Liége was before them. From a slight eminence in this land, in most
cases so utterly without eminence at all, they could look onward and
see its walls, especially those on the left bank of the Meuse. Also,
they could see upon what they saw was the citadel a great banner
streaming out to the soft south-west wind--a banner on which was
emblazoned the gold sun that was the emblem of him who gloried in the
name of "Le Roi Soleil." So, too, on the right side there floated out
that ostentatious, braggart flag from the roof of the Chartreuse.
Lying outside the city, as they were easily able to observe from the
eminence on which they had halted, were several regiments, their
colours displayed from the larger tents amongst the lines; and some of
these Bevill Bracton was able to recognise, since he had seen them
before, when in Holland and Flanders under William III.
"Those," he exclaimed, pointing towards a large blue banner that
streamed out above a great tent--a blue banner on which was a heraldic
emblazonment that, had they been nearer, they would have recognised as
a leopard _couchant_, "are the arms of a fierce, cruel general. The
pennon to the right is that of the cavalry of Orléans; that to the
left is the pennon of the dragoons of Piémont-Royal. We have met--I
should say I have seen them--before."
Remembering, however, that much as the Comtesse might suspect or,
indeed, actually know with regard to his being neither Frenchman nor
mousquetaire, she did not know all, Bevill refrained from adding, "I
have charged them in the past, and should know their colours."
"And this general you speak of--this man who is fierce and cruel? Who
is he?"
"Montrével," Bevill replied.
As he did so he heard the Comtesse give a slight gasp, or, if it were
so slight as to be unheard, at least he saw her lips part, while into
her eyes there came a strange look, one that expressed half fear and
half hate.
"Madame knows him?" he exclaimed.
"I know of him. He is, as monsieur says, fierce and cruel. He--he
comes from a part of France I know very well--from Orange. And, worse
than all, he is a--a--renegade."
"A renegade? He! One of Louis' most trusted leaders! He who has
received the _bâton_ of a Field-Marshal but recently! He a renegade?"
"One may be a renegade to others than king and country. To----"
"Yes! To what? To whom?"
"To God!"
After which the Comtesse seemed undesirous of saying more and sat
gazing down towards the army lying outside the walls of Liége, while
occasionally asking Bevill if he could tell her what other persons or
regiments were represented by the various colours flying from tents
and staffs.
But he, while doing his best to explain all that she had desired to
know, and while pointing out to her the regiments of Poitou and Royal
Roussillon--both of which he had also encountered--recognised that his
mind was far away from a subject that, in other circumstances, would
have occupied it to its fullest extent.
For now he could not keep his attention fixed on banners and bannerols
and regiments, deep as might be the import they must bear towards
England and his own safety. He could not even reflect upon how he, an
Englishman passing as a Frenchman, would in the next hour or so have
to make his way through the lines of those regiments while every word
he uttered might betray him to sudden death. Sudden death! as must,
indeed, be his only portion if, among those masses of troops below,
one word mispronounced, one accent to arouse suspicion, should be
observed. Sudden death! Yes, after a moment's interview with one of
the generals or marshals--such a marshal, to wit, as the fierce cruel
Montrével! Sudden death after another moment, and that but a short
one, allowed for a hasty prayer.
And still he could not force his mind to think upon these things,
since those words of the Comtesse de Valorme had driven all other
thoughts away.
"Why?" he asked himself again and again as he sat his horse by her
side. "Why does she speak thus of that truculent soldier? Why, among
so many other matters that must have possession of her thoughts now,
does this man's apostasy, for such it must be that she refers to,
affect her so deeply. Ah! if I could but know!" And, as he thought
thus, he let his eyes fall on those of the comtesse, and saw that hers
were resting on him.
Suddenly, as he did this, he saw in them something that seemed almost
as clear and distinct as spoken words would themselves have been; some
pleading in them which, unlike spoken words, he could not understand,
while still recognising that in her look there was a request. But yet
he could not understand. He could not comprehend what it was that she
desired of him, and so held his peace.
Now, however, the Comtesse spoke. She spoke as she leant forward, in
the same way she had done before since they had first travelled in
company, her gloved hand on the sash of the lowered window, her glance
full of earnestness.
"We are close to Liége, monsieur," she said. "Little more than an hour
will take us to the lines of that army lying outside the city. In two
hours, by Heaven's grace, we may be inside. Monsieur, shall we not be
frank with each other?"
"Frank, madame. How so? How frank?"
