Without attaching to dreams greater importance than a prudent man will
always be willing to assign to the unknown and unintelligible, I have
been in the habit of reflecting on them; and have observed with some
curiosity that in these later years of my life, during which France has
enjoyed peace and comparative prosperity, my dreams have most often
reproduced the stormy rides and bivouacs of my youth, with all the
rough and bloody accompaniments which our day knows only by repute.
Considering these visions, and comparing my sleeping apathy with my
daylight reflections, I have been led to wonder at the power of habit;
which alone makes it possible for a man who has seen a dozen stricken
fields, and viewed, scarcely with emotion, the slaughter of a hundred
prisoners, to turn pale at the sight of a coach accident, and walk a
mile rather than see a rogue hang.
I am impelled to this train of thought by an adventure that befell me
in the summer of this year 1605; and which, as it seemed to me in the
happening to be rather an evil dream of old times than a waking episode
of these, may afford the reader some diversion, besides relieving the
necessary tedium of the thousand particulars of finance that render the
five farms a study of the utmost intricacy.
My appointment to represent the King at the Assembly of Chatelherault
had carried me in the month of July into Poitou. Being there, and
desirous of learning for myself whether the arrest of Auvergne had
pacified his country to the extent described by the King's agents, I
determined to take advantage of a vacation of the assembly and venture
as far in that direction as Gueret; though Henry, fearing lest the
malcontents should make an attempt on my person in revenge for the
death of Biron, had strictly charged me not to approach within twenty
leagues of the Limousin.
I had with me for escort at Chatelherault a hundred horse; but, these
seeming to be either too many or too few for the purpose, I took with
me only ten picked men with Colet their captain, five servants heavily
armed, and of my gentlemen Boisrueil and La Font. Parabere, to whom I
opened my mind, consented to be my companion. I gave out that I was
going to spend three days at Preuilly, to examine an estate there which
I thought of buying, that I might have a residence in my government;
and, having amused the curious with this statement, I got away at
daybreak, and by an hour before noon was at Touron, where I stayed for
dinner. That night we lay at a village, and the next day dined at St.
Marcel. The second afternoon we reached Crozant.
Here I began to observe those signs of neglect and disorder which, at
the close of the war, had been common in all parts of France, but in
the more favoured districts had been erased by a decade of peace.
Briars and thorns choked the roads, which ran through morasses, between
fields which the husbandman had resigned to tares and undergrowth.
Ruined hamlets were common, and everywhere wolves and foxes and all
kinds of game abounded. But that which roused my ire to the hottest was
the state of the bridges, which in this country, where the fords are in
winter impassable, had been allowed to fall into utter decay. On all
sides I found the peasants oppressed, disheartened, and primed with
tales of the King's severity, which those who had just cause to dread
him had instilled into them. Bands of robbers committed daily
excesses, and, in a word, no one thing was wanting to give the lie to
the rose-coloured reports with which Bareilles, the Governor of Gueret,
had amused the Council.
I confess that, at sight and thought of these things--of this country
so devoured, the King's authority so contemned, all evils laid at his
door, all his profits diverted--my anger burned within me, and I said
more to Parabere than was perhaps prudent, telling him, in particular,
what I designed against Bareilles, of whose double-dealing I needed no
further proof; by what means I proposed to lull his suspicions for the
moment, since we must lie at Gueret, and how I would afterwards, on the
first occasion, have him seized and punished.
I forgot, while I avowed these things, that one weakness of Parabere's
character which rendered him unable to believe evil of anyone. Even of
Bareilles, though the two were the merest acquaintances, he could only
think indulgently, because, forsooth, he too was a Protestant. He
began to defend him therefore, and, seeing how the ground lay, after a
time I let the matter drop.
Still I did not think that he had been serious in his plea, and that
which happened on the following morning took me completely by surprise.
We had left Crozant an hour, and I was considering whether, the road
being bad, we should even now reach Gueret before night, when Parabere,
who had made some excuse to ride forward, returned, to me with signs of
embarrassment in his manner.
"My friend," he said, "here is a message from Bareilles."
"How?" I exclaimed. "A message? For whom?"
"For you," he said; "the man is here."
"But how did Bareilles know that I was coming?" I asked.
