloak, found

it, and donned it over her night-gear. Then, taking her bearings by

her bed, which stood with its head to the window and its foot to the

entrance, she felt her way across the floor to the door, and after

passing her hands a dozen times over every part of it, she found the

latch, and raised it. The door creaked, as she pulled it open, and she

stood arrested; but the sound went no farther, for the roofed gallery

outside, which looked by two windows on the courtyard, was full of

outdoor noises, the rushing of rain and the running of spouts and

eaves. One of the windows stood wide, admitting the rain and wind, and

as she paused, holding the door open, the draught blew the cloak from

her. She stepped out quickly and shut the door behind her. On her left

was the blind end of the passage; she turned to the right. She took

one step into the darkness and stood motionless. Beside her, within a

few feet of her, some one had moved, with a dull sound as of a boot on

wood; a sound so near her that she held her breath, and pressed

herself against the wall.

She listened. Perhaps some of the servants--it was a common usage--had

made their beds on the floor. Perhaps one of the women had stirred in

the room against the wall of which she crouched. Perhaps--but, even

while she reassured herself, the sound rose anew at her feet.

Fortunately at the same instant the glare of the lightning flooded

all, and showed the passage, and showed it empty. It lit up the row of

doors on her right and the small windows on her left; and discovered

facing her, the door which shut off the rest of the house. She could

have thanked--nay, she did thank God for that light. If the sound she

had heard recurred she did not hear it; for, as the thunder which

followed hard on the flash, crashed overhead and rolled heavily

eastwards, she felt her way boldly along the passage, touching first

one door, and then a second, and then a third.

She groped for the latch of the last, and found it, but, with her hand

on it, paused. In order to summon up her courage, she strove to hear

again the cries of misery and to see again the haggard eyes which had

driven her hither. And if she did not wholly succeed, other

reflections came to her aid. This storm, which covered all smaller

noises, and opened, now and again, God's lantern for her use, did it

not prove that He was on her side, and that she might count on His

protection? The thought at least was timely, and with a better heart

she gathered her wits. Waiting until the thunder burst over her head,

she opened the door, slid within it, and closed it. She would fain

have left it ajar, that in case of need she might escape the more

easily. But the wind, which beat into the passage through the open

window, rendered the precaution too perilous.

She went forward two paces into the room, and as the roll of the

thunder died away she stooped forward and listened with painful

intensity for the sound of Count Hannibal's breathing. But the window

was open, and the hiss of the rain persisted; she could hear nothing

through it, and fearfully she took another step forward. The window

should be before her; the bed in the corner to the left. But nothing

of either could she make out. She must wait for the lightning.

It came, and for a second or more the room shone. The window, the low

truckle-bed, the sleeper, she saw all with dazzling clearness, and

before the flash had well passed she was crouching low, with the hood

of her cloak dragged about her face. For the glare had revealed Count

Hannibal; but not asleep! He lay on his side, his face towards her;

lay with open eyes, staring at her.

Or had the light tricked her? The light must have tricked her, for in

the interval between the flash and the thunder, while she crouched

quaking, he did not move or call. The light must have deceived her.

She felt so certain of it that she found courage to remain where she

was until another flash came and showed him sleeping with closed eyes.

She drew a breath of relief at that, and rose slowly to her feet. But

she dared not go forward until a third flash had confirmed the second.

Then, while the thunder burst overhead and rolled away, she crept on

until she stood beside the pillow, and stooping, could hear the

sleeper's breathing.

Alas! the worst remained to be done. The packet, she was sure of it,

lay under his pillow. How was she to find it, how remove it without

rousing him? A touch might awaken him. And yet, if she would not

return empty-handed, if she would not go back to the harrowing

thoughts which had tortured her through the long hours of the day, it

must be done, and done now.

She knew this, yet she hung irresolute a while, blenching before the

manual act, listening to the persistent rush and downpour of the rain.

Then a second time she drew courage from the storm. How timely had it

broken! How signally had it aided her! How slight had been her chance

without it! And so at last, resolutely but with a deft touch, she slid

her fingers between the pillow and the bed, slightly pressing down the

latter with her other hand. For an instant she fancied that the

sleeper's breathing stopped, and her heart gave a great bound. But the

breathing went on the next instant--if it had stopped--and dreading

the return of the lightning, shrinking from being revealed so near

him, and in that act--for which the darkness seemed more fitting--she

groped farther, and touched something. And then, as her fingers closed

upon it and grasped it, and his breath rose hot to her burning cheek,

she knew that the real danger lay in the withdrawal.

At the first attempt he uttered a kind of grunt and moved, throwing

out his hand. She thought that he was going to awake, and had hard

work to keep herself where she was; but he did not move, and she began

again with so infinite a precaution that the perspiration ran down her

face and her hair within the hood hung dank on her neck. Slowly, oh so

slowly, she drew back the hand, and with it the packet; so slowly, and

yet so resolutely, being put to it, that when the dreaded flash

surprised her, and she saw his harsh swarthy face, steeped in the

mysterious aloofness of sleep, within a hand's breadth of hers, not a

muscle of her arm moved, nor did her hand quiver.

It was done--at last! With a burst of gratitude, of triumph, of

exultation, she stood erect. She realised that it was done, and that

here in her hand she held the packet. A deep gasp of relief, of joy,

of thankfulness, and she glided towards the door.

She groped for the latch, and in the act fancied his breathing was

changed. She paused and bent her head to listen. But the patter of the

rain, drowning all sounds save those of the nearest origin, persuaded

her that she was mistaken, and, finding the latch, she raised it,

slipped like a shadow into the passage, and closed the door behind

her.

That done she stood arrested, all the blood in her body running to her

heart. She must be dreaming! The passage in which she stood--the

passage which she had left in black darkness--was alight; was so far

lighted, at least, that to eyes fresh from the night, the figures of

three men, grouped at the farther end, stood out against the glow of

the lantern which they appeared to be trimming--for the two nearest

were stooping over it. These two had their backs to her, the third his

face; and it was the sight of this third man which had driven the

blood to her heart. He ended at the waist! It was only after a few

seconds, it was only when she had gazed at him awhile in speechless

horror, that he rose another foot from the floor, and she saw that he

had paused in the act of ascending through a trapdoor. What the scene

meant, who these men were, or what their entrance portended, with

these questions her brain refused at the moment to grapple. It was

much that--still remembering who might hear her, and what she

held--she did not shriek aloud.

Instead, she stood in the gloom at her end of the passage, gazing with

all her eyes until she had seen the third man step clear of the trap.

She could see him; but the light intervened and blurred his view of

her. He stooped, almost as soon as he had cleared himself, to help up

a fourth man, who rose with a naked knife between his teeth. She saw

then that all were armed, and something stealthy in their bearing,

something cruel in their eyes as the light of the lantern fell now on

one dark face and now on another, went to her heart and chilled it.

Who were they, and why were they here? What was their purpose? As her

reason awoke, as she asked herself these questions, the fourth man

stooped in his turn, and gave his hand to a fifth. And on that she

lost her self-control and cried out. For the last man to ascend was La

Tribe! La Tribe, from whom she had parted that morning!

The sound she uttered was low, but it reached the men's ears, and the

two whose backs were towards her turned as if they had been pricked.

He who held the lantern raised it, and the five glared at her and she

at them. Then a second cry, louder and more full of surprise, burst

from her lips. The nearest man, he who held the lantern high that he

might view her, was Tignonville, was her lover!

"_Mon Dieu!_" she whispered. "What is it? What is it?"

Then, not till then, did he know her. Until then the light of the

lantern had revealed only a cloaked and cowled figure, a gloomy

phantom which shook the heart of more than one with superstitious

terror. But they knew her now--two of them; and slowly, as in a dream,

Tignonville came forward.

The mind has its moments of crisis, in which it acts upon instinct

rather than upon reason. The girl never knew why she acted as she did;

why she asked no questions, why she uttered no exclamations, no

remonstrances. Why, with a finger on her lips and her eyes on his, she

put the packet into his hands.

He took it from her, too, as mechanically as she gave it--with the

hand which held his bare blade. That done, silent as she, with his

eyes set hard, he would have gone by her. The sight of her there,

guarding the door of him who had stolen her from him, exasperated his

worst passions.

But she moved to hinder him, and barred the way. With her hand raised

she pointed to the trapdoor. "Go now!" she whispered, her tone stern

and low, "you have what you want! Go!"

"No!" And he tried to pass her.

"Go!" she repeated in the same tone. "You have what you need." And

still she held her hand extended; still without faltering she faced

the five men, while the thunder, growing more distant, rolled sullenly

eastward, and the midnight rain, pouring from every spout and dripping

eave about the house, wrapped the passage in its sibilant hush.

Gradually her eyes dominated his, gradually her nobler nature and

nobler aim subdued his weaker parts. For she understood now; and he

saw that she did, and had he been alone he would have slunk away, and

said no word in his defence.

But one of the men, savage and out of patience, thrust himself between

them. "Where is he?" he muttered. "What is the use of this? Where is

he?" And his bloodshot eyes--it was Tuez-les-Moines--questioned the

doors, while his hand, trembling and shaking on the haft of his knife,

bespoke his eagerness. "Where is he? Where is he, woman? Quick,

or----"

"I shall not tell you," she answered.

"You lie," he cried, grinning like a dog. "You will tell us! Or we

will kill you, too! Where is he? Where is he?"

"I shall not tell you," she repeated, standing before him in the

fearlessness of scorn. "Another step and I rouse the house! M. de

Tignonville, to you who know me, I swear that if this man does not

retire----"

"He is in one of these rooms?" was Tignonville's answer. "In which? In

which?"

"Search them!" she answered, her voice low, but biting in its

contempt. "Try them. Rouse my women, alarm the house! And when you

have his people at your throats--five as they will be to one of

you--thank your own mad folly!"

Tuez-les-Moines' eyes glittered. "You will not tell us?" he cried.

"No!"

"Then----"

But as the fanatic sprang on her, La Tribe flung his arms round him

and dragged him back. "It would be madness," he cried. "Are you mad,

fool? Have done!" he panted, struggling with him. "If madame gives the

alarm--and he may be in any one of these four rooms, you cannot be

sure which--we are undone." He looked for support to Tignonville,

whose movement to protect the girl he had anticipated, and who had

since listened sullenly. "We have obtained what we need. Will you

requite madame, who has gained it for us at her own risk----"

"It is monsieur I would requite," Tignonville muttered grimly.

"By using violence to her?" the minister retorted passionately. He and

Tuez were still gripping one another. "I tell you, to go on is to risk

what we have got! And I for one----"

"Am chicken-hearted!" the young man sneered. "Madame--" he seemed to

choke on the word. "Will you swear that he is not here?"

"I swear that if you do not go I will raise the alarm!" she

hissed--all their words were sunk to that stealthy note. "Go! if you

have not stayed too long already. Go! Or see!" And she pointed to the

trapdoor, from which the face and arms of a sixth man had that moment

risen--the face dark with perturbation, so that her woman's wit told

her at once that something was amiss. "See what has come of your delay

already!"

"The water is rising," the man muttered earnestly. "In God's name

come, whether you have done it or not, or we cannot pass out again. It

is within a foot of the crown of the culvert now, and it is rising."

"Curse on the water!" Tuez-les-Moines answered in a frenzied whisper.

"And on this Jezebel. Let us kill her and him! What matter

afterwards?" And he tried to shake off La Tribe's grasp.

But the minister held him desperately. "Are you mad? Are you mad?" he

answered. "What can we do against thirty? Let us be gone while we can.

Let us be gone! Come."

"Ay, come," Perrot cried, assenting reluctantly. He had taken no side

hitherto. "The luck is against us! 'Tis no use to-night, man!" And he

turned with an air of sullen resignation. Letting his legs drop

through the trap he followed the bearer of the tidings out of sight.

Another made up his mind to go, and went. Then only Tignonville

holding the lantern, and La Tribe, who feared to release

Tuez-les-Moines, remained with the fanatic.

The Countess's eyes met her old lover's, and whether old memories

overcame her, or, now that the danger was nearly past, she began to

give way, she swayed a little on her feet. But he did not notice it.

He was sunk in black rage: rage against her, rage against himself.

"Take the light," she muttered unsteadily. "And--and he must follow!"

"And you?"

But she could bear it no longer. "Oh, go," she wailed. "Go! Will you

never go? If you love me, if you ever loved me, I implore you to go."

He had betrayed little of a lover's feeling. But he could not resist

that appeal, and he turned silently. Seizing Tuez-les-Moines by the

other arm, he drew him by force to the trap. "Quiet, fool," he

muttered savagely when the man would have resisted, "and go down! If

we stay to kill him, we shall have no way of escape, and his life will

be dearly bought. Down, man, down!" And between them, in a struggling

silence, with now and then an audible rap, or a ring of metal, the two

forced the desperado to descend.

La Tribe followed hastily. Tignonville was the last to go. In the act

of disappearing he raised his lantern for a last glimpse of the

Countess. To his astonishment the passage was empty; she was gone.

Hard by him a door stood an inch or two ajar, and he guessed that it

was hers, and swore under his breath, hating her at that moment. But

he did not guess how nicely she had calculated her strength; how

nearly exhaustion had overcome her; or that even while he paused--a

fatal pause had he known it--eyeing the dark opening of the door, she

lay as one dead, on the bed within. She had fallen in a swoon, from

which she did not recover until the sun had risen, and marched across

one quarter of the heavens.

Nor did he see another thing, or he might have hastened his steps.

Before the yellow light of his lantern faded from the ceiling of the

passage, the door of the room farthest from the trap slid open. A man,

whose eyes, until darkness swallowed him, shone strangely in a face

extraordinarily softened, came out on tip-toe. This man stood awhile,

listening. At length, hearing those below utter a cry of dismay, he

awoke to sudden activity. He opened with a turn of the key the door

which stood at his elbow, the door which led to the other part of the

house. He vanished through it. A second later a sharp whistle pierced

the darkness of the courtyard and brought a dozen sleepers to their

senses and their feet. A moment, and the courtyard hummed with voices,

above which one voice rang clear and insistent. With a startled cry

the inn awoke.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART.

"But why," Madame. St. Lo asked, sticking her arms akimbo, "why stay

in this forsaken place a day and a night, when six hours in the saddle

would set us in Angers?"

"Because," Tavannes replied coldly--he and his cousin were walking

before the gateway of the inn--"the Countess is not well, and will be

the better, I think, for staying a day."

"She slept soundly enough! I'll answer for that!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"She never raised her head this morning, though my women were

shrieking 'Murder!' next door, and----Name of Heaven!" madame resumed,

after breaking off abruptly, and shading her eyes with her hand, "what

comes here? Is it a funeral? Or a pilgrimage? If all the priests about

here are as black, no wonder M. Rabelais fell out with them!"

The inn stood without the walls for the convenience of those who

wished to take the road early: a little also, perhaps, because food

and forage were cheaper, and the wine paid no town-dues. Four great

roads met before the house, along the most easterly of which the

sombre company which had caught Madame St. Lo's attention could be

seen approaching. At first Count Hannibal supposed with his companion

that the travellers were conveying to the grave the corpse of some

person of distinction; for the _cortege_ consisted mainly of priests

and the like mounted on mules, and clothed for the most part in black.

Black also was the small banner which waved above them, and bore in

place of arms the emblem of the Bleeding Heart. But a second glance

failed to discover either litter or bier; and a nearer approach showed

that the travellers, whether they wore the tonsure or not, bore

weapons of one kind or another about them.

Suddenly Madame St. Lo clapped her hands, and proclaimed in great

astonishment that she knew them. "Why, there is Father Boucher, the

Cure of St.-Benoist!" she said, "and Father Pezelay of St. Magloire.

And there is another I know, though I cannot remember his name! They

are preachers from Paris! That is who they are! But what can they be

doing here? Is it a pilgrimage, think you?"

"Ay, a pilgrimage of Blood!" Count Hannibal answered between his

teeth. And, turning to him to learn what moved him, she saw the look

in his eyes which portended a storm. Before she could ask a question,

however, the gloomy company, which had first appeared in the distance,

moving, an inky blot, through the hot sunshine of the summer morning,

had drawn near and was almost abreast of them. Stepping from her side,

he raised his hand and arrested the march.

"Who is master here?" he asked haughtily.

"I am the leader," answered a stout pompous Churchman, whose small

malevolent eyes belied the sallow fatuity of his face. "I, M. de

Tavannes, by your leave."

"And you, by your leave," Tavannes sneered, "are----"

"Archdeacon and Vicar of the Bishop of Angers and Prior of the Lesser

Brethren of St. Germain, M. le Comte. Visitor also of the Diocese of

Angers," the dignitary continued, puffing out his cheeks, "and

Chaplain to the Lieutenant-Governor of Saumur, whose unworthy brother

I am."

"A handsome glove, and well embroidered!" Tavannes retorted in a tone

of disdain. "The hand I see yonder!" He pointed to the lean parchment

mask of Father Pezelay, who coloured ever so faintly, but held his

peace under the sneer. "You are bound for Angers!" Count Hannibal

continued. "For what purpose, Sir Prior!"

"His Grace the Bishop is absent, and in his absence----"

"You go to fill his city with strife! I know you! Not you!" he

continued, contemptuously turning from the Prior, and regarding the

third of the principal figures of the party. "But you! You were the

Cure who got the mob together last All Souls'."

"I speak the words of Him Who sent me!" answered the third Churchman,

whose brooding face and dull curtained eyes gave no promise of the

fits of frenzied eloquence which had made his pulpit famous in Paris.

"Then Kill and Burn are His alphabet!" Tavannes retorted, and heedless

of the start of horror which a saying so near blasphemy excited among

the Churchmen, he turned to Father Pezelay. "And you! You, too, I

know!" he continued. "And you know me! And take this from me. Turn,

father! Turn! Or worse than a broken head--you bear the scar I

see--will befall you. These good persons, whom you have moved, unless

I am in error, to take this journey, may not know me; but you do, and

can tell them. If they will to Angers, they must to Angers. But if I

find trouble in Angers when I come, I will hang some one high. Don't

scowl at me, man!"--in truth, the look of hate in Father Pezelay's

eyes was enough to provoke the exclamation. "Some one, and it shall

not be a bare patch on the crown will save his windpipe from

squeezing!"

A murmur of indignation broke from the preachers' attendants; one or

two made a show of drawing their weapons. But Count Hannibal paid no

heed to them, and had already turned on his heel when Father Pezelay

spurred his mule a pace or two forward. Snatching a heavy brass cross

from one of the acolytes, he raised it aloft, and in the voice which

had often thrilled the heated congregation of St. Magloire, he called

on Tavannes to pause.

"Stand, my lord!" he cried. "And take warning! Stand, reckless and

profane, whose face is set hard as a stone, and his heart as a flint,

against High Heaven and Holy Church! Stand and hear! Behold the word

of the Lord is gone out against this city, even against Angers, for

the unbelief thereof! Her place shall be left unto her desolate, and

her children shall be dashed against the stones! Woe unto you,

therefore, if you gainsay it, or fall short of that which is

commanded! You shall perish as Achan, the son of Charmi, and as Saul!

The curse that has gone out against you shall not tarry, nor your days

continue! For the Canaanitish woman that is in your house, and for the

thought that is in your heart, the place that was yours is given to

another! Yea, the sword is even now drawn that shall pierce your

side!"

"You are more like to split my ears!" Count Hannibal answered sternly.

"And now mark me! Preach as you please here. But a word in Angers, and

though you be shaven twice over, I will have you silenced after a

fashion which will not please you! If you value your tongue therefore,

father----oh, you shake off the dust, do you? Well, pass on! 'Tis

wise, perhaps."

And undismayed by the scowling brows, and the cross ostentatiously

lifted to heaven, he gazed after the procession as it moved on under

its swaying banner, now one and now another of the acolytes looking

back and raising his hands to invoke the bolt of Heaven on the

blasphemer. As the _cortege_ passed the huge watering-troughs, and the

open gateway of the inn, the knot of persons congregated there fell on

their knees. In answer the Churchmen raised their banner higher, and

began to sing the _Eripe me, Domine!_ and to its strains, now

vengeful, now despairing, now rising on a wave of menace, they passed

slowly into the distance, slowly towards Angers and the Loire.

Suddenly Madame St. Lo twitched his sleeve. "Enough for me!" she cried

passionately. "I go no farther with you!"

"Ah?"

"No farther!" she repeated. She was pale, she shivered. "Many thanks,

my cousin, but we part company here. I do not go to Angers. I have

seen horrors enough. I will take my people, and go to my aunt by Tours

and the east road. For you, I foresee what will happen. You will

perish between the hammer and the anvil."

"Ah?"

"You play too fine a game," she continued, her face quivering. "Give

over the girl to her lover, and send away her people with her. And

wash your hands of her and hers. Or you will see her fall, and fall

beside her! Give her to him, I say--give her to him!"

"My wife?"

"Wife?" she echoed, for, fickle, and at all times swept away by the

emotions of the moment, she was in earnest now. "Is there a tie," and

she pointed after the vanishing procession, "that they cannot unloose?

That they will not unloose? Is there a life which escapes if they doom

it? Did the Admiral escape? Or Rochefoucauld? Or Madame de Luns in old

days? I tell you they go to rouse Angers against you, and I see

beforehand what will happen. She will perish, and you with her. Wife?

A pretty wife, at whose door you took her lover last night."

"And at your door!" he answered quietly, unmoved by the gibe.

But she did not heed. "I warned you of that!" she cried. "And you

would not believe me. I told you he was following. And I warn you of

this. You are between the hammer and the anvil, M. le Comte! If

Tignonville does not murder you in your bed----"

"'Tis not likely while I hold him in my power."

"Then Holy Church will fall on you and crush you. For me, I have seen

enough and more than enough. I go to Tours by the east road."

He shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said.

She flung away in disgust with him. She could not understand a man who

played fast and loose at such a time. The game was too fine for her,

its danger too apparent, the gain too small. She had, too, a woman's

dread of the Church, a woman's belief in the power of the dead hand to

punish. And in half an hour her orders were given. In two hours her

people were gathered, and she departed by the eastward road, three of

Tavannes' riders reinforcing her servants for a part of the way. Count

Hannibal stood to watch them start, and noticed Bigot riding by the

side of Suzanne's mule. He smiled; and presently, as he turned away,

he did a thing rare with him--he laughed outright.

A laugh which reflected a mood rare as itself. Few had seen Count

Hannibal's eye sparkle as it sparkled now; few had seen him laugh as

he laughed, walking to and fro in the sunshine before the inn. His men

watched him, and wondered, and liked it little, for one or two who had

overheard his altercation with the Churchmen had reported it, and

there was shaking of heads over it. The man who had singed the Pope's

beard and chucked Cardinals under the chin was growing old, and the

most daring of the others had no mind to fight with foes whose weapons

were not of this world.

Count Hannibal's gaiety, however, was well grounded, had they known

it. He was gay, not because he foresaw peril, and it was his nature to

love peril; nor--in the main, though a little, perhaps--because he

knew that the woman whose heart he desired to win had that night stood

between him and death; nor, though again a little, perhaps, because

she had confirmed his choice by conduct which a small man might have

deprecated, but which a great man loved; but chiefly, because the

events of the night had placed in his grasp two weapons by the aid of

which he looked to recover all the ground he had lost--lost by his

impulsive departure from the path of conduct on which he had started.

Those weapons were Tignonville, taken like a rat in a trap by the

rising of the water; and the knowledge that the Countess had stolen

the precious packet from his pillow. The knowledge--for he had lain

and felt her breath upon his cheek, he had lain and felt her hand

beneath his pillow, he had lain while the impulse to fling his arms

about her had been almost more than he could tame! He had lain and

suffered her to go, to pass out safely as she had passed in. And then

he had received his reward in the knowledge that, if she robbed him,

she robbed him not for herself; and that where it was a question of

his life she did not fear to risk her own.

When he came, indeed, to that point, he trembled. How narrowly had he

been saved from misjudging her! Had he not lain and waited, had he not

possessed himself in patience, he might have been led to think her in

collusion with the old lover whom he found at her door, and with those

who came to slay him. Either he might have perished unwarned; or

escaping that danger, he might have detected her with Tignonville and

lost for all time the ideal of a noble woman.

He had escaped that peril. More, he had gained the weapons we have

indicated; and the sense of power, in regard to her, almost

intoxicated him. Surely if he wielded those weapons to the best

advantage, if he strained generosity to the uttermost, the citadel of

her heart must yield at last.

He had the defect of his courage and his nature, a tendency to do

things after a flamboyant fashion. He knew that her act would plunge

him in perils which he had not foreseen. If the preachers roused the

Papists of Angers, if he arrived to find men's swords whetted for the

massacre and the men themselves awaiting the signal, then if he did

not give that signal there would be trouble. There would be trouble of

the kind in which the soul of Hannibal de Tavannes revelled, trouble

about the ancient cathedral and under the black walls of the Angevin

castle, trouble amid which the hearts of common men would be as water.

Then, when things seemed at their worst, he would reveal his

knowledge. Then, when forgiveness must seem impossible, he would

forgive. With the flood of peril which she had unloosed rising round

them, he would say, "Go!" to the man who had aimed at his life; he

would say to her, "I know, and I forgive!" That, that only, would

fitly crown the policy on which he had decided from the first, though

he had not hoped to conduct it on lines so splendid as those which now

dazzled him.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TEMPER.

