At last I was roused by Gabord’s voice.
He sat down, and drew the leaves of faded corn between his fingers.
“‘Tis a poor life, this in a cage, after all--eh, dickey-bird? If a
soldier can’t stand in the field fighting, if a man can’t rub shoulders
with man, and pitch a tent of his own somewhere, why not go travelling
with the Beast--aho? To have all the life sucked out like these--eh? To
see the flesh melt and the hair go white, the eye to be one hour
bright like a fire in a kiln, and the next like mother on working
vinegar--that’s not living at all--no.”
The speech had evidently cost him much thinking, and when he ended, his
cheeks puffed out and a soundless laugh seemed to gather, but it burst
in a sort of sigh. I would have taken his hand that moment, if I had not
remembered when once he drew back from such demonstrations. I did not
speak, but nodded assent, and took to drawing the leaves of corn between
my fingers as he was doing.
After a moment, cocking his head at me as might a surly schoolmaster in
a pause of leniency, he added, “As quiet, as quiet, and never did he fly
at door of cage, nor peck at jailer--aho!”
I looked at him a minute seriously, and then, feeling in my coat, handed
to him the knife which I had secreted, with the words, “Enough for
pecking with, eh?”
He looked at me so strangely, as he weighed the knife up and down in
his hand, that I could not at first guess his thought; but presently I
understood it, and I almost could have told what he would say. He opened
the knife, felt the blade, measured it along his fingers, and then said,
with a little bursting of the lips, “Poom! But what would ma’m’selle
have thought if Gabord was found dead with a hole in his neck--behind?
Eh?”
He had struck the very note that had sung in me when the temptation
came; but he was gay at once again, and I said to him, “What is the hour
fixed?”
“Seven o’clock,” he answered, “and I will bring your breakfast first.”
“Good-night, then,” said I. “Coffee and a little tobacco will be
enough.”
When he was gone, I lay down on my bag of straw, which, never having
been renewed, was now only full of worn chaff, and, gathering myself in
my cloak, was soon in a dreamless sleep.
I waked to the opening of the dungeon door, to see Gabord entering with
a torch and a tray that held my frugal breakfast. He had added some
brandy, also, of which I was glad, for it was bitter cold outside, as
I discovered later. He was quiet, seeming often to wish to speak, but
pausing before the act, never getting beyond a stumbling aho! I greeted
him cheerfully enough. After making a little toilette, I drank my coffee
with relish. At last I asked Gabord if no word had come to the citadel
for me; and he said, none at all, nothing save a message from the
Governor, before midnight, ordering certain matters. No more was said,
until, turning to the door, he told me he would return to fetch me forth
in a few minutes. But when halfway out he suddenly wheeled, came back,
and blurted out, “If you and I could only fight it out, m’sieu’! ‘Tis
ill for a gentleman and a soldier to die without thrust or parry.”
“Gabord,” said I, smiling at him, “you preach good sermons always, and I
never saw a man I’d rather fight and be killed by than you!” Then, with
an attempt at rough humour, I added, “But as I told you once, the knot
is’nt at my throat, and I’ll tie another one yet elsewhere, if God loves
honest men.”
I had no hope at all, yet I felt I must say it. He nodded, but said
nothing, and presently I was alone.
I sat down on my straw couch and composed myself to think; not upon my
end, for my mind was made up as to that, but upon the girl who was so
dear to me, whose life had crept into mine and filled it, making it of
value in the world. It must not be thought that I no longer had care for
our cause, for I would willingly have spent my life a hundred times for
my country, as my best friends will bear witness; but there comes a time
when a man has a right to set all else aside but his own personal love
and welfare, and to me the world was now bounded by just so much space
as my dear Alixe might move in. I fastened my thought upon her face as
I had last seen it. My eyes seemed to search for it also, and to find it
in the torch which stuck out, softly sputtering, from the wall. I do not
pretend, even at this distance of time, after having thought much over
the thing, to give any good reason for so sudden a change as took place
in me there. All at once a voice appeared to say to me, “When you are
gone, she will be Doltaire’s. Remember what she said. She fears him. He
has a power over her.”
Now, some will set it down to a low, unmanly jealousy and suspicion; it
is hard to name it, but I know that I was seized with a misery so deep
that all my past sufferings and disappointments, and even this present
horror were shadowy beside it. I pictured to myself Alixe in Doltaire’s
arms, after I had gone beyond human call. It is strange how an idea will
seize us and master us, and an inconspicuous possibility suddenly stand
out with huge distinctness. All at once I felt in my head “the ring of
fire” of which Mathilde had warned me, a maddening heat filled my veins,
and that hateful picture grew more vivid. Things Alixe had said the
night before flashed to my mind, and I fancied that, unknown to herself
even, he already had a substantial power over her.
He had deep determination, the gracious subtlety which charms a woman,
and she, hemmed in by his devices, overcome by his pleadings, attracted
by his enviable personality, would come at last to his will. The evening
before I had seen strong signs of the dramatic qualities of her nature.
She had the gift of imagination, the epic spirit. Even three years
previous I felt how she had seen every little incident of her daily life
in a way which gave it vividness and distinction. All things touched her
with delicate emphasis--were etched upon her brain--or did not touch her
at all. She would love the picturesque in life, though her own tastes
were so simple and fine. Imagination would beset her path with dangers;
it would be to her, with her beauty, a fatal gift, a danger to herself
and others. She would have power, and feeling it, womanlike, would use
it, dissipating her emotions, paying out the sweetness of her soul,
till one day a dramatic move, a strong picturesque personality like
Doltaire’s, would catch her from the moorings of her truth, and the
end must be tragedy to her. Doltaire! Doltaire! The name burnt into my
brain. Some prescient quality in me awaked, and I saw her the sacrifice
of her imagination, of the dramatic beauty of her nature, my enemy her
tyrant and destroyer. He would leave nothing undone to achieve his end,
and do nothing that would not in the end poison her soul and turn her
very glories into miseries. How could she withstand the charm of his
keen knowledge of the world, the fascination of his temperament, the
alluring eloquence of his frank wickedness? And I should rather a
million times see her in her grave than passed through the atmosphere of
his life.