Parabere's confusion furnished me with the answer before he spoke. "Do
not be angry, my friend," he said. "I wanted to do Bareilles a good
turn. I saw that you were enraged with him, and I thought that I could
not help him better than by suggesting to him to come and meet you in a
proper spirit, and make the explanations which I am sure that he has it
in his power to make. Yesterday morning, therefore, I sent to him."
"And he is here?" I said drily.
Parabere admitted with a blush that he was not. His messenger had
found Bareilles on the point of starting against a band of plunderers
who had ravaged the country for a twelvemonth. He had sent me the
most; civil messages therefore--but he had not come. "However, he will
be at Gueret to-morrow," Parabere added cheerfully.
"Will he?" I said.
"I will answer for it," he answered. "In the meantime, he has done
what he can for our comfort."
"How?" I said,
"He bids us not to attempt the last three leagues to Gueret to-night;
the road is too bad. But to stay at Saury, where there is a good inn,
and to-morrow morning he will meet us there."
"If the brigands have not proved too much for him," I said.
"Yes," Parabere answered, with a simplicity almost supernatural. "To be
sure."
After this, it was no use to say anything to him, though his
officiousness would have justified the keenest reproaches. I swallowed
my resentment, therefore, and we went on amicably enough, though the
valley of the Creuse, in its upper and wilder part, through which our
road now wound, offered no objects of a kind to soften my anger against
the governor. I saw enough of ruins, of blocked defiles, and overgrown
roads; but of returning prosperity and growing crops, and the King's
peace, I saw no sign--not so much as one dead robber.
About noon we alighted to eat a little at a wretched tavern by one of
the innumerable fords. A solitary traveller who was here before us,
and for a time kept aloof, wearing a grand and mysterious manner with a
shabby coat, presently moved; edging himself up to me where I sat a
little apart, eating with Parabere and my gentlemen.
"Sir," he said, on a sudden and without preface, "I see that you are
the leader of this party."
As I was more plainly dressed than Parabere, and had been giving no
orders, I wondered how he knew; but I answered, without any remark,
"Well, sir; and what of that?"
"You are in great danger," he replied.
"I?" I said.
"Yes, sir; you!" he answered.
"You know me?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Not I," he said, "but those who speak by
me. Enough that you are in danger."
"From what?" I asked sceptically; while my companions stared, and the
troopers and servants, who were just within hearing, listened
open-mouthed.
"A one-eyed woman and a one-eyed house," he answered darkly. Then,
before I could frame a question, he turned from me as abruptly as he
had come, and, mounting a sorry mare that stood near, stumbled away
through the ford.
It required little wit to see that the man was an astrologer, and one
whose predictions, if they had not profited his clients more than
himself, had been ominous indeed. I was inclined, therefore, to make
sport of him, knowing that the pretenders to that art are to the true
men as ten to one. But his words, and particularly the fact that he
had asked for nothing, had impressed my followers differently; so that
they talked of nothing else while we ate, and could still be heard
discussing him in the saddle. The wildness of the road and the gloomy
aspect of the valley had doubtless some effect on their minds; which a
thunderstorm that shortly afterwards overtook us and drenched us to the
skin did not tend to lighten. I was glad to see the roofs of Saury
before us; though, on a nearer approach, we found all the houses except
the inn ruined and tenantless; and even, that scorched and scarred,
with the great gate that had once closed its courtyard prostrate in the
road before it.
However, in view of the country we had come through, and the general
desolation, we were thankful to find things no worse. The village stood
at the entrance to a gorge, with the Creuse--here a fast-rushing
stream--running at the back of the inn. The latter was of good size,
stone-built and tiled, and, at first, seemed to be empty; but the
servants presently unearthed a man and then a boy. Fires were lit, and
the horses stabled; and a second room with a chimney being found,
Parabere and I, with Colet and my gentlemen, took possession of it,
leaving the kitchen to my following.
I had had my boots removed, and was drying my clothes and expecting
supper, when Boisrueil, who was beside me, uttered an exclamation of
amazement.
"What is it?" I said.
He did not answer, and I followed his eyes. A woman had just entered
the room with a bundle of sticks. She had one eye!
I confess that, for an instant, this staggered me; but a moment's
thought reminded me that the astrologer had come from this inn to us,
and I smiled at the credulity which would have built on a coincidence
that was no coincidence. When the woman had retired again, therefore,
I rallied Boisrueil on his timidity; but, though he admitted the
correctness of my reasoning, I saw that he was not entirely convinced.