"Ah, monsieur, do not let us trifle further. Each of us has an object
in entering that city. Yours I can partly divine, as I think; but mine
I doubt your ever divining. Yet--yet--I know what you are, and I would
that you should know who and what I am. If--if it pleases you, can we
not confide in each other?"
Bevill bowed over his horse's mane as the Comtesse said these words;
then, in a low tone, he replied:
"Any confidence madame may honour me with shall be deeply respected.
Meanwhile, I have perceived that madame knows or suspects that I am
not what I seem to be. So be it. I am in her hands and I do not fear.
Let her tell me what she believes me to be and, if she has judged
aright, I will answer truly. A frank admission can harm me no more
than suspicion can do."
"I shall not harm you," the Comtesse said. "I have not forgotten your
succour when those boors had attacked me." Then, glancing round to
observe whether the servants were out of earshot, as was, indeed, the
case, since they had gone some little distance ahead of the coach the
better to gaze upon the troops environing the city, as well as on the
city itself, she said:
"You are, as I have said, an Englishman."
"Yes," Bevill replied calmly, fearing nothing from this avowal which,
made to any other French subject, would have been fraught with
destruction to him. "I am an Englishman."
[Illustration: "Liége was before them."--_p_. 363.]
"A soldier, doubtless, endeavouring to make his way to his own
forces."
"No; I am no soldier--now. I have been one. But my mission is far
different from that. I go, if it may be so, to escort a young
countrywoman of mine out of Liége, and to take her back in safety to
England."
"Alas! you will never succeed. That she may be permitted to leave
Liége is possible, though by no means probable. Those in the city who
are not French will scarcely obtain permission to depart, since they
would be able to convey far too much intelligence to the enemy of what
prevails within. While as for you----"
"Yes, madame?" Bevill said, still speaking quite calmly.
"You may very well stay in Liége unharmed since no Walloon would
betray you to his conquerors, and the French troops are in the
citadel, the Chartreuse, at the gates, and elsewhere. But you will
never get out with your charge."
"Not as a Frenchman?"
"No. Not with an Englishwoman. That is, unless she can transform
herself into a Frenchwoman as easily as you have transformed yourself
into a Frenchman."
"Yet you have discovered me to be none."
"I discovered you by some of your expressions, the turn of your
phrases, simply because--and this may astonish you--your French was
too good. You used some phrases that were those of a scholar and not
the idiom of daily life. It is often so." Then, with almost a smile on
the face that was generally so preternaturally grave, the Comtesse de
Valorme said:
"Captain Le Blond, as you call yourself, would you discover that I am
a Frenchwoman?"
And to Bevill's astonishment she spoke these words in perfect
English--so perfect, indeed, that they might have issued from the lips
of one of his own countrywomen.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, forgetting for the moment the perfect
courtesy and deference which had marked his manner to her from the
first. "What are you? Speak. Are you English or French? Yet, no," he
continued. "No. There is the faintest intonation, though it has to be
sought for; the faintest suspicion of an accent that betrays you.
Madame," he exclaimed, not rudely, but only in a tone born of extreme
surprise, "what are you--English or French?"
"French," she replied, while still speaking in perfect English; "but I
have lived much in England, and--it may be that I shall die there."
"I cannot understand."
"You shall not be left long without doing so. Monsieur, as I must
still address you, it is more than twenty years since I first went to
England with my father, though I have returned to France more than
once during those years. Now I have returned yet again. And--you have
confided in me; I will be equally frank with you--listen. I am a
Protestant."
"A Protestant!" Bevill exclaimed. "A Protestant? Ah! I begin to
understand. A Protestant opposed to this war; linked with us against
Spain and France; desirous of seeing these two great Catholic Powers
subdued----"
"Alas!" the Comtesse said, "I cannot claim so noble an excuse for
being here in the midst of this war. My presence here is more selfish,
more personal. I--I--have suffered. God, He knows, how all of mine
have suffered in the South----"
"You are from the South?"
"I am. From Tarascon. You saw me start when you spoke of that
unutterable villain, Montrével. Montrével," she repeated, with bitter
scorn; "Field-marshal and swashbuckler! Montrével, born a Protestant,
but now of the Romish faith. A man who has persecuted us cruelly--one
who even now desires to be sent to the Cevennes to persecute us still
further."
Then, suddenly, the Comtesse ceased what she was saying, and, changing
from the subject, exclaimed:
"But come--come. We have tarried here too long. We should be once more
on our road to Liége. How do you propose to present yourself at the
gates and gain admission to the city? You will run deep risks if you
appear under the guise of a mousquetaire; for"--and now she took out a
scroll of paper from the huge pocket let into the leather padding of
her coach and looked at it, "there are two troops of the Mousquetaires
Noirs at the Chartreuse."
