THE CROIX VERTE LOSES ITS GUEST
"Does the death of a man prevent the living from finishing the bottle?
It's a sin to waste good wine," said Lemasle, striding back into the
room.
He spoke rather as a man who was perplexed than as one who was
callous. Whatever scheme Father Bertrand was persuading him to, had
been in the future a few moments ago; there was plenty of time to
weigh it and digest it, to play with it and calculate the chances;
that cannon booming out into the night had made a quick decision
imperative, and Gaspard Lemasle was troubled.
"Leave him to me," said the priest to the other two men, and then as
Herrick turned and went down the passage toward the stairs, Father
Bertrand drew his companions closer to him, and talked eagerly to them
for a few moments.
When Herrick descended the stairs a few minutes later the passage was
empty, and only a waiter was in the long room. The conversation he had
chanced to overhear had made little impression upon him. Was there
ever a state yet in which every citizen was contented with his rulers?
Here in Montvilliers there were contentions, and the coming demise of
the Duke prompted men to talk. How dangerous such talk might be,
Herrick had no means of judging. He had heard a few names which had
little meaning for him--a count, a beautiful woman, and a scholar.
Evidently they were of import in the Duchy, but of what interest
could they be to him? Nor had he particularly noticed the priest's
close scrutiny of his face. Father Bertrand had been astonished to see
a stranger there, one who had certainly overheard something of what
had been said, and, being a politician as well as a churchman, more
loyal as the latter possibly than as the former, he had naturally
sought to understand what manner of man this stranger might be. That
was all.
So Herrick sought to dismiss the occurrence from his mind as he passed
out of the inn, and, after standing on the narrow footway for a moment
looking up and down the street, turned in the direction of the castle,
bent on a short walk before bed.
There is ever a sense of mystery in an unknown city when it is
traversed for the first time after nightfall. Seen over the
intervening roofs, some tower or battlemented edifice, rising gray and
ghost-like in the dim light of the moon as it did to-night, seems full
of mystery; there is a secret in every street turning to right and
left, leading we know not whither; in every narrow alley, looking
dangerous betwixt frowning walls; in every dark window, from whence
evil might peep out unseen. In Vayenne this sense of mystery was
intensified since for long centuries history had been busy with it.
Its interest lay in the folded mantle of the past rather than in the
open lap of the present. Its foundations were in the days of
Charlemagne, and in war and peace it had played a foremost part since
then. Hate and ambition had fought out their deadly feuds around it
and in its streets. Thrice it had closed its gates against the invader
and stood a siege. Chivalry had held sway in it, and in cruel ages
deeds unspeakable had been perpetrated within its walls. It had had
its periods of great glory and of even greater neglect, of victory and
defeat, yet it stood to-day as it ever had stood, the capital of the
Duchy of Montvilliers, the centre of an independent state, the dukes
of which could still link themselves with those Frankish pirates who
had conquered and made their home here.
But to-day Vayenne had fallen behind in the march of modern
civilization. For the most part its streets were old and ill-lighted.
Men still inhabited houses which had stood for centuries, the castle
still frowned over the city as it had done in the Middle Ages, and the
ruling hand had still an iron grip in it. Perhaps nowhere in Europe
had the ways of the foreigner made less progress. Travellers had not
yet marked Vayenne as a place to visit. It was not easy of access, and
no one had written eulogies concerning it. That it had fallen behind
the times in this manner may have been a potent factor in keeping it
inviolate and independent. What wonder then if its rulers, and its
people, too, were satisfied with things as they were?
Well might a traveller feel strangely alone and out of the world in
this city, whose monuments of chiselled stone and sturdy oak had
defied the ravages of the conqueror and of time. Yet no such
strangeness took possession of Roger Herrick. Vayenne had been to him
a dream city. He had known of it from earliest childhood, why and how
he hardly understood; as a boy he had vowed one day to see and know it
in reality; and to-night the sudden rushes of bell and chime music,
the very cadences of the carillon, which came from the belfry of the
great church whose spire rose high toward heaven, seemed familiar.
They were not new, he had only forgotten them for a while. He seemed
to have known these dark streets with their overhanging houses in some
other life, and in this present existence the death of the Duke
to-night seemed to hold some meaning for him.