It was his gaiety, that strange unusual gaiety, still continuing,

which on the following day began by perplexing and ended by terrifying

the Countess. She could not doubt that he had missed the packet on

which so much hung and of which he had indicated the importance. But

if he had missed it, why, she asked herself, did he not speak? Why did

he not cry the alarm, search and question and pursue? Why did he not

give her the opening to tell the truth, without which even her courage

failed, her resolution died within her?

Above all, what was the secret of his strange merriment? Of the

snatches of song which broke from him, only to be hushed by her look

of astonishment? Of the parades which his horse, catching the

infection, made under him, as he tossed his riding-cane high in the

air and caught it?

Ay, what? Why, when he had suffered so great a loss, when he had been

robbed of that of which he must give account--why did he cast off his

melancholy and ride like the youngest? She wondered what the men

thought, and looking, saw them stare, saw that they watched him

stealthily, saw that they laid their heads together. What were they

thinking of it? She could not tell; and slowly a terror, more

insistent than any to which the extremity of violence would have

reduced her, began to grip her heart.

Twenty hours of rest had lifted her from the state of collapse into

which the events of the night had cast her; still her limbs at

starting had shaken under her. But the cool freshness of the early

summer morning, and the sight of the green landscape and the winding

Loir, beside which their road ran, had not failed to revive her

spirits; and if he had shown himself merely gloomy, merely sunk in

revengeful thoughts, or darting hither and thither the glance of

suspicion, she felt that she could have faced him, and on the first

opportunity could have told him the truth.

But this strange mood veiled she knew not what. It seemed, if she

comprehended it at all, the herald of some bizarre, some dreadful

vengeance, in harmony with his fierce and mocking spirit. Before it

her heart became as water. Even her colour little by little left her

cheeks. She knew that he had only to look at her now to read the

truth; that it was written in her face, in her shrinking figure, in

the eyes which now guiltily sought and now avoided his. And feeling

sure that he did read it and know it, she fancied that he licked his

lips, as the cat which plays with the mouse; she fancied that he

gloated on her terror and her perplexity.

This, though the day and the road were warrants for all cheerful

thoughts. On one side vineyards clothed the warm red slopes, and rose

in steps from the river to the white buildings of a convent. On the

other the stream wound through green flats where the black cattle

stood knee-deep in grass, watched by wild-eyed and half-naked youths.

Again the travellers lost sight of the Loir, and crossing a shoulder,

rode through the dim aisles of a beech-forest, through deep rustling

drifts of last year's leaves. And out again and down again they

passed, and turning aside from the gateway, trailed along beneath the

brown machicolated wall of an old town, from the crumbling battlements

of which faces half-sleepy, half-suspicious, watched them as they

moved below through the glare and heat. Down to the river-level again,

where a squalid anchorite, seated at the mouth of a cave dug in the

bank, begged of them, and the bell of a monastery on the farther bank

tolled slumberously the hour of Nones.

And still he said nothing, and she, cowed by his mysterious gaiety,

yet spurning herself for her cowardice, was silent also. He hoped to

arrive at Angers before nightfall. What, she wondered, shivering,

would happen there? What was he planning to do to her? How would he

punish her? Brave as she was, she was a woman, with a woman's nerves;

and fear and anticipation got upon them; and his silence--his silence

which must mean a thing worse than words!

And then on a sudden, piercing all, a new thought. Was it possible

that he had other letters? If his bearing were consistent with

anything, it was consistent with that. Had he other genuine letters,

or had he duplicate letters, so that he had lost nothing, but instead

had gained the right to rack and torture her, to taunt and despise

her?

That thought stung her into sudden self-betrayal. They were riding

along a broad dusty track which bordered a stone causey raised above

the level of winter floods; impulsively she turned to him. "You

have other letters!" she cried. "You have other letters!" And freed

for the moment from her terror, she fixed her eyes on his and strove

to read his face.

He looked at her, his mouth grown hard. "What do you mean, madame?" he

asked.

"You have other letters?"

"For whom?"

"From the King, for Angers!"

He saw that she was going to confess, that she was going to derange

his cherished plan; and unreasonable anger awoke in the man who had

been more than willing to forgive a real injury. "Will you explain?"

he said between his teeth. And his eyes glittered unpleasantly. "What

do you mean?"

"You have other letters," she persisted, "besides those which I

stole."

"Which you stole?" He repeated the words without passion. Enraged by

this unexpected turn, he hardly knew how to take it.

"Yes, I!" she cried. "I! I took them from under your pillow!"

He was silent a minute. Then he laughed and shook his head. "It will

not do, madame," he said, his lip curling. "You are clever, but you do

not deceive me."

"Deceive you?"

"Yes."

"You do not believe that I took the letters?" she cried in great

amazement.

"No," he answered; "and for a good reason." He had hardened his heart

now. He had chosen his line, and he would not spare her.

"Why, then?" she cried. "Why?"

"For the best of all reasons," he answered. "Because the person who

stole the letters was seized in the act of making his escape, and is

now in my power."

"The person--who stole the letters?" she faltered.

"Yes, madame."

"Do you mean M. de Tignonville?"

"You have said it."

She turned white to the lips, and trembling could with difficulty sit

her horse. With an effort she pulled it up, and he stopped also. Their

attendants were some way ahead. "And you have the letters?" she

whispered, her eyes meeting his. "You have the letters?"

"No, but I have the thief!" Count Hannibal answered with sinister

meaning. "As I think you knew, madame," he continued ironically, "a

while back before you spoke."

"I? Oh, no, no!" and she swayed in her saddle. "What--what are

you--going to do?" she muttered after a moment's stricken silence.

"To him?"

"Yes."

"The magistrates will decide, at Angers."

"But he did not do it! I swear he did not."

Count Hannibal shook his head coldly.

"I swear, monsieur, I took the letters!" she repeated piteously.

"Punish me!" Her figure, bowed like an old woman's over the neck of

her horse, seemed to crave his mercy.

Count Hannibal smiled.

"You do not believe me?"

"No," he said. And then, in a tone which chilled her, "If I did

believe you," he continued, "I should still punish him!" She was

broken; but he would see if he could not break her further. He would

try if there were no weak spot in her armour. He would rack her now,

since in the end she must go free. "Understand, madame," he continued

in his harshest tone, "I have had enough of your lover. He has crossed

my path too often. You are my wife, I am your husband. In a day or two

there shall be an end of this farce and of him."

"He did not take them!" she wailed, her face sinking lower on her

breast. "He did not take them! Have mercy!"

"Any way, madame, they are gone!" Tavannes answered. "You have taken

them between you; and as I do not choose that you should pay, he will

pay the price."

If the discovery that Tignonville had fallen into her husband's hands

had not sufficed to crush her, Count Hannibal's tone must have done

so. The shoot of new life which had raised its head after those

dreadful days in Paris, and--for she was young--had supported her

under the weight which the peril of Angers had cast on her shoulders,

died, bruised under the heel of his brutality. The pride which had

supported her, which had won Tavannes' admiration and exacted his

respect, sank, as she sank herself, bowed to her horse's neck, weeping

bitter tears before him. She abandoned herself to her misery, as she

had once abandoned herself in the upper room in Paris.

And he looked at her. He had willed to crush her; he had his will, and

he was not satisfied. He had bowed her so low that his magnanimity

would now have its full effect, would shine as the sun into a dark

world; and yet he was not happy. He could look forward to the morrow,

and say, "She will understand me, she will know me!" and lo, the

thought that she wept for her lover stabbed him, and stabbed him anew;

and he thought, "Rather would she death from him, than life from me!

Though I give her creation, it will not alter her! Though I strike the

stars with my head, it is he who fills her world."

The thought spurred him to farther cruelty, impelled him to try if,

prostrate as she was, he could not draw a prayer from her? "You don't

ask after him?" he scoffed. "He may be before or behind? Or wounded or

well? Would you not know, madame? And what message he sent you? And

what he fears, and what hope he has? And his last wishes? And--for

while there is life there is hope--would you not learn where the key

of his prison lies to-night? How much for the key to-night, madame?"

Each question fell on her like the lash of a whip; but as one who has

been flogged into insensibility, she did not wince. That drove him on:

he felt a mad desire to hear her prayers, to force her lower, to bring

her to her knees. And he sought about for a keener taunt. Their

attendants were almost out of sight before them; the sun, declining

apace, was in their eyes. "In two hours we shall be in Angers," he

said. "Mon Dieu, madame, it was a pity, when you two were taking

letters, you did not go a step farther. You were surprised, or I doubt

if I should be alive to-day!"

Then she did look up. She raised her head and met his gaze with such

wonder in her eyes, such reproach in her tear-stained face, that his

voice sank on the last word. "You mean--that I would have murdered

you?" she said. "I would have cut off my hand first. What I did"--and

now her voice was as firm as it was low--"what I did, I did to save my

people. And if it were to be done again, I would do it again!"

"You dare to tell me that to my face?" he cried, hiding feelings which

almost choked him. "You would do it again, would you? Mon Dieu,

madame, you need to be taught a lesson!"

And by chance, meaning only to make the horses move on again, he

raised his whip. She thought that he was going to strike her, and she

flinched at last. The whip fell smartly on her horse's quarters, and

it sprang forward. Count Hannibal swore between his teeth.

He had turned pale, she red as fire. "Get on! Get on!" he cried

harshly. "We are falling behind!" And riding at her heels, flipping

her horse now and then, he forced her to trot on until they overtook

the servants.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE BLACK TOWN.

It was late evening when, riding wearily on jaded horses, they came to

the outskirts of Angers, and saw before them the term of their

journey. The glow of sunset had faded, but the sky was still warm with

the last hues of day; and against its opal light the huge mass of the

Angevin castle, which even in sunshine rises dark and forbidding above

the Mayenne, stood up black and sharply defined. Below it, on both

banks of the river, the towers and spires of the city soared up from a

sombre huddle of ridge-roofs, broken here by a round-headed gateway,

crumbling and pigeon-haunted, that dated from St. Louis, and there by

the gaunt arms of a windmill.

The city lay dark under a light sky, keeping well its secrets.

Thousands were out of doors enjoying the evening coolness in alley and

court, yet it betrayed the life which pulsed in its arteries only by

the low murmur which rose from it. Nevertheless, the Countess at sight

of its roofs tasted the first moment of happiness which had been hers

that day. She might suffer, but she had saved. Those roofs would thank

her! In that murmur were the voices of women and children she had

redeemed! At the sight and at the thought a wave of love and

tenderness swept all bitterness from her breast. A profound humility,

a boundless thankfulness took possession of her. Her head sank lower

above her horse's mane; but it sank in reverence, not in shame.

Could she have known what was passing beneath those roofs which night

was blending in a common gloom--could she have read the thoughts which

at that moment paled the cheeks of many a stout burgher, whose gabled

house looked on the great square, she had been still more thankful.

For in attics and back rooms women were on their knees at that hour,

praying with feverish eyes; and in the streets men--on whom their

fellows, seeing the winding-sheet already at the chin, gazed

askance--smiled, and showed brave looks abroad, while their hearts

were sick with fear.

For darkly, no man knew how, the news had come to Angers. It had been

known, more or less, for three days. Men had read it in other men's

eyes. The tongue of a scold, the sneer of an injured woman had spread

it, the birds of the air had carried it. From garret window to garret

window across the narrow lanes of the old town it had been whispered

at dead of night; at convent grilles, and in the timber-yards beside

the river. Ten thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, it was

rumoured, had perished in Paris. In Orleans, all. In Tours this man's

sister; at Saumur that man's son. Through France the word had gone

forth that the Huguenots must die; and in the busy town the same

roof-tree sheltered fear and hate, rage and cupidity. On one side of

the party-wall murder lurked fierce-eyed; on the other, the victim lay

watching the latch, and shaking at a step. Strong men tasted the

bitterness of death, and women clasping their babes to their breasts

smiled sickly into children's eyes.

The signal only was lacking. It would come, said some, from Saumur,

where Montsoreau, the Duke of Anjou's Lieutenant-Governor and a

Papist, had his quarters. From Paris, said others, directly from the

King. It might come at any hour now, in the day or in the night; the

magistrates, it was whispered, were in continuous session, awaiting

its coming. No wonder that from, lofty gable windows, and from dormers

set high above the tiles, haggard faces looked northward and eastward,

and ears sharpened by fear imagined above the noises of the city the

ring of the iron shoes that carried doom.

Doubtless the majority desired--as the majority in France have always

desired--peace. But in the purlieus about the cathedral and in the

lanes where the sacristans lived, in convent parlours and college

courts, among all whose livelihood the new faith threatened, was a

stir as of a hive deranged. Here was grumbling against the

magistrates--why wait? There, stealthy plannings and arrangements;

everywhere a grinding of weapons and casting of slugs. Old grudges,

new rivalries, a scholar's venom, a priest's dislike, here was final

vent for all. None need leave this feast unsated!

It was a man of this class, sent out for the purpose, who first espied

Count Hannibal's company approaching. He bore the news into the town,

and by the time the travellers reached the city gate, the dusky street

within, on which lights were beginning to twinkle from booths and

casements, was alive with figures running to meet them and crying the

news as they ran. The travellers, weary and road-stained, had no

sooner passed under the arch than they found themselves the core of a

great crowd which moved with them and pressed about them; now

unbonneting, and now calling out questions, and now shouting "Vive le

Roi! Vive le Roi!" Above the press, windows burst into light; and over

all, the quaint leaning gables of the old timbered houses looked down

on the hurry and tumult.

They passed along a narrow street in which the rabble, hurrying at

Count Hannibal's bridle, and often looking back to read his face, had

much ado to escape harm; along this street and before the yawning

doors of a great church, whence a hot breath heavy with incense and

burning wax issued to meet them. A portion of the congregation had

heard the tumult and struggled out, and now stood close-packed on the

steps under the double vault of the portal. Among them the Countess's

eyes, as she rode by, a sturdy man-at-arms on either hand, caught and

held one face. It was the face of a tall, lean man in dusty black; and

though she did not know him she seemed to have an equal attraction for

him; for as their eyes met he seized the shoulder of the man next him

and pointed her out. And something in the energy of the gesture, or in

the thin lips and malevolent eyes of the man who pointed, chilled the

Countess's blood and shook her, she knew not why.

Until then, she had known no fear save of her husband. But at that a

sense of the force and pressure of the crowd--as well as of the fierce

passions, straining about her, which a word might unloose--broke upon

her; and looking to the stern men on either side she fancied that she

read anxiety in their faces.

She glanced behind. Bridle to bridle the Count's men came on, pressing

round her women and shielding them from the exuberance of the throng.

In their faces too she thought that she traced uneasiness.

What wonder if the scenes through which she had passed in Paris began

to recur to her mind, and shook nerves already overwrought?

She began to tremble. "Is there--danger?" she muttered, speaking in a

low voice to Bigot, who rode on her right hand. "Will they do

anything?"

The Norman snorted. "Not while he is in the saddle," he said, nodding

towards his master, who rode a pace in front of them, his reins loose.

"There be some here know him!" Bigot continued, in his drawling tone.

"And more will know him if they break line. Have no fear, madame, he

will bring you safe to the inn. Down with the Huguenots?" he

continued, turning from her and addressing a rogue who, holding his

stirrup, was shouting the cry till he was crimson. "Then why not away,

and----"

"The King! The King's word and leave!" the man answered.

"Ay, tell us!" shrieked another, looking upward, while he waved his

cap; "have we the King's leave?"

"You'll bide _his_ leave!" the Norman retorted, indicating the Count

with his thumb. "Or 'twill be up with you--on the three-legged horse!"

"But he comes from the King!" the man panted.

"To be sure. To be sure!"

"Then----"

"You'll bide his time! That's all!" Bigot answered, rather it seemed

for his own satisfaction than the other's enlightenment. "You'll all

bide it, you dogs!" he continued in his beard, as he cast his eye over

the weltering crowd. "Ha! so we are here, are we? And not too soon,

either."

He fell silent as they entered an open space, overlooked on one side

by the dark facade of the cathedral, on the other three sides by

houses more or less illumined. The rabble swept into this open space

with them and before them, filled much of it in an instant, and for a

while eddied and swirled this way and that, thrust onward by the

worshippers who had issued from the church and backwards by those who

had been first in the square, and had no mind to be hustled out of

hearing. A stranger, confused by the sea of excited faces, and

deafened by the clamour of "Vive le Roi!" "Vive Anjou!" mingled with

cries against the Huguenots, might have fancied that the whole city

was arrayed before him. But he would have been wide of the mark. The

scum, indeed--and a dangerous scum--frothed and foamed and spat under

Tavannes' bridle-hand; and here and there among them, but not of them,

the dark-robed figure of a priest moved to and fro; or a Benedictine,

or some smooth-faced acolyte egged on to the work he dared not do. But

the decent burghers were not there. They lay bolted in their houses;

while the magistrates, with little heart to do aught except bow to the

mob--or other their masters for the time being--shook in their council

chamber.

There is not a city of France which has not seen it; which has not

known the moment when the mass impended, and it lay with one man to

start it or stay its course. Angers within its houses heard the

clamour, and from the child, clinging to its mother's skirt, and

wondering why she wept, to the Provost, trembled, believing that the

hour had come. The Countess heard it too, and understood it. She

caught the savage note in the voice of the mob--that note which means

danger--and her heart beating wildly she looked to her husband. Then,

fortunately for her, fortunately for Angers, it was given to all to

see that in Count Hannibal's saddle sat a man.

He raised his hand for silence, and in a minute or two--not at once,

for the square was dusky--it was obtained. He rose in his stirrups,

and bared his head.

"I am from the King!" he cried, throwing his voice to all parts of the

crowd. "And this is his Majesty's pleasure and good will! That every

man hold his hand until to-morrow on pain of death, or worse! And at

noon his further pleasure will be known! Vive le Roi!"

And he covered his head again.

"Vive le Roi!" cried a number of the foremost. But their shouts were

feeble and half-hearted, and were quickly drowned in a rising murmur

of discontent and ill-humour, which, mingled with cries of "Is that

all? Is there no more? Down with the Huguenots!" rose from all parts.

Presently these cries became merged in a persistent call, which had

its origin, as far as could be discovered, in the darkest corner of

the square. A call for "Montsoreau! Montsoreau! Give us Montsoreau!"

With another man, or had Tavannes turned or withdrawn, or betrayed the

least anxiety, words had become actions, disorder a riot; and that in

the twinkling of an eye. But Count Hannibal, sitting his horse, with

his handful of riders behind him, watched the crowd, as little moved

by it as the Armed Knight of Notre Dame. Only once did he say a word.

Then, raising his hand as before to gain a hearing, "You ask for

Montsoreau?" he thundered. "You will have Montfaucon if you do not

quickly go to your homes!"

At which, and at the glare of his eye, the more timid took fright.

Feeling his gaze upon them, seeing that he had no intention of

withdrawing, they began to sneak away by ones and twos. Soon others

missed them and took the alarm, and followed. A moment and scores were

streaming away through lanes and alleys and along the main street. At

last the bolder and more turbulent found themselves a remnant. They

glanced uneasily at one another and at Tavannes, took fright in their

turn, and plunging into the current hastened away, raising now and

then as they passed through the streets a cry of "Vive Montsoreau!

Montsoreau!"--which was not without its menace for the morrow.

Count Hannibal waited motionless until no more than half a dozen

groups remained in the open. Then he gave the word to dismount; so

far, even the Countess and her women had kept their saddles, lest the

movement which their retreat into the inn must have caused should be

misread by the mob. Last of all he dismounted himself, and with lights

going before him and behind, and preceded by Bigot, bearing his cloak

and pistols, he escorted the Countess into the house. Not many minutes

had elapsed since he called for silence; but long before he reached

the chamber looking over the square from the first floor, in which

supper was being set for them, the news had flown through the length

and breadth of Angers that for this night the danger was past. The

hawk had come to Angers, and lo! it was a dove.

Count Hannibal strode to one of the open windows and looked out. In

the room, which was well lighted, were people of the house, going to

and fro, setting out the table; to Madame, standing beside the

hearth--which held its summer dressing of green boughs--while her

woman held water for her to wash, the scene recalled with painful

vividness the meal at which she had been present on the morning of the

St. Bartholomew--the meal which had ushered in her troubles. Naturally

her eyes went to her husband, her mind to the horror in which she had

held him then; and with a kind of shock, perhaps because the last few

minutes had shown him in a new light, she compared her old opinion of

him with that which, much as she feared him, she now entertained.

This afternoon, if ever, within the last few hours, if at all, he had

acted in a way to justify that horror and that opinion. He had treated

her--brutally; he had insulted and threatened her, had almost struck

her. And yet--and yet Madame felt that she had moved so far from the

point which she had once occupied that the old attitude was hard to

understand. Hardly could she believe that it was on this man, much as

she still dreaded him, that she had looked with those feelings of

repulsion.

She was still gazing at him with eyes which strove to see two men in

one, when he turned from the window. Absorbed in thought she had

forgotten her occupation, and stood, the towel suspended in her

half-dried hands. Before she knew what he was doing he was at her

side; he bade the woman hold the bowl, and he rinsed his hands. Then

he turned, and without looking at the Countess, he dried his hands on

the farther end of the towel which she was still using.

She blushed faintly. A something in the act, more intimate and more

familiar than had ever marked their intercourse, set her blood

running strangely. When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his

spur-leathers, she stepped forward.

"I will do it!" she murmured, acting on a sudden and unaccountable

impulse. And as she knelt, she shook her hair about her face to hide

its colour.

"Nay, madame, but you will soil your fingers!" he said coldly.

"Permit me," she muttered half coherently. And though her fingers

shook, she pursued and performed her task.

When she rose he thanked her; and then the devil in the man, or the

Nemesis he had provoked when he took her by force from another--the

Nemesis of jealousy, drove him to spoil all. "And for whose sake,

madame?" he added with a jeer--"mine or M. de Tignonville's?" And with

a glance between jest and earnest, he tried to read her thoughts.

She winced as if he had indeed struck her, and the hot colour fled her

cheeks. "For his sake!" she said, with a shiver of pain. "That his

life may be spared!" And she stood back humbly, like a beaten dog.

Though, indeed, it was for the sake of Angers, in thankfulness for the

past rather than in any desperate hope of propitiating her husband,

that she had done it!

Perhaps he would have withdrawn his words. But before he could answer,

the host, bowing to the floor, came to announce that all was ready,

and that the Provost of the City, for whom M. le Comte had sent, was

in waiting below. "Let him come up!" Tavannes answered, grave and

frowning. "And see you, close the room, sirrah! My people will wait on

us. Ah!" as the Provost, a burly man with a face framed for jollity,

but now pale and long, entered and approached him with many

salutations. "How comes it, M. le Prevot--you are the Prevot, are you

not?"

"Yes, M. le Comte."

"How comes it that so great a crowd is permitted to meet in the

streets? And that at my entrance, though I come unannounced, I find

half of the city gathered together?"

The Provost stared. "Respect, M. le Comte," he said, "for His

Majesty's letters, of which you are the bearer, no doubt induced some

to come together----"

"Who said I brought letters?"

"Who----"

"Who said I brought letters?" Count Hannibal repeated in a strenuous

voice. And he ground his chair half about and faced the astonished

magistrate. "Who said I brought letters?"

"Why, my lord," the Provost stammered, "it was everywhere

yesterday----"

"Yesterday?"

"Last night, at latest--that letters were coming from the King."

"By my hand?"

"By your lordship's hand--whose name is so well known here," the

magistrate added, in the hope of clearing the great man's brow.

Count Hannibal laughed darkly. "My hand will be better known

by-and-by," he said. "See you, sirrah, there is some practice here.

What is this cry of Montsoreau that I hear?"

"Your lordship knows that he is His Grace's Lieutenant-Governor in

Saumur."

"I know that, man. But is he here?"

"He was at Saumur yesterday, and 'twas rumoured three days back that

he was coming here to extirpate the Huguenots. Then word came of your

lordship and of His Majesty's letters, and 'twas thought that M. de

Montsoreau would not come, his authority being superseded."

"I see. And now your rabble think that they would prefer M.

Montsoreau. That is it, is it?"

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders and opened his hands. "Pigs!" he

said. And having spat on the floor he looked apologetically at the

lady. "True pigs!"

"What connections has he here?" Tavannes asked.

"He is a brother of my lord the Bishop's Vicar, who arrived

yesterday."

"With a rout of shaven heads who have been preaching and stirring up

the town!" Count Hannibal cried, his face growing red. "Speak, man, is

it so? But I'll be sworn it is!"

"There has been preaching," the Provost answered reluctantly.

"Montsoreau may count his brother, then, for one. He is a fool, but

with a knave behind him, and a knave who has no cause to love us! And

the Castle? 'Tis held by one of M. de Montsoreau's creatures, I take

it?"

"Yes, my lord."

"With what force?"

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders, and looked doubtfully at

Badelon, who was keeping the door.

Tavannes followed the glance with his usual impatience. "Mon Dieu, you

need not look at him!" he cried. "He has sacked St. Peter's and singed

the Pope's beard with a holy candle! He has been served on the knee by

Cardinals; and is Turk or Jew, or monk or Huguenot as I please. And

madame"--for the Provost's astonished eyes, after resting awhile on

the old soldier's iron visage, had passed to her--"is Huguenot, so you

need have no fear of her! There, speak, man," with impatience, "and

cease to think of your own skin!"

The Provost drew a deep breath, and fixed his small eyes on Count

Hannibal.

