SOLOMON NOTREDAME.
A little later that night, at the hour which saw the showman pay his
second visit to the street before the _Chariot d'Or_, there to stand
gaping at the lighted windows, and peering into the courtyard in a
kind of fascination--or perhaps to assure himself that the house would
not fly away, and his golden hopes with it--the twelve-year-old boy,
the basis of those hopes, awoke and stirred restlessly in the straw.
He was cold, and the chain galled him. His face ached where the man
had struck him. In the next stall two drunken men were fighting, and
the place reeked with oaths and foulness. But none of these things
were so novel as to keep the boy awake; and sighing and drawing the
monkey nearer to him, he would in a moment have been asleep again if
the moon, shining with great brightness through the little square
aperture above him, had not thrown its light directly on his head, and
roused him more completely.
He sat up and gazed at it, and God knows what softening thoughts and
pitiful recollections the beauty of the night brought into his mind;
but presently he began to weep--not as a child cries, with noise and
wailing, but in silence, as a man weeps. The monkey awoke and crept
into his breast, but he hardly regarded it. The misery, the
hopelessness, the slavery of his life, ignored from hour to hour, or
borne at other times with a boy's nonchalance, filled his heart to
bursting now. Crouching in his lair in the straw, he shook with agony.
The tears welled up, and would not be restrained, until they hid the
face of the sky and darkened even the moon's pure light.
Or was it his tears? He dashed them away and looked, and rose slowly
to his feet; while the ape, clinging to his breast, began to mow and
gibber. A black mass, which gradually resolved itself, as the boy's
eyes cleared, into a man's hat and head, filled the aperture.
"Hush!" came from the head in a cautious whisper. "Come nearer. I will
not hurt you. Do you wish to escape, lad?"
The boy clasped his hands in an ecstasy. "Yes, oh yes!" he murmured.
The question chimed in so naturally with his thoughts, it scarcely
surprised him.
"If you were loose, could you get through this window?" the man asked.
He spoke cautiously, under his breath; but the noise in the next
stall, to say nothing of a vile drinking song which was being chanted
forth at the farther end of the stable, was such he might safely have
shouted. "Yes? Then take this file. Rub at the fifth link from the
end: the one that is nearly through. Do you understand, boy?"
"Yes, yes," Jehan cried again, groping in the straw for the tool,
which had fallen at his feet. "I know."
"When you are loose, cover up the chain," continued the other in a
slow biting tone. "Or lie on that part of it, and wait until morning.
As soon as you see the first gleam of light, climb out through the
window. You will find me outside."
The boy would have uttered his trembling thanks. But lo! in a moment
the aperture was clear again; the moon sailed unchanged through an
unchanged sky; and all was as before. Save for the presence of the
little bit of rough steel in his hand, he might have thought it a
dream. But the file was there; it was there, and with a choking sob of
hope and fear and excitement, he fell to work on the chain.
It was clumsy work he made of it in the dark. But the link was so much
worn, a man might have wrenched it open, and the boy did not spare his
fingers. The dispute next door covered the song of the file; and the
smoky horn lantern which alone lighted that end of the stable had no
effect in the dark corner where he lay. True, he had to work by feel,
looking out all the while for his tyrant's coming; but the tool was
good, and the fingers, hardened by many an hour of work on the rope,
were strong and lithe. When the showman at last stumbled to his place
in the straw, the boy lay free--free and trembling.
All was not done, however. It seemed an hour before the man settled
himself--an hour of agony and suspense to Jehan, feigning sleep; since
at any moment his master might take it into his head to look into
things. But Crafty Eyes had no suspicion. Having kicked the boy and
heard the chain rattle, and so assured himself that he was there--so
much caution he exercised every night, drunk or sober--he was
satisfied; and by-and-by, when his imagination, heated by thoughts of
wealth, permitted it, he fell asleep, and dreamed that he had married
the Cardinal's cook-maid and ate collops on Sundays.
Even so, the night seemed endless to the boy, lying wakeful, with his
eyes on the sky. Now he was hot, now cold. One moment the thought that
the window might prove too strait for him threw him into a bath of
perspiration; the next he shuddered at the possibility of re-capture,
and saw himself dragged back and flayed by his brutal owner. But a
watched pot _does_ boil, though slowly. The first streak of dawn came
at last--as it does when the sky is darkest; and with it, even as the
boy rose warily to his feet, the sound of a faint whistle outside the
window.
