A TRAPPED WOLF
His first idea was to remove his boots, which had been on his feet
when he recovered consciousness and had remained there since; but,
after a moment's reflection, he decided to still keep them on. It was
impossible, he thought, that he could quit the house without another
encounter taking place; therefore, it was best to be booted. Also, if
he did by good fortune so quit it, and could get well outside, they
would be necessary, since otherwise he could scarcely reach
Remiremont, not to consider Plombières.
Then, having decided this, he made his way at once to the room where
he had previously found Marion Wyatt, and tapped lightly on the door.
It was opened--to his astonishment--not by her, but by the woman he
deemed mad!
"So," she said, "you are free." Then laughed under her breath, and as
low as she had spoken--laughed a weird, witchlike laugh. Adding a
second later: "So far!"
"So far at present, thanks be to God and to you," and as he spoke he
touched her hand with his--noticing, however, even as he did so, that
she drew back shuddering from the touch. "Now, where is the lady?"
"Here!" whereon Marion Wyatt came through the hangings that fell
before the square embrasure in front of the window.
If it were possible that she could have been whiter, more ghastly pale
than when he had first seen her, she was so now; her face being
absolutely devoid of colour. Yet it seemed almost as if some tinge
came to it as, swiftly, she advanced across the room to him, while,
grasping both hands, she whispered:
"You are free again. Free! Oh God in His mercy be thanked. Yet--yet--I
know--she, Clemence, said it should be so," and she gazed at the
fateful woman standing by. "It is heaven's grace that has turned her
heart to us!"
That woman's eyes, deep, mysterious, unfathomable as ever--puzzling
Andrew as they had done before; irritating him, almost, in his desire
to know what lay behind them and what thoughts they concealed--blazed
forth from their sombre depths; yet she answered nothing. Only,
standing there before them, her bosom heaved, her mouth became drawn
downwards with some spasm that seemed to express the deepest misery,
and a gust of breath that was more than a sigh came from her lips.
"It is by heaven's grace," Andrew re-echoed. "Yet, much as we owe her,
now is no fitting time to pay our thanks." Then, turning to her whom
Marion had called Clemence, he said:
"Madame, being, so far free, enable us, I beseech you in your
goodness, to finish our task. Put us in the way to quit this accursed
house, without bloodshed if possible, yet--no matter how--to quit it."
She repeated the words, "this accursed house," twice, letting her left
hand fall heavily to her side as she spoke; then a moment later she
quivered, drew herself up, and said: "It shall be so, if possible. I
will go down and unbar the door. Yet you say 'without bloodshed.'
What"--and now she stood so tall and erect that, almost, her height
equalled that of the great man before her--"What are you then in this
accursed house for? Why hangs that once more upon your thigh?" and she
pointed to the long scabbard of his sword. "Are you not come here from
your own land to shed his, Camille De Bois-Vallée's, blood?"
"To shed it--yes!" Andrew replied, wondering why his words came hoarse
and raucous from his throat; "yet not to-night, if it may be
prevented. Nor in his own house; on his own hearth! But, afterwards,
in fair open fight; to right a deep wrong to one unable to right
himself."
"I go," she said, "to open the door, if may be. Follow me later--in
five minutes hence. Yet--yet remember; I deem it a vow, a sacred
pledge: you slay him when the time comes. Swear that, or I do no
more."
And all amazed, almost appalled, Andrew muttered: "When the time
comes. I have said it."
An instant later she was gone, had passed through the door into the
darkness of the house, gliding out as some dark spectre might have
glided from light to shadow, and those two were alone.
"In five minutes, she said," Andrew whispered in Marion's ear. "In
five minutes. Yet, what means it? Is she in truth mad? I thought she
loved him; had loved his father. Was his faithful slave and worshipped
him. Yet, now, she inclines to us."
From the white lips of the woman by his side there came the answer,
the words falling quick and rapid from those lips; she knowing how few
were the moments in which to tell the meaning of Clemence's manner.
"It was so," she answered, "once. She loved him, worshipped him,
until--until--her madness growing on her, she began to hate him. For
he, in his turn, loved and worshipped the memory of his mother--it is
the one pure thing remaining to him--his love for me was never pure,
was engendered in desire; is turned now to hate and fear of my escape.
And his love for that mother and that memory for her whom Clemence
hates, even though she has long lain in her grave, explains all.