This sense of familiarity with his surroundings was particularly
strong as he stopped at a corner with the intention of turning and
retracing his steps to the inn. Some distance down, the street was
spanned by a deep archway, in the upper part of which was a great
clock. By the light of a lamp swinging at the corner, Herrick saw that
it was called the Rue de la Grosse Horloge. Its upper end, at least,
was better lighted than most of the streets he had passed through, and
he walked toward the archway, which was old and weather-worn, and must
have been a familiar object in Vayenne long before any clock was
placed there. There were small shops, part of the structure on either
side of the road, and in the deep arch itself, above and on the sides,
were bold reliefs, some past history of the city carved into
permanence in stone. Herrick paused to look up at them, his action
marking him for a foreigner, for who amongst those who passed daily
through that familiar archway would give them a thought? Two men
walking a dozen yards behind him stopped to watch him, and when he
went on, they went on, too, quickening their pace a little and drawing
closer to him. The street beyond the arch was darker, most of the
shops there being closed for the night, and the fact reminded Herrick
that it was time to return to the Croix Verte. He turned so suddenly
that he almost collided with the two men who followed him, and had
walked so lightly that he was quite unconscious of their presence. One
stepped aside and passed on, the other stepped back and began a
voluble apology.
"Pardon, monsieur, I did not see. I was walking with my eyes on the
ground. It is a bad habit."
Raising his hat and bowing even as the other did, Herrick was
explaining that if there were any fault it was his, and that no
apology was necessary, when an arm was thrown suddenly across his
throat from behind, and he was dragged violently backward. Immediately
the man in front closed with him, endeavoring to prevent his using his
hands; and the attack was so unexpected that for some moments it was
all Herrick could do to keep his feet. He was, however, a strong man,
a wrestler and a fighter of no mean skill. With the hand that he had
succeeded in keeping free he gripped the arm about his throat, and
with one great heave of his body threw the man over his head on to the
roadway, where he lay motionless, as though all life were beaten out
of him. In another moment it would have gone hard with his other
assailant had the man not slipped to the ground, keeping his arms
tightly clasped round Herrick's legs, however.
"A spy! Help! A spy!" he shouted. The effect of that cry was
wonderful. Before Herrick could kick himself free, a score of men were
upon him. He attempted to shout an explanation, but to no purpose.
This way and that was he thrown, his arms were seized and twisted
behind him, and then a noose was slipped over his wrists, rendering
him helpless.
Hatless and with torn clothes he was hustled down the street, the
crowd about him becoming larger every moment, those on the outer
fringe of it loudly questioning who he was and what he had done.
"A spy!" some one shouted.
"A quick death to all spies," came the ready answer.
Herrick had been severely handled, and for a few moments was hardly
conscious of what was happening about him. The reiterated cry of "Spy"
served to rouse him. For these people the word appeared to have a
special interpretation. They expected and feared spies, and were
inclined to be merciless. Revenge was in their minds rather than
justice. That the two men who had attacked him took him for a spy,
Herrick did not believe; the man clasping his legs had only raised the
cry to save himself, knowing full well how promptly assistance would
come to such a shout. A quick death seemed likely to follow capture,
and, one man as he was against a multitude, Herrick nerved himself for
a last struggle. The cord that bound his wrists was not fastened in
too workman-like a fashion, he could work his hands free, and it
should go hard with some before they succeeded in stringing him to
some lamp at a corner, which he imagined was their intention.
The cry, however, had gone farther than the street of the great clock.
There was a spirit of excitement abroad in Vayenne to-night consequent
on the death of the Duke, and the closing of the shops had only sent
more men into the taverns and streets to talk and perchance to plot.
The cry of "Spy" had leaped from lip to lip far beyond the man who had
been the cause of it, and now as the excited crowd poured out of the
street into a wide, open square, and Herrick was about to make a last
struggle for his life, there came a sharp word of command, a ring of
steel drawn from the scabbard, and the crowd halted in confusion
before a body of soldiers.
"What have we here?" said a voice which sounded familiar to Herrick.
"A spy, captain," shouted a dozen voices.
"You may easily call a man that, but the proof?"
There was silence, each man expecting his neighbor to speak.
"You may well ask for the proof, since there is none," said Herrick.
"Some scoundrels----"
"Ay, and the accusation is as easily denied," interrupted the soldier,
turning toward Herrick. "There was never a spy yet but had plenty of
lies ready to his tongue."