He started whenever a shutter flapped, or the draughts, which searched
the grim old building through and through, threatened to extinguish our
lights. He hung cloaks over the windows to obviate the latter
inconvenience he said--and was continually going out and coming back
with gloomy looks. Parabere joined me in rallying him, which we did
without mercy; but when I had occasion, after a while, to pass through
the outer room I found that he was not alone in his fears. The
troopers sat moodily listening, or muttered together; while the cup
passed round in silence. When I bade a man go on an errand to the
stable, four went; and when I dropped a word to the woman who was
attending to her pot, a dozen heads were stretched out to catch the
answer.
Such a feeling--to which, in this instance, the murmur of the stream
and the steady downpour of rain doubtless added something--is so
contagious that I was not surprised to find Colet and La Font sinking
under it. Only Parabere, in fact, rose quite superior to the notion,
laughed at their fears, and drank to their better spirits; and, making
the best of the situation, as became an old soldier, presently engaged
me in tales of the war--fought again the siege of Laon, and buried men
whose bodies bad lain for ten years under the oaks at Fontaine
Francoise.
Talk of this kind, which we still maintained after we had despatched
our supper, was sufficiently engrossing to erase Boisrueil's fancies
entirely from my mind. They were recalled by his sudden entrance, with
Colet at his elbow, the faces of both full of importance. I saw that
they had something to say, and asked what it was.
"We have been examining the back gate, M. le Marquis," Colet said.
"Well, man?"
"It is barricaded, and cannot be opened," he answered.
"Well," I said again, "there is nothing wonderful in that. Anyone can
see that there has been rough work here. The front gate was stormed, I
suppose, and the back one left standing."
"But if is so barricaded that it is not possible to open it," he
objected. "And the men have an idea--"
"Well?" I said, seeing that he hesitated.
"That this is a one-eyed house."
Parabere laughed loudly. "Of course it is!" he said. "That strolling
rogue saw the gate as well as the woman, and made his profit of them."
"Pardon, sir!" Boisrueil answered bluntly, "That is just what he did
not do!"
"Well," I said, silencing him by a gesture, "is that all?"
"No," he replied; "I have tasted the men's wine."
"And it is drugged?"
"No," he said. "On the contrary, it is a great deal too good for the
price--or the house. And you ordered a litre apiece. Some have had
two, and not asked twice for it!"
"Ho, ho!" I said, staring at him. "Are you sure of that?"
"Quite!" he said.
I was genuinely startled at last; but Parabere still made light of it.
"What!" he said. "Are we a pack of nervous women, or one poor
traveller in a solitary inn, that we see shadows and shake at them?"
"The inn is solitary enough," Boisrueil grumbled.
"But we are twenty swords!" Parabere retorted, opening his eyes wide.
"Why, I have ridden all day in an enemy's country with less!"
"And been beaten with more at Craon."
"But, man alive, that was in a battle, and by an army!"
"Well, and there may be a battle and an army here," Boisrueil answered
sulkily.
I was inclined to laugh at this as extravagance; but seeing that La
Font and Colet sided with Boisrueil, I remembered that the latter was
no coward though a great gossip; and I thought better of it.
Accordingly, resolving to look into the thing myself, I bade La Font
fetch a couple of lanthorns, and, when he had done so, went out with
him and Boisrueil as if I had a mind to go round the horses before I
retired. Parabere declined to accompany me on the ground that he would
not be at the pains of it; and Colet I left in the kitchen to keep an
eye on the man and woman.
There was no moon, rain was still falling, and the yard, crowded with
steaming, shivering horses, was dreary enough where the lanthorns
displayed it; but, accustomed to such a sight, I made, without
regarding it, for the gate, which a moment's examination showed to be
barricaded, as they had described, with great beams and stones. In
this there was nothing beyond the ordinary, one entrance to a house
being in troublous times better than two; but Boisrueil, bidding me
kneel and look lower, I found, when I did so, that the soil under the
beams--which did not touch the ground by some inches--was wet, and I
began to understand. When he asked me at what hour rain had begun to
fall, I answered two in the afternoon, and drew at once the inference
at which he aimed--that the beams had been put there, and the gate
barricaded, at some later hour.
"We reached here at six," he said; "it was done some time between two
and six, my lord; therefore to-day. To-day," he repeated in a low
voice; "and by a dozen men at least, Fewer could not move those beams."
"And the object?"
