“O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING?”
An hour later the dusty little cavalcade filed slowly up a steep and
rocky hill and drew rein beside a strip of woodland on the summit. On
every side the country rolled away, barren and broken with crags; here
and there a low growth of juniper bushes or a solitary fig tree, where
the soil was more fertile. The dragoons dismounted at M. de Baudri’s
command and surrounded the spot. It would be impossible for any one
to escape down that bare hillside unseen. De Baudri’s eyes burned
fiercely; he thought his prey within his grasp. Le Bossu was lame
from the long and weary walk, and his drawn face was white, but his
expression was full of content.
“A whole hour,” he said to himself. “Please God she is out of reach!”
He obeyed a motion of M. de Baudri’s hand and led the way into the
wood. It was not thick and there was but little underbrush, for even
here the ground was rocky and uncharitable. He looked about as he
walked, as if he wanted to remember even little things now; almost all
the trees were chestnuts, these and mulberries growing best in the
neighborhood of Nîmes. He noticed the moss and the lichens, and here
and there a wild vine trailed across the way. The wind blew keenly now
from the north, and overhead the gray clouds hung low, but the west was
glorious, the sun hanging just above the horizon. The hunchback noted
all these things, and he heard the heavy tread of the men behind him,
the rattle of M. de Baudri’s sword. He walked on; a great peace was
filling his soul, his pulses throbbed evenly, he lifted his head; his
life was, after all, worth much,--it was to pay her ransom. He came to
the centre of the wood and sat down on a large rock; before him the
trees parted and he could look straight toward the west, the whole
landscape at his feet. He drew M. de Baudri’s money from his wallet and
cast it on the ground.
A suspicion had been dawning upon de Baudri since they had dismounted,
and he halted now and stared fiercely from the cobbler to the despised
coins, the price of blood.
“_Sang de Dieu!_” he thundered, “where is the grotto, slave?”
Le Bossu turned on him a calm face.
“There is none, monsieur,” he replied simply.
De Baudri broke out with a terrible oath, drawing his sword.
“You lying, humped toad!” he said, “how dared you do this?”
He made a move as if to strike him dead, and then a sudden thought
checked him.
“Bah!” he ejaculated, “soil my sword with the blood of such vermin? I
am a fool. Where is the girl?” he added fiercely. “_Pardieu_, I will
wring your neck!”
“I do not know where she is,” replied le Bossu, truthfully enough, for
he did not know where they were then.
“And you led us here to cheat us, slave?” said de Baudri. “A fine
scheme--as you will learn to your cost. If I thought you knew where she
was, I’d torture it out of you with hot irons.”
The cobbler did not look at him; his brown eyes dwelt on the distance,
and his soul was uplifted by the approaching joy of self-sacrifice. He
did not hear the abuse that M. de Baudri continued to pour upon him;
his life was passing before his eyes, his wretched, abused childhood,
his sharp mortification over his physical infirmity, his silent,
intense longing for friendship and love, his despised solitude, his
hard, thankless labor; and now it was over, and not in vain! “Mother of
God,” he prayed, “comfort the wretched.” He awoke to hear M. de Baudri
ordering his soldiers to bring a rope.
A dragoon went for a piece that was coiled on the back of one of the
horses. The troopers never hunted heretics without rope. He returned
promptly, and approaching le Bossu was slipping the noose over his
head, but another scheme had occurred to the leader.
“Hang him by the feet,” he said coolly, pointing with his white hand to
a tree. “_Sacrebleu!_ ’twill hurt more so.”
They secured the rope about the hunchback’s feet while their victim
watched them with calm eyes.
“What matter,” he thought, “if I have saved her? May the _bon Dieu_
make my sacrifice complete!”
De Baudri watched him coolly, wondering that the rapt face was so calm.
“When I give the order,” he said to the soldiers, “haul him up and let
him hang twenty minutes. Now, rogue, where is the girl?”
No answer; the clear eyes looked straight toward the setting sun, over
the beautiful valley of the Vaunage. The radiance of the west fell on
his face, as though he looked through those golden gates into Paradise.
“_Nom de St. Denis!_” ejaculated de Baudri, “what a stubborn fool. Now,
my men!”
He raised his hand carelessly and the cripple was drawn up by the feet
to the limb of a tree, his head hanging with the face to the west. Ten
minutes passed--twenty.
“Fire!” said M. de Baudri.
There was the crash of a volley, the blue smoke rose, the poor,
misshapen body swung around in the red sunlight, and there was
silence,--broken at last by the trample of horses as the troopers
mounted and rode down the hill.
The sun set in a sea of gold; the gray clouds above turned the color
of a red rose; a haze floated over Nîmes. In the wood, only the dead
leaves rustled as they fell. In the upper room of the shop of Two
Shoes, the candle before the shrine had burned down to the very end. It
flickered and flared up, a single flame in the gloom, and then it went
out forever.