"I am a stranger in Vayenne--shall I seek justice in it in vain,
Captain Lamasle?" For Herrick recognized him as the soldier who had
been with the priest at the Croix Verte that evening.
An expression of astonishment crossed the captain's face at being
known by this stranger. It was evident that he did not recognize
Herrick, but perhaps he remembered what company he had been in not
long since and what had been said over the wine.
"Being so ready with my name is not much in your favor," he said;
"you'll get justice, I warrant." And then in obedience to a quick
command, Herrick found himself a prisoner amongst soldiers instead of
in the midst of a crowd. It would be useless now to attempt to escape,
and at the word of command he marched forward.
Until this moment Herrick had taken little note of his surroundings.
Now a sudden rush of music in the air above made him look around him.
The square was of great size, misty and ghost-like in the pale,
uncertain moonlight, but, in front of him there loomed a great gateway
flanked by towers, and behind and on higher ground, there were other
towers and frowning walls. It was the castle, and near it rose the
stately pile of a great church, its spire piercing far into the
night.
As they approached the castle the great gates were flung open, and
Herrick saw that the court-yard within was full of men hurrying to and
fro. Horses' hoofs impatiently beat the stones, which were rough and
uneven. There was much jingling of harness and ring of spur and steel.
Lights shone in narrow doorways, and there was the flame of a torch
here and there. All was hurry and excitement; and in some silent
chamber near, the Duke lay dead. Herrick remembered this, found
himself speculating upon it, yet even as he passed through the gate he
hardly felt strange in playing a part in this drama.
The word "Spy" seemed to have run before him even here. That grim
gateway had not kept it out. Men paused a moment to look at him: some
were silent, some uttered a sound of hatred and contempt, but all
seemed convinced that the accusation was a just one.
The soldiers halted by the wall some twenty feet in height. Herrick
concluded that there was a terrace or garden above, because several
persons, women and pages among them, were leaning over the wall
looking into the court-yard below. A flight of stone steps, placed
sideways to the wall, led down from this terrace, and at the foot of
these steps was a woman mounted upon a beautiful bay mare, which pawed
the ground, impatient to be gone. At a little distance a group of
horsemen waited for her signal, which she was in the act of giving
when the soldiers, with their prisoner in their midst, came to a halt
not a dozen yards from her. The light from two or three torches held
by servants who stood on the lower steps lit up her face, and Herrick
saw again the woman who had ridden past the diligence a few hours ago,
the woman who was destined to play so great a part in his life.
Captain Lemasle stepped to her side and saluted.
"Are you not to ride with us?" she asked. "We are waiting."
"Pardon, mademoiselle. I have just been rescuing a spy. The crowd had
caught him, and it would have gone hard with him had we not taken
him."
"If he is a spy, would that have mattered?" she said, loud enough for
Herrick to hear.
"There is justice in proving a man guilty before he is hanged,"
Lemasle answered.
"Since when have you been so fastidious? I have heard other things of
Gaspard Lemasle. Let me look at this spy."
"I seem better known than I imagined," the soldier muttered as he
stood aside.
She rode toward Herrick, the men about him falling back, until she was
close upon him.
"Look up," she commanded, "and let me see the face of a spy."
"Not of a spy, mademoiselle, but of an honest man," he answered,
looking her straight in the eyes.
"Spy, spy," she contradicted sharply, "or what do you in Vayenne at
such a time as this?"
"I am a traveller."
"So are they all," she cried. "There is a guest-room within these
walls for you. Vayenne knows how to welcome such travellers. Ah! I
could honor an enemy, but a spy----" And there was such utter contempt
in her face that Herrick could find no words to answer her.
As she tightened her reins, her riding whip slipped from her fingers
and fell at his feet, and before any one could prevent him he had
shaken the loosened cord from his wrists, and had stooped and picked
it up. In an instant half a dozen soldiers sprang forward to prevent
his attacking her. She did not flinch, but waving them back, held out
her hand for the whip.
"Thank you, mademoiselle," said Herrick. "At least you have generosity
enough to know that I am incapable of such a thing as that."
She looked at him for an instant as she took the whip, a new interest
in her eyes, and a slight lowering of her proud head thanked him. Then
she turned the mare round sharply.
"Captain Lemasle, I am ready," she said, and as the soldiers closed
round Herrick again, she rode out through the grim gateway, followed
by the troop of horsemen.