"To prevent our escape."
"But who are they?" I said, looking at him.
"The woman knows," he answered. "We must ask her, my lord."
I assented; and we went back into the house, where it would not have
surprised me if we had found the wretches flown and the nest empty.
But Colet had done his work too well. They were both there, and, in a
moment, at a signal from Boisrueil, were secured and pinioned.
Parabere, hearing the scuffle, came out and would have remonstrated,
but I silenced him with a sharp word; and, despatching La Font with a
couple of discreet men to keep watch in the court that we might not be
surprised, I bade one of the servants throw some fir-cones on the fire.
These, blazing up, filled the squalid room in a moment with a glare of
light, which revealed alike the livid faces of the two prisoners and
the excited looks and dark countenances of my escort.
I bade them put the woman forward first, and addressed her sternly,
telling her that I knew all, and that she would do well to confess;
inasmuch as if she made a clean breast of the matter, I would grant her
her life, and if she did not, she would be the first to die, since I
would hang her were a single shot fired against the house.
The promise found her unmoved, but the threat, uttered in a tone which
showed that I was in earnest, proved more effectual. With an ugly
look, under which my men shrank as if her eye had power to scorch them,
the hag said that she would confess, and, with impotent rage, admitted
the truth of Boisrueil's surmises. The rearward gate had been
barricaded that afternoon by the Great Band, who had had notice of our
coming, and intended to attack us at midnight. I asked her how many
they mustered.
"A hundred," she answered sullenly.
"Very well," I said. "And, supposing that we do not wait for them, how
shall we escape? By the road to Gueret?"
"Fifty lie in ambush on it."
"By the road by which we came?"
"The other fifty lie there."
"Across the river?"
"There is no ford."
"Then in the village? If we seize some other building?"
"The village is watched, and this house," she answered, with a sparkle
of joy in her eye.
At that the position began to assume so serious an aspect that I turned
to Parabere to take his advice. We numbered twenty in all, and were
well armed; but five to one are large odds, and we had little
ammunition, while, for all we knew, the house might be fired with ease
from the outside. The roads north and south being occupied, and the
river enclosing us on the west, there remained only one direction in
which escape seemed possible; but, as we knew nothing of the country,
and the brigands everything, the desperate idea of plunging into it
blindly, at night, and with pursuers at our heels, was dismissed as
soon as formed.
Parabere interrupted these calculations by drawing me aside into the
room in which we had supped, where, after rallying me on the whimsical
notion of the Grand Master of the Ordnance and Governor of the Bastile
being besieged in a paltry inn, he confessed that he had been wrong,
and that the adventure was likely to prove serious. "Ten to one this
is the very band that Bareilles is pursuing," he said.
"Very likely," I answered bluntly; "but the question is how are we to
evade them. Are we to fight or fly?"
"Well, for lighting," he replied coolly; "the front gate lies in the
road, there are no shutters to half the windows, the door is crazy, and
there is a thatched pent-house against one wall."
"And no help-nearer than Gueret."
"Three leagues," he assented. "And from that we are cut off. Fifty men
in the gorge might hold it against five hundred. Better man the
courtyard here than that, tether the horses in the gateway, and fight
it out."
"Perhaps so," I said; and we looked at one another, hearing through the
open door the men muttering and whispering in the kitchen, and above
their voices the dull murmur of the stream, which seemed of a piece
with the bleak night outside, the ruined hamlet, and the danger that
lurked round us. Bitterly repenting the hardihood that had led me to
expose myself to such risks in breach of the King's commandment, I
found it difficult to direct my mind to the immediate question. So many
reflections connected with my mission at Chatelherault and other
affairs of state would intrude that I seemed to be occupied rather with
the results of my death at this juncture, and particularly the injury
which it must inflict on the King's service, than with the question how
I could escape.
However, Parabere soon recalled me to the point. "It is now ten
o'clock," he said in a placid tone; "we have two hours."
"Yes," I answered; then, as if my mind had all the time been running in
an under-current to the desired goal, I continued, "And we must make
the most of them. We must remove the barricade, in the dark and
quietly, from the rear to the front gate. Do you see? Then the moment
they sound the attack in front we must slip out at the back, make a
dash for the road, and through the gorge to Gueret."
"Good," Parabere assented, with the utmost coolness. "Why not? Let us
do it."