"You know that? You have a paper of the disposition of the French
forces?"
"I have, though with no view of betraying them to--the Allies. My
disloyalty to my country is not so deep as that, nor even is it to the
King who persecutes my people so evilly. Nevertheless, there are many
of the Reformed Faith in these armies. There is a De la Tremouille,
though he is but a lad, in the bodyguard of the Duc de Bourgogne; a De
Rohan with Tallard; a De Sully in the Mousquetaires Noirs; also there
are many others. I have means of learning much, though not all that I
would know. These 'heretics,'" she continued bitterly, "may help me if
trouble comes and I require help. Meanwhile, for yourself. You will
never obtain entrance as a mousquetaire."
"I have another passport--one procured for me by a grand personage in
England. With that I entered Antwerp, using only the papers of Captain
le Blond after I had been recognised by an ancient enemy."
"Under what guise, what description, do you appear in that?"
"A secretary of the French Embassy in London--the embassy that now
exists no longer."
The Comtesse de Valorme pondered for a few moments over this
information, while, as she did so, there came two little lines on her
white forehead, a forehead on which, as yet, Time had not implanted
any lines of its own. Then she said:
"And what name do you bear on that?"
"André de Belleville."
Again she pondered for a moment, then said:
"It should suffice. It is by no chance likely that any of the
secretaries from that embassy, now closed, should come here, or be
here. Also, those at the walls cannot doubt me. It would be best you
enter as a kinsman riding by my side as escort, as protector; for such
you have been to me. And we are kin in one thing at least--our faith."
"Madame, I am most deeply grateful to you. If----"
"Nay; gratitude is due from me to you. Yet what was it you said but
now? That you had an ancient enemy who recognised you at Antwerp. If
so, may he not follow you here?"
"I think not. At St. Trond he appeared again, only to again disappear.
Some evil may have befallen him, though not at my hands. He would have
denounced me by daybreak had that not happened."
"So be it then. Let us go forward. Once in Liége you will doubtless be
safe. If 'tis not so, then you must rely on Heaven, which has watched
over you so far, to do so still. Where have you dreamt of sojourning
when you are there? At the house where dwells this lady you go to seek
and help?"
"Nay; that cannot be. I have never seen her since she was a child. Her
father is dead. I know not in what part of the city she dwells. I must
seek some inn----"
"No, no. I have kinsmen and kinswomen there of your faith. Their
houses shall be--nay, will be, freely at your service. Speak but the
word and it shall be so."
For a moment Bevill Bracton pondered over this gracious offer, while,
even as he did so, he raised the gloved hand of the Comtesse to his
lips and murmured words of thanks for her politeness. But after a
moment's reflection he decided not to accept this offer.
He recognised at once that he ought not to do so; that the acceptance
of that offer would be unwise. For he knew, or, at least, he had a
presentiment, that from the moment he reached Sylvia Thorne his duty
must be dangerous; that what he had promised the Lord Peterborough--
ay! and also promised to do at all cost, all risk--might put him in
peril of his life. He had known this ere he set out from England; he
knew it doubly now. The French were all about and everywhere. Even
during the next hour or so he would have to pass through a portion of
that army to enter the city that lay before them. The difficulty of
leaving it would be increased twofold--tenfold, when he had with him
for charge a young girl, a young woman, who was also an English
subject.
"Therefore," he mused, or rather decided quickly, while still the
Comtesse de Valorme awaited his answer, "I must be unhampered; above
all, untrammelled in my movements. God alone knows with what dangers,
what difficulties, it may please Him to environ me; but be that as it
may, I must at all hazards be free and at liberty to either face or
avoid them. Courtesy, that courtesy as much due from guest to host as
from host to guest, could not be freely testified in such
circumstances as these. The quality of guest would not be fairly
enacted by me. I should be but a sorry inhabitant of any man's house!"
Therefore, in very courteous phrases, conveying many thanks, he spoke
these thoughts aloud to the Comtesse, while begging that the rejection
of her offer might not be taken ill by her.
"It must be as you say," the lady said; "yet--yet--we must not drift
from out each other's knowledge. Remember, I shall still be able to
help and assist you; also I look forward still to your guidance and
succour. You will not forget? It is imperative for me, if Heaven
permits, to obtain audience of the Earl of Marlborough when he draws
near, or, failing him, that of other of his generals. It is to England
alone that we poor Protestants can look for succour."