"If I knew, my lord, what you--why, my own sister's son"--he paused,

his face began to work, his voice shook--"is a Huguenot! Ay, my lord,

a Huguenot! And they know it!" he continued, a flush of rage

augmenting the emotion which his countenance betrayed. "Ay, they know

it! And they push me on at the Council, and grin behind my back;

Lescot, who was Provost two years back and would match his son with my

daughter; and Thuriot who prints for the University! They nudge one

another, and egg me on, till half the city thinks it is I who would

kill the Huguenots! I!" Again his voice broke. "And my own sister's

son a Huguenot! And my girl at home white-faced for--for his sake."

Tavannes scanned the man shrewdly. "Perhaps she is of the same way of

thinking?" he said.

The Provost started, and lost one-half of his colour. "God forbid!" he

cried, "saving madame's presence! Who says so, my lord, lies!"

"Ay, lies not far from the truth."

"My lord!"

"Pish, man, Lescot has said it and will act on it. And Thuriot, who

prints for the University! Would you 'scape them? You would? Then

listen to me. I want but two things. First, how many men has

Montsoreau's fellow in the Castle? Few, I know, for he is a niggard,

and if he spends, he spends the Duke's pay."

"Twelve. But five can hold it."

"Ay, but twelve dare not leave it! Let them stew in their own broth!

And now for the other matter. See, man, that before daybreak three

gibbets, with a ladder and two ropes apiece, are set up in the square.

And let one be before this door. You understand? Then let it be done!

The rest," he added with a ferocious smile, "you may leave to me."

The magistrate nodded rather feebly. "Doubtless," he said, his eye

wandering here and there, "there are rogues in Angers. And for rogues

the gibbet! But saving your presence, my lord, it is a question

whether----"

But M. de Tavannes' patience was exhausted. "Will you do it?" he

roared. "That is the question. And the only question."

The Provost jumped, he was so startled. "Certainly, my lord,

certainly!" he muttered humbly. "Certainly, I will!" And bowing

frequently, but saying no more, he backed himself out of the room.

Count Hannibal laughed grimly after his fashion, and doubtless thought

that he had seen the last of the magistrate for that night. Great was

his wrath therefore, when, less than a minute later--and before Bigot

had carved for him--the door opened and the Provost appeared again. He

slid in, and without giving the courage he had gained on the stairs

time to cool, plunged into his trouble.

"It stands this way, M. le Comte," he bleated. "If I put up the

gibbets and a man is hanged, and you have letters from the King, 'tis

a rogue the less and no harm done. But if you have no letters from His

Majesty, then it is on my shoulders they will put it, and 'twill be

odd if they do not find a way to hang me to right him."

Count Hannibal smiled grimly. "And your sister's son?" he sneered.

"And your girl who is white-faced for his sake, and may burn on the

same bonfire with him? And----"

"Mercy! Mercy!" the wretched Provost cried. And he wrung his hands.

"Lescot and Thuriot----"

"Perhaps we may hang Lescot and Thuriot----"

"But I see no way out," the Provost babbled. "No way! No way!"

"I am going to show you one," Tavannes retorted. "If the gibbets are

not in place by sunrise, I shall hang you from this window. That is

one way out; and you'll be wise to take the other! For the rest and

for your comfort, if I have no letters, it is not always to paper that

the King commits his inmost heart."

The magistrate bowed. He quaked, he doubted, but he had no choice. "My

lord," he said, "I put myself in your hands. It shall be done,

certainly it shall be done. But, but----" and shaking his head in

foreboding he turned to the door.

At the last moment, when he was within a pace of it, the Countess rose

impulsively to her feet. She called to him. "M. le Prevot, a minute,

if you please," she said. "There may be trouble to morrow; your

daughter may be in some peril. You will do well to send her to me.

My lord"--and on the word her voice, timid before, grew full and

steady--"will see that I am safe. And she will be safe with me."

The Provost saw before him only a gracious lady, moved by a

thoughtfulness unusual in persons of her rank. He was at no pains to

explain the flame in her cheek, or the soft light which glowed in her

eyes, as she looked at him, across her formidable husband. He was only

profoundly grateful--moved even to tears. Humbly thanking her he

accepted her offer for his child, and withdrew wiping his eyes.

When he was gone, and the door had closed behind him, Tavannes turned

to the Countess, who still kept her feet. "You are very confident this

evening," he sneered. "Gibbets do not frighten you, it seems, madame.

Perhaps if you knew for whom the one before the door is intended?"

She met his look with a searching gaze, and spoke with a ring of

defiance in her tone. "I do not believe it!" she said. "I do not

believe it! You who save Angers will not destroy him!" And then her

woman's mood changing, with courage and colour ebbing together, "Oh,

no, you will not! You will not!" she wailed. And she dropped on her

knees before him, and holding up her clasped hands, "God will put it

in your heart to spare him--and me!"

He rose with a stifled oath, took two steps from her, and in a tone

hoarse and constrained, "Go!" he said. "Go, or sit! Do you hear,

madame? You try my patience too far!"

But when she had gone his face was radiant. He had brought her, he had

brought all, to the point at which he aimed. To-morrow his triumph

awaited him. To-morrow he who had cast her down would raise her up.

He did not foresee what a day would bring forth.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER-HOUSE.

The sun was an hour high, and in Angers the shops and booths, after

the early fashion of the day, were open or opening. Through all the

gates country folk were pressing into the gloomy streets of the Black

Town with milk and fruit; and at doors and windows housewives

cheapened fish, or chaffered over the fowl for the pot. For men must

eat, though there be gibbets in the Place Ste.-Croix: gaunt gibbets,

high and black and twofold, each, with its dangling ropes, like a

double note of interrogation.

But gibbets must eat also; and between ground and noose was so small a

space in those days that a man dangled almost before he knew it. The

sooner, then, the paniers were empty, and the clown, who pays for all,

was beyond the gates, the better he, for one, would be pleased. In the

market, therefore, was hurrying. Men cried their wares in lowered

voices, and tarried but a little for the oldest customer. The bargain

struck, the more timid among the buyers hastened to shut themselves

into their houses again; the bolder, who ventured to the Place to

confirm the rumour with their eyes, talked in corners and in lanes,

avoided the open, and eyed the sinister preparations from afar. The

shadow of the things which stood before the cathedral affronting the

sunlight with their gaunt black shapes lay across the length and

breadth of Angers. Even in the corners where men whispered, even in

the cloisters where men bit their nails in impotent auger, the

stillness of fear ruled all. Whatever Count Hannibal had it in his

mind to tell the city, it seemed unlikely--and hour by hour it seemed

less likely--that any would contradict him.

He knew this as he walked in the sunlight before the inn, his spurs

ringing on the stones as he made each turn, his movements watched by a

hundred peering eyes. After all, it was not hard to rule, nor to have

one's way in this world. But then, he went on to remember, not

everyone had his self-control, or that contempt for the weak and

unsuccessful which lightly took the form of mercy. He held Angers

safe, curbed by his gibbets. With M. de Montsoreau he might have

trouble; but the trouble would be slight, for he knew Montsoreau, and

what it was the Lieutenant-Governor valued above profitless bloodshed.

He might have felt less confident had he known what was passing at

that moment in a room off the small cloister of the Abbey of St.

Aubin, a room known at Angers as the Little Chapter-House. It was a

long chamber with a groined roof and stone walls, panelled as high as

a tall man might reach with dark chestnut wood. Gloomily lighted by

three grated windows, which looked on a small inner green, the last

resting-place of the Benedictines, the room itself seemed at first

sight no more than the last resting-place of worn-out odds and ends.

Piles of thin sheepskin folios, dog's-eared and dirty, the rejected of

the choir, stood against the walls; here and there among them lay a

large brass-bound tome on which the chains that had fettered it to

desk or lectern still rusted. A broken altar cumbered one corner: a

stand bearing a curious--and rotting--map filled another. In the other

two corners a medley of faded scutcheons and banners, which had seen

their last Toussaint procession, mouldered slowly into dust--into much

dust. The air of the room was full of it.

In spite of which the long oak table that filled the middle of the

chamber shone with use: so did the great metal standish which it bore.

And though the seven men who sat about the table seemed, at a first

glance and in that gloomy light, as rusty and faded as the rubbish

behind them, it needed but a second look at their lean jaws and hungry

eyes to be sure of their vitality.

He who sat in the great chair at the end of the table was indeed

rather plump than thin. His white hands, gay with rings, were well

cared for; his peevish chin rested on a falling-collar of lace worthy

of a Cardinal. But though the Bishop's Vicar was heard with deference,

it was noticeable that when he had ceased to speak his hearers looked

to the priest on his left, to Father Pezelay, and waited to hear his

opinion before they gave their own. The Father's energy, indeed, had

dominated the Angevins, clerks and townsfolk alike, as it had

dominated the Parisian _devotes_ who knew him well. The vigour which

hate inspires passes often for solid strength; and he who had seen

with his own eyes the things done in Paris spoke with an authority to

which the more timid quickly and easily succumbed.

Yet gibbets are ugly things; and Thuriot, the printer, whose pride had

been tickled by a summons to the conclave, began to wonder if he had

done wisely in coming. Lescot, too, who presently ventured a word.

"But if M. de Tavannes' order be to do nothing," he began doubtfully,

"you would not, reverend Father, have us resist His Majesty's will?"

"God forbid, my friend!" Father Pezelay answered with unction. "But

His Majesty's will is to do--to do for the glory of God and the saints

and His Holy Church! How? Is that which was lawful at Saumur unlawful

here? Is that which was lawful at Tours unlawful here? Is that which

the King did in Paris--to the utter extermination of the unbelieving

and the purging of that Sacred City--against his will here? Nay, his

will is to do--to do as they have done in Paris and in Tours and in

Saumur! But his Minister is unfaithful! The woman whom he has taken to

his bosom has bewildered him with her charms and her sorceries, and

put it in his mind to deny the mission he bears."

"You are sure, beyond chance of error, that he bears letters to that

effect, good Father?" the printer ventured.

"Ask my lord's Vicar! He knows the letters and the import of them!"

"They are to that effect," the Archdeacon answered, drumming on the

table with his fingers and speaking somewhat sullenly. "I was in the

Chancellery and I saw them. They are duplicates of those sent to

Bordeaux."

"Then the preparations he has made must be against the Huguenots,"

Lescot, the ex-Provost, said with a sigh of relief. And Thuriot's face

lightened also. "He must intend to hang one or two of the ringleaders,

before he deals with the herd."

"Think it not!" Father Pezelay cried in his high shrill voice. "I tell

you the woman has bewitched him, and he will deny his letters!"

For a moment there was silence. Then, "But dare he do that, reverend

Father?" Lescot asked slowly and incredulously. "What? Suppress the

King's letters?"

"There is nothing he will not dare! There is nothing he has not

dared!" the priest answered vehemently; the recollection of the scene

in the great guard-room of the Louvre, when Tavannes had so skilfully

turned the tables on him, instilling venom into his tone. "She who

lives with him is the devil's. She has bewitched him with her spells

and her Sabbaths! She bears the mark of the Beast on her bosom, and

for her the fire is even now kindling!"

The laymen who were present shuddered. The two canons who faced them

crossed themselves, muttering "Avaunt, Satan!"

"It is for you to decide," the priest continued, gazing on them

passionately, "whether you will side with him or with the Angel of

God! For I tell you it was none other executed the divine judgments at

Paris! It was none other but the Angel of God held the sword at Tours!

It is none other holds the sword here! Are you for him or against him?

Are you for him, or for the woman with the mark of the Beast? Are you

for God or against God? For the hour draws near! The time is at hand!

You must choose! You must choose!" And, striking the table with his

hand, he leaned forward, and with glittering eyes fixed each of them

in turn, as he cried, "You must choose! You must choose!" He came to

the Archdeacon last.

The Bishop's Vicar fidgeted in his chair, his face a shade more

sallow, his cheeks hanging a trifle more loosely, than ordinary. "If

my brother were here!" he muttered. "If M. de Montsoreau had arrived!"

But Father Pezelay knew whose will would prevail if Montsoreau met

Tavannes at his leisure. To force Montsoreau's hand, to surround him

on his first entrance with a howling mob already committed to

violence, to set him at their head and pledge him before he knew with

whom he had to do--this had been, this still was, the priest's design.

But how was he to pursue it while those gibbets stood? While their

shadows lay even on the chapter table, and darkened the faces of his

most forward associates? That for a moment staggered the priest; and

had not private hatred, ever renewed by the touch of the scar on his

brow, fed the fire of bigotry he had yielded, as the rabble of Angers

were yielding, reluctant and scowling, to the hand which held the city

in its grip. But to have come so far on the wings of hate, and to do

nothing! To have come avowedly to preach a crusade, and to sneak away

cowed! To have dragged the Bishop's Vicar hither, and fawned and

cajoled and threatened by turns--and for nothing! These things were

passing bitter--passing bitter, when the morsel of vengeance he had

foreseen smacked so sweet on the tongue.

For it was no common vengeance, no layman's vengeance, coarse and

clumsy, which the priest had imagined in the dark hours of the night,

when his feverish brain kept him wakeful. To see Count Hannibal roll

in the dust had gone but a little way towards satisfying him. No! But

to drag from his arms the woman for whom he had sinned, to subject her

to shame and torture in the depths of some convent, and finally to

burn her as a witch--it was that which had seemed to the priest in the

night hours a vengeance sweet in the mouth.

But the thing seemed unattainable in the circumstances. The city was

cowed; the priest knew that no dependence was to be placed on

Montsoreau, whose vice was avarice and whose object was plunder. To

the Archdeacon's feeble words, therefore, "We must look," the priest

retorted sternly, "not to M. de Montsoreau, reverend Father, but to

the pious of Angers! We must cry in the streets, 'They do violence to

God! They wound God and His Mother!' And so, and so only, shall the

unholy thing be rooted out!"

"Amen!" the Cure of St.-Benoist muttered, lifting his head; and his

dull eyes glowed awhile. "Amen! Amen!" Then his chin sank again upon

his breast.

But the canons of Angers looked doubtfully at one another, and timidly

at the speakers; the meat was too strong for them. And Lescot and

Thuriot shuffled in their seats. At length, "I do not know," Lescot

muttered timidly.

"You do not know?"

"What can be done!"

"The people will know!" Father Pezelay retorted. "Trust them!"

"But the people will not rise without a leader."

"Then will I lead them!"

"Even so, reverend Father--I doubt," Lescot faltered. And Thuriot

nodded assent. Gibbets were erected in those days rather for laymen

than for the Church.

"You doubt!" the priest cried. "You doubt!" His baleful eyes passed

from one to the other; from them to the rest of the company. He saw

that with the exception of the Cure of St.-Benoist all were of a mind.

"You doubt! Nay, but I see what it is! It is this," he continued

slowly and in a different tone, "the King's will goes for nothing in

Angers! His writ runs not here. And Holy Church cries in vain for help

against the oppressor. I tell you, the sorceress who has bewitched him

has bewitched you also. Beware! beware, therefore, lest it be with you

as with him! And the fire that shall consume her, spare not your

houses!"

The two citizens crossed themselves, grew pale and shuddered. The fear

of witchcraft was great in Angers, the peril, if accused of it,

enormous. Even the canons looked startled. "If--if my brother were

here," the Archdeacon repeated feebly, "something might be done!"

"Vain is the help of man!" the priest retorted sternly, and with a

gesture of sublime dismissal. "I turn from you to a mightier than

you!" And, leaning his head on his hands, he covered his face.

The Archdeacon and the churchmen looked at him, and from him their

scared eyes passed to one another. Their one desire now was to be quit

of the matter, to have done with it, to escape; and one by one with

the air of whipped curs they rose to their feet, and in a hurry to be

gone muttered a word of excuse shamefacedly and got themselves out of

the room. Lescot and the printer were not slow to follow, and in less

than a minute the two strange preachers, the men from Paris, remained

the only occupants of the chamber; save, to be precise, a lean

official in rusty black, who throughout the conference had sat by the

door.

Until the last shuffling footstep had ceased to sound in the still

cloister no one spoke. Then Father Pezelay looked up, and the eyes of

the two priests met in a long gaze. "What think you?" Pezelay muttered

at last.

"Wet hay," the other answered dreamily, "is slow to kindle, yet burns

if the fire be big enough. At what hour does he state his will?"

"At noon."

"In the Council Chamber!"

"It is so given out."

"It is three hundred yards from the Place Ste.-Croix and he must go

guarded," the Cure of St.-Benoist continued in the same dull fashion.

"He cannot leave many in the house with the woman. If it were attacked

in his absence----"

"He would return, and----" Father Pezelay shook his head, his cheek

turned a shade paler. Clearly, he saw with his mind's eye more than he

expressed.

"_Hoc est corpus_," the other muttered, his dreamy gaze on the table.

"If he met us then, on his way to the house, and we had bell, book,

and candle, would he stop?"

"He would not stop!" Father Pezelay rejoined.

"He would not?"

"I know the man!"

"Then----" but the rest St.-Beuoist whispered, his head drooping

forward; whispered so low that even the lean man behind him, listening

with greedy ears, failed to follow the meaning of his superior's

words. But that he spoke plainly enough for his hearer Father

Pezelay's face was witness. Astonishment, fear, hope, triumph, the

lean pale face reflected all in turn; and, underlying all, a subtle

malignant mischief, as if a devil's eyes peeped through the holes in

an opera mask.

When the other was at last silent Pezelay drew a deep breath. "'Tis

bold! Bold! Bold!" he muttered. "But have you thought? He who bears

the----"

"Brunt?" the other whispered with a chuckle. "He may suffer? Yes, but

it will not be you or I! No, he who was last here shall be first

there! The Archdeacon-Vicar--if we can persuade him--who knows but

that even for him the crown of martyrdom is reserved?" The dull eyes

flickered with unholy amusement.

"And the alarm that brings him from the Council Chamber?"

"Need not of necessity be real. The pinch will be to make use of it.

Make use of it--and the hay will burn!"

"You think it will?"

"What can one man do against a thousand? His own people dare not

support him."

Father Pezelay turned to the lean man who kept the door, and,

beckoning to him, conferred a while with him in a low voice.

"A score or so I might get," the man answered presently after some

debate. "And well posted, something might be done. But we are not

in Paris, good father, where the Quarter of the Butchers is to be

counted on, and men know that to kill Huguenots is to do God service!

Here"--he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously--"they are sheep."

"It is the King's will," the priest answered, frowning on him darkly.

"Ay, but it is not Tavannes," the man in black answered with a

grimace. "And he rules here today."

"Fool!" Pezelay retorted. "He has not twenty with him. Do you do as I

say, and leave the rest to heaven!"

"And to you, good master?" the other answered. "For it is not all you

are going to do," he continued with a grin, "that you have told me.

Well, so be it! I'll do my part, but I wish we were in Paris. Ste.

Genevieve is ever kind to her servants."

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE ESCAPE.

In a small back room on the second floor of the inn at Angers, a mean,

dingy room which looked into a narrow lane, and commanded no prospect

more informing than a blind wall, two men sat, fretting; or, rather,

one man sat, his chin resting on his hand, while his companion, less

patient or more sanguine, strode ceaselessly to and fro. In the first

despair of capture--for they were prisoners--they had made up their

minds to the worst, and the slow hours of two days had passed over

their heads without kindling more than a faint spark of hope in their

breasts. But when they had been taken out and forced to mount and

ride--at first with feet tied to the horses' girths--they had let the

change, the movement, and the open air fan the flame. They had

muttered a word to one another, they had wondered, they had reasoned.

And though the silence of their guards--from whose sour vigilance the

keenest question drew no response--seemed of ill-omen, and, taken with

their knowledge of the man into whose hands they had fallen, should

have quenched the spark, these two, having special reasons, the one

the buoyancy of youth, the other the faith of an enthusiast, cherished

the flame. In the breast of one indeed it had blazed into a confidence

so arrogant that he now took all for granted, and was not content.

"It is easy for you to say, 'Patience!'" he cried, as he walked the

floor in a fever. "You stand to lose no more than your life, and if

you escape go free at all points! But he has robbed me of more than

life! Of my love, and my self-respect, curse him! He has worsted me

not once, but twice and thrice! And if he lets me go now, dismissing

me with my life, I shall--I shall kill him!" he concluded, through his

teeth.

"You are hard to please!"

"I shall kill him!"

"That were to fall still lower!" the minister answered, gravely

regarding him. "I would, M. de Tignonville, you remembered that you

are not yet out of jeopardy. Such a frame of mind as yours is no good

preparation for death, let me tell you!"

"He will not kill us!" Tignonville cried. "He knows better than most

men how to avenge himself!"

"Then he is above most!" La Tribe retorted. "For my part I wish I were

sure of the fact, and I should sit here more at ease."

"If we could escape, now, of ourselves!" Tignonville cried. "Then we

should save not only life, but honour! Man, think of it! If we could

escape, not by his leave but against it! Are you sure that this is

Angers!"

"As sure as a man can be who has only seen the Black Town once or

twice!" La Tribe answered, moving to the casement--which was not

glazed--and peering through the rough wooden lattice. "But if we could

escape we are strangers here. We know not which way to go, nor where

to find shelter. And for the matter of that," he continued, turning

from the window with a shrug of resignation, "'tis no use to talk of

it while yonder foot goes up and down the passage, and its owner bears

the key in his pocket."

"If we could get out of his power as we came into it!" Tignonville

cried.

"Ay, if! But it is not every floor has a trap!"

"We could take up a board."

The minister raised his eyebrows.

"We could take up a board!" the younger man repeated; and he stepped

the mean chamber from end to end, his eyes on the floor. "Or--yes,

_mon Dieu!_" with a change of attitude, "we might break through the

roof!" And, throwing back his head, he scanned the cobwebbed surface

of laths which rested on the unceiled joists.

"Umph!"

"Well, why not, monsieur? Why not break through the ceiling?"

Tignonville repeated, and in a fit of energy he seized his companion's

shoulder and shook him. "Stand on the bed, and you can reach it."

"And the floor which rests on it!"

"_Par Dieu_, there is no floor! 'Tis a cockloft above us! See there!

And there!" And the young man sprang on the bed, and thrust the rowel

of a spur through the laths.

La Tribe's expression changed. He rose slowly to his feet. "Try

again!" he said.

Tignonville, his face red, drove the spur again between the laths, and

worked it to and fro until he could pass his fingers into the hole he

had made. Then he gripped and bent down a length of one of the laths,

and, passing his arm as far as the elbow through the hole, moved it

this way and that. His eyes, as he looked down at his companion

through the lolling rubbish, gleamed with triumph. "Where is your

floor now?" he asked.

"You can touch nothing?"

"Nothing. It's open. A little more and I might touch the tiles." And

he strove to reach higher.

For answer La Tribe gripped him. "Down! Down, monsieur," he muttered.

"They are bringing our dinner."

Tignonville thrust back the lath as well as he could, and slipped to

the floor; and hastily the two swept the rubbish from the bed. When

Badelon, attended by two men, came in with the meal he found La Tribe

at the window blocking much of the light, and Tignonville laid

sullenly on the bed. Even a suspicious eye must have failed to detect

what had been done; the three who looked in suspected nothing and saw

nothing. They went out, the key was turned again on the prisoners, and

the footsteps of two of the men were heard descending the stairs.

"We have an hour, now!" Tignonville cried; and leaping, with flaming

eyes, on the bed, he fell to hacking and jabbing and tearing at

the laths amid a rain of dust and rubbish. Fortunately the stuff,

falling on the bed, made little noise; and in five minutes, working

half-choked and in a frenzy of impatience, he had made a hole through

which he could thrust his arms, a hole which extended almost from one

joist to its neighbour. By this time the air was thick with floating

lime; the two could scarcely breathe, yet they dared not pause.

Mounting on La Tribe's shoulders--who took his stand on the bed--the

young man thrust his head and arms through the hole, and, resting his

elbows on the joists, dragged himself up, and with a final effort of

strength landed nose and knees on the timbers, which formed his

supports. A moment to take breath, and press his torn and bleeding

fingers to his lips; then, reaching down, he gave a hand to his

companion and dragged him to the same place of vantage.

They found themselves in a long narrow cockloft, not more than six

feet high at the highest, and insufferably hot. Between the tiles,

which sloped steeply on either hand, a faint light filtered in,

disclosing the giant rooftree running the length of the house, and at

the farther end of the loft the main tie-beam, from which a network of

knees and struts rose to the rooftree.

Tignonville, who seemed possessed by unnatural energy, stayed only to

put off his boots. Then "Courage!" he panted, "all goes well!" and,

carrying his boots in his hands, he led the way, stepping gingerly

from joist to joist until he reached the tie-beam. He climbed on it,

and, squeezing himself between the struts, entered a second loft

similar to the first. At the farther end of this a rough wall of

bricks in a timber-frame lowered his hopes; but as he approached it,

joy! Low down in the corner where the roof descended, a small door,

square, and not more than two feet high, disclosed itself.

The two crept to it on hands and knees and listened. "It will lead to

the leads, I doubt?" La Tribe whispered. They dared not raise their

voices.

"As well that way as another!" Tignonville answered recklessly. He was

the more eager, for there is a fear which transcends the fear of

death. His eyes shone through the mask of dust, the sweat ran down to

his chin, his breath came and went noisily. "Naught matters if we can

escape him!" he panted. And he pushed the door recklessly. It flew

open, the two drew back their faces with a cry of alarm.