We went in, and in a moment the orders were given, and, the men being
charged to be silent and to make as little noise as possible over the
work, we had every hope of accomplishing it undetected. To go out into
the road and raise and replace the shattered gate would have been too
bold a step. We contented ourselves, therefore, with removing four
great baulks of timber from the one gate to the other, and placing them
across the gap in such a manner that, being supported by large stones,
they formed a pretty high barrier. To these, at Boisrueil's
suggestion, were added three doors which we forced from their hinges in
the house, and behind the whole, to cover our retreat the better, we
tethered six sumpter horses in two lines.
It remained only to unbar the rear gate and see that it opened easily.
This being done, as we had done all the rest, stealthily and in
darkness, and by men who dared not speak above a whisper, I gave the
word to hang the male prisoner and gag and bind the woman. Colet
undertook these duties, and with a grim humour of his own hung the
rascally host on the threshold where the brigands must run against him
when they entered. Then I directed every man to saddle and bridle his
nag and stand by it, and so we waited with what patience we might for
the DENOUEMENT.
It seemed very long in coming, yet when it did, what with the restless
movements of the horses and the melancholy murmur of the stream, it
well-nigh took us by surprise. It was Boisrueil who touched my sleeve
and made me aware of a low trampling on the road outside, a sound that
had scarcely become clearly audible before it ceased. I judged that
the moment was come, and passed the word in a whisper to open the
gates. Unfortunately, they creaked, and I feared for a moment that I
had been premature; but before they were more than ajar a harsh whistle
startled the silence, a flare blazed up on the road, and a voice cried
to charge.
On the instant the ground shook under the assailants' rush, but the
barricade, which doubtless took the rogues by surprise, brought them to
a sudden stop, and gave us time to file out. The heavy rain which was
failing served to cover our movements almost as well as the baggage
horses which we had posted for the purpose; while we ran the less risk,
inasmuch as the flare they had kindled lit up the upper part of the
house but left the courtyard in perfect darkness.
Naturally, once outside, we did not linger to see what happened, but,
filing in a line and like ghosts up the bank of the stream, were glad
to hit on the road a hundred and fifty paces away, where it entered the
gorge. Here, where it was as dark as pitch, we whipped our horses into
a canter and made a good pace for half a league, then, drawing rein,
let our horses trot until the league was out. By that time we were
through the gorge, and I gave the word to pull up, that we might listen
and learn whether we were pursued. Before the order had quite brought
us to a standstill, however, two figures on a sudden rose out of the
darkness before us and barred the way. I was riding in the front rank,
abreast of Parabere and La Font, and I had just time to lay my hand on
a pistol when one of the figures spoke.
"Well, M. le Capitaine, what luck?" he cried, advancing, and drawing
rein to turn with us.
I saw his mistake, and, raising my hand to check those behind, muttered
in my beard that all had gone well.
"You got the man?"
"Yes," I said, peering at him through the darkness.
"Good!" he answered. "Then now for Bareilles, supper, and a full
purse; and afterwards, for me, the quietest corner of France! The King
will make a fine outcry, and I do not trust one gov--"
In a flash Parabere had him by the throat, and dragged him in a grip of
iron on to the withers of his horse. Still he managed to utter a cry,
and the other rascal, taking the alarm, whipped his horse round, and in
a second got a start of twenty paces. Colet, a light man and well
mounted, was after him in a trice, and we heard them go ding-dong,
ding-dong, through the darkness for a mile or more as it seemed to us.
Then a sharp scream came faintly down the wind.
"Good!" Parabere said cheerfully. "Let us be jogging." He had tied
his prisoner neck and knees over the saddle before him.
"You heard what he said?" I muttered, as we moved on.
"Perfectly," he answered in the same tone.
"And you think?"
"I think, Grand Master," he replied drily, "that the sooner you are out
of La Marche and Bareilles' government the longer you are likely to
live."