A common mortal could no more have passed through that window without
noise than an old man can make himself young again. But the boy did
it. As he dropped to the ground outside he heard the whistle again.
The air was still dark; but a score of paces away, beyond a low wall,
he made out the form of a horseman, and went towards it.
It was the man in the cloak, who stooped and held out his hand. "Jump
up behind me," he muttered.
The boy went to obey, but as he clasped the outstretched hand, it was
suddenly withdrawn. "What is that? What have you got there?" the rider
exclaimed, peering down at him.
"It is only Taras, the monkey," Jehan said timidly.
"Throw it away," the stranger answered. "Do you hear me?" he continued
in a stern, composed tone. "Throw it away, I say."
The boy stood hesitating a moment; then, without a word, he turned and
fled into the darkness the way he had come. The man on the horse swore
under his breath, but he had no remedy; and before he could tell what
to expect, the boy was at his side again. "I've put it through the
window," Jehan explained breathlessly. "If I had left it here, the
dogs and the boys would have killed it."
The man made no comment aloud, but jerked him roughly to the crupper;
and bidding him hold fast, started the horse, which, setting off at an
easy amble, quickly bore them out of Fecamp. As they passed through
the fair-ground of yesterday--a shadowy, ghastly waste at this hour,
peopled by wandering asses, and packhorses, and a few lurking figures
that leapt up out of the darkness, and ran after them whining for
alms--the boy shivered and clung close to his protector. But he had no
more than recognised the scene before they were out of sight of it,
and riding through the open fields. The grey dawn was spreading, the
cocks at distant farms were crowing. The dim, misty countryside, the
looming trees, the raw air, the chill that crept into his ill-covered
bones--all these, which might have seemed to others wretched
conditions enough, filled the boy with hope and gladness. For they
meant freedom.
But presently, as they rode on, his thoughts took a fresh turn. They
began to busy themselves, and fearfully, with the man before him,
whose continued silence and cold reserve set a hundred wild ideas
humming in his brain. What manner of man was he? Who was he? Why had
he helped him? Jehan had heard of ogres and giants that decoyed
children into forests and devoured them. He had listened to ballads of
such adventures, sung at fairs and in the streets, a hundred times;
now they came so strongly into his mind, and so grew upon him in this
grim companionship, that by-and-by, seeing a wood before them through
which the road ran, he shook with terror and gave himself up for lost.
Sure enough, when they came to the wood, and had ridden a little way
into it, the man, whose face he had never seen, stopped. "Get down,"
he said sternly.
[Illustration: "JEHAN WENT TREMBLING AND FOUND THE HOLE" (_p_. 33).]
Jehan obeyed, his teeth chattering, his legs quaking under him. He
expected the man to produce a large carving-knife, or call some of his
fellows out of the forest to share his repast. Instead, the stranger
made a queer pass with his hands over his horse's neck, and bade the
boy go to an old stump which stood by the way. "There is a hole in the
farther side of it," he said. "Look in the hole."
Jehan went trembling and found the hole, and looked. "What do you
see?" the rider asked.
"A piece of money," said Jehan.
"Bring it to me," the stranger answered gravely.
The boy took it--it was only a copper sou--and did as he was bidden.
"Get up!" said the horseman curtly. Jehan obeyed, and they went on as
before.
When they had ridden half-way through the forest, however, the
stranger stopped again. "Get down," he said.
The boy obeyed, and was directed as on the former occasion--but not
until the horseman had made the same strange gesture with his
hands--to go to an old stump. This time he found a silver livre. He
gave it to his master, and climbed again to his place, marvelling
much.
A third time they stopped, on the farther verge of the forest. The
same words passed, but this time the boy found a gold crown in the
hole.
After that his mind no longer ran upon ogres and giants. Instead,
another fancy almost as dreadful took possession of him. He remarked
that everything the stranger wore was black: his cloak, his hat, his
gauntlets. Even his long boots, which in those days were commonly made
of untanned leather, were black. So was the furniture of the horse.