Because she hates the woman who was his mother, also she now hates
him. Hopes, prays, you will kill him. Said to me to-night that, when
he lies dead below from your thrust, she will stamp upon the features
that are so like what hers were."
As she told him thus rapidly the meaning of the woman's frenzy, and as
she concluded her story, she saw Andrew's face change. Saw, too, a
stare come into his eyes; his attitude denoting that of one who
listened intently.
"You hear?" he asked.
"What?"
Yet, even as she spoke, she heard, too. Heard a distant hum--a
something indefinite on the night air--a murmur that, all intangible
as it was at present, resolved itself in another moment into something
else that she understood. It was the hum of human voices--the voices
of a great crowd somewhere in the vicinity--of a crowd that drew
nearer and nearer every moment.
"You hear--you understand?" he asked, grasping her arm.
"God help me! No. What is it?"
"As I hope, as I think, a rescue. It may be that those in this
neighbourhood have risen against him at last; that our path to safety
is open. Come, Marion, if 'tis as I believe, our freedom is at hand,
should we be able to reach them. Yet, be sure, he will bar our
exit--and their entrance; we--I--shall have to fight our way out.
Come." And swift as lightning his arm was round her waist, while he
prepared to lift her to his shoulder, knowing that, ere long, all in
the house would hear those sounds--if they had not done so already;
would be aroused. Also, he knew--divined in a moment--that their way
out would be barred. And, recognizing this, his sword leapt from its
scabbard, drawn forth by his right hand.
"Come," he said again. "We must descend. Be brave and fear nothing. I
shall be with you always. We escape together, or--or stay here
together."
Then, bearing her on his shoulder, he went towards the door.
Yet, ere he reached it, it was flung wide open; once more Clemence
stood before them.
"All hope is gone--for you--for all--for him," she said, her lips
flecked with foam, her eyes staring with the madness of despair and
frenzy, her grey-streaked black hair hanging down below her shoulders.
"Undone! Undone! Undone!"
"What mean you?" Andrew asked. "The house is besieged, yet one may
struggle out of it. May yet escape. Is the door open?"
"None can escape," she almost shrieked. "It is surrounded. The
Lorrainers are here, outside. They swear to burn him in his den; I
have heard them--seen the glint of their weapons--they swear to shoot
down all who rush forth. The death of Laurent has maddened them."
"The death of Laurent! My God! Is he dead?"
"He is dead. He slew him--he--he--De Bois-Vallée: He found him there
watching for you--he never returned home without visiting the chasm to
see if all was safe--and ran him through, then hurled his body to the
courtyard below. And they have learnt he did it--there was another one
who knew the work you and Laurent were upon--they are here. God none
can escape. There are more than a hundred of them. See!"
As she spoke, she rushed through the embrasure and flung open the
diamond-paned window.
"See," she said again, drawing Andrew to the window. "They are there
below. You can perceive their firelocks gleam in the moonlight from
here."
Peering forth, glancing out into the night, he saw beneath the rays of
the watery moon, as the light breeze blew the clouds from under it,
that what the woman said was true. He could observe the beams glancing
on musket barrels and other arms--almost, he thought, that sometimes
they glistened on upturned eyes!--could perceive men lurking all round
the fringe of the copse which bordered the enormous flagged court in
front of the mansion.
Moreover, he knew soon enough that they, too, were seen by the
midnight foe--also that that foe was ruthless. As the light of the
lamp streamed out into the darkness, it being no more veiled by the
heavy curtains of the embrasure within, it served to show the
besiegers those two faces at the window. An instant later there was
the crack of musketry and three balls hurtled against the stone frame,
splintering it, and cutting each of their faces with those splinters.
"Come away," Andrew said, dragging her back and noticing that one of
the fragments had struck her cheek, from which the blood began to
trickle. "Come away. All in this house are deemed enemies. How should
they know there is one here who hates its owner as much as they do."
"How should they know that there are _two?_" the woman muttered
hoarsely in reply. Then she added: "Doubtless, they deem you dead.
Since he slew Laurent they would not think he would spare you."
Her words caused Andrew to start. It was true; they must deem him
dead! His own instructions had been that, if he came not back in three
days, they were to consider him as fallen--murdered--and with Laurent
slain they could suppose nothing else. All in that house were enemies,
therefore, since few knew of Marion's existence; all to be
exterminated as such.