They were looking, not into the sunlight, but into a grey dingy

garret open to the roof, and occupying the upper part of a gable-end

somewhat higher than the wing in which they had been confined. Filthy

truckle-beds and ragged pallets covered the floor, and, eked out by

old saddles and threadbare horse-rugs, marked the sleeping quarters

either of the servants or of travellers of the meaner sort. But the

dinginess was naught to the two who knelt looking into it, afraid to

move. Was the place empty? That was the point; the question which had

first stayed, and then set their pulses at the gallop.

Painfully their eyes searched each huddle of clothing, scanned each

dubious shape. And slowly, as the silence persisted, their heads came

forward until the whole floor lay within the field of sight. And still

no sound! At last Tignonville stirred, crept through the doorway, and

rose up, peering round him. He nodded, and, satisfied that all was

safe, the minister followed him.

They found themselves a pace or so from the head of a narrow

staircase, leading downwards. Without moving they could see the door

which closed it below. Tignonville signed to La Tribe to wait, and

himself crept down the stairs. He reached the door, and, stooping, set

his eye to the hole through which the string of the latch passed. A

moment he looked, and then, turning on tiptoe, he stole up again, his

face fallen.

"You may throw the handle after the hatchet!" he muttered. "The man on

guard is within four yards of the door." And in the rage of

disappointment he struck the air with his hand.

"Is he looking this way?"

"No. He is looking down the passage towards our room. But it is

impossible to pass him."

La Tribe nodded, and moved softly to one of the lattices which lighted

the room. It might be possible to escape that way, by the parapet and

the tiles. But he found that the casement was set high in the roof,

which sloped steeply from its sill to the eaves. He passed to the

other window, in which a little wicket in the lattice stood open. He

looked through it. In the giddy void white pigeons were wheeling in

the dazzling sunshine, and gazing down he saw far below him, in the

hot square, a row of booths, and troops of people moving to and fro

like pigmies; and--and a strange thing, in the middle of all!

Involuntarily, as if the persons below could have seen his face at the

tiny dormer, he drew back.

He beckoned to M. Tignonville to come to him; and when the young man

complied, he bade him in a whisper look down. "See!" he muttered.

"There!"

The younger man saw and drew in his breath. Even under the coating of

dust his face turned a shade greyer.

"You had no need to fear that he would let us go!" the minister

muttered, with half-conscious irony.

"No."

"Nor I! There are two ropes." And La Tribe breathed a few words of

prayer. The object which had fixed his gaze was a gibbet: the only one

of the three which could be seen from their eyrie.

Tignonville, on the other hand, turned sharply away, and with haggard

eyes stared about the room. "We might defend the staircase," he

muttered. "Two men might hold it for a time."

"We have no food."

"No." And then he gripped La Tribe's arm. "I have it!" he cried. "And

it may do! It must do!" he continued, his face working. "See!" And

lifting from the floor one of the ragged pallets, from which the straw

protruded in a dozen places, he set it flat on his head. It drooped at

each corner--it had seen much wear--and while it almost hid his face,

it revealed his grimy chin and mortar-stained shoulders. He turned to

his companion.

La Tribe's face glowed as he looked. "It may do!" he cried. "It's a

chance! But you are right! It may do!"

Tignonville dropped the ragged mattress, and tore off his coat; then

he rent his breeches at the knee, so that they hung loose about his

calves. "Do you the same!" he cried. "And quick, man, quick! Leave

your boots! Once outside we must pass through the streets under

these"--he took up his burden again and set it on his head--"until we

reach a quiet part, and there we----"

"Can hide! Or swim the river!" the minister said. He had followed his

companion's example, and now stood under a similar burden. With

breeches rent and whitened, and his upper garments in no better case,

he looked a sorry figure.

Tignonville eyed him with satisfaction, and turned to the staircase.

"Come," he cried, "there is not a moment to be lost. At any minute

they may enter our room and find it empty! You are ready? Then, not

too softly, or it may rouse suspicion! And mumble something at the

door."

He began himself to scold, and, muttering incoherently, stumbled down

the staircase, the pallet on his head rustling against the wall on

each side. Arrived at the door he fumbled clumsily with the latch,

and, when the door gave way, plumped out with an oath--as if the

awkward burden he bore were the only thing on his mind. Badelon--he

was on duty--stared at the apparition; but the next moment he sniffed

the pallet, which was none of the freshest, and, turning up his nose,

he retreated a pace. He had no suspicion; the men did not come from

the part of the house where the prisoners lay, and he stood aside to

let them pass. In a moment, staggering, and going a little unsteadily,

as if they scarcely saw their way, they had passed by him, and were

descending the staircase.

So far well! Unfortunately, when they reached the foot of that flight

they came on the main passage of the first-floor. It ran right and

left, and Tignonville did not know which way he must turn to reach the

lower staircase. Yet he dared not hesitate; in the passage, waiting

about the doors, were four or five servants, and in the distance he

caught sight of three men belonging to Tavannes' company. At any

moment, too, an upper servant might meet them, ask what they were

doing, and detect the fraud. He turned at random, therefore--to the

left as it chanced--and marched along bravely, until the very thing

happened which he had feared. A man came from a room plump upon them,

saw them, and held up his hands in horror.

"What are you doing!" he cried in a rage and with an oath. "Who set

you on this?"

Tignonville's tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. La Tribe from

behind muttered something about the stable.

"And time too!" the man said. "Faugh! But how come you this way! Are

you drunk? Here!" He opened the door of a musty closet beside him,

"Pitch them in here, do you hear! And take them down when it is dark!

Faugh! I wonder you did not carry the things through her ladyship's

room at once! If my lord had been in and met you! Now then, do as I

tell you! Are you drunk!"

With a sullen air Tignonville threw in his mattress. La Tribe did the

same. Fortunately the passage was ill-lighted, and there were many

helpers and strange servants in the inn. The butler only thought them

ill-looking fellows who knew no better. "Now be off!" he continued

irascibly, "This is no place for your sort. Be off!" And, as they

moved, "Coming! Coming!" he cried in answer to a distant summons; and

he hurried away on the errand which their appearance had interrupted.

Tignonville would have gone to work to recover the pallets, for the

man had left the key in the door. But as he went to do so the butler

looked back, and the two were obliged to make a pretence of following

him. A moment, however, and he was gone; and Tignonville turned anew

to regain them. A second time fortune was adverse; a door within a

pace of him opened, a woman came out. She recoiled from the strange

figure; her eyes met his. Unluckily the light from the room behind her

fell on his face, and with a shrill cry she named him.

One second and all had been lost, for the crowd of idlers at the other

end of the passage had caught her cry, and were looking that way. With

presence of mind Tignonville clapped his hand on her mouth, and,

huddling her by force into the room, followed her, with La Tribe at

his heels.

It was a large room, in which seven or eight people, who had been at

prayers when the cry startled them, were rising from their knees. The

first thing they saw was Javette on the threshold, struggling in the

grasp of a wild man, ragged and begrimed; they deemed the city risen

and the massacre upon them. Carlat threw himself before his mistress,

the Countess in her turn sheltered a young girl, who stood beside her

and from whose face the last trace of colour had fled. Madame Carlat

and a waiting-woman ran shrieking to the window; another instant and

the alarm would have gone abroad.

Tignonville's voice stopped it. "Don't you know me?" he cried.

"Madame! you at least! Carlat! Are you all mad?"

The words stayed them where they stood in an astonishment scarce less

than their alarm. The Countess tried twice to speak; the third time,

"Have you escaped?" she muttered.

Tignonville nodded, his eyes bright with triumph. "So far," he said.

"But they may be on our heels at any moment! Where can we hide?"

The Countess, her hand pressed to her side, looked at Javette. "The

door, girl!" she whispered. "Lock it!"

"Ay, lock it! And they can go by the backstairs," Madame Carlat

answered, awaking suddenly to the situation. "Through my closet! Once

in the yard they may pass out through the stables."

"Which way?" Tignonville asked impatiently. "Don't stand looking at

me, but----"

"Through this door!" Madame Carlat answered, hurrying to it.

He was following when the Countess stepped forward and interposed

between him and the door. "Stay!" she cried; and there was not one who

did not notice a new decision in her voice, a new dignity in her

bearing. "Stay, monsieur, we may be going too fast. To go out now and

in that guise--may it not be to incur greater peril than you incur

here? I feel sure that you are in no danger of your life at present.

Therefore, why run the risk----"

"In no danger, madame!" he cried, interrupting her in astonishment.

"Have you seen the gibbet in the Square? Do you call that no danger?"

"It is not erected for you."

"No?"

"No, monsieur," she answered firmly, "I swear it is not. And I know of

reasons, urgent reasons, why you should not go. M. de Tavannes"--she

named her husband nervously, as conscious of the weak spot--"before he

rode abroad laid strict orders on all to keep within, since the

smallest matter might kindle the city. Therefore, M. de Tignonville, I

request, nay I entreat," she continued with greater urgency, as she

saw his gesture of denial, "you to stay here until he returns."

"And you, madame, will answer for my life!"

She faltered. For a moment, a moment only, her colour ebbed. What if

she deceived herself! What if she surrendered her old lover to death?

What if--but the doubt was of a moment only. Her duty was plain. "I

will answer for it," she said, with pale lips, "if you remain here.

And I beg, I implore you--by the love you once had for me, M.

Tignonville," she added desperately, seeing that he was about to

refuse, "to remain here."

"Once!" he retorted, lashing himself into ignoble rage. "By the

love I once had! Say, rather, the love I have, madame--for I am no

woman-weathercock to wed the winner, and hold or not hold, stay or go,

as he commands! You, it seems," he continued with a sneer, "have

learned the wife's lesson well! You would practise on me now, as you

practised on me the other night when you stood between him and me! I

yielded then, I spared him. And what did I get by it? Bonds and a

prison! And what shall I get now! The same! No, madame," he continued

bitterly, addressing himself as much to the Carlats and the others as

to his old mistress. "I do not change! I loved! I love! I was going

and I go! If death lay beyond that door"--and he pointed to it--"and

life at his will were certain here, I would pass the threshold rather

than take my life of him!" And, dragging La Tribe with him, with a

passionate gesture he rushed by her, opened the door, and disappeared

in the next room.

The Countess took one pace forward, as if she would have followed him,

as if she would have tried farther persuasion. But as she moved a cry

rooted her to the spot. A rush of feet and the babel of many voices

filled the passage with a tide of sound, which drew rapidly nearer.

The escape was known! Would the fugitives have time to slip out

below?

Someone knocked at the door, tried it, pushed and beat on it. But the

Countess and all in the room had run to the windows and were looking

out.

If the two had not yet made their escape they must be taken. Yet no;

as the Countess leaned from the window, first one dusty figure and

then a second darted from a door below, and made for the nearest

turning out of the Place Ste.-Croix. Before they gained it, four men,

of whom Badelon, his grey locks flying, was first, dashed out in

pursuit, and the street rang with cries of "Stop him! Seize him! Seize

him!" Someone--one of the pursuers or another--to add to the alarm let

off a musket, and in a moment, as if the report had been a signal, the

Place was in a hubbub, people flocked into it with mysterious

quickness, and from a neighbouring roof--whence, precisely, it was

impossible to say--the crackling fire of a dozen arquebuses alarmed

the city far and wide.

Unfortunately, the fugitives had been baulked at the first turning.

Making for a second, they found it choked, and, swerving, darted

across the Place towards St.-Maurice, seeking to lose themselves in

the gathering crowd. But the pursuers clung desperately to their

skirts, overturning here a man and there a child; and then in a

twinkling, Tignonville, as he ran round a booth, tripped over a peg

and fell, and La Tribe stumbled over him and fell also. The four

riders flung themselves fiercely on their prey, secured them, and

began to drag them with oaths and curses towards the door of the inn.

The Countess had seen all from her window; had held her breath while

they ran, had drawn it sharply when they fell. Now "They have them!"

she muttered, a sob choking her, "They have them!" And she clasped her

hands. If he had followed her advice! If he had only followed her

advice!

But the issue proved less certain than she deemed it. The crowd, which

grew each moment, knew nothing of pursuers or pursued. On the

contrary, a cry went up that the riders were Huguenots, and that the

Huguenots were rising and slaying the Catholics; and as no story was

too improbable for those days, and this was one constantly set about,

first one stone flew, and then another, and another. A man with a

staff darted forward and struck Badelon on the shoulder, two or three

others pressed in and jostled the riders; and if three of Tavannes'

following had not run out on the instant and faced the mob with their

pikes, and for a moment forced them to give back, the prisoners would

have been rescued at the very door of the inn. As it was they were

dragged in, and the gates were flung to and barred in the nick of

time. Another moment, almost another second, and the mob had seized

them. As it was, a hail of stones poured on the front of the inn, and

amid the rising yells of the rabble there presently floated heavy and

slow over the city the tolling of the great bell of St. Maurice.

CHAPTER XXX.

SACRILEGE!

M. de Montsoreau, Lieutenant-Governor of Saumur, almost rose from his

seat in his astonishment. "What! No letters?" he cried, a hand on

either arm of his chair.

The Magistrates stared, one and all. "No letters?" they muttered.

And "No letters?" the Provost chimed in more faintly.

Count Hannibal looked smiling round the Council table. He alone was

unmoved. "No," he said. "I bear none."

M. de Montsoreau, who, travel-stained and in his corselet, had the

second place of honour at the foot of the table, frowned. "But--but,

M. le Comte," he said, "my instructions from Monsieur were to proceed

to carry out his Majesty's will in co-operation with you, who, I

understood, would bring letters _de par le Roi_."

"I had letters," Count Hannibal answered, negligently. "But on the way

I mislaid them."

"Mislaid them?" Montsoreau cried, unable to believe his ears; while

the smaller dignitaries of the city, the magistrates and churchmen,

who sat on either side of the table, gaped open-mouthed. It was

incredible! It was unbelievable! Mislay the King's letters! Who had

ever heard of such a thing?

"Yes, I mislaid them. Lost them, if you like it better."

"But you jest!" the Lieutenant-Governor retorted, moving uneasily in

his chair. He was a man more highly named for address than courage;

and, like most men skilled in finesse, he was prone to suspect a trap.

"You jest, surely, monsieur! Men do not lose his Majesty's letters, by

the way."

"When they contain his Majesty's will, no," Tavannes answered, with a

peculiar smile.

"You imply, then?"

Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders but had not answered when Bigot

entered and handed him his sweetmeat box; he paused to open it and

select a prune. He was long in selecting; but no change of countenance

led any of those at the table to suspect that inside the lid of the

box was a message--a scrap of paper informing him that Montsoreau had

left fifty spears in the suburb without the Saumur gate, besides those

whom he had brought openly into the town. Tavannes read the note

slowly while he seemed to be choosing his fruit. And then, "Imply?" he

answered. "I imply nothing, M. de Montsoreau."

"But----"

"But that sometimes his Majesty finds it prudent to give orders which

he does not mean to be carried out. There are things which start up

before the eye," Tavannes continued, negligently tapping the box on

the table, "and there are things which do not; sometimes the latter

are the more important. You, better than I, M. de Montsoreau, know

that the King in the Gallery at the Louvre is one, and in his closet

is another."

"Yes."

"And that being so----"

"You do not mean to carry the letters into effect?"

"Had I the letters, certainly, my friend. I should be bound by them.

But I took good care to lose them," Tavannes added naively. "I am no

fool."

"Umph!"

"However," Count Hannibal continued, with an airy gesture, "that is my

affair. If you, M. de Montsoreau, feel inclined, in spite of the

absence of my letters, to carry yours into effect, by all means do

so--after midnight of to-day."

M. de Montsoreau breathed hard. "And why," he asked, half sulkily and

half ponderously, "after midnight only, M. le Comte?"

"Merely that I may be clear of all suspicion of having lot or part in

the matter," Count Hannibal answered pleasantly. "After midnight of

to-night by all means, do as you please. Until midnight, by your

leave, we will be quiet."

The Lieutenant-Governor moved doubtfully in his chair, the fear--which

Tavannes had shrewdly instilled into his mind--that he might be

disowned if he carried out his instructions, struggling with his

avarice and his self-importance. He was rather crafty than bold; and

such things had been, he knew. Little by little, and while he sat

gloomily debating, the notion of dealing with one or two and holding

the body of the Huguenots to ransom--a notion which, in spite of

everything, was to bear good fruit for Angers--began to form in his

mind. The plan suited him: it left him free to face either way, and it

would fill his pockets more genteelly than would open robbery. On the

other hand, he would offend his brother and the fanatical party, with

whom he commonly acted. They were looking to see him assert himself.

They were looking to hear him declare himself. And----

Harshly Count Hannibal's voice broke in on his thoughts; harshly, a

something sinister in its tone. "Where is your brother?" he said. And

it was evident that he had not noted his absence until then. "My

lord's Vicar of all people should be here!" he continued, leaning

forward and looking round the table. His brow was stormy.

Lescot squirmed under his eye, Thuriot turned pale and trembled. It

was one of the canons of St.-Maurice who at length took on himself to

answer. "His Lordship requested, M. le Comte," he ventured, "that you

would excuse him. His duties----"

"Is he ill?"

"He----"

"Is he ill, sirrah?" Tavannes roared. And while all bowed before the

lightning of his eye, no man at the table knew what had roused the

sudden tempest. But Bigot knew, who stood by the door, and whose ear,

keen as his master's, had caught the distant report of a musket shot.

"If he be not ill," Tavannes continued, rising and looking round the

table in search of signs of guilt, "and there be foul play here, and

he the player, the Bishop's own hand shall not save him! By heaven it

shall not! Nor yours!" he continued, looking fiercely at Montsoreau.

"Nor your master's!"

The Lieutenant-Governor sprang to his feet. "M. le Comte," he

stammered, "I do not understand this language! Nor this heat, which

may be real or not! All I say is, if there be foul play here----"

"If!" Tavannes retorted. "At least, if there be, there be gibbets too!

And I see necks!" he added, leaning forward. "Necks!" And then, with a

look of flame, "Let no man leave this table until I return," he cried,

"or he will have to deal with me. Nay," he continued, changing his

tone abruptly, as the prudence which never entirely left him--and

perhaps the remembrance of the other's fifty spearmen--sobered him in

the midst of his rage, "I am hasty. I mean not you, M. de Montsoreau!

Ride where you will, ride with me if you will--and I will thank you.

Only remember, until midnight Angers is mine!"

He was still speaking when he moved from the table, and, leaving all

staring after him, strode down the room. An instant he paused on the

threshold and looked back; then he passed out, and clattered down the

stone stairs. His horse and riders were waiting, but, his foot in the

stirrup, he stayed for a word with Bigot. "Is it so?" he growled.

The Norman did not speak, but pointed towards the Place Ste.-Croix,

whence an occasional shot made answer for him.

In those days the streets of the Black City were narrow and crooked,

overhung by timber houses and hampered by booths; nor could Tavannes

from the old Town Hall--now abandoned--see the Place Ste.-Croix. But

that he could cure. He struck spurs to his horse, and, followed by his

ten horsemen, he clattered noisily down the paved street. A dozen

groups hurrying the same way sprang panic-stricken to the walls, or

saved themselves in doorways. He was up with them, he was beyond them!

Another hundred yards, and he would see the Place.

And then, with a cry of rage, he drew rein a little, discovering what

was before him. In the narrow gut of the way a great black banner,

borne on two poles, was lurching towards him. It was moving in the van

of a dark procession of priests, who, with their attendants and a

crowd of devout, filled the street from wall to wall. They were

chanting one of the penitential psalms, but not so loudly as to drown

the uproar in the Place beyond them.

They made no way, and Count Hannibal swore furiously, suspecting

treachery. But he was no madman, and at the moment the least

reflection would have sent him about to seek another road.

Unfortunately, as he hesitated a man sprang with a gesture of warning

to his horse's head and seized it; and Tavannes, mistaking the motive

of the act, lost his self-control. He struck the fellow down, and with

a reckless word rode headlong into the procession, shouting to the

black robes to make way, make way! A cry, nay, a very shriek of

horror, answered him and rent the air. And in a minute the thing was

done. Too late, as the Bishop's Vicar, struck by his horse, fell

screaming under its hoofs--too late, as the consecrated vessels which

he had been bearing rolled in the mud, Tavannes saw that they bore the

canopy and the Host!

He knew what he had done, then. Before his horse's iron shoes struck

the ground again, his face--even his face--had lost its colour. But he

knew also that to hesitate now, to pause now, was to be torn in

pieces; for his riders, seeing that which the banner had veiled from

him, had not followed him, and he was alone, in the middle of

brandished fists and weapons. He hesitated not a moment. Drawing a

pistol he spurred onwards, his horse plunging wildly among the

shrieking priests; and though a hundred hands, hands of acolytes,

hands of shaven monks, clutched at his bridle or gripped his boot,

he got clear of them. Clear, carrying with him the memory of one

face seen an instant amid the crowd, one face seen, to be ever

remembered--the face of Father Pezelay, white, evil, scarred,

distorted by wicked triumph.

Behind him, the thunder of "Sacrilege! Sacrilege!" rose to heaven, and

men were gathering. In front the crowd which skirmished about the inn

was less dense, and, ignorant of the thing that had happened in the

narrow street, made ready way for him, the boldest recoiling before

the look on his face. Some who stood nearest to the inn, and had begun

to hurl stones at the window and to beat on the doors--which had only

the minute before closed on Badelon and his prisoners--supposed that

he had his riders behind him; and these fled apace. But he knew better

even than they the value of time; he pushed his horse up to the gates,

and hammered them with his boot while he kept his pistol-hand towards

the Place and the cathedral, watching for the transformation which he

knew would come!

And come it did; on a sudden, in a twinkling! A white-faced monk,

frenzy in his eyes, appeared in the midst of the crowd. He stood and

tore his garments before the people, and, stooping, threw dust on his

head. A second and a third followed his example; then from a thousand

throats the cry of "Sacrilege! Sacrilege!" rolled up, while clerks

flew wildly hither and thither shrieking the tale, and priests denied

the Sacraments to Angers until it should purge itself of the evil

thing.

By that time Count Hannibal had saved himself behind the great gates,

by the skin of his teeth. The gates had opened to him in time. But

none knew better than he that Angers had no gates thick enough, nor

walls of a height, to save him for many hours from the storm he had

let loose!

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS.

But that only the more roused the devil in the man; that, and the

knowledge that he had his own headstrong act to thank for the

position. He looked on the panic-stricken people who, scared by the

turmoil without, had come together in the courtyard, wringing their

hands and chattering; and his face was so dark and forbidding that

fear of him took the place of all other fear, and the nearest shrank

from contact with him. On any other entering as he had entered, they

would have hailed questions; they would have asked what was amiss and

if the city were rising, and where were Bigot and his men. But Count

Hannibal's eye struck curiosity dumb. When he cried from his saddle,

"Bring me the landlord!" the trembling man was found, and brought, and

thrust forward almost without a word.

"You have a back gate?" Tavannes said, while the crowd leaned forward

to catch his words.

"Yes, my lord," the man faltered.

"Into the street which leads to the ramparts?"

"Ye--yes, my lord."

"Then"--to Badelon--"saddle! You have five minutes. Saddle as you

never saddled before," he continued in a low tone, "or----" His tongue

did not finish the threat, but his hand waved the man away. "For you,"

he held Tignonville an instant with his lowering eye, "and the

preaching fool with you, get arms and mount! You have never played

aught but the woman yet; but play me false now, or look aside but a

foot from the path I bid you take, and you thwart me no more,

monsieur! And you, madame," he continued, turning to the Countess, who

stood bewildered at one of the doors, the Provost's daughter clinging

and weeping about her, "you have three minutes to get your women to

horse! See you, if you please, that they take no longer!"

She found her voice with difficulty. "And this child?" she said. "She

is in my care."

"Bring her," he muttered with a scowl of impatience. And then, raising

his voice as he turned on the terrified gang of hostlers and inn

servants who stood gaping round him, "Go help!" he thundered. "Go

help! And quickly!" he added, his face growing a shade darker as a

second bell began to toll from a neighbouring tower, and the confused

babel in the Place Ste.-Croix settled into a dull roar of

"_Sacrilege_! _sacrilege!_"--"Hasten!"

Fortunately it had been his first intention to go to the Council

attended by the whole of his troop; and eight horses stood saddled in

the stalls. Others were hastily pulled out and bridled, and the women

were mounted. La Tribe, at a look from Tavannes, took behind him the

Provost's daughter, who was helpless with terror. Between the

suddenness of the alarm, the uproar without, and the panic within,

none but a man whose people served him at a nod and dreaded his very

gesture could have got his party mounted in time. Javette would fain

have swooned, but she dared not. Tignonville would fain have

questioned, but he shrank from the venture. The Countess would fain

have said something, but she forced herself to obey and no more. Even

so the confusion in the courtyard, the mingling of horses and men and

trappings and saddle-bags, would have made another despair; but

wherever Count Hannibal, seated in his saddle in the middle, turned

his face, chaos settled into a kind of order, servants, ceasing to

listen to the yells and cries outside, ran to fetch, women dropped

cloaks from the gallery, and men loaded muskets and strapped on

bandoliers.

Until at last--but none knew what those minutes of suspense cost

him--he saw all mounted, and, pistol in hand, shepherded them to the

back gates. As he did so he stooped for a few scowling words with

Badelon, whom he sent to the van of the party: then he gave the word

to open. It was done; and even as Montsoreau's horsemen, borne on the

bosom of a second and more formidable throng, swept raging into the

already crowded square, and the cry went up for "a ram! a ram!" to

batter in the gates, Tavannes, hurling his little party before him,

dashed out at the back, and putting to flight a handful of rascals who

had wandered to that side, cantered unmolested down the lane to the

ramparts. Turning eastward at the foot of the frowning Castle, he

followed the inner side of the wall in the direction of the gate by

which he had entered the preceding evening.

