When I waked I was alone. At first nothing was clear to me; my brain was
dancing in my head, my sight was obscured, my body painful, my senses
were blunted. I was in darkness, yet through an open door there showed a
light, which, from the smell and flickering, I knew to be a torch. This,
creeping into my senses, helped me to remember that the last thing I
saw in the Intendant’s courtyard was a burning torch, which suddenly
multiplied to dancing hundreds and then went out. I now stretched forth
a hand, and it touched a stone wall; I moved, and felt straw under me.
Then I fixed my eyes steadily on the open door and the shaking light,
and presently it all came to me: the events of the night, and that I
was now in a cell of the citadel. Stirring, I found that the wound in
my body had been bound and cared for. A loosely tied scarf round my arm
showed that some one had lately left me, and would return to finish the
bandaging. I raised myself with difficulty, and saw a basin of water,
a sponge, bits of cloth, and a pocket-knife. Stupid and dazed though I
was, the instinct of self-preservation lived, and I picked up the knife
and hid it in my coat. I did it, I believe, mechanically, for a hundred
things were going through my mind at the time.
All at once there rushed in on me the thought of Juste Duvarney as I saw
him last--how long ago was it?--his white face turned to the sky, his
arms stretched out, his body dabbled in blood. I groaned aloud. Fool,
fool! to be trapped by these lying French! To be tricked into playing
their shameless games for them, to have a broken body, to have killed
the brother of the mistress of my heart, and so cut myself off from her
and ruined my life for nothing--for worse than nothing! I had swaggered,
boasted, had taken a challenge for a bout and a quarrel like any
hanger-on of a tavern.
Suddenly I heard footsteps and voices outside; then one voice, louder
than the other, saying, “He hasn’t stirred a peg--lies like a log!” It
was Gabord.
Doltaire’s voice replied, “You will not need a surgeon--no?” His tone,
as it seemed to me, was less careless than usual.
Gabord answered, “I know the trick of it all--what can a surgeon do?
This brandy will fetch him to his intellects. And by-and-bye crack’ll go
his spine--aho!”
You have heard a lion growling on a bone. That is how Gabord’s voice
sounded to me then--a brutal rawness; but it came to my mind also that
this was the man who had brought Voban to do me service!
“Come, come, Gabord, crack your jaws less, and see you fetch him on his
feet again,” said Doltaire. “From the seats of the mighty they have said
that he must live--to die another day; and see to it, or the mighty folk
will say that you must die to live another day--in a better world, my
Gabord.”
There was a moment in which the only sound was that of tearing linen,
and I could see the shadows of the two upon the stone wall of the
corridor wavering to the light of the torch; then the shadows shifted
entirely, and their footsteps came on towards my door. I was lying on my
back as when I came to, and, therefore, probably as Gabord had left
me, and I determined to appear still in a faint. Through nearly closed
eyelids however I saw Gabord enter. Doltaire stood in the doorway
watching as the soldier knelt and lifted my arm to take off the bloody
scarf. His manner was imperturbable as ever. Even then I wondered what
his thoughts were, what pungent phrase he was suiting to the time and
to me. I do not know to this day which more interested him--that
very pungency of phrase, or the critical events which inspired his
reflections. He had no sense of responsibility; his mind loved talent,
skill, and cleverness, and though it was scathing of all usual ethics,
for the crude, honest life of the poor it had sympathy. I remember
remarks of his in the market-place a year before, as he and I watched
the peasant in his sabots and the good-wife in her homespun cloth.
“These are they,” said he, “who will save the earth one day, for they
are like it, kin to it. When they are born they lie close to it, and
when they die they fall no height to reach their graves. The rest--the
world--are like ourselves in dreams: we do not walk; we think we fly,
over houses, over trees, over mountains; and then one blessed instant
the spring breaks, or the dream gets twisted, and we go falling,
falling, in a sickening fear, and, waking up, we find we are and have
been on the earth all the while, and yet can make no claim on it,
and have no kin with it, and no right to ask anything of it--quelle
vie--quelle vie!”