Jehan noticed this as he mounted the third time; and connecting it
with the marvellous springing up of money where the man willed, began
to be seized with panic, never doubting but that he had fallen into
the hands of the devil. Likely enough, he would have dropped off at
the first opportunity that offered, and fled for his life--or his
soul, but he did not know much of that--if the stranger had not in the
nick of time drawn a parcel of food from his saddle-bag. He gave some
to Jehan. Even so, the boy, hungry as he was, did not dare to touch it
until he was assured that his companion was really eating--eating, and
not pretending. Then, with a great sigh of relief, he began to eat
too. For he knew that the devil never ate!
After this they rode on in silence, until, about an hour before noon,
they came to a small farm-steading standing by the road, half a league
short of the sleepy old town of Yvetot, which Beranger was one day to
celebrate. Here the magician--for such Jehan now took his companion to
be--stopped. "Get down," he said.
The boy obeyed, and instinctively looked for a stump. But there was no
stump, and this time his master, after scanning his ragged garments as
if to assure himself of his appearance, had a different order to give.
"Go to that farm," he said. "Knock at the door, and say that Solomon
Notredame de Paris requires two fowls. They will give them to you.
Bring them to me."
The boy went wide-eyed, knocked, and gave his message. A woman, who
opened the door, stretched out her hand, took up a couple of fowls
that lay tied together on the hearth, and gave them to him without a
word. He took them--he no longer wondered at anything--and carried
them back to his master in the road.
"Now listen to me," said the latter, in his slow, cold tone. "Go into
the town you see before you, and in the market-place you will find an
inn with the sign of the _Three Pigeons_. Enter the yard and offer
these fowls for sale, but ask a livre apiece for them, that they may
not be bought. While offering them, make an excuse to go into the
stable, where you will see a grey horse. Drop this white lump into the
horse's manger when no one is looking, and afterwards remain at the
door of the yard. If you see me, do not speak to me. Do you
understand?"
Jehan said he did; but his new master made him repeat his orders from
beginning to end before he let him go with the fowls and the white
lump, which was about the size of a walnut, and looked like rock-salt.
About an hour later the landlord of the _Three Pigeons_ at Yvetot
heard a horseman stop at his door. He went out to meet him. Now,
Yvetot is on the road to Havre and Harfleur; and though the former of
these places was then in the making and the latter was dying fast, the
landlord had had experience of many guests. But so strange a guest as
the one he found awaiting him he thought he had never seen. In the
first place, the gentleman was clad from top to toe in black; and
though he had no servants behind him, he wore an air of as grave
consequence as though he boasted six. In the next place, his face was
so long, thin, and cadaverous that, but for a great black line of
eyebrows that cut it in two and gave it a very curious and sinister
expression, people meeting him for the first time might have been
tempted to laugh. Altogether, the landlord could not make him out; but
he thought it safer to go out and hold his stirrup, and ask his
pleasure.
"I shall dine here," the stranger answered gravely. As he dismounted
his cloak fell open. The landlord observed with growing wonder that
its black lining was sprinkled with cabalistic figures embroidered in
white.
Introduced to the public room, which was over the great stone porch
and happened to be empty, the traveller lost none of his singularity.
He paused a little way within the door, and stood as if suddenly
fallen into deep thought. The landlord, beginning to think him mad,
ventured to recall him by asking what his honour would take.
"There is something amiss in this house," the stranger replied
abruptly, turning his eyes on him.
"Amiss?" the host answered, faltering under his gaze, and wishing
himself well out of the room. "Not that I am aware of, your honour."
"There is no one ill?"
"No, your honour, certainly not."
"Nor deformed?"
"No."
"You are mistaken," the stranger answered firmly. "Know that I am
Solomon, son to Caesar, son to Michel Notredame of Paris, commonly
called by the learned Nostradamus and the Transcendental, who read the
future and rode the Great White Horse of Death. All things hidden are
open to me."
The landlord only gaped, but his wife and a serving wench, who had
come to the door out of curiosity, and were listening and staring with
all their might, crossed themselves industriously. "I am here," the
stranger continued, after a brief pause, "to construct the horoscope
of His Eminence the Cardinal, of whom it has been predicted that he
will die at Yvetot. But I find the conditions unpropitious. There is
an adverse influence in this house."
The landlord scratched his head, and looked helplessly at his wife.
But she was quite taken up with awe of the stranger, whose head nearly
touched the ceiling of the low room; while his long, pale face seemed
in the obscurity--for the day was dark--to be of an unearthly pallor.