To gain this his party had to pass the end of the Rue Toussaint, which

issues from the Place Ste.-Croix and runs so straight that the mob

seething in front of the inn had only to turn their heads to see them.

The danger incurred at this point was great; for a party as small as

Tavannes' and encumbered with women would have had no chance if

attacked within the walls.

Count Hannibal knew it. But he knew also that the act which he had

committed rendered the north bank of the Loire impossible for him.

Neither King nor Marshal, neither Charles of Valois nor Gaspard of

Tavannes, would dare to shield him from an infuriated Church, a Church

too wise to forgive certain offences. His one chance lay in reaching

the southern bank of the Loire--roughly speaking, the Huguenot

bank--and taking refuge in some town, Rochelle or St. Jean d'Angely,

where the Huguenots were strong, and whence he might take steps to set

himself right with his own side.

But to cross the great river which divides France into two lands

widely differing he must leave the city by the east gate; for the only

bridge over the Loire within forty miles of Angers lay eastward from

the town, at Ponts de Ce, four miles away. To this gate, therefore,

past the Rue Toussaint, he whirled his party daringly; and though the

women grew pale as the sounds of riot broke louder on the ear, and

they discovered that they were approaching instead of leaving the

danger--and though Tignonville for an instant thought him mad, and

snatched at the Countess's rein--his men-at-arms, who knew him,

galloped stolidly on, passed like clockwork the end of the street,

and, reckless of the stream of persons hurrying in the direction of

the alarm, heedless of the fright and anger their passage excited,

pressed steadily on. A moment and the gate through which they had

entered the previous evening appeared before them. And--a sight

welcome to one of them--it was open.

They were fortunate indeed, for a few seconds later they had been too

late. The alarm had preceded them; as they dashed up, a man ran to the

chains of the portcullis and tried to lower it. He failed to do so at

the first touch, and quailing, fled from Badelon's levelled pistol. A

watchman on one of the bastions of the wall shouted to them to halt or

he would fire: but the riders yelled in derision, and thundering

through the echoing archway, emerged into the open, and saw, extended

before them, in place of the gloomy vistas of the Black Town, the

glory of the open country and the vine-clad hills, and the fields

about the Loire yellow with late harvest.

The women gasped their relief, and one or two who were most out of

breath would have pulled up their horses and let them trot, thinking

the danger at an end. But a curt savage word from the rear set them

flying again, and down and up and on again they galloped, driven

forward by the iron hand which never relaxed its grip of them. Silent

and pitiless he whirled them before him until they were within a mile

of the long Ponts de Ce--a series of bridges rather than one

bridge--and the broad shallow Loire lay plain before them, its

sandbanks grilling in the sun, and grey lines of willows marking its

eyots. By this time some of the women, white with fatigue, could only

cling to their saddles with their hands; while others were red-hot,

their hair unrolled, and the perspiration mingled with the dust on

their faces. But he who drove them had no pity for weakness in an

emergency. He looked back and saw, a half-mile behind them, the

glitter of steel following hard on their heels: and "Faster! faster!"

he cried, regardless of their prayers: and he beat the rearmost of the

horses with his scabbard. A waiting-woman shrieked that she should

fall, but he answered ruthlessly, "Fall then, fool!" and the instinct

of self-preservation coming to her aid, she clung and bumped and

toiled on with the rest until they reached the first houses of the

town about the bridges, and Badelon raised his hand as a signal that

they might slacken speed.

The bewilderment of the start had been so great that it was then only,

when they found their feet on the first link of the bridge, that two

of the party, the Countess and Tignonville, awoke to the fact that

their faces were set southwards. To cross the Loire in those days

meant much to all: to a Huguenot very much. It chanced that these two

rode on to the bridge side by side, and the memory of their last

crossing--the remembrance that, on their journey north a month before,

they had crossed it hand-in-hand with the prospect of passing their

lives together, and with no faintest thought of the events which were

to ensue, flashed into the mind of each of them. It deepened the flush

which exertion had brought to the woman's cheek, then left it paler

than before. A minute earlier she had been wroth with her old lover;

she had held him accountable for the outbreak in the town and this

hasty retreat; now her anger died as she looked and she remembered. In

the man, shallower of feeling and more alive to present contingencies,

the uppermost emotion as he trod the bridge was one of surprise and

congratulation.

He could not at first believe in their good fortune. "_Mon Dieu!_" he

cried, "we are crossing!" And then again in a lower tone, "We are

crossing! We are crossing!" And he looked at her.

It was impossible that she should not look back; that she who had

ceased to be angry should not feel and remember; impossible that her

answering glance should not speak to his heart. Below them, as on that

day a month earlier, when they had crossed the bridges going

northward, the broad shallow river ran its course in the sunshine,

its turbid currents gleaming and flashing about the sandbanks and

osier-beds. To the eye, the landscape, save that the vintage was

farther advanced and the harvest in part gathered in, was the same.

But how changed were their relations, their prospects, their hopes,

who had then crossed the river hand-in-hand, planning a life to be

passed together.

The young man's rage boiled up at the thought. Too vividly, too

sharply it showed him the wrongs which he had suffered at the hands of

the man who rode behind him, the man who even now drove him on and

ordered him and insulted him. He forgot that he might have perished in

the general massacre if Count Hannibal had not intervened. He forgot

that Count Hannibal had spared him once and twice. He laid on his

enemy's shoulders the guilt of all, the blood of all: and as, quick on

the thought of his wrongs and his fellows' wrongs followed the

reflection that with every league they rode southwards the chance of

requital grew, he cried again, and this time joyously, "We are

crossing! A little, and we shall be in our own land!"

The tears filled the Countess's eyes as she looked westwards and

southwards. "Vrillac is there!" she cried; and she pointed. "I smell

the sea!"

"Ay!" he answered, almost under his breath. "It lies there! And no

more than thirty leagues from us! With fresh horses we might see it in

two days!"

Badelon's voice broke in on them. "Forward!" he cried as they reached

the southern bank. "_En avant!_" And, obedient to the word, the little

party, refreshed by the short respite, took the road out of Ponts de

Ce at a steady trot. Nor was the Countess the only one whose face

glowed, being set southwards, or whose heart pulsed to the rhythm of

the horses' hoofs that beat out "Home!" Carlat's and Madame Carlat's

also. Javette even, hearing from her neighbour that they were over the

Loire, plucked up courage; while La Tribe, gazing before him with

moistened eyes, cried "Comfort" to the scared and weeping girl who

clung to his belt. It was singular to see how all sniffed the air as

if already it smacked of the sea and of the south; and how they of

Poitou sat their horses as if they asked nothing better than to ride

on and on and on until the scenes of home arose about them. For them

the sky had already a deeper blue, the air a softer fragrance, the

sunshine a purity long unknown!

Was it wonderful, when they had suffered so much on that northern

bank? When their experience during the month had been comparable only

with the direst nightmare? Yet one among them, after the first impulse

of relief and satisfaction, felt differently. Tignonville's gorge rose

against the sense of compulsion, of inferiority. To be driven forward

after this fashion, whether he would or no, to be placed at the beck

of every base-born man-at-arms, to have no clearer knowledge of what

had happened or of what was passing, or of the peril from which they

fled, than the women among whom he rode--these things kindled anew the

sullen fire of hate. North of the Loire there had been some excuse for

his inaction under insult; he had been in the man's country and power.

But south of the Loire, within forty leagues of Huguenot Niort, must

he still suffer, still be supine?

His rage was inflamed by a disappointment he presently underwent.

Looking back as they rode clear of the wooden houses of Ponts de Ce,

he missed Tavannes and several of his men; and he wondered if Count

Hannibal had remained on his own side of the river. It seemed

possible; and in that event La Tribe and he and Carlat might deal with

Badelon and the four who still escorted them. But when he looked back

a minute later, Tavannes was within sight, following the party with a

stern face; and not Tavannes only. Bigot, with two of the ten men who

hitherto had been missing, was with him.

It was clear, however, that they brought no good news, for they had

scarcely ridden up before Count Hannibal cried "Faster! faster!" in

his harshest voice, and Bigot urged the horses to a quicker trot.

Their course lay almost parallel with the Loire in the direction of

Beaupreau; and Tignonville began to fear that Count Hannibal intended

to recross the river at Nantes, where the only bridge below Angers

spanned the stream. With this in view it was easy to comprehend his

wish to distance his pursuers before he recrossed.

The Countess had no such thought. "They must be close upon us!" she

murmured, as she urged her horse in obedience to the order.

"Whoever they are!" Tignonville muttered bitterly. "If we knew what

had happened, or who followed, we should know more about it, madame.

For that matter, I know what I wish he would do. And our heads are set

for it."

"What?"

"Make for Vrillac!" he answered, a savage gleam in his eyes.

"For Vrillac?"

"Yes."

"Ah, if he would!" she cried, her face turning pale. "If he would. He

would be safe there!"

"Ay, quite safe!" he answered with a peculiar intonation. And he

looked at her askance.

He fancied that his thought, the thought which had just flashed into

his brain, was her thought; that she had the same notion in reserve,

and that they were in sympathy. And Tavannes, seeing them talking

together, and noting her look and the fervour of her gesture, formed

the same opinion, and retired more darkly into himself. The downfall

of his plan for dazzling her by a magnanimity unparalleled and beyond

compare, a plan dependent on the submission of Angers--his

disappointment in this might have roused the worst passions of a

better man. But there was in this man a pride on a level at least with

his other passions: and to bear himself in this hour of defeat and

flight so that if she could not love him she must admire him, checked

in a strange degree the current of his rage. When Tignonville

presently looked back he found that Count Hannibal and six of his

riders had pulled up and were walking their horses far in the rear. On

which he would have done the same himself; but Badelon called over his

shoulder the eternal "Forward, monsieur, _en avant!_" and sullenly,

hating the man and his master more deeply every hour, Tignonville was

forced to push on, with thoughts of vengeance in his heart.

Trot, trot! Trot, trot! Through a country which had lost its smiling

wooded character and grew more sombre and less fertile the farther

they left the Loire behind them. Trot, trot! Trot, trot!--for ever, it

seemed to some. Javette wept with fatigue, and the other women were

little better. The Countess herself spoke seldom except to cheer the

Provost's daughter; who, poor girl, flung suddenly out of the round of

her life and cast among strangers, showed a better spirit than might

have been expected. At length, on the slopes of some low hills, which

they had long seen before them, a cluster of houses and a church

appeared; and Badelon, drawing rein, cried, "Beaupreau, madame! We

stay an hour!"

It was six o'clock. They had ridden some hours without a break. With

sighs and cries of pain the women dropped from their clumsy saddles,

while the men laid out such food--it was little--as had been brought,

and hobbled the horses that they might feed. The hour passed rapidly,

and when it had passed Badelon was inexorable. There was wailing when

he gave the word to mount again; and Tignonville, fiercely resenting

this dumb, reasonless flight, was at heart one of the mutineers. But

Badelon said grimly that they might go on and live, or stay and die,

as it pleased them; and once more they climbed painfully to their

saddles, and jogged steadily on through the sunset, through the

gloaming, through the darkness, across a weird, mysterious country of

low hills and narrow plains which grew more wild and less cultivated

as they advanced. Fortunately the horses had been well saved during

the long leisurely journey to Angers, and now went well and strongly.

When they at last unsaddled for the night in a little dismal wood

within a mile of Clisson, they had placed some forty miles between

themselves and Angers.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE ORDEAL BY STEEL.

The women for the most part fell like sacks and slept where they

alighted, dead weary. The men, when they had cared for the horses,

followed the example; for Badelon would suffer no fire. In less than

half an hour, a sentry who stood on guard at the edge of the wood, and

Tignonville and La Tribe, who talked in low voices with their backs

against a tree, were the only persons who remained awake, with the

exception of the Countess. Carlat had made a couch for her, and

screened it with cloaks from the wind and the eye; for the moon had

risen, and where the trees stood sparsest its light flooded the soil

with pools of white. But Madame had not yet retired to her bed. The

two men, whose voices reached her, saw her from time to time moving

restlessly to and fro between the road and the little encampment.

Presently she came and stood over them.

"He led His people out of the wilderness," La Tribe was saying; "out

of the trouble of Paris, out of the trouble of Angers, and always,

always southward. If you do not in this, monsieur, see His finger----"

"And Angers?" Tignonville struck in, with a faint sneer. "Has He led

that out of trouble? A day or two ago you would risk all to save it,

my friend. Now, with your back safely turned on it, you think all for

the best."

"We did our best," the minister answered humbly. "From the day we met

in Paris we have been but instruments."

"To save Angers?"

"To save a remnant."

On a sudden the Countess raised her hand. "Do you not hear horses,

monsieur?" she cried. She had been listening to the noises of the

night, and had paid little heed to what the two were saying.

"One of ours moved," Tignonville answered listlessly. "Why do you not

lie down, madame?"

Instead of answering, "Whither is he going?" she asked. "Do you know?"

"I wish I did know," the young man answered peevishly. "To Niort, it

may be. Or presently he will double back and recross the Loire."

"He would have gone by Cholet to Niort," La Tribe said. "The direction

is rather that of Rochelle. God grant we be bound thither!"

"Or to Vrillac," the Countess cried, clasping her hands in the

darkness. "Can it be to Vrillac he is going?"

The minister shook his head.

"Ah, let it be to Vrillac!" she cried, a thrill in her voice. "We

should be safe there. And he would be safe."

"Safe?" echoed a fourth and deeper voice. And out of the darkness

beside them loomed a tall figure.

The minister looked and leapt to his feet. Tignonville rose more

slowly.

The voice was Tavannes' "And where am I to be safe?" he repeated

slowly, a faint ring of saturnine amusement in his tone.

"At Vrillac," she cried. "In my house, monsieur."

He was silent a moment. Then, "Your house, madame? In which direction

is it, from here?"

"Westwards," she answered impulsively, her voice quivering with

eagerness and emotion and hope. "Westwards, monsieur--on the sea. The

causeway from the land is long, and ten can hold it against ten

hundred."

"Westwards? And how far westwards?"

Tignonville answered for her; in his tone throbbed the same eagerness,

the same anxiety, which spoke in hers. Nor was Count Hannibal's ear

deaf to it. "Through Challans," he said, "thirteen leagues."

"From Clisson?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Comte."

"And by Commequiers less," the Countess cried.

"No, it is a worse road," Tignonville answered quickly; "and longer in

time."

"But we came----"

"At our leisure, madame. The road is by Challans, if we wish to be

there quickly."

"Ah!" Count Hannibal said. In the darkness it was impossible to see

his face or mark how he took it. "But being there, I have few men."

"I have forty will come at call," she cried with pride. "A word to

them, and in four hours or a little more----"

"They would outnumber mine by four to one," Count Hannibal answered

coldly, drily, in a voice like ice-water flung in their faces. "Thank

you, madame; I understand. To Vrillac is no long ride; but we will not

ride it at present." And he turned sharply on his heel and strode from

them.

He had not covered thirty paces before she overtook him in the middle

of a broad patch of moonlight and touched his arm. He wheeled swiftly,

his hand half-way to his hilt. Then he saw who it was. "Ah," he said,

"I had forgotten, madame. You have come----"

"No!" she cried passionately; and standing before him she shook back

the hood of her cloak that he might look into her eyes. "You owe me no

blow to-day. You have paid me, monsieur. You have struck me already,

and foully, like a coward. Do you remember," she continued rapidly,

"the hour after our marriage, and what you said to me? Do you remember

what you told me? And whom to trust and whom to suspect, where lay our

interest and where our foes? You trusted me then! What have I done

that you now dare--ay, dare, monsieur," she repeated fearlessly, her

face pale and her eyes glittering with excitement, "to insult me? That

you treat me as--Javette? That you deem me capable of _that?_ Of

luring you into a trap, and in my own house, or the house that was

mine, of----"

"Treating me as I have treated others."

"You have said it!" she cried. She could not herself understand why

his distrust had wounded her so sharply, so home, that all fear of him

was gone. "You have said it, and put that between us which will not be

removed. I could have forgiven blows," she continued, breathless in

her excitement, "so you had thought me what I am. But now you will do

well to watch me! You will do well to leave Vrillac on one side. For

were you there, and raised your hand against me--not that that touches

me, but it will do--and there are those, I tell you, would fling you

from the tower at my word."

"Indeed?"

"Ay, indeed! And indeed, monsieur!"

Her face was in moonlight, his was in shadow.

"And this is your new tone, madame, is it?" he said, slowly and after

a pregnant pause. "The crossing of a river has wrought so great a

change in you?"

"No!" she cried.

"Yes," he said. And despite herself she flinched before the grimness

of his tone. "You have yet to learn one thing, however: that I do not

change. That, north or south, I am the same to those who are the same

to me. That what I have won on the one bank I will hold on the other,

in the teeth of all, and though God's Church be thundering on my

heels! I go to Vrillac----"

"You--go?" she cried. "You go?"

"I go," he repeated, "to-morrow. And among your own people I will see

what language you will hold. While you were in my power I spared you.

Now that you are in your own land, now that you lift your hand against

me, I will show you of what make I am. If blows will not tame you, I

will try that will suit you less. Ay, you wince, madame! You had done

well had you thought twice before you threatened, and thrice before

you took in hand to scare Tavannes with a parcel of clowns and

fisherfolk. Tomorrow, to Vrillac and your duty! And one word more,

madame," he continued, turning back to her truculently when he had

gone some paces from her. "If I find you plotting with your lover by

the way I will hang not you, but him. I have spared him a score of

times; but I know him, and I do not trust him."

"Nor me," she said, and with a white, set face she looked at him in

the moonlight. "Had you not better hang me now?"

"Why?"

"Lest I do you an injury!" she cried with passion; and she raised her

hand and pointed northward. "Lest I kill you some night, monsieur! I

tell you, a thousand men on your heels are less dangerous than the

woman at your side--if she hate you."

"Is it so?" he cried. His hand flew to his hilt; his dagger flashed

out. But she did not move, did not flinch, only she set her teeth; and

her eyes, fascinated by the steel, grew wider.

His hand sank slowly. He held the weapon to her, hilt foremost; she

took it mechanically. "You think yourself brave enough to kill me, do

you?" he sneered. "Then take this, and strike, if you dare. Take

it--strike, madame! It is sharp, and my arms are open." And he

flung them wide, standing within a pace of her. "Here, above the

collar-bone, is the surest for a weak hand. What, afraid?" he

continued, as, stiffly clutching the weapon which he had put into her

hand, she glared at him, trembling and astonished. "Afraid, and a

Vrillac! Afraid, and 'tis but one blow! See, my arms are open. One

blow home, and you will never lie in them. Think of that. One blow

home, and you may lie in his. Think of that! Strike, then, madame," he

went on, piling taunt on taunt, "if you dare, and if you hate me.

What, still afraid! How shall I give you heart? Shall I strike you? It

will not be the first time by ten. I keep count, you see," he

continued mockingly. "Or shall I kiss you? Ay, that may do. And it

will not be against your will, either, for you have that in your hand

will save you in an instant. Even"--he drew a foot nearer--"now!

Even----" And he stooped until his lips almost touched hers.

She sprang back. "Oh, do not!" she cried. "Oh, do not!" And, dropping

the dagger, she covered her face with her hands, and burst into

weeping.

He stooped coolly, and, after groping some time for the poniard, drew

it from the leaves among which it had fallen. He put it into the

sheath, and not until he had done that did he speak. Then it was with

a sneer. "I have no need to fear overmuch," he said. "You are a poor

hater, madame. And poor haters make poor lovers. 'Tis his loss! If you

will not strike a blow for him, there is but one thing left. Go, dream

of him!"

And shrugging his shoulders contemptuously he turned on his heel.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE AMBUSH.

The start they made at daybreak was gloomy and ill-omened, through one

of those white mists which are blown from the Atlantic over the flat

lands of Western Poitou. The horses, looming gigantic through the fog,

winced as the cold harness was girded on them. The men hurried to and

fro with saddles on their heads, and stumbled over other saddles, and

swore savagely. The women turned mutinous and would not rise; or,

being dragged up by force, shrieked wild unfitting words, as they were

driven to the horses. The Countess looked on and listened, and

shuddered, waiting for Carlat to set her on her horse. She had gone

during the last three weeks through much that was dreary, much that

was hopeless; but the chill discomfort of this forced start, with

tired horses and wailing women, would have darkened the prospect of

home had there been no fear or threat to cloud it.

He whose will compelled all stood a little apart and watched all,

silent and gloomy. When Badelon, after taking his orders and

distributing some slices of black bread to be eaten in the saddle,

moved off at the head of his troop, Count Hannibal remained behind,

attended by Bigot and the eight riders who had formed the rearguard so

far. He had not approached the Countess since rising, and she had been

thankful for it. But now, as she moved away, she looked back and saw

him still standing; she marked that he wore his corselet, and in one

of those revulsions of feeling--which outrun man's reason--she who had

tossed on her couch through half the night, in passionate revolt

against the fate before her, took fire at his neglect and his silence;

she resented on a sudden the distance he kept, and his scorn of her.

Her breast heaved, her colour came, involuntarily she checked her

horse, as if she would return to him, and speak to him. Then the

Carlats and the others closed up behind her, Badelon's monotonous

"Forward, madame, _en avant!_" proclaimed the day's journey begun, and

she saw him no more.

Nevertheless, the motionless figure, looming Homeric through the fog,

with gleams of wet light reflected from the steel about it, dwelt long

in her mind. The road which Badelon followed, slowly at first, and

with greater speed as the horses warmed to their work, and the women,

sore and battered, resigned themselves to suffering, wound across a

flat expanse broken by a few hills. These were little more than

mounds, and for the most part were veiled from sight by the low-lying

sea-mist, through which gnarled and stunted oaks rose mysterious, to

fade as strangely. Weird trees they were, with branches unlike those

of this world's trees, rising in a grey land without horizon or limit,

through which our travellers moved, jaded phantoms in a clinging

nightmare. At a walk, at a trot, more often at a weary jog, they

pushed on behind Badelon's humped shoulders. Sometimes the fog hung so

thick about them that they saw only those who rose and fell in the

saddles immediately before them; sometimes the air cleared a little,

the curtain rolled up a space, and for a minute or two they discerned

stretches of unfertile fields, half-tilled and stony, or long tracts

of gorse and broom, with here and there a thicket of dwarf shrubs or a

wood of wind-swept pines. Some looked and saw these things; more rode

on sulky and unseeing, supporting impatiently the toils of a flight

from they knew not what.

To do Tignonville justice, he was not of these. On the contrary, he

seemed to be in a better temper on this day; and, where so many took

things unheroically, he showed to advantage. Avoiding the Countess and

riding with Carlat, he talked and laughed with marked cheerfulness;

nor did he ever fail, when the mist rose, to note this or that

landmark, and confirm Badelon in the way he was going.

"We shall be at Lege by noon!" he cried more than once, "and if M. le

Comte persists in his plan, may reach Vrillac by late sunset. By way

of Challans!"

And always Carlat answered, "Ay, by Challans, monsieur, so be it!"

He proved, too, so far right in his prediction that noon saw them

drag, a weary train, into the hamlet of Lege, where the road from

Nantes to Olonne runs southward over the level of Poitou. An hour

later Count Hannibal rode in with six of his eight men, and, after a

few minutes' parley with Badelon, who was scanning the horses, he

called Carlat to him. The old man came.

"Can we reach Vrillac to-night?" Count Hannibal asked curtly.

"By Challans, my lord," the steward answered, "I think we can. We call

it seven hours' riding from here."

"And that route is the shortest?"

"In time, M. le Comte, the road being better."

Count Hannibal bent his brows. "And the other way?" he said.

"Is by Commequiers, my lord. It is shorter in distance."

"By how much!"

"Two leagues. But there are fordings and a salt marsh; and with Madame

and the women----"

"It would be longer?"

The steward hesitated. "I think so," he said slowly, his eyes

wandering to the grey misty landscape, against which the poor hovels

of the village stood out naked and comfortless. A low thicket of oaks

sheltered the place from southwesterly gales. On the other three sides

it lay open.

"Very good," Tavannes said curtly. "Be ready to start in ten minutes.

You will guide us."

But when the ten minutes had elapsed and the party were ready to

start, to the astonishment of all the steward was not to be found. To

peremptory calls for him no answer came; and a hurried search through

the hamlet proved equally fruitless. The only person who had seen him

since his interview with Tavannes turned out to be M. de Tignonville;

and he had seen him mount his horse five minutes before, and move

off--as he believed--by the Challans road.

"Ahead of us!"

"Yes, M. le Comte," Tignonville answered, shading his eyes and gazing

in the direction of the fringe of trees. "I did not see him take the

road, but he was beside the north end of the wood when I saw him last.

Thereabouts!" and he pointed to a place where the Challans road wound

round the flank of the wood. "When we are beyond that point, I think

we shall see him."

Count Hannibal growled a word in his beard, and, turning in his

saddle, looked back the way he had come. Half a mile away, two or

three dots could be seen approaching across the plain. He turned

again. "You know the road?" he said, curtly addressing the young man.

"Perfectly. As well as Carlat."

"Then lead the way, monsieur, with Badelon. And spare neither whip nor

spur. There will be need of both, if we would lie warm to-night."