Sick as I was, I thought of that as he stood there, looking in at me;
and though I knew I ought to hate him, I admired him in spite of all.
Presently he said to Gabord, “You’ll come to me at noon to-morrow, and
see you bring good news. He breathes?”
Gabord put a hand on my chest and at my neck, and said at once, “Breath
for balloons--aho!”
Doltaire threw his cloak over his shoulder and walked away, his
footsteps sounding loud in the passages. Gabord began humming to himself
as he tied the bandages, and then he reached down for the knife to cut
the flying strings. I could see this out of a little corner of my eye.
When he did not find it, he settled back on his haunches and looked at
me. I could feel his lips puffing out, and I was ready for the “Poom!”
that came from him. Then I could feel him stooping over me, and his
hot strong breath in my face. I was so near to unconsciousness at that
moment by a sudden anxiety that perhaps my feigning had the look of
reality. In any case, he thought me unconscious and fancied that he
had taken the knife away with him; for he tucked in the strings of the
bandage. Then, lifting my head, he held the flask to my lips; for which
I was most grateful--I was dizzy and miserably faint.
I think I came to with rather more alacrity than was wise, but he was
deceived, and his first words were, “Ho, ho! the devil’s knocking; who’s
for home, angels?”
It was his way to put all things allusively, using strange figures and
metaphors. Yet, when one was used to him and to them, their potency
seemed greater than polished speech and ordinary phrase.
He offered me more brandy, and then, without preface, I asked him the
one question which sank back on my heart like a load of ice even as I
sent it forth. “Is he alive?” I inquired. “Is Monsieur Juste Duvarney
alive?”
With exasperating coolness he winked an eye, to connect the event with
what he knew of the letter I had sent to Alixe, and, cocking his head,
he blew out his lips with a soundless laugh, and said:
“To whisk the brother off to heaven is to say good-bye to sister and
pack yourself to Father Peter.”
“For God’s sake, tell me, is the boy dead?” I asked, my voice cracking
in my throat.
“He’s not mounted for the journey yet,” he answered, with a shrug, “but
the Beast is at the door.”
I plied my man with questions, and learned that they had carried Juste
into the palace for dead, but found life in him, and straightway used
all means to save him. A surgeon came, his father and mother were sent
for, and when Doltaire had left there was hope that he would live.
I learned also that Voban had carried word to the Governor of the deed
to be done that night; had for a long time failed to get admittance to
him, but was at last permitted to tell his story; and Vaudreuil had gone
to Bigot’s palace to have me hurried to the citadel, and had come just
too late.
After answering my first few questions, Gabord say nothing more, and
presently he took the torch from the wall and with a gruff good-night
prepared to go. When I asked that a light be left, he shook his head,
said he had no orders. Whereupon he left me, the heavy door clanging
to, the bolts were shot, and I was alone in darkness with my wounds and
misery. My cloak had been put into the cell beside my couch, and this
I now drew over me, and I lay and thought upon my condition and my
prospects, which, as may be seen, were not cheering. I did not suffer
great pain from my wounds--only a stiffness that troubled me not at all
if I lay still. After an hour or so passed--for it is hard to keep count
of time when one’s thoughts are the only timekeeper--I fell asleep.
I know not how long I slept, but I awoke refreshed. I stretched forth my
uninjured arm, moving it about. In spite of will a sort of hopelessness
went through me, for I could feel long blades of corn grown up about
my couch, an unnatural meadow, springing from the earth floor of my
dungeon. I drew the blades between my fingers, feeling towards them as
if they were things of life out of place like myself. I wondered what
colour they were. Surely, said I to myself, they can not be green, but
rather a yellowish white, bloodless, having only fibre, the heart all
pinched to death. Last night I had not noted them, yet now, looking
back, I saw, as in a picture, Gabord the soldier feeling among them
for the knife that I had taken. So may we see things, and yet not be
conscious of them at the time, waking to their knowledge afterwards.