"An adverse influence," the astrologer continued gravely. "What is
more, I now see where it is. It is in the stable. You have a grey
horse."
The landlord, somewhat astonished, said he had.
"You had. You have not now. The devil has it!" was the astounding
answer.
"My grey horse?"
The stranger inclined his head.
"Nay, there you are wrong!" the host retorted briskly. "I'm hanged if
he has! For I rode the horse this morning, and it went as well and
quietly as ever in its life."
"Send and see," the tall man answered.
The serving girl, obeying a nod, went off reluctantly to the stable,
while her master, casting a look of misliking at his guest, walked
uneasily to the window. In a moment the girl came back, her face
white. "The grey is in a fit," she cried, keeping the whole width of
the room between her and the stranger. "It is sweating and
staggering."
The landlord, with an oath, ran off to see, and in a minute the
appearance of an excited group in the square under the window showed
that the thing was known. The traveller took no notice of this,
however, nor of the curious and reverential glances which the
womenfolk, huddled about the door of the room, cast at him. He walked
up and down the room with his eyes lowered.
The landlord came back presently, his face black as thunder. "It has
got the staggers," he said resentfully.
"It has got the devil," the stranger answered coldly. "I knew it was
in the house when I entered. If you doubt me, I will prove it."
"Ay?" said the landlord stubbornly.
The man in black went to his saddle-bag, which had been brought up and
laid in a corner, and took out a shallow glass bowl, curiously
embossed with a cross and some mystic symbols. "Go to the church
there," he said, "and fill this with holy water."
The host took it unwillingly, and went on his strange errand. While he
was away the astrologer opened the window, and looked out idly. When
he saw the other returning, he gave the order "Lead out the horse."
There was a brief delay, but presently two stablemen, with a little
posse of wondering attendants, partly urged and partly led out a
handsome grey horse. The poor animal trembled and hung its head, but
with some difficulty was brought under the window. Now and again a
sharp spasm convulsed its limbs, and scattered the spectators right
and left.
Solomon Notredame leaned out of the window. In his left hand he held
the bowl, in his right a small brush. "If this beast is sick with any
earthly sickness," he cried in a deep solemn voice, audible across the
square, "or with such as earthly skill can cure, then let this holy
water do it no harm, but refresh it. But if it be possessed by the
devil, and given up to the powers of darkness and to the enemy of man
for ever and ever to do his will and pleasure, then let these drops
burn and consume it as with fire. Amen! Amen!"
With the last word he sprinkled the horse. The effect was magical. The
animal reared up, as if it had been furiously spurred, and plunged so
violently that the men who held it were dragged this way and that. The
crowd fled every way; but not so quickly but that a hundred eyes had
seen the horse smoke where the water fell on it. Moreover, when they
cautiously approached it, the hair in two or three places was found to
be burned off!
The magician turned gravely from the window. "I wish to eat," he said.
None of the servants, however, would come into the room or serve him,
and the landlord, trembling, set the board with his own hands and
waited on him. Mine host had begun by doubting and suspecting, but,
simple man! his scepticism was not proof against the holy water trial
and his wife's terror. By-and-by, with a sidelong glance at his guest,
he faltered the question: What should he do with the horse?
The man in black looked solemn. "Whoever mounts it will die within the
year," he said.
"I will shoot it," the landlord replied, shuddering.
"The devil will pass into one of the other horses," was the answer.
"Then," said the miserable innkeeper, "perhaps your honour would
accept it?"
"God forbid!" the astrologer answered. And that frightened the other
more than all the rest. "But if you can find at any time," the wizard
continued, "a beggar-boy with black hair and blue eyes, who does not
know his father's name, he may take the horse and break the spell. So
I read the signs."
The landlord cried out that such a person was not to be met with in a
lifetime. But before he had well finished his sentence a shrill voice
called through the keyhole that there was such a boy in the yard at
that moment, offering poultry for sale.
"In God's name, then, give him the horse!" the stranger said. "Bid him
take it to Rouen, and at every running water he comes to say a
paternoster and sprinkle its tail. So he may escape, and you, too. I
know no other way."
The trembling innkeeper said he would do that, and did it. And so,
when the man in black rode into Rouen the next evening, he did not
ride alone. He was attended at a respectful distance by a good-looking
page clad in sable velvet, and mounted on a handsome grey horse.