Tignonville nodded assent and, wheeling his horse, rode to the head of

the party, a faint smile playing about his mouth. A moment, and the

main body moved off behind him, leaving Count Hannibal and six men to

cover the rear. The mist, which at noon had risen for an hour or two,

was closing down again, and they had no sooner passed clear of the

wood than the trees faded out of sight behind them. It was not

wonderful that they could not see Carlat. Objects a hundred paces from

them were completely hidden.

Trot, trot! Trot, trot! through a. grey world so featureless, so

unreal that the riders, now dozing in the saddle, and now awaking,

seemed to themselves to stand still, as in a nightmare. A trot and

then a walk, and then a trot again; and all a dozen times repeated,

while the women bumped along in their wretched saddles, and the horses

stumbled, and the men swore at them.

Ha! La Garnache at last, and a sharp turn southward to Challans. The

Countess raised her head, and began to look about her. There, should

be a church, she knew; and there, the old ruined tower built by

wizards, or the Carthaginians, so old tradition ran; and there, to the

westward, the great salt marshes towards Noirmoutier. The mist hid

all, but the knowledge that they were there set her heart beating,

brought tears to her eyes, and lightened the long road to Challans.

At Challans they halted half-an-hour, and washed out the horses'

mouths with water and a little _guignolet_--the spirit of the country.

A dose of the cordial was administered to the women; and a little

after seven they began the last stage of the journey, through a

landscape which even the mist could not veil from the eyes of love.

There rose the windmill of Soullans! There the old dolmen, beneath

which the grey wolf that ate the two children of Tornic had its lair.

For a mile back they had been treading my lady's land; they had only

two more leagues to ride, and one of those was crumbling under each

dogged footfall. The salt flavour, which is new life to the

shore-born, was in the fleecy reek which floated by them, now thinner,

now more opaque; and almost they could hear the dull thunder of the

Biscay waves falling on the rocks.

Tignonville looked back at her and smiled. She caught the look; she

fancied that she understood it and his thoughts. But her own eyes were

moist at the moment with tears, and what his said, and what there was

of strangeness in his glance, half-warning, half-exultant, escaped

her. For there, not a mile before them, where the low hills about the

fishing village began to rise from the dull inland level--hills green

on the land side, bare and scarped towards the sea and the island--she

espied the wayside chapel at which the nurse of her early childhood

had told her beads. Where it stood, the road from Commequiers and the

road she travelled became one: a short mile thence, after winding

among the hillocks, it ran down to the beach and the causeway--and to

her home.

At the sight she bethought herself of Carlat, and calling to M. de

Tignonville she asked him what he thought of the steward's continued

absence.

"He must have outpaced us!" he answered with an odd laugh.

"But he must have ridden hard to do that."

He reined back to her. "Say nothing!" he muttered under his breath.

"But look ahead, madame, and see if we are expected!"

"Expected? How can we be expected?" she cried. The colour rushed into

her face.

He put his finger to his lip, and looked warningly at Badelon's humped

shoulders, jogging up and down in front of them. Then, stooping

towards her, in a lower tone, "If Carlat has arrived before us, he

will have told them," he said.

"Have told them!" she exclaimed.

"He came by the other road, and it is quicker."

She gazed at him in astonishment, her lips parted; and slowly she

comprehended, and her eyes grew hard. "Then why," she said, "did you

say it was longer? Had we been overtaken, monsieur, we had had you to

thank for it, it seems!"

He bit his lip. "But we have not been overtaken," he rejoined. "On the

contrary, you have me to thank for something quite different."

"As unwelcome, perhaps!" she retorted. "For what?"

"Softly, madame."

"For what?" she repeated, refusing to lower her voice. "Speak,

monsieur, if you please." He had never seen her look at him in that

way.

"For the fact," he answered, stung by her look and tone, "that when

you arrive you will find yourself mistress in your own house! Is that

nothing?"

"You have called in my people?"

"Carlat has done so, or should have," he answered. "Henceforth," he

continued, a ring of exultation in his voice, "it will go hard with M.

le Comte, if he does not treat you better than he has treated you

hitherto. That is all!"

"You mean that it will go hard with him in any case?" she cried, her

bosom rising and falling.

"I mean, madame---- But there they are! Good Carlat! Brave Carlat! He

has done well."

"Carlat?"

"Ay, there they are! And you are mistress in your own land! At last

you are mistress, and you have me to thank for it! See!" And heedless

in his exultation whether Badelon understood or not, he pointed to a

place before them where the road wound between two low hills. Over the

green shoulder of one of these, a dozen bright points caught and

reflected the last evening light; while as he spoke a man rose to his

feet on the hill-side above, and began to make signs to persons below.

A pennon, too, showed an instant over the shoulder, fluttered, and was

gone.

Badelon looked as they looked. The next instant he uttered a low oath,

and dragged his horse across the front of the party. "Pierre!" he

cried to the man on his left, "Ride for your life! To my lord, and

tell him we are ambushed!" And as the trained soldier wheeled about

and spurred away, the sacker of Rome turned a dark scowling face on

Tignonville. "If this be your work," he hissed, "we shall thank you

for it in hell! For it is where most of us will lie to-night! They are

Montsoreau's spears, and they have those with them are worse to deal

with than themselves!" Then in a different tone, and throwing off all

disguise, "Men to the front!" he shouted. "And you, madame, to the

rear quickly, and the women with you! Now, men, forward, and draw!

Steady! Steady! They are coming!"

There was an instant of confusion, disorder, panic; horses jostling

one another, women screaming and clutching at men, men shaking them

off and forcing their way to the van. Fortunately the enemy did not

fall on at once, as Badelon expected, but after showing themselves in

the mouth of the valley, at a distance of three hundred paces, hung

for some reason irresolute. This gave Badelon time to array his seven

swords in front; but real resistance was out of the question, as he

knew. And to none seemed less in question than to Tignonville.

When the truth, and what he had done, broke on the young man, he sat a

moment motionless with horror. It was only when Badelon had twice

summoned him with opprobrious words that he awoke to the relief of

action. Even after that he hung an instant trying to meet the

Countess's eyes, despair in his own; but it was not to be. She had

turned her head, and was looking back, as if thence only and not from

him could help come. It was not to him she turned; and he saw it, and

the justice of it. And silent, grim, more formidable even than old

Badelon, the veteran fighter, who knew all the tricks and shifts of

the _melee_, he spurred to the flank of the line.

"Now, steady!" Badelon cried again, seeing that the enemy were

beginning to move. "Steady! Ha! Thank God, my lord! My lord is coming!

Stand! Stand!"

The distant sound of galloping hoofs had reached his ear in the nick

of time. He stood in his stirrups and looked back. Yes, Count Hannibal

was coming, riding a dozen paces in front of his men. The odds were

still desperate--for he brought but six--the enemy were still three to

one. But the thunder of his hoofs as he came up checked for a moment

the enemy's onset; and before Montsoreau's people got started again

Count Hannibal had ridden up abreast of the women, and the Countess,

looking at him, knew that, desperate as was their strait, she had not

looked behind in vain. The glow of battle, the stress of the moment,

had displaced the cloud from his face; the joy of the born fighter

lightened in his eye. His voice rang clear and loud above the press.

"Badelon! wait you and two with madame!" he cried. "Follow at fifty

paces' distance, and, when we have broken them, ride through! The

others with me! Now forward, men, and show your teeth! A Tavannes! A

Tavannes! A Tavannes! We carry it yet!"

And he dashed forward, leading them on, leaving the women behind; and

down the sward to meet him, thundering in double line, came

Montsoreau's men-at-arms, and with the men-at-arms, a dozen pale,

fierce eyed men in the Church's black, yelling the Church's curses.

Madame's heart grew sick as she heard, as she waited, as she judged

him by the fast-failing light a horse's length before his men--with

only Tignonville beside him.

She held her breath--would the shock never come? If Badelon had not

seized her rein and forced her forward, she would not have moved. And

then, even as she moved, they met! With yells and wild cries and a

mare's savage scream, the two bands crashed together in a huddle of

fallen or rearing horses, of flickering weapons, of thrusting men, of

grapples hand-to-hand. What happened, what was happening to anyone,

who it was fell, stabbed through and through by four, or who were

those who still fought single combats, twisting round one another's

horses, those on her right and on her left, she could not tell. For

Badelon dragged her on with whip and spur, and two horsemen--who

obscured her view--galloped in front of her, and rode down bodily the

only man who undertook to bar her passage. She had a glimpse of that

man's face, as his horse, struck in the act of turning, fell sideways

on him; and she knew it, in its agony of terror, though she had seen

it but once. It was the face of the man whose eyes had sought hers

from the steps of the church in Angers; the lean man in black, who had

turned soldier of the Church--to his misfortune.

Through? Yes, through, the way was clear before them! The fight with

its screams and curses died away behind them. The horses swayed and

all but sank under them. But Badelon knew it no time for mercy;

iron-shod hoofs rang on the road behind, and at any moment the

pursuers might be on their heels. He flogged on until the cots of the

hamlet appeared on either side of the way; on, until the road forked

and the Countess with strange readiness cried "The left!" on, until

the beach appeared below them at the foot of a sharp pitch, and beyond

the beach the slow heaving grey of the ocean.

The tide was high. The causeway ran through it, a mere thread lipped

by the darkling waves, and at the sight a grunt of relief broke from

Badelon. For at the end of the causeway, black against the western

sky, rose the gateway and towers of Vrillac; and he saw that, as the

Countess had said, it was a place ten men could hold against ten

hundred!

They stumbled down the beach, reached the causeway and trotted along

it; more slowly now, and looking back. The other women had followed by

hook or by crook, some crying hysterically, yet clinging to their

horses and even urging them; and in a medley, the causeway clear

behind them and no one following, they reached the drawbridge, and

passed under the arch of the gate beyond.

There friendly hands, Carlat's foremost, welcomed them and aided them

to alight, and the Countess saw, as in a dream, the familiar scene,

all unfamiliar: the gate, where she had played, a child, aglow with

lantern-light and arms. Men, whose rugged faces she had known in

infancy, stood at the drawbridge chains and at the winches. Others

blew matches and handled primers, while old servants crowded round

her, and women looked at her, scared and weeping. She saw it all at a

glance--the lights, the black shadows, the sudden glow of a match on

the groining of the arch above. She saw it, and turning swiftly,

looked back the way she had come; along the dusky causeway to the low,

dark shore, which night was stealing quickly from their eyes. She

clasped her hands.

"Where is Badelon?" she cried. "Where is he? Where is he?"

One of the men who had ridden before her answered that he had turned

back.

"Turned back!" she repeated. And then, shading her eyes, "Who is

coming?" she asked, her voice insistent. "There is someone coming. Who

is it? Who is it?"

Two were coming out of the gloom, travelling slowly and painfully

along the causeway. One was La Tribe, limping; the other a rider,

slashed across the forehead, and sobbing curses.

"No more!" she muttered. "Are there no more?"

The minister shook his head. The rider wiped the blood from his eyes,

and turned up his face that he might see the better. But he seemed to

be dazed, and only babbled strange words in a strange _patois_.

She stamped her foot in passion. "More lights!" she cried. "Lights!

How can they find their way? And let six men go down the _digue_, and

meet them. Will you let them be butchered between the shore and this?"

But Carlat, who had not been able to collect more than a dozen men,

shook his head; and before she could repeat the order, sounds of

battle, shrill, faint, like cries of hungry seagulls, pierced the

darkness which shrouded the farther end of the causeway. The women

shrank inward over the threshold, while Carlat cried to the men at the

chains to be ready, and to some who stood at loopholes above, to blow

up their matches and let fly at his word. And then they all waited,

the Countess foremost, peering eagerly into the growing darkness. They

could see nothing.

A distant scuffle, an oath, a cry, silence! The same, a little nearer,

a little louder, followed this time, not by silence, but by the slow

tread of a limping horse. Again a rush of feet, the clash of steel, a

scream, a laugh, all weird and unreal, issuing from the night; then

out of the darkness into the light, stepping slowly with hanging head,

moved a horse, bearing on its back a man--or was it a man!--bending

low in the saddle, his feet swinging loose. For an instant the horse

and the man seemed to be alone, a ghostly pair; then at their heels

came into view two figures, skirmishing this way and that; and now

coming nearer, and now darting back into the gloom. One, a squat

figure, stooping low, wielded a sword with two hands; the other

covered him with a half-pike. And then beyond these--abruptly as it

seemed--the night gave up to sight a swarm of dark figures pressing on

them and after them, driving them before them.

Carlat had an inspiration. "Fire!" he cried; and four arquebuses

poured a score of slugs into the knot of pursuers. A man fell, another

shrieked and stumbled, the rest gave back. Only the horse came on

spectrally, with hanging head and shining eyeballs, until a man ran

out and seized its head, and dragged it, more by his strength than its

own, over the drawbridge. After it Badelon, with a gaping wound in his

knee, and Bigot, bleeding from a dozen hurts, walked over the bridge,

and stood on either side of the saddle, smiling foolishly at the man

on the horse.

"Leave me!" he muttered. "Leave me!" He made a feeble movement with

his hand, as if it held a weapon; then his head sank lower. It was

Count Hannibal. His thigh was broken, and there was a lance-head in

his arm.

The Countess looked at him, then beyond him, past him into the

darkness. "Are there no more?" she whispered tremulously. "No more?

Tignonville--my----"

Badelon shook his head. The Countess covered her face and wept.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME?

It was in the grey dawning of the next day, at the hour before the sun

rose, that word of M. de Tignonville's fate came to them in the

castle. The fog which had masked the van and coming of night hung

thick on its retreating skirts, and only reluctantly and little by

little gave up to sight and daylight a certain thing which night had

left at the end of the causeway. The first man to see it was Carlat,

from the roof of the gateway; and he rubbed eyes weary with watching,

and peered anew at it through the mist, fancying himself back in the

Place Ste.-Croix at Angers, supposing for a wild moment the journey a

dream, and the return a nightmare. But rub as he might, and stare as

he might, the ugly outlines of the thing he had seen persisted--nay,

grew sharper as the haze began to lift from the grey, slow-heaving

floor of sea. He called another man and bade him look. "What is it?"

he said. "D'you see, there? Below the village?"

"'Tis a gibbet," the man answered, with a foolish laugh; they had

watched all night. "God keep us from it."

"A gibbet?"

"Ay!"

"It is there to hang those they have taken, very like," the man

answered, stupidly practical. And then other men came up, and stared

at it and growled in their beards. Presently there were eight or ten

on the roof of the gateway looking towards the land and discussing the

thing; and by-and-by a man was descried approaching along the causeway

with a white flag in his hand.

At that Carlat bade one fetch the minister. "He understands things,"

he muttered, "and I misdoubt this. And see," he cried after the

messenger, "that no word of it come to Mademoiselle!" Instinctively in

the maiden home he reverted to the maiden title.

The messenger went, and came again bringing La Tribe, whose head rose

above the staircase at the moment the envoy below came to a halt

before the gate. Carlat signed to the minister to come forward; and La

Tribe, after sniffing the salt air, and glancing at the long, low,

misty shore and the stiff ugly shape which stood at the end of the

causeway, looked down and met the envoy's eyes. For a moment no one

spoke. Only the men who had remained on the gateway, and had watched

the stranger's coming, breathed hard.

At last, "I bear a message," the man announced loudly and clearly,

"for the lady of Vrillac. Is she present?"

"Give your message!" La Tribe replied.

"It is for her ears only."

"Do you want to enter?"

"No!" The man answered so hurriedly that more than one smiled. He had

the bearing of a lay clerk of some precinct, a verger or sacristan;

and after a fashion the dress of one also, for he was in dusty black

and wore no sword, though he was girded with a belt. "No!" he

repeated, "but if Madame will come to the gate, and speak to me----"

"Madame has other fish to fry," Carlat blurted out. "Do you think that

she has naught to do but listen to messages from a gang of bandits?"

"If she does not listen she will repent it all her life!" the fellow

answered hardily. "That is part of my message."

There was a pause while La Tribe considered the matter. In the end,

"From whom do you come?" he asked.

"From His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of Saumur," the envoy

answered glibly, "and from my lord Bishop of Angers, him assisting by

his Vicar; and from others gathered lawfully, who will as lawfully

depart if their terms are accepted. Also from M. de Tignonville, a

gentleman, I am told, of these parts, now in their hands and adjudged

to die at sunset this day if the terms I bring be not accepted."

There was a long silence on the gate. The men looked down fixedly; not

a feature of one of them moved, for no one was surprised. "Wherefore

is he to die!" La Tribe asked at last.

"For good cause shown."

"Wherefore?"

"He is a Huguenot."

The minister nodded. "And the terms!" Carlat muttered.

"Ay, the terms!" La Tribe repeated, nodding afresh. "What are they?"

"They are for madame's ear only," the messenger made answer.

"Then they will not reach it!" Carlat broke forth in wrath. "So much

for that! And for yourself, see you go quickly before we make a target

of you!"

"Very well, I go," the envoy answered sullenly. "But----"

"But what?" La Tribe cried, gripping Carlat's shoulder to quiet him.

"But what! Say what you have to say, man! Speak out, and have done

with it!"

"I will say it to her and to no other."

"Then you will not say it!" Carlat cried again. "For you will not see

her. So you may go. And the black fever in your vitals."

"Ay, go!" La Tribe added more quietly.

The man turned away with a shrug of the shoulders, and moved off a

dozen paces, watched by all on the gate with the same fixed attention.

But presently he paused; he returned. "Very well," he said, looking up

with an ill grace. "I will do my office here, if I cannot come to her.

But I hold also a letter from M. de Tignonville, and that I can

deliver to no other hands than hers!" He held it up as he spoke, a

thin scrap of greyish paper, the fly-leaf of a missal perhaps. "See!"

he continued, "and take notice! If she does not get this, and learns

when it is too late that it was offered----"

"The terms," Carlat growled impatiently. "The terms! Come to them!"

"You will have them?" the man answered, nervously passing his tongue

over his lips. "You will not let me see her, or speak to her

privately?"

"No."

"Then hear them. His Excellency is informed that one Hannibal de

Tavannes, guilty of the detestable crime of sacrilege and of other

gross crimes, has taken refuge here. He requires that the said

Hannibal de Tavannes be handed to him for punishment, and, this being

done before sunset this evening, he will yield to you free and

uninjured the said M. de Tignonville, and will retire from the lands

of Vrillac. But if you refuse"--the man passed his eye along the line

of attentive faces which fringed the battlement--"he will at sunset

hang the said Tignonville on the gallows raised for Tavannes, and will

harry the demesne of Vrillac to its farthest border!"

There was a long silence on the gate. Some, their gaze still fixed on

him, moved their lips as if they chewed. Others looked aside, met

their fellows' eyes in a pregnant glance, and slowly returned to him.

But no one spoke. At his back the flush of dawn was flooding the east,

and spreading and waxing brighter. The air was growing warm; the shore

below, from grey, was turning green. In a minute or two the sun, whose

glowing marge already peeped above the low hills of France, would top

the horizon.

The man, getting no answer, shifted his feet uneasily. "Well," he

cried, "what answer am I to take?"

Still no one moved.

"I've done my part. Will no one give her the letter?" he cried. And he

held it up. "Give me my answer, for I am going."

"Take the letter!" The words came from the rear of the group in a

voice that startled all. They turned as though some one had struck

them, and saw the Countess standing beside the wooden hood which

covered the stairs. They guessed that she had heard all or nearly all;

but the glory of the sunrise, shining full on her at that moment, lent

a false warmth to her face, and life to eyes wofully and tragically

set. It was not easy to say whether she had heard or not. "Take the

letter," she repeated.

Carlat looked helplessly over the parapet.

"Go down!"

He cast a glance at La Tribe, but he got none in return, and he was

preparing to do her bidding when a cry of dismay broke from those who

still had their eyes bent downwards. The messenger, waving the letter

in a last appeal, had held it too loosely; a light air, as treacherous

as unexpected, had snatched it from his hand, and bore it--even as the

Countess, drawn by the cry, sprang to the parapet--fifty paces from

him. A moment it floated in the air, eddying, rising, falling; then,

light as thistle-down, it touched the water and began to sink.

The messenger uttered frantic lamentations, and stamped the causeway

in his rage. The Countess only looked, and looked, until the rippling

crest of a baby wave broke over the tiny venture, and with its freight

of tidings it sank from sight.

The man, silent now, stared a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, 'tis fortunate it was his," he cried brutally, "and not His

Excellency's, or my back had suffered! And now," he added impatiently,

"by your leave, what answer?"

What answer? Ah, God, what answer? The men who leant on the parapet,

rude and coarse as they were, felt the tragedy of the question and the

dilemma, guessed what they meant to her, and looked everywhere save at

her. What answer? Which of the two was to live? Which die--shamefully!

Which? Which?

"Tell him--to come back--an hour before sunset," she muttered.

They told him and he went; and one by one the men began to go too, and

stole from the roof, leaving her standing alone, her face to the

shore, her hands resting on the parapet. The light breeze which blew

off the land stirred loose ringlets of her hair, and flattened the

thin robe against her sunlit figure. So had she stood a thousand

times in old days, in her youth, in her maidenhood. So in her father's

time had she stood to see her lover come riding along the sands to woo

her! So had she stood to welcome him on the eve of that fatal journey

to Paris! Thence had others watched her go with him. The men

remembered--remembered all; and one by one they stole shamefacedly

away, fearing lest she should speak or turn tragic eyes on them.

True, in their pity for her was no doubt of the end, or thought of the

victim who must suffer--of Tavannes. They, of Poitou, who had not been

with him, knew nothing of him; they cared as little. He was a northern

man, a stranger, a man of the sword, who had seized her--so they

heard--by the sword. But they saw that the burden of choice was laid

on her; there, in her sight and in theirs, rose the gibbet; and,

clowns as they were, they discerned the tragedy of her _role_, play it

as she might, and though her act gave life to her lover.

When all had retired save three or four, she turned and saw these

gathered at the head of the stairs in a ring about Carlat, who was

addressing them in a low eager voice. She could not catch a syllable,

but a look hard, and almost cruel, flashed into her eyes as she gazed;

and raising her voice she called the steward to her. "The bridge is

up," she said, her tone hard, "but the gates? Are they locked?"

"Yes, Madame."

"The wicket?"

"No, not the wicket." And Carlat looked another way.

"Then go, lock it, and bring the keys to me!" she replied. "Or stay!"

Her voice grew harder, her eyes spiteful as a cat's. "Stay, and be

warned that you play me no tricks! Do you hear? Do you understand? Or

old as you are, and long as you have served us, I will have you thrown

from this tower, with as little pity as Isabeau flung her gallants to

the fishes. I am still mistress here, never more mistress than this

day. Woe to you if you forget it."

He blenched and cringed before her, muttering incoherently.

"I know," she said, "I read you! And now the keys. Go, bring them to

me! And if by chance I find the wicket unlocked when I come down,

pray, Carlat, pray! For you will have need of prayers."

He slunk away, the men with him; and she fell to pacing the roof

feverishly. Now and then she extended her arms, and low cries broke

from her, as from a dumb creature in pain. Wherever she looked, old

memories rose up to torment her and redouble her misery. A thing she

could have borne in the outer world, a thing which might have seemed

tolerable in the reeking air of Paris or in the gloomy streets of

Angers, wore here its most appalling aspect. Henceforth, whatever

choice she made, this home, where even in those troublous times she

had known naught but peace, must bear a damning stain! Henceforth this

day and this hour must come between her and happiness, must brand her

brow, and fix her with a deed of which men and women would tell while

she lived! Oh, God--pray? Who said, pray?

"I!" And La Tribe with tears in his eyes held out the keys to her. "I,

madame," he continued solemnly, his voice broken with emotion. "For in

man is no help. The strongest man, he who rode yesterday a master of

men, a very man of war in his pride and his valour--see him now,

and----"

"Don't!" she cried, sharp pain in her voice. "Don't!" And she stopped

him with her hand, her face averted. After an interval, "You come from

him?" she muttered faintly.

"Yes."

"Is he--hurt to death, think you?" She spoke low, and kept her face

hidden from him.

"Alas, no!" he answered, speaking the thought in his heart. "The men

who are with him seem confident of his recovery."

"Do they know?"

"Badelon has had experience."

"No, no. Do they know of this?" she cried. "Of this!" And she pointed

with a gesture of loathing to the black gibbet on the farther strand.

He shook his head. "I think not," he muttered. And after a moment,

"God help you!" he added fervently. "God help and guide you, madame!"

She turned on him suddenly, fiercely. "Is that all you can do?" she

cried. "Is that all the help you can give! You are a man. Go down,

lead them out; drive off these cowards who drain our life's blood, who

trade on a woman's heart! On them! Do something, anything, rather than

lie in safety here--here!"

The minister shook his head sadly. "Alas, madame!" he said, "to sally

were to waste life. They outnumber us three to one. If Count Hannibal

could do no more than break through last night, with scarce a man

unwounded----"

"He had the women!"

"And we have not him!"

"He would not have left us!" she cried hysterically.

"I believe it."

"Had they taken me, do you think he would have lain behind walls? Or

skulked in safety here, while--while----" Her voice failed her.

He shook his head despondently.

"And that is all you can do?" she cried, and turned from him, and to

him again, extending her arms, in bitter scorn. "All you will do? Do

you forget that twice he spared your life? That in Paris once, and

once in Angers, he held his hand? That always, whether he stood or

whether he fled, he held himself between us and harm? Ay, always? And

who will now raise a hand for him? Who?"

"Madame!"