I was quite of that opinion myself, having drawn the same inferences
from the words the prisoner had uttered. But for the moment I had no
alternative save to go on, and put a bold face on the matter; and
accordingly I led the way forward at as fast a pace as the darkness and
the jaded state of our horses permitted. Colet presently joined us, and
half an hour later a bunch of lights which appeared on the side of a
hill in front proclaimed that we were nearing Gueret. From this point
half a league across a rushy bottom and through a ford brought us to
the gate, which opened before we summoned it. I had taken care to call
to the van one of my men who knew the town; and he guided us quickly,
no one challenging us, through a number of foul, narrow streets and
under dark archways, among which a stranger must have gone astray. We
reached at last a good-sized square, on one side of which--though the
rest of the town lay buried in darkness--a large building, which I
judged to be Bareilles' residence, exposed a dozen lighted windows to
the street. Two or three figures lounged half-seen on the wide stone
steps which led up to the entrance, and the rattle of dice, with a
murmur of voices, came from the windows. Without a moment's hesitation
I dismounted at the foot of the steps, and, bidding La Font and
Boisrueil attend me, with three of the servants, I directed Colet to
withdraw with the rest and the horses to the farther end of the square.
Dreading nothing so much as that I might lose the advantage of
surprise, I put aside two of the men on the steps who would have
questioned me, and strode boldly across the stone landing at the head
of the flight. Here I found two doors facing me, and foresaw the
possibility of error; but I was relieved from the burden of choosing by
the sudden appearance at one of them of Bareilles himself. The place
was lit only by an oil lamp, and, for a reason best known to himself,
he did not look directly at me, but stood with his head half-turned as
he said, "Well, Martin, is it done?"
I heard the dicers hold their hands to catch the answer, and in the
silence a bottle in some unsteady hand clinked against a glass.
Through the half-open door behind him it was possible to see a long
table, laid and glittering with steel and plate; and all seemed to wait.
Parabere broke the spell. "We are late!" he said in a ringing voice,
which startled the governor as if it had been the voice of doom. "But
we could not have found you better prepared, it seems. Do you always
sup as late as this?"
For a moment the villain could not speak, but leaned against the
doorpost, with his cheeks gone white and his jaw fallen, the most
pitiable spectacle to be conceived. I affected to see nothing,
however, but went by him easily, and into the room, drawing off my
gauntlets as entered. The dicers, from their seats beside a table on
the hearth, gazed at me, turned to stone. I took up a glass, filled
it, and drank it off. "Now I am better!" I said. "But this is not the
warmest of welcomes, M. de Bareilles."
He muttered something, looking fearfully from one to another of us;
and, his hand shaking, filled a glass and pledged me. The wine gave
him courage and impudence: he began to speak; and though his hurried
sentences and excited manner must have betrayed him to the least
suspicious, we pretended to see nothing, but rather to congratulate
ourselves on his late hours and timely preparations. And certainly
nothing could have seemed more cheerful in comparison with the squalid
inn and miry road from which we came than this smiling feast; if death
had not seemed to my eyes to lurk behind it.
"I thought it likely that you would lie at Saury," he said, with a
ghastly smile.
"And yet made this preparation for us?" I answered politely, yet
letting a little of my real mind be seen. "Well, as a fact, M.
Bareilles, save for one thing we should have lain there."
"And that thing?" he asked, his tongue almost failing him as he put
the question.
"The fact that you have a villain in your company," I answered.
"What?" he stammered.
"A villain, M. le Capitaine Martin," I continued sternly. "You sent
him out this morning against the Great Band; instead, he took it upon
him to lay a plot for me, from which I have only narrowly escaped."
"Martin?"
"Yes, M. de Bareilles, Martin!" I answered roundly, fixing him with my
eyes; while Parabere went quietly to the door, and stood by it. "If I
am not mistaken, I hear him at this moment dismounting below. Let us
understand one another therefore, I propose to sup with you, but I
shall not sit down until he hangs."
It would be useless for me to attempt to paint the mixture of horror,
perplexity, and shame which distorted Bareilles' countenance as I spoke
these words. While Parabere's attitude and my demeanour gave him
clearly to understand that we suspected the truth, if we did not know
it, our coolness and the very nature of my demand imposed upon his
fears and led him to believe that we had a regiment at our call. He
knew, too, that that which might be done in a ruined hamlet might not
be done in the square at Gueret; and his knees trembled under him. He
muttered that he did not understand; that we must be mistaken. What
evidence had we?
"The best!" I answered grimly. "If you wish to hear it, I will send
for it; but witnesses have sometimes loose tongues, Bareilles, and he
may not stop at the Capitaine Martin."
He started and glared at me. From me his eyes passed to Parabere; then
he shuddered, and looked down at the table. As he leaned against it, I
heard the glasses tinkling softly. At last he muttered that the man
must have a trial.