So may we for years look upon a face without understanding, and then,
suddenly, one day it comes flashing out, and we read its hidden story
like a book.
I put my hand out farther, then brought it back near to my couch,
feeling towards its foot mechanically, and now I touched an earthen pan.
A small board lay across its top, and moving my fingers along it I
found a piece of bread. Then I felt the jar, and knew it was filled with
water. Sitting back, I thought hard for a moment. Of this I was sure:
the pan and bread were not there when I went to sleep, for this was the
spot where my eyes fell naturally while I lay in bed looking towards
Doltaire; and I should have remembered it now, even if I had not noted
it then. My jailer had brought these while I slept. But it was still
dark. I waked again as though out of sleep, startled: I was in a dungeon
that had no window!
Here I was, packed away in a farthest corner of the citadel, in a deep
hole that maybe had not been used for years, to be, no doubt, denied all
contact with the outer world--I was going to say FRIENDS, but whom could
I name among them save that dear soul who, by last night’s madness,
should her brother be dead, was forever made dumb and blind to me? Whom
had I but her and Voban!--and Voban was yet to be proved. The Seigneur
Duvarney had paid all debts he may have owed me, and he now might,
because of the injury to his son, leave me to my fate. On Gabord the
soldier I could not count at all.
There I was, as Doltaire had said, like a rat in a trap. But I would not
let panic seize me. So I sat and ate the stale but sweet bread, took a
long drink of the good water from the earthen jar, and then, stretching
myself out, drew my cloak up to my chin, and settled myself for sleep
again. And that I might keep up a kind delusion that I was not
quite alone in the bowels of the earth, I reached out my hand and
affectionately drew the blades of corn between my fingers.
Presently I drew my chin down to my shoulder, and let myself drift out
of painful consciousness almost as easily as a sort of woman can call
up tears at will. When I waked again, it was without a start or moving,
without confusion, and I was bitterly hungry. Beside my couch, with his
hands on his hips and his feet thrust out, stood Gabord, looking down at
me in a quizzical and unsatisfied way. A torch was burning near him.
“Wake up, my dickey-bird,” said he in his rough, mocking voice, “and
we’ll snuggle you into the pot. You’ve been long hiding; come out of the
bush--aho!”
I drew myself up painfully. “What is the hour?” I asked, and meanwhile I
looked for the earthen jar and the bread.
“Hour since when?” said he.
“Since it was twelve o’clock last night,” I answered.
“Fourteen hours since THEN,” said he.
The emphasis arrested my attention. “I mean,” I added, “since the
fighting in the courtyard.”
“Thirty-six hours and more since then, m’sieu’ the dormouse,” was his
reply.
I had slept a day and a half since the doors of this cell closed on me.
It was Friday then; now it was Sunday afternoon. Gabord had come to me
three times, and seeing how sound asleep I was had not disturbed me, but
had brought bread and water--my prescribed diet.
He stood there, his feet buried in the blanched corn--I could see the
long yellowish-white blades--the torch throwing shadows about him, his
back against the wall. I looked carefully round my dungeon. There was no
a sign of a window; I was to live in darkness. Yet if I were but allowed
candles, or a lantern, or a torch, some books, paper, pencil, and
tobacco, and the knowledge that I had not killed Juste Duvarney, I
could abide the worst with some sort of calmness. How much might have
happened, must have happened, in all these hours of sleep! My letter to
Alixe should have been delivered long ere this; my trial, no doubt, had
been decided on. What had Voban done? Had he any word for me? Dear Lord!
here was a mass of questions tumbling one upon the other in my head,
while my heart thumped behind my waistcoat like a rubber ball to a
prize-fighter’s fist. Misfortunes may be so great and many that one may
find grim humour and grotesqueness in their impossible conjunction and
multiplicity. I remembered at that moment a friend of mine in Virginia,
the most unfortunate man I ever knew. Death, desertion, money losses,
political defeat, flood, came one upon the other all in two years, and
coupled with this was loss of health. One day he said to me:
“Robert, I have a perforated lung, my liver is a swelling sponge, eating
crowds my waistband like a balloon, I have a swimming in my head and
a sinking at my heart, and I can not say litany for happy release from
these for my knees creak with rheumatism. The devil has done his worst,
Robert, for these are his--plague and pestilence, being final, are the
will of God--and, upon my soul, it is an absurd comedy of ills!” At that
he had a fit of coughing, and I gave him a glass of spirits, which eased
him.