"There must be a truce to our feud for a time at least," he muttered
beneath his moustache, while he smiled grimly; "a truce for a time. No
need for De Bois-Vallée and me to be fighting with one another, like
rats in a pit, while the dogs are outside ready to tear us to pieces.
No need for that! Come," he said, addressing the two women. "Come. We
must descend. There is no way out here."
Then, all together, they left the room and, making their way to the
head of the stairs, looked down over it into the hall below.
And in a moment he knew--as the women knew, too, that neither was
there any exit there.
Below, in that hall, were mustered De Bois-Vallée and some
men--Beaujos being absent. Upon the huge table which had stood for
unnumbered years within it, were laid all the firearms which they
could hastily gather together; muskets and musketoons, fuzils and
fuzees, pistols and petronels. Also other arms, halberds, axes,
swords--they meant to make a stand for it!
As for De Bois-Vallée himself--his look appalled the women, if not
Andrew, as they gazed down on him. His face was white--was it with
fear or rage!--as he bent over the table, and, selecting two carbines,
loaded them carefully; upon it, as he turned towards the great porte,
outside which the murmurs had now increased to a roar, accompanied by
heavy knocks and thumps--there was the grin of a devil at bay. Then,
suddenly, they saw him point to a spot away down one of the passages
leading out of the hall, saw the man Brach disappear, and, a moment or
two later, come back, bearing in his arms a long ladder which he
placed against the door. While, casting his eyes up over that door,
Andrew saw that, above it, was a little window unnoticed hitherto by
him--a window a foot square, but covered inside with a close-fitting
shutter. And, since a few moments later he saw there was no glass to
it, he judged that it was used only to admit air.
As he watched thus the trapped man in his own house, he saw him slowly
mount half-way up that ladder, so that, at last, the top of his head
was almost level with the lower part of the shutter, and take the
carbines from his servitor's hands--then saw him suddenly stop in his
upward progress. Stop, clinging to the ladder posts, his face
half-turned round to those in the hall, the grin upon that face
horribly intensified. For, even as he had thus half-mounted it, the
beatings on the door against which the ladder leant had been
redoubled.
"Surely," whispered Andrew, "they are using some tree-trunk as
battering ram"--and it seemed as if the next moment must see that door
fall in from the tremendous blows administered from the outside.
Next, a babel of voices and a shouting arose.
"Is the wolf there?" one called, while even as he did so another
answered: "Be very sure he is"; and others were heard shouting: "Bring
him forth. Give him to us, and we spare the house. Otherwise all are
doomed."
And again the beatings and the buffetings were renewed, while now a
part of the door a few feet from the ground was burst in, and through
it there protruded the jagged edge of a hastily-chopped-down tree.
Andrew had guessed aright! They were using roughly-improvised
battering rams!
For a moment the hunted wretch--the man caught like a rat in a
trap--glared round his hall; even in the dim light and gloom Andrew
could see his tongue rolling over his lips as though to moisten their
feverish burning, then, urged by God knows what desperation--the
desperation perhaps of despair, perhaps of tigerish rage and
ferocity!--he leapt up the last remaining rungs of the ladder,
carrying the carbines in his hand.
Leapt up, as the wild cat leaps up the branches of forest trees, until
he was level with the little shutter, flung it open with one hand,
and, in an instant, had discharged both carbines into the midst of
whatever crowd might be without.
And he shrieked:
"Hounds, _bélîtres_, scum, he is here!" then flung the shutter to
again and descended the ladder swiftly.
'Twas well that he did so; 'twas well he wasted no time. Ere he had
reached the hall's stone floor that shutter fell in splinters after
him, shattered by a score of bullets from without; also at this moment
the upper part of the door was beaten in amidst terrible roars and
howls and curses from the attackers. Fortunately for those in that
hall, there were still some seven feet of the lower part left standing
to protect them from the besiegers' shot.
"Save yourselves," cried De Bois-Vallée to his men. "Save yourselves.
They may spare you. Me they will never spare. I must find a way."
And, flinging the lamp upon the flames of the fire--so that, after one
brief moment of explosive brightness, the hall became all dark but for
the remaining flames which glistened amidst the gloom like fiery
eyes--he and all below were instantly obscured from the sight of those
above.