"Who? Who? Had he died in the field," she continued, her voice shaking

with grief, her hands beating the parapet--for she had turned from

him--"had he fallen where he rode last night, in the front, with his

face to the foe, I had viewed him tearless, I had deemed him happy! I

had prayed dry-eyed for him who--who spared me all these days and

weeks! Whom I robbed and he forgave me! Whom I tempted, and he forbore

me! Ay, and who spared not once or twice him for whom he must now--he

must now----" And unable to finish the sentence she beat her hands

again and passionately on the stones.

"Heaven knows, madame," the minister cried vehemently, "Heaven knows,

I would advise you if I could."

"Why did he wear his corselet?" she wailed, as if she had not heard

him. "Was there no spear could reach his breast, that he must come to

this? No foe so gentle he would spare him this? Or why did he not die

with me in Paris when we waited? In another minute death might have

come and saved us this."

With the tears running down his face he tried to comfort her. "Man

that is a shadow," he said, "passeth away--what matter how? A little

while, a very little while, and we shall pass!"

"With his curse upon us!" she cried. And, shuddering, she pressed her

hands to her eyes to shut out the sight her fancy pictured.

He left her for a while, hoping that in solitude she might regain

control of herself. When he returned he found her seated, and

outwardly more composed, her arms resting on the parapet-wall, her

eyes bent steadily on the long stretch of hard sand which ran

northward from the village. By that route her lover had many a time

come to her; there she had ridden with him in the early days; and that

way they had started for Paris on such a morning and at such an hour

as this, with sunshine about them, and larks singing hope above the

sand-dunes, and warm wavelets creaming to the horses' hoofs!

Of all which, La Tribe, a stranger, knew nothing. The rapt gaze, the

unchanging attitude only confirmed his opinion of the course she would

adopt. He was thankful to find her more composed; and in fear of such

a scene as had already passed between them he stole away again. He

returned by-and-by, but with the greatest reluctance, and only because

Carlat's urgency would take no refusal.

He came this time to crave the key of the wicket, explaining

that--rather to satisfy his own conscience and the men than with any

hope of success--he proposed to go half-way along the causeway, and

thence by signs invite a conference. "It is just possible," he added,

hesitating--he feared nothing so much as to raise hopes in her--"that

by the offer of a money ransom, Madame----"

"Go," she said, without turning her head. "Offer what you please.

But"--bitterly--"have a care of them! Montsoreau is very like

Montereau! Beware of the bridge!"

He went and came again in half-an-hour. Then, indeed, though she had

spoken as if hope was dead in her, she was on her feet at the first

sound of his tread on the stairs; her parted lips and her white face

questioned him. He shook his head.

"There is a priest," he said in broken tones, "with them, whom God

will judge. It is his plan, and he is without mercy or pity."

"You bring nothing from--him?"

"They will not suffer him to write again."

"You did not see him?"

"No."

CHAPTER XXXV.

AGAINST THE WALL.

In a room beside the gateway, into which, as the nearest and most

convenient place, Count Hannibal had been carried from his saddle, a

man sat sideways in the narrow embrasure of a loophole, to which his

eyes seemed glued. The room, which formed part of the oldest block of

the chateau, and was ordinarily the quarters of the Carlats, possessed

two other windows, deep-set indeed, yet superior to that through which

Bigot--for he it was--peered so persistently. But the larger windows

looked southwards, across the bay--at this moment the noon-high sun

was pouring his radiance through them; while the object which held

Bigot's gaze and fixed him to his irksome seat, lay elsewhere. The

loophole commanded the causeway leading shorewards; through it the

Norman could see who came and went, and even the crossbeam of the ugly

object which rose where the causeway touched the land.

On a flat truckle-bed behind the door lay Count Hannibal, his injured

leg protected from the coverlid by a kind of cage. His eyes were

bright with fever, and his untended beard and straggling hair

heightened the wildness of his aspect. But he was in possession of his

senses; and as his gaze passed from Bigot at the window to the old

Free Companion, who sat on a stool beside him, engaged in shaping a

piece of wood into a splint, an expression almost soft crept into his

harsh face.

"Old fool!" he said. And his voice, though changed, had not lost all

its strength and harshness. "Did the Constable need a splint when you

laid him under the tower at Gaeta?"

The old man lifted his eyes from his task, and glanced through the

nearest window. "It is long from noon to night," he said quietly, "and

far from cup to lip, my lord!"

"It would be if I had two legs," Tavannes answered, with a grimace,

half-snarl, half-smile. "As it is--where is that dagger? It leaves me

every minute."

It had slipped from the coverlid to the ground. Badelon took it up,

and set it on the bed within reach of his master's hand.

Bigot swore fiercely. "It would be farther still," he growled, "if you

would be guided by me, my lord. Give me leave to bar the door, and

'twill be long before these fisher clowns force it. Badelon and I----"

"Being in your full strength," Count Hannibal murmured cynically.

"Could hold it. We have strength enough for that," the Norman boasted,

though his livid face and his bandages gave the lie to his words. He

could not move without pain; and for Badelon, his knee was as big as

two with plaisters of his own placing.

Count Hannibal stared at the ceiling. "You could not strike two

blows!" he said. "Don't lie to me! And Badelon cannot walk two yards!

Fine fighters!" he continued with bitterness, not all bitter. "Fine

bars 'twixt a man and death! No, it is time to turn the face to the

wall. And, since go I must, it shall not be said Count Hannibal dared

not go alone! Besides----"

Bigot stopped him with an oath that was in part a cry of pain. "D--n

her!" he exclaimed in fury, "'tis she is that _besides!_ I know it.

'Tis she has been our ruin from the day we saw her first, ay, to this

day! 'Tis she has bewitched you until your blood, my lord, has turned

to water. Or you would never, to save the hand that betrayed us, never

to save a man----"

"Silence!" Count Hannibal cried, in a terrible voice. And rising on

his elbow, he poised the dagger as if he would hurl it. "Silence, or I

will spit you like the vermin you are! Silence, and listen! And you,

old ban-dog, listen too, for I know you obstinate! It is not to save

him. It is because I will die as I have lived, fearing nothing and

asking nothing! It were easy to bar the door as you would have me, and

die in the corner here like a wolf at bay, biting to the last. That

were easy, old wolf-hound! Pleasant and good sport!"

"Ay! That were a death!" the veteran cried, his eyes brightening. "So

I would fain die!"

"And I!" Count Hannibal returned, showing his teeth in a grim smile.

"I too! Yet I will not! I will not! Because so to die were to die

unwillingly, and give them triumph. Be dragged to death? No, old dog,

if die we must, we will go to death! We will die grandly, highly, as

becomes Tavannes! That when we are gone they may say, 'There died a

man!'"

"_She_ may say!" Bigot muttered scowling.

Count Hannibal heard and glared at him, but presently thought better

of it, and after a pause, "Ay, she too!" he said. "Why not? As we have

played the game--for her--so, though we lose, we will play it to the

end; nor because we lose throw down the cards! Besides, man, die in

the corner, die biting, and he dies too!"

"And why not?" Bigot asked, rising in a fury. "Why not? Whose work is

it we lie here, snared by these clowns of fisherfolk? Who led us wrong

and betrayed us? He die? Would the devil had taken him a year ago!

Would he were within my reach now! I would kill him with my bare

fingers! He die? And why not?"

"Why, because, fool, his death would not save me!" Count Hannibal

answered coolly. "If it would, he would die! But it will not; and

we must even do again as we have done. I have spared him--he's a

white-livered hound!--both once and twice, and we must go to the end

with it since no better can be! I have thought it out, and it must be.

Only see you, old dog, that I have the dagger hid in the splint where

I can reach it. And then, when the exchange has been made, and my lady

has her silk glove again--to put in her bosom!"--with a grimace and a

sudden reddening of his harsh features--"if master priest come within

reach of my arm, I'll send him before me, where I go."

"Ay, ay!" said Badelon. "And if you fail of your stroke I will not

fail of mine! I shall be there, and I will see to it he goes! I shall

be there!"

"You?"

"Ay, why not?" the old man answered quietly. "I may halt on this leg

for aught I know, and come to starve on crutches like old Claude

Boiteux who was at the taking of Milan and now begs in the passage

under the Chatelet."

"Bah, man, you will get a new lord!"

Badelon nodded. "Ay, a new lord with new ways!" he answered slowly and

thoughtfully. "And I am tired. They are of another sort, lords now,

than they were when I was young. It was a word and a blow then. Now I

am old, with most it is--'Old hog, your distance! You scent my lady!'

Then they rode, and hunted, and tilted year in and year out, and

summer or winter heard the lark sing. 'Now they are curled, and paint

themselves, and lie in silk and toy with ladies--who shamed to be seen

at Court or board when I was a boy--and love better to hear the mouse

squeak than the lark sing."

"Still, if I give you my gold chain," Count Hannibal answered quietly,

"'twill keep you from that."

"Give it to Bigot," the old man answered. The splint he was fashioning

had fallen on his knees, and his eyes were fixed on the distance of

his youth. "For me, my lord, I am tired, and I go with you. I go with

you. It is a good death to die biting before the strength be quite

gone. Have the dagger too, if you please, and I'll fit it within the

splint right neatly. But I shall be there----"

"And you'll strike home?" Tavannes cried eagerly. He raised himself on

his elbow, a gleam of joy in his gloomy eyes.

"Have no fear, my lord. See, does it tremble?" He held out his hand.

"And when you are sped, I will try the Spanish stroke--upwards with a

turn ere you withdraw, that I learned from Ruiz--on the shaven-pate. I

see them about me now!" the old man continued, his face flushing, his

form dilating.

"It will be odd if I cannot snatch a sword and hew down three to go

with Tavannes! And Bigot, he will see my lord the Marshal by-and-by;

and as I do to the priest, the Marshal will do to Montsoreau. Ho! ho!

He will teach him the _coup de Jarnac_, never fear!" And the old man's

moustaches curled up ferociously.

Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled with joy. "Old dog!" he cried--and he

held his hand to the veteran, who brushed it reverently with his

lips--"we will go together then! Who touches my brother, touches

Tavannes!"

"Touches Tavannes!" Badelon cried, the glow of battle lighting his

bloodshot eyes. He rose to his feet. "Touches Tavannes! You mind at

Jarnac----"

"Ah! At Jarnac!"

"When we charged their horse, was my boot a foot from yours, my lord?"

"Not a foot!"

"And at Dreux," the old man continued with a proud, elated gesture,

"when we rode down the German pikemen--they were grass before us,

leaves on the wind, thistle-down--was it not I who covered your bridle

hand, and swerved not in the _melee?_"

"It was! It was!"

"And at St. Quentin, when we fled before the Spaniard--it was his day,

you remember, and cost us dear----"

"Ay, I was young then," Tavannes cried in turn, his eyes glistening.

"St. Quentin! It was the tenth of August. And you were new with me,

and seized my rein----"

"And we rode off together, my lord--of the last, of the last, as God

sees me! And striking as we went, so that they left us for easier

game."

"It was so, good sword! I remember it as if it had been yesterday!"

"And at Cerisoles, the Battle of the Plain, in the old Spanish wars,

that was most like a joust of all the pitched fields I ever saw--at

Cerisoles, where I caught your horse? You mind me? It was in the shock

when we broke Guasto's line----"

"At Cerisoles?" Count Hannibal muttered slowly. "Why, man, I----"

"I caught your horse, and mounted you afresh? You remember, my lord?

And at Landriano, where Leyva turned the tables on us again."

Count Hannibal stared. "Landriano?" he muttered bluntly. "'Twas in

'29, forty years ago and more! My father, indeed----"

"And at Rome--at Rome, my lord? _Mon Dieu!_ in the old days at Rome!

When the Spanish company scaled the wall--Ruiz was first, I next--was

it not my foot you held? And was it not I who dragged you up, while

the devils of Swiss pressed us hard? Ah, those were days, my lord! I

was young then, and you, my lord, young too, and handsome as the

morning----"

"You rave!" Tavannes cried, finding his tongue at last. "Rome? You

rave, old man! Why, I was not born in those days. My father even was a

boy! It was in '27 you sacked it--five-and-forty years ago!"

The old man passed his hands over his heated face, and, as a man

roused suddenly from sleep looks, he looked round the room. The light

died out of his eyes--as a light blown out in a room; his form seemed

to shrink, even while the others gazed at him, and he sat down. "No, I

remember," he muttered slowly. "It was Prince Philibert of Chalons, my

lord of Orange."

"Dead these forty years!"

"Ay, dead these forty years! All dead!" the old man whispered, gazing

at his gnarled hand, and opening and shutting it by turns. "And I grow

childish! 'Tis time, high time, I followed them! It trembles now; but

have no fear, my lord, this hand will not tremble then. All dead! Ay,

all dead!"

He sank into a mournful silence; and Tavannes, after gazing at him

awhile in rough pity, fell to his own meditations, which were gloomy

enough. The day was beginning to wane, and with the downward turn,

though the sun still shone brightly through the southern windows, a

shadow seemed to fall across his thoughts. They no longer rioted in a

turmoil of defiance as in the forenoon. In its turn, sober reflection

marshalled the past before his eyes. The hopes of a life, the

ambitious of a life, moved in sombre procession, and things done and

things left undone, the sovereignty which Nostradamus had promised,

the faces of men he had spared and of men he had not spared--and the

face of one woman.

She would not now be his. He had played highly, and he would lose

highly, playing the game to the end, that to-morrow she might think of

him highly. Had she begun to think of him at all? In the chamber of

the inn at Angers he had fancied a change in her, an awakening to life

and warmth, a shadow of turning to him. It had pleased him to think

so, at any rate. It pleased him still to imagine--of this he was more

confident--that in the time to come, when she was Tignonville's, she

would think of him secretly and kindly. She would remember him, and in

her thoughts and in her memory he would grow to the heroic, even as

the man she had chosen would shrink as she learned to know him.

It pleased him, that. It was almost all that was left to please

him--that, and to die proudly as he had lived. But as the day wore on,

and the room grew hot and close, and the pain in his thigh became more

grievous, the frame of his mind altered. A sombre rage was born and

grew in him, and a passion fierce and ill-suppressed. To end thus,

with nothing done, nothing accomplished of all his hopes and

ambitions! To die thus, crushed in a corner by a mean priest and a

rabble of spearmen, he who had seen Dreux and Jarnac, had defied the

King, and dared to turn the St. Bartholomew to his ends! To die thus,

and leave her to that puppet! Strong man as he was, of a strength of

will surpassed by few, it taxed him to the utmost to lie and make no

sign. Once, indeed, he raised himself on his elbow with something

between an oath and a snarl, and he seemed about to speak. So that

Bigot came hurriedly to him.

"My lord?"

"Water!" he said. "Water, fool!" And, having drank, he turned his face

to the wall, lest he should name her or ask for her. For the desire to

see her before he died, to look into her eyes, to touch her hand once,

only once, assailed his mind and all but whelmed his will. She had

been with him, he knew it, in the night; she had left him only at

daybreak. But then, in his state of collapse, he had been hardly

conscious of her presence. Now to ask for her or to see her would

stamp him coward, say what he might to her. The proverb, that the

King's face gives grace, applied to her; and an overture on his side

could mean but one thing, that he sought her grace. And that he would

not do though the cold waters of death covered him more and more, and

the coming of the end--in that quiet chamber, while the September sun

sank to the appointed place--awoke wild longings and a wild rebellion

in his breast. His thoughts were very bitter, as he lay, his

loneliness of the uttermost. He turned his face to the wall.

In that posture he slept after a time, watched over by Bigot with

looks of rage and pity. And on the room fell a long silence. The sun

had lacked three hours of setting when he fell asleep. When he

reopened his eyes, and, after lying for a few minutes between sleep

and waking, became conscious of his position, of the day, of the

things which had happened, and his helplessness--an awakening which

wrung from him an involuntary groan--the light in the room was still

strong, and even bright. He fancied for a moment that he had merely

dozed off and awaked again; and he continued to lie with his face to

the wall, courting a return of slumber.

But sleep did not come, and little by little, as he lay listening and

thinking and growing more restless, he got the fancy that he was

alone. The light fell brightly on the wall to which his face was

turned; how could that be if Bigot's broad shoulders still blocked the

loophole? Presently, to assure himself, he called the man by name.

He got no answer.

"Badelon!" he muttered. "Badelon!"

Had he gone, too, the old and faithful? It seemed so, for again no

answer came.

He had been accustomed all his life to instant service; to see the act

follow the word ere the word ceased to sound. And nothing which had

gone before, nothing which he had suffered since his defeat at Angers,

had brought him to feel his impotence and his position--and that the

end of his power was indeed come--as sharply as this. The blood rushed

to his head; almost the tears to eyes which had not shed them since

boyhood, and would not shed them now, weak as he was! He rose on his

elbow and looked with a full heart; it was as he had fancied.

Badelon's stool was empty; the embrasure--that was empty too. Through

its narrow outlet he had a tiny view of the shore and the low rocky

hill, of which the summit shone warm in the last rays of the setting

sun.

The setting sun! Ay, for the lower part of the hill was growing cold;

the shore at its foot was grey. Then he had slept long, and the time

was come. He drew a deep breath and listened. But on all within and

without lay silence, a silence marked, rather than broken, by the dull

fall of a wave on the causeway. The day had been calm, but with the

sunset a light breeze was rising.

He set his teeth hard, and continued to listen. An hour before sunset

was the time they had named for the exchange. What did it mean? In

five minutes the sun would be below the horizon; already the zone of

warmth on the hillside was moving and retreating upwards. And Bigot

and old Badelon? Why had they left him while he slept? An hour before

sunset! Why, the room was growing grey, grey and dark in the corners,

and--what was that?

He started, so violently that he jarred his leg, and the pain wrung a

groan from him. At the foot of the bed, overlooked until then, a woman

lay prone on the floor, her face resting on her outstretched arms. She

lay without motion, her head and her clasped hands towards the

loophole, her thick, clubbed hair hiding her neck. A woman! Count

Hannibal stared, and, fancying he dreamed, closed his eyes, then

looked again. It was no phantasm. It was the Countess; it was his

wife!

He drew a deep breath, but he did not speak, though the colour rose

slowly to his cheek. And slowly his eyes devoured her from head to

foot, from the hands lying white in the light below the window to the

shod feet; unchecked he took his fill, of that which he had so much

desired--the seeing her! A woman prone, with all of her hidden but her

hands: a hundred acquainted with her would not have known her. But he

knew her, and would have known her from a hundred, nay from a

thousand, by her hands alone.

What was she doing here, and in this guise? He pondered; then he

looked from her for an instant and saw that while he had gazed at her

the sun had set, the light had passed from the top of the hill; the

world without and the room within were growing cold. Was that the

cause she no longer lay quiet? He saw a shudder run through her, and a

second; then it seemed to him--or was he going mad?--that she moaned,

and prayed in half-heard words, and, wrestling with herself, beat her

forehead on her arms, and then was still again, as still as death. By

the time the paroxysm had passed, the last flush of sunset had faded

from the sky, and the hills were growing dark.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

HIS KINGDOM.

Count Hannibal could not have said why he did not speak to her at

once. Warned by an instinct vague and ill-understood, he remained

silent, his eyes riveted on her, until she rose from the floor. A

moment later she met his gaze, and he looked to see her start. Instead

she stood quiet and thoughtful, regarding him with a kind of sad

solemnity, as if she saw not him only, but the dead; while first one

tremor and then a second shook her frame.

At length, "It is over!" she whispered. "Patience, monsieur; have no

fear, I will be brave. But I must give a little to him."

"To him!" Count Hannibal muttered, his face extraordinarily pale.

She smiled with an odd passionateness. "Who was my lover!" she cried,

her voice a-thrill. "Who will ever be my lover, though I have denied

him, though I have left him to die! It was just. He who has so tried

me knows it was just! He whom I have sacrificed--he knows it too, now!

But it is hard to be--just," with a quavering smile. "You who take all

may give him a little, may pardon me a little, may have--patience!"

Count Hannibal uttered a strangled cry, between a moan and a roar. A

moment he beat the coverlid with his hands in impotence. Then he sank

back on the bed. "Water!" he muttered. "Water!"

She fetched it hurriedly, and, raising his head on her arm, held it to

his lips. He drank, and lay back again with closed eyes. He lay so

still and so long that she thought that he had fainted; but after a

pause he spoke. "You have done that?" he whispered, "you have done

that?"

"Yes," she answered, shuddering. "God forgive me! I have done that! I

had to do that, or----"

"And is it too late--to undo it?"

"It is too late." A sob choked her voice.

Tears--tears incredible, unnatural--welled from under Count Hannibal's

closed eyelids, and rolled sluggishly down his harsh cheek to the edge

of his beard. "I would have gone," he muttered. "If you had spoken, I

would have spared you this."

"I know," she answered unsteadily; "the men told me."

"And yet----"

"It was just. And you are my husband," she replied. "More, I am the

captive of your sword, and as you spared me in your strength, my lord,

I spared you in your weakness."

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu, madame!" he cried, "at what a cost!"

And that arrested, that touched her in the depths of her grief and her

horror; even while the gibbet on the causeway, which had burned itself

into her eyeballs, hung before her. For she knew that it was the cost

to her he was counting. She knew that for himself he had ever held

life cheap, that he could have seen Tignonville suffer without a

qualm. And the thoughtfulness for her, the value he placed on a

thing--even on a rival's life--because it was dear to her, touched her

home, moved her as few things could have moved her at that moment. She

saw it of a piece with all that had gone before, with all that had

passed between them, since that fatal Sunday in Paris. But she made no

sign. More than she had said she would not say; words of love, even of

reconciliation, had no place on her lips while he whom she had

sacrificed awaited his burial.

And meantime the man beside her lay and found it incredible. "It was

just," she had said. And he knew it; Tignonville's folly--that and

that only had led them into the snare and caused his own capture. But

what had justice to do with the things of this world? In his

experience, the strong hand--that was justice, in France; and

possession--that was law. By the strong hand he had taken her, and by

the strong hand she might have freed herself.

And she had not. There was the incredible thing. She had chosen

instead to do justice! It passed belief. Opening his eyes on a silence

which had lasted some minutes, a silence rendered more solemn by the

lapping water without, Tavannes saw her kneeling in the dusk of the

chamber, her head bowed over his couch, her face hidden in her hands.

He knew that she prayed, and feebly he deemed the whole a dream. No

scene akin to it had had place in his life; and, weakened and in pain,

he prayed that the vision might last for ever, that he might never

awake.

But by-and-by, wrestling with the dread thought of what she had done,

and the horror which would return upon her by fits and spasms, she

flung out a hand, and it fell on him. He started, and the movement,

jarring the broken limb, wrung from him a cry of pain. She looked up

and was going to speak, when a scuffling of feet under the gateway

arch, and a confused sound of several voices raised at once, arrested

the words on her lips. She rose to her feet and listened. Dimly he

could see her face through the dusk. Her eyes were on the door, and

she breathed quickly.

A moment or two passed in this way, and then from the hurly-burly in

the gateway the footsteps of two men--one limped--detached themselves

and came nearer and nearer. They stopped without. A gleam of light

shone under the door, and someone knocked.

She went to the door, and, withdrawing the bar, stepped quickly back

to the bedside, where for an instant the light borne by those who

entered blinded her. Then, above the lantern, the faces of La Tribe

and Bigot broke upon her, and their shining eyes told her that they

bore good news. It was well, for the men seemed tongue-tied. The

minister's fluency was gone; he was very pale, and it was Bigot who in

the end spoke for both. He stepped forward, and, kneeling, kissed her

cold hand.

"My lady," he said, "you have gained all, and lost nothing. Blessed be

God!"

"Blessed be God!" the minister wept. And from the passage without came

the sound of laughter and weeping and many voices, with a flutter of

lights and flying skirts, and women's feet.

She stared at him wildly, doubtfully, her hand at her throat. "What?"

she said, "he is not dead--M. de Tignonville?"

"No, he is alive," La Tribe answered, "he is alive." And he lifted up

his hands as if he gave thanks.

"Alive?" she cried. "Alive! Oh, heaven is merciful! You are sure! You

are sure?"

"Sure, Madame, sure. He was not in their hands. He was dismounted in

the first shock, it seems, and, coming to himself after a time, crept

away and reached St. Gilles, and came hither in a boat. But the enemy

learned that he had not entered with us, and of this the priest wove

his snare. Blessed be God, who put it into your heart to escape it!"

The Countess stood motionless and, with closed eyes, pressed her hands

to her temples. Once she swayed as if she would fall her length, and

Bigot sprang forward to support and save her. But she opened her eyes

at that, sighed very deeply, and seemed to recover herself.

"You are sure?" she said faintly. "It is no trick?"

"No, madame, it is no trick," La Tribe answered. "M. de Tignonville is

alive, and here."

"Here!" She started at the word. The colour fluttered in her cheek.

"But the keys," she murmured. And she passed her hand across her brow.

"I thought--that I had them."

"He has not entered," the minister answered, "for that reason. He is

waiting at the postern, where he landed. He came, hoping to be of use

to you."

She paused a moment, and when she spoke again her aspect had undergone

a subtle change. Her head was high, a flush had risen to her cheeks,

her eyes were bright. "Then," she said, addressing La Tribe, "do you,

monsieur, go to him, and pray him in my name to retire to St. Gilles,

if he can do so without peril. He has no place here--now; and if he

can go safely to his home it will be well that he do so. Add, if you

please, that Madame de Tavannes thanks him for his offer of aid, but

in her husband's house she needs no other protection."

Bigot's eyes sparkled with joy.

The minister hesitated. "No more, madame?" he faltered. He was

tender-hearted, and Tignonville was of his people.