“That’s better,” said I cheerily to him.
“It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he answered; “for I owed it to my head
to put the quid refert there, and here it’s gone to my lungs to hurry
up my breathing. Did you ever think, Robert,” he added, “that this
breathing of ours is a labor, and that we have to work every second to
keep ourselves alive? We have to pump air in and out like a blacksmith’s
boy.” He said it so drolly, though he was deadly ill, that I laughed for
half an hour at the stretch, wiping away my tears as I did it; for his
pale gray face looked so sorry, with its quaint smile and that odd, dry
voice of his.
As I sat there in my dungeon, with Gabord cocking his head and his eyes
rolling, that scene flashed on me, and I laughed freely--so much so
that Gabord sulkily puffed out his lips, and flamed like bunting on
a coast-guard’s hut. The more he scowled and spluttered, the more I
laughed, till my wounded side hurt me and my arm had twinges. But my
mood changed suddenly, and I politely begged his pardon, telling him
frankly then and there what had made me laugh, and how I had come to
think of it. The flame passed out of his cheeks, the revolving fire of
his eyes dimmed, his lips broke into a soundless laugh, and then, in his
big voice, he said:
“You’ve got your knees to pray on yet, and crack my bones, but you’ll
have need to con your penitentials if tattle in the town be true.”
“Before you tell of that,” said I, “how is young Monsieur Duvarney?
Is--is he alive?” I added, as I saw his face look lower.
“The Beast was at door again last night, wild to be off, and foot of
young Seigneur was in the stirrup, when along comes sister with drug got
from an Indian squaw who nursed her when a child. She gives it him, and
he drinks; they carry him back, sleeping, and Beast must stand there
tugging at the leathers yet.”
“His sister--it was his sister,” said I, “that brought him back to
life?”
“Like that--aho! They said she must not come, but she will have her way.
Straight she goes to the palace at night, no one knowing but--guess who?
You can’t--but no!”
A light broke in on me. “With the Scarlet Woman--with Mathilde,” I said,
hoping in my heart that it was so, for somehow I felt even then that
she, poor vagrant, would play a part in the history of Alixe’s life and
mine.
“At the first shot,” he said. “‘Twas the crimson one, as quiet as a baby
chick, not hanging to ma’m’selle’s skirts, but watching and whispering a
little now and then--and she there in Bigot’s palace, and he not knowing
it! And maids do not tell him, for they knew the poor wench in better
days--aho!”
I got up with effort and pain, and made to grasp his hand in gratitude,
but he drew back, putting his arms behind him.
“No, no,” said he, “I am your jailer. They’ve put you here to break your
high spirits, and I’m to help the breaking.”
“But I thank you just the same,” I answered him; “and I promise to give
you as little trouble as may be while you are my jailer--which, with all
my heart, I hope may be as long as I’m a prisoner.”
He waved out his hands to the dungeon walls, and lifted his shoulders
as if to say that I might as well be docile, for the prison was safe
enough. “Poom!” said he, as if in genial disdain of my suggestion.
I smiled, and then, after putting my hands on the walls here and there
to see if they were, as they seemed, quite dry, I drew back to my couch
and sat down. Presently I stooped to tip the earthen jar of water to my
lips, for I could not lift it with one hand, but my humane jailer took
it from me and held it to my mouth. When I had drunk, “Do you know,”
asked I as calmly as I could, “if our barber gave the letter to
Mademoiselle?”
“M’sieu’, you’ve travelled far to reach that question,” said he,
jangling his keys as if he enjoyed it. “And if he had--?”