I shrugged my shoulders, and would have answered that that was his
business; but at the moment a heavy step rang on the stone steps, the
door was flung hastily open, and a dark-complexioned man came in with
his hat on. The stranger was splashed to the chin, and his face wore
an expression of savage annoyance; but this gave place the instant he
saw us to one of intense surprise, while the words he had had on his
lips died away, and he stood nonplussed. I turned to M. de Bareilles.
"Who is this?" I said harshly.
"One of my lieutenants," he answered in a stifled tone.
"M. le Capitaine Martin?"
"The same," he answered.
"Very well," I replied. "You have heard my terms."
He stood clutching the table, and in the bright light of the candles
that burned on it his face was horrible. Still he managed to speak.
"M. le Capitaine, call four men," he muttered.
"Monsieur?" the Captain answered.
"Call four men--four of your men," Bareilles repeated with an effort.
The Captain turned and went downstairs in amazement, returning
immediately after with four troopers at his heels.
Bareilles' face was ghastly. "Take M. le Capitaine's sword," he said
to them.
The Captain's jaw fell, and, stepping back a pace, he looked from one
to another. But all were silent; he found every eye upon him, and,
doubtful and taken by surprise, he unbuckled his sword and flung it
with an oath upon the floor.
"To the garden with him!" Bareilles continued, hoarsely. "Quick! Take
him! I will send you your orders."
They laid hands on the man mechanically, and, unnerved by the
suddenness of the affair, the silence, and the presence of so many
strangers,--ignorant, too, what was doing or what was meant, he went
unresisting. They marched him out heavily; the door closed behind
them; we stood waiting. The glittering table, the lights, the arrested
dicers, all the trivial preparations for a carouse that at another time
must have given a cheerful aspect to the room, produced instead the
most sombre impression. I waited, but, seeing that Bareilles did not
move, I struck the table with my gauntlet. "The order!" I said,
sharply; "the order!"
He slunk to a table in a corner where there was ink, and scrawled it.
I took it from his hand, and, giving it to Boisrueil, "Take it," I
said, "and the three men on the landing, and see the order carried out.
When it is over, come and tell me."
He took the order and disappeared, La Font after him. I remained in
the room with Parabere, Bareilles, and the dicers. The minutes passed
slowly, no one speaking; Bareilles standing with his head sunk on his
breast, and a look of utter despair on his countenance. At length
Boisrueil and La Font returned. The former nodded.
"Very well," I said. "Then let us sup, gentlemen. Come, M. de
Bareilles, your place is at the head of the table. Parabere, sit here.
Gentlemen, I have not the honour of knowing you, but here are places."
And we supped; but not all with the same appetite. Bareilles, silent,
despairing, a prey to the bitterest remorse, sat low in his chair, and,
if I read his face aright, had no thought but of vengeance. But,
assured that by forcing him to that which must for ever render him
odious--and particularly among his inferiors--I had sapped his
authority at the root, I took care only that he should not leave us. I
directed Colet to unsaddle and bivouac in the garden, and myself lay
all night with Parabere and Bareilles in the room in which we had
supped, Boisrueil and La Font taking turns to keep the door.
To have betrayed too much haste to be gone might have proved as
dangerous as a long delay; and our horses needed rest. But an hour
before noon next day I gave the order and we mounted in the square, in
the presence of a mixed mob of soldiers and townsfolk, whom it needed
but a spark to kindle. I took care that that spark should be wanting,
however; and to that end I compelled Bareilles to mount and ride with
us as far as Saury. Here, where I found the inn burned and the woman
murdered, I should have done no more than justice had I hung him as
well; and I think that he half expected it. But reflecting that he had
a score of relations in Poitou who might give trouble, and, besides
that, his position called for some degree of consideration, I parted
with him gravely, and hastened to put as many leagues between us as
possible. That night we slept at Crozant, and the next at St. Gaultier.
It was chiefly in consequence of the observations I made during this
journey that Henry, in the following October, marched into the Limousin
with a considerable force and received the submission of the governors.
The details of that expedition, in the course of which he put to death
ten or twelve of the more disorderly, will be found in another place.
It remains for me only to add here that Bareilles was not of them. He
escaped a fate he richly deserved by flying betimes with Bassignac to
Sedan. Of his ultimate fate I know nothing; but a week after my return
to the Arsenal, a man called on me who turned out to be the astrologer.
I gave him fifty crowns.