"No more," she said gravely, bowing her head. "It is not M. de

Tignonville I have to thank, but Heaven's mercy, that I do not stand

here at this moment unhappy as I entered--a woman accursed, to be

pointed at while I live. And the dead"--she pointed solemnly through

the dark casement to the shore--"the dead lie there."

La Tribe went.

She stood a moment in thought, and then took the keys from the rough

stone window-ledge on which she had laid them when she entered. As the

cold iron touched her fingers she shuddered. The contact awoke again

the horror and misery in which she had groped, a lost thing, when she

last felt that chill.

"Take them," she said; and she gave them to Bigot. "Until my lord can

leave his couch they will remain in your charge, and you will answer

for all to him. Go, now, take the light; and in half-an-hour send

Madame Carlat to me."

A wave broke heavily on the causeway and ran down seething to the sea;

and another and another, filling the room with rhythmical thunders.

But the voice of the sea was no longer the same in the darkness, where

the Countess knelt in silence beside the bed--knelt, her head bowed on

her clasped hands, as she had knelt before, but with a mind how

different, with what different thoughts! Count Hannibal could see her

head but dimly, for the light shed upwards by the spume of the sea

fell only on the rafters. But he knew she was there, and he would

fain, for his heart was full, have laid his hand on her hair.

And yet he would not. He would not, out of pride. Instead he bit on

his harsh beard, and lay looking upward to the rafters, waiting what

would come. He who had held her at his will now lay at hers, and

waited. He who had spared her life at a price now took his own a gift

at her hands, and bore it.

"_Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes_----"

His mind went back by some chance to those words--the words he had

neither meant nor fulfilled. It passed from them to the marriage and

the blow; to the scene in the meadow beside the river; to the last

ride between La Fleche and Angers--the ride during which he had played

with her fears and hugged himself on the figure he would make on the

morrow. The figure! Alas! of all his plans for dazzling her had

come--_this!_ Angers had defeated him, a priest had worsted him. In

place of releasing Tignonville after the fashion of Bayard and the

Paladins, and in the teeth of snarling thousands, he had come near to

releasing him after another fashion and at his own expense. Instead of

dazzling her by his mastery and winning her by his magnanimity, he lay

here, owing her his life, and so weak, so broken, that the tears of

childhood welled up in his eyes.

Out of the darkness a hand, cool and firm, slid into his, clasped it

tightly, drew it to warm lips, carried it to a woman's bosom. "My

lord," she murmured, "I was the captive of your sword, and you spared

me. Him I loved you took and spared him too--not once or twice.

Angers, also, and my people you would have saved for my sake. And you

thought I could do this! Oh! shame, shame!" But her hand held his

always.

"You loved him," he muttered.

"Yes, I loved him," she answered slowly and thoughtfully. "I loved

him." And she fell silent a minute. Then, "And I feared you," she

added, her voice low. "Oh, how I feared you--and hated you!"

"And now?"

"I do not fear him," she answered, smiling in the darkness. "Nor hate

him. And for you, my lord, I am your wife and must do your bidding,

whether I will or no. I have no choice."

He was silent.

"Is that not so?" she asked.

He tried weakly to withdraw his hand.

But she clung to it. "I must bear your blows or your kisses. I must be

as you will and do as you will, and go happy or sad, lonely or with

you, as you will! As you will, my lord! For I am your chattel, your

property, your own. Have you not told me so?"

"But your heart," he cried fiercely, "is his! Your heart, which you

told me in the meadow could never be mine!"

"I lied," she murmured, laughing tearfully, and her hands hovered over

him. "It has come back! And it is on my lips."

And she leant over and kissed him. And Count Hannibal knew that he had

entered into his kingdom, the sovereignty of a woman's heart.

* * * * *

An hour later there was a stir in the village on the mainland.

Lanterns began to flit to and fro. Sulkily men were saddling and

preparing for the road. It was far to Challans, farther to Lege--more

than one day, and many a weary league to Ponts de Ce and the Loire.

The men who had ridden gaily southwards on the scent of spoil and

revenge turned their backs on the castle with many a sullen oath and

word. They burned a hovel or two, and stripped such as they spared,

after the fashion of the day; and it had gone ill with the peasant

woman who fell into their hands. Fortunately, under cover of the

previous night every soul had escaped from the village, some to sea,

and the rest to take shelter among the sand dunes; and as the troopers

rode up the path from the beach, and through the green valley, where

their horses shied from the bodies of the men they had slain, there

was not an eye to see them go.

Or to mark the man who rode last, the man of the white face--scarred

on the temple--and the burning eyes, who paused on the brow of the

hill, and, before he passed beyond, cursed with quivering lips the foe

who had escaped him. The words were lost, as soon as spoken, in the

murmur of the sea on the causeway; the sea, fit emblem of the Eternal,

which rolled its tide regardless of blessing or cursing, good or ill

will, nor spared one jot of ebb or flow because a puny creature had

spoken to the night.

THE END.

A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. The Sport of Fools.

II. The King of Navarre.

III. Boot And Saddle.

IV. Mademoiselle de la Vire.

V. The Road to Blois.

VI. My Mother's Lodging.

VII. Simon Fleix.

VIII. An Empty Room.

IX. The House in the Ruelle d'Arcy.

X. The Fight on the Stairs.

XI. The Man at the Door.

XII. Maximilian de Bethune, Baron de Rosny.

XIII. At Rosny.

XIV. M. de Rambouillet.

XV. Vilain Herodes.

XVI. In the King's Chamber.

XVII. The Jacobin Monk.

XVIII. The Offer of the League.

XIX. Men call it Chance.

XX. The King's Face.

XXI. Two Women.

XXII. 'La Femme Dispose.'

XXIII. The Last Valois.

XXIV. A Royal Peril.

XXV. Terms of Surrender.

XXVI. Meditations.

XXVII. To Me, my Friends!

XXVIII. The Castle on the Hill.

XXIX. Pestilence and Famine.

XXX. Stricken.

XXXI. Under the Greenwood.

XXXII. A Tavern Brawl.

XXXIII. At Meudon.

XXXIV. ''Tis an Ill Wind.'

XXXV. 'Le Roi est Mort.'

XXXVI. 'Vive le Roi!'

A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE.

CHAPTER I.

THE SPORT OF FOOLS.

The death of the Prince of Conde, which occurred in the spring of

1588, by depriving me of my only patron, reduced me to such straits

that the winter of that year, which saw the King of Navarre come to

spend his Christmas at St. Jean d'Angely, saw also the nadir of my

fortunes. I did not know at this time--I may confess it to-day without

shame--whither to turn for a gold crown or a new scabbard, and neither

had nor discerned any hope of employment. The peace lately patched up

at Blois between the King of France and the League persuaded many of

the Huguenots that their final ruin was at hand; but it could not fill

their exhausted treasury or enable them to put fresh troops into the

field.

The death of the Prince had left the King of Navarre without a rival

in the affections of the Huguenots; the Vicomte de Turenne, whose

turbulent ambition already began to make itself felt, and M. de

Chatillon, ranking next to him. It was my ill-fortune, however, to be

equally unknown to all three leaders, and as the month of December

which saw me thus miserably straitened saw me reach the age of forty,

which I regard, differing in that from many, as the grand climacteric

of a man's life, it will be believed that I had need of all the

courage which religion and a campaigner's life could supply.

I had been compelled some time before to sell all my horses except the

black Sardinian with the white spot on its forehead; and I now found

myself obliged to part also with my valet de chambre and groom, whom I

dismissed on the same day, paying them their wages with the last links

of gold chain left to me. It was not without grief and dismay that I

saw myself thus stripped of the appurtenances of a man of birth, and

driven to groom my own horse under cover of night. But this was not

the worst. My dress, which suffered inevitably from this menial

employment, began in no long time to bear witness to the change in my

circumstances; so that on the day of the King of Navarre's entrance

into St. Jean I dared not face the crowd, always quick to remark the

poverty of those above them, but was fain to keep within doors and

wear out my patience in the garret of the cutler's house in the Rue de

la Coutellerie, which was all the lodging I could now afford.

Pardieu, 'tis a strange world! Strange that time seems to me; more

strange compared with this. My reflections on that day, I remember,

were of the most melancholy. Look at it how I would, I could not but

see that my life's spring was over. The crows'-feet were gathering

about my eyes, and my moustachios, which seemed with each day of

ill-fortune to stand out more fiercely in proportion as my face grew

leaner, were already grey. I was out at elbows, with empty pockets,

and a sword which peered through the sheath. The meanest ruffler who,

with broken feather and tarnished lace, swaggered at the heels of

Turenne, was scarcely to be distinguished from me. I had still, it is

true, a rock and a few barren acres in Brittany, the last remains of

the family property; but the small sums which the peasants could

afford to pay were sent annually to Paris, to my mother, who had no

other dower. And this I would not touch, being minded to die a

gentleman, even if I could not live in that estate.

Small as were my expectations of success, since I had no one at the

king's side to push my business, nor any friend at Court, I

nevertheless did all I could, in the only way that occurred to me. I

drew up a petition, and lying in wait one day for M. Forget, the King

of Navarre's secretary, placed it in his hand, begging him to lay it

before that prince. He took it, and promised to do so, smoothly, and

with as much lip-civility as I had a right to expect. But the careless

manner in which he doubled up and thrust away the paper on which I had

spent so much labour, no less than the covert sneer of his valet, who

ran after me to get the customary present--and ran, as I still blush

to remember, in vain--warned me to refrain from hope.

In this, however, having little save hope left, I failed so signally

as to spend the next day and the day after in a fever of alternate

confidence and despair, the cold fit following the hot with perfect

regularity. At length, on the morning of the third day--I remember it

lacked but three of Christmas--I heard a step on the stairs. My

landlord living in his shop, and the two intervening floors being

empty, I had no doubt the message was for me, and went outside the

door to receive it, my first glance at the messenger confirming me in

my highest hopes, as well as in all I had ever heard of the generosity

of the King of Navarre. For by chance I knew the youth to be one of

the royal pages; a saucy fellow who had a day or two before cried 'Old

Clothes' after me in the street. I was very far from resenting this

now, however, nor did he appear to recall it; so that I drew the

happiest augury as to the contents of the note he bore from the

politeness with which he presented it to me.

I would not, however, run the risk of a mistake, and before holding

out my hand, I asked him directly and with formality if it was for me.

He answered, with the utmost respect, that it was for the Sieur de

Marsac, and for me if I were he.

'There is an answer, perhaps?' I said, seeing that he lingered.

'The King of Navarre, sir,' he replied, with a low bow, 'will receive

your answer in person, I believe.' And with that, replacing the hat

which he had doffed out of respect to me, he turned and went down the

stairs.

Returning to my room, and locking the door, I hastily opened the

missive, which was sealed with a large seal, and wore every appearance

of importance. I found its contents to exceed all my expectations. The

King of Navarre desired me to wait on him at noon on the following

day, and the letter concluded with such expressions of kindness and

goodwill as left me in no doubt of the Prince's intentions. I read it,

I confess, with emotions of joy and gratitude which would better have

become a younger man, and then cheerfully sat down to spend the rest

of the day in making such improvements in my dress as seemed possible.

With a thankful heart I concluded that I had now escaped from poverty,

at any rate from such poverty as is disgraceful to a gentleman; and

consoled myself for the meanness of the appearance I must make at

Court with the reflection that a day or two would mend both habit and

fortune.

Accordingly, it was with a stout heart that I left my lodgings a few

minutes before noon next morning, and walked towards the castle. It

was some time since I had made so public an appearance in the streets,

which the visit of the King of Navarre's Court had filled with an

unusual crowd, and I could not help fancying as I passed that some of

the loiterers eyed me with a covert smile; and, indeed, I was shabby

enough. But finding that a frown more than sufficed to restore the

gravity of these gentry, I set down the appearance to my own

self-consciousness, and, stroking my moustachios, strode along boldly

until I saw before me, and coming to meet me, the same page who had

delivered the note.

He stopped in front of me with an air of consequence, and making me a

low bow--whereat I saw the bystanders stare, for he was as gay a young

spark as maid-of-honour could desire--he begged me to hasten, as the

king awaited me in his closet.

'He has asked for you twice, sir,' he continued importantly, the

feather of his cap almost sweeping the ground.

'I think,' I answered, quickening my steps, 'that the king's letter

says noon, young sir. If I am late on such an occasion, he has indeed

cause to complain of me.'

'Tut, tut!' he rejoined, waving his hand with a dandified air. 'It is

no matter. One man may steal a horse when another may not look over

the wall, you know.'

A man may be gray-haired, he may be sad-complexioned, and yet he may

retain some of the freshness of youth. On receiving this indication of

a favour exceeding all expectation, I remember I felt the blood rise

to my face, and experienced the most lively gratitude. I wondered who

had spoken in my behalf, who had befriended me; and concluding at last

that my part in the affair at Brouage had come to the king's ears,

though I could not conceive through whom, I passed through the castle

gates with an air of confidence and elation which was not unnatural, I

think, under the circumstances. Thence, following my guide, I mounted

the ramp and entered the courtyard.

A number of grooms and valets were lounging here, some leading horses

to and fro, others exchanging jokes with the wenches who leaned from

the windows, while their fellows again stamped up and down to keep

their feet warm, or played ball against the wall in imitation of their

masters. Such knaves are ever more insolent than their betters; but I

remarked that they made way for me with respect, and with rising

spirits, yet a little irony, I reminded myself as I mounted the stairs

of the words, 'whom the king delighteth to honour!'

Reaching the head of the flight, where was a soldier on guard, the

page opened the door of the ante-chamber, and standing aside bade me

enter. I did so, and heard the door close behind me.

For a moment I stood still, bashful and confused. It seemed to me that

there were a hundred people in the room, and that half the eyes which

met mine were women's. Though I was not altogether a stranger to such

state as the Prince of Conde had maintained, this crowded anteroom

filled me with surprise, and even with a degree of awe, of which I was

the next moment ashamed. True, the flutter of silk and gleam of jewels

surpassed anything I had then seen, for my fortunes had never led me

to the king's Court; but an instant's reflection reminded me that my

fathers had held their own in such scenes, and with a bow regulated

rather by this thought than by the shabbiness of my dress, I advanced

amid a sudden silence.

'M. de Marsac!' the page announced, in a tone which sounded a little

odd in my ears; so much so, that I turned quickly to look at him. He

was gone, however, and when I turned again the eyes which met mine

were full of smiles. A young girl who stood near me tittered. Put out

of countenance by this, I looked round in embarrassment to find

someone to whom I might apply.

The room was long and narrow, panelled in chestnut, with a row of

windows on the one hand, and two fireplaces, now heaped with glowing

logs, on the other. Between the fireplaces stood a rack of arms. Round

the nearer hearth lounged a group of pages, the exact counterparts of

the young blade who had brought me hither; and talking with these were

as many young gentlewomen. Two great hounds lay basking in the heat,

and coiled between them, with her head on the back of the larger, was

a figure so strange that at another time I should have doubted my

eyes. It wore the fool's motley and cap and bells, but a second glance

showed me the features were a woman's. A torrent of black hair flowed

loose about her neck, her eyes shone with wild merriment, and her

face, keen, thin, and hectic, glared at me from the dog's back. Beyond

her, round the farther fireplace, clustered more than a score of

gallants and ladies, of whom one presently advanced to me.

'Sir,' he said politely--and I wished I could match his bow--'you

wished to see?'

'The King of Navarre,' I answered, doing my best.

He turned to the group behind him, and said, in a peculiarly even,

placid tone, 'He wishes to see the King of Navarre.' Then in solemn

silence he bowed to me again and went back to his fellows.

Upon the instant, and before I could make up my mind how to take this,

a second tripped forward, and saluting me, said, 'M. de Marsac, I

think?'

'At your service, sir,' I rejoined. In my eagerness to escape the gaze

of all those eyes, and the tittering which was audible behind me, I

took a step forward to be in readiness to follow him. But he gave no

sign. 'M. de Marsac to see the King of Navarre' was all he said,

speaking as the other had done to those behind. And with that he too

wheeled round and went back to the fire.

I stared, a first faint suspicion of the truth aroused in my mind.

Before I could act upon it, however--in such a situation it was no

easy task to decide how to act--a third advanced with the same

measured steps. 'By appointment I think, sir?' he said, bowing lower

than the others.

'Yes,' I replied sharply, beginning to grow warm, 'by appointment at

noon.'

'M. de Marsac,' he announced in a sing-song tone to those behind him,

'to see the King of Navarre by appointment at noon.' And with a second

bow--while I grew scarlet with mortification--he too wheeled gravely

round and returned to the fireplace.

I saw another preparing to advance, but he came too late. Whether my

face of anger and bewilderment was too much for them, or some among

them lacked patience to see the end, a sudden uncontrollable shout of

laughter, in which all the room joined, cut short the farce. God knows

it hurt me: I winced, I looked this way and that, hoping here or there

to find sympathy and help. But it seemed to me that the place rang

with gibes, that every panel framed, however I turned myself, a cruel,

sneering face. One behind me cried 'Old Clothes,' and when I turned

the other hearth whispered the taunt. It added a thousandfold to my

embarrassment that there was in all a certain orderliness, so that

while no one moved, and none, while I looked at them, raised their

voices, I seemed the more singled out, and placed as a butt in the

midst.

One face amid the pyramid of countenances which hid the farther

fireplace so burned itself into my recollection in that miserable

moment, that I never thereafter forgot it; a small, delicate woman's

face, belonging to a young girl who stood boldly in front of her

companions. It was a face full of pride, and, as I saw it then, of

scorn--scorn that scarcely deigned to laugh; while the girl's graceful

figure, slight and maidenly, yet perfectly proportioned, seemed

instinct with the same feeling of contemptuous amusement.

The play, which seemed long enough to me, might have lasted longer,

seeing that no one there had pity on me, had I not, in my desperation,

espied a door at the farther end of the room, and concluded, seeing no

other, that it was the door of the king's bedchamber. The

mortification I was suffering was so great that I did not hesitate,

but advanced with boldness towards it. On the instant there was a lull

in the laughter round me, and half a dozen voices called on me to

stop.

'I have come to see the king,' I answered, turning on them fiercely,

for I was by this time in no mood for browbeating, 'and I will see

him!'

'He is out hunting,' cried all with one accord; and they signed

imperiously to me to go back the way I had come.

But having the king's appointment safe in my pouch, I thought I had

good reason to disbelieve them; and taking advantage of their

surprise--for they had not expected so bold a step on my part--I was

at the door before they could prevent me. I heard Mathurine, the fool,

who had sprung to her feet, cry 'Pardieu! he will take the Kingdom of

Heaven by force!' And those were the last words I heard; for, as I

lifted the latch--there was no one on guard there--a sudden swift

silence fell upon the room behind me.

I pushed the door gently open and went in. There were two men sitting

in one of the windows, who turned and looked angrily towards me. For

the rest the room was empty. The king's walking-shoes lay by his

chair, and beside them the boot-hooks and jack. A dog before the fire

got up slowly and growled, and one of the men, rising from the trunk

on which he had been sitting, came towards me and asked me, with every

sign of irritation, what I wanted there, and who had given me leave to

enter.

I was beginning to explain, with some diffidence--the stillness of the

room sobering me--that I wished to see the king, when he who had

advanced took me up sharply with, 'The king? the king? He is not here,

man. He is hunting at St. Valery. Did they not tell you so outside?'

I thought I recognised the speaker, than whom I have seldom seen a man

more grave and thoughtful for his years, which were something less

than mine, more striking in presence, or more soberly dressed. And

being desirous to evade his question, I asked him if I had not the

honour to address M. du Plessis Mornay; for that wise and courtly

statesman, now a pillar of Henry's counsels, it was.

'The same, sir,' he replied abruptly, and without taking his eyes from

me. 'I am Mornay. What of that?'

'I am M. de Marsac,' I explained. And there I stopped, supposing that,

as he was in the king's confidence, this would make my errand clear to

him.

But I was disappointed. 'Well, sir?' he said, and waited impatiently.

So cold a reception, following such treatment as I had suffered

outside, would have sufficed to have dashed my spirits utterly had I

not felt the king's letter in my pocket. Being pretty confident,

however, that a single glance at this would alter M. du Mornay's

bearing for the better, I hastened, looking on it as a kind of

talisman, to draw it out and present it to him.

He took it, and looked at it, and opened it, but with so cold and

immovable an aspect as made my heart sink more than all that had gone

before. 'What is amiss?' I cried, unable to keep silence. ''Tis from

the king, sir.'

'A king in motley!' he answered, his lip curling.

The sense of his words did not at once strike home to me, and I

murmured, in great disorder, that the king had sent for me.

'The king knows nothing of it,' was his blunt answer, bluntly given.

And he thrust the paper back into my hands. 'It is a trick,' he

continued, speaking with the same abruptness, 'for which you have

doubtless to thank some of those idle young rascals without. You had

sent an application to the king, I suppose? Just so. No doubt they got

hold of it, and this is the result. They ought to be whipped.'

It was not possible for me to doubt any longer that what he said was

true. I saw in a moment all my hopes vanish, all my plans flung to the

winds; and in the first shock of the discovery I could neither find

voice to answer him nor strength to withdraw. In a kind of vision I

seemed to see my own lean, haggard face looking at me as in a glass,

and, reading despair in my eyes, could have pitied myself.

My disorder was so great that M. du Mornay observed it. Looking more

closely at me, he two or three times muttered my name, and at last

said, 'M. de Marsac? Ha! I remember. You were in the affair of

Brouage, were you not?'

I nodded my head in token of assent, being unable at the moment to

speak, and so shaken that perforce I leaned against the wall, my head

sunk on my breast. The memory of my age, my forty years, and my

poverty, pressed hard upon me, filling me with despair and bitterness.

I could have wept, but no tears came.

M. du Mornay, averting his eyes from me, took two or three short,

impatient turns up and down the chamber. When he addressed me again

his tone was full of respect, mingled with such petulance as one brave

man might feel, seeing another so hard pressed. 'M. de Marsac,' he

said, 'you have my sympathy. It is a shame that men who have served

the cause should be reduced to such straits. Were it possible for me

to increase my own train at present, I should consider it an honour to

have you with me. But I am hard put to it myself, and so are we all,

and the King of Navarre not least among us. He has lived for a month

upon a wood which M. de Rosny has cut down. I will mention your name

to him, but I should be cruel rather than kind were I not to warn you

that nothing can come of it.'

With that he offered me his hand, and, cheered as much by this mark of

consideration as by the kindness of his expressions, I rallied my

spirits. True, I wanted comfort more substantial, but it was not to be

had. I thanked him therefore as becomingly as I could, and seeing

there was no help for it, took my leave of him, and slowly and

sorrowfully withdrew from the room.

Alas! to escape I had to face the outside world, for which his kind

words were an ill preparation. I had to run the gauntlet of the

ante-chamber. The moment I appeared, or rather the moment the door

closed behind me, I was hailed with a shout of derision. While one

cried, 'Way! way for the gentleman who has seen the king!' another

hailed me uproariously as Governor of Guyenne, and a third requested a

commission in my regiment.

I heard these taunts with a heart full almost to bursting. It seemed

to me an unworthy thing that, merely by reason of my poverty, I should

be derided by youths who had still all their battles before them; but

to stop or reproach them would only, as I well knew, make matters

worse, and, moreover, I was so sore stricken that I had little spirit

left even to speak. Accordingly, I made my way through them with what

speed I might, my head bent, and my countenance heavy with shame and

depression. In this way--I wonder there were not among them some

generous enough to pity me--I had nearly gained the door, and was

beginning to breathe, when I found my path stopped by that particular

young lady of the Court whom I have described above. Something had for

the moment diverted her attention from me, and it required a word from

her companions to apprise her of my near neighbourhood. She turned

then, as one taken by surprise, and finding me so close to her that my

feet all but touched her gown, she stepped quickly aside, and with a

glance as cruel as her act, drew her skirts away from contact with me.

The insult stung me, I know not why, more than all the gibes which

were being flung at me from every side, and moved by a sudden impulse

I stopped, and in the bitterness of my heart spoke to her.

'Mademoiselle,' I said, bowing low--for, as I have stated, she was

small, and more like a fairy than a woman, though her face expressed

both pride and self-will--'Mademoiselle,' I said sternly, 'such as I

am, I have fought for France! Some day you may learn that there are

viler things in the world--and have to bear them--than a poor

gentleman!'

The words were scarcely out of my mouth before I repented of them, for

Mathurine, the fool, who was at my elbow, was quick to turn them into

ridicule. Raising her hands above our heads, as in act to bless us,

she cried out that Monsieur, having gained so rich an office, desired

a bride to grace it; and this, bringing down upon us a coarse shout of

laughter and some coarser gibes, I saw the young girl's face flush

hotly.

The next moment a voice in the crowd cried roughly, 'Out upon his

wedding suit!' and with that a sweetmeat struck me in the face.

Another and another followed, covering me with flour and comfits. This

was the last straw. For a moment, forgetting where I was, I turned

upon them, red and furious, every hair in my moustachios bristling.

The next, the full sense of my impotence and of the folly of

resentment prevailed with me, and, dropping my head upon my breast, I

rushed from the room.

I believe that the younger among them followed me, and that the cry of

'Old Clothes!' pursued me even to the door of my lodgings in the Rue

de la Coutellerie. But in the misery of the moment, and my strong

desire to be within doors and alone, I barely noticed this, and am not

certain whether it was so or not.

Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France · 第 1 / 36 章