This may seem madness, selfish and small; but after-events went far to
justify my fears and imaginings, for behind there was a love, an aching,
absorbing solicitude. I can not think that my anxiety was all vulgar
smallness then.
I called him by coarse names, as I tramped up and down my dungeon; I
cursed him; impotent contempt was poured out on him; in imagination I
held him there before me, and choked him till his eyes burst out and
his body grew limp in my arms. The ring of fire in my head scorched and
narrowed till I could have shrieked in agony. My breath came short and
labored, and my heart felt as though it were in a vise and being clamped
to nothing. For an instant, also, I broke out in wild bitterness against
Alixe. She had said she would save me, and yet in an hour or less I
should be dead. She had come to me last night ah--true; but that was in
keeping with her dramatic temperament; it was the drama of it that had
appealed to her; and to-morrow she would forget me, and sink her fresh
spirit in the malarial shadows of Doltaire’s.
In my passion I thrust my hand into my waistcoat and unconsciously drew
out something. At first my only feeling was that my hand could clench
it, but slowly a knowledge of it travelled to my brain, as if through
clouds and vapours. Now I am no Catholic, I do not know that I am
superstitious, yet when I became conscious that the thing I held was the
wooden cross that Mathilde had given me, a weird feeling passed through
me, and there was an arrest of the passions of mind and body; a coolness
passed over all my nerves, and my brain got clear again, the ring of
fire loosing, melting away. It was a happy, diverting influence, which
gave the mind rest for a moment, till the better spirit, the wiser
feeling, had a chance to reassert itself; but then it seemed to me
almost supernatural.
One can laugh when misery and danger are over, and it would be easy to
turn this matter into ridicule, but from that hour to this the wooden
cross which turned the flood of my feelings then into a saving channel
has never left me. I keep it, not indeed for what it was, but for what
it did.
As I stood musing, there came to my mind suddenly the words of a song
which I had heard some voyageurs sing on the St. Lawrence, as I sat on
the cliff a hundred feet above them and watched them drift down in the
twilight:
“Brothers, we go to the Scarlet Hills:
(Little gold sun, come out of the dawn!)
There we will meet in the cedar groves;
(Shining white dew, come down!)
There is a bed where you sleep so sound,
The little good folk of the hills will guard,
Till the morning wakes and your love comes home.
(Fly away, heart, to the Scarlet Hills!)”
Something in the half-mystical, half-Arcadian spirit of the words
soothed me, lightened my thoughts, so that when, presently, Gabord
opened the door, and entered with four soldiers, I was calm enough
for the great shift. Gabord did not speak, but set about pinioning me
himself. I asked him if he could not let me go unpinioned, for it was
ignoble to go to ones death tied like a beast. At first he shook his
head, but as if with a sudden impulse lie cast the ropes aside, and,
helping me on with my cloak, threw again over it a heavier cloak he had
brought, gave me a fur cap to wear, and at last himself put on me a pair
of woollen leggings, which, if they were no ornament, and to be of but
transitory use (it seemed strange to me then that one should be caring
for a body so soon to be cut off from all feeling), were most comforting
when we came into the bitter, steely air. Gabord might easily have given
these last tasks to the soldiers, but he was solicitous to perform them
himself. Yet with surly brow and a rough accent he gave the word to
go forward, and in a moment we were marching through the passages, up
frosty steps, in the stone corridors, and on out of the citadel into the
yard.
I remember that as we passed into the open air I heard the voice of a
soldier singing a gay air of love and war. Presently he came in sight.
He saw me, stood still for a moment looking curiously, and then, taking
up the song again at the very line where he had broken off, passed round
an angle of the building and was gone. To him I was no more than a moth
fluttering in the candle, to drop dead a moment later.
It was just on the verge of sunrise. There was the grayish-blue light in
the west, the top of a long range of forest was sharply outlined against
it, and a timorous darkness was hurrying out of the zenith. In the east
a sad golden radiance was stealing up and driving back the mystery of
the night, and that weird loneliness of an arctic world. The city was
hardly waking as yet, but straight silver columns of smoke rolled up out
of many chimneys, and the golden cross on the cathedral caught the
first rays of the sun. I was not interested in the city; I had now, as
I thought, done with men. Besides the four soldiers who had brought me
out, another squad surrounded me, commanded by a young officer whom I
recognized as Captain Lancy, the rough roysterer who had insulted me at
Bigot’s palace over a year ago. I looked with a spirit absorbed upon the
world about me, and a hundred thoughts which had to do with man’s life
passed through my mind. But the young officer, speaking sharply to me,
ordered me on, and changed the current of my thoughts. The coarseness
of the man and his insulting words were hard to bear, so that I was
constrained to ask him if it were not customary to protect a condemned
man from insult rather than to expose him to it. I said that I should
be glad of my last moments in peace. At that he asked Gabord why I was
unbound, and my jailer answered that binding was for criminals who were
to be HANGED!
I could scarcely believe my ears. I was to be shot, not hanged. I had
a thrill of gratitude which I can not describe. It may seem a nice
distinction, but to me there were whole seas between the two modes of
death. I need not blush in advance for being shot--my friends could bear
that without humiliation; but hanging would have always tainted their
memory of me, try as they would against it.
“The gallows is ready, and my orders were to see him hanged,” Mr. Lancy
said.
“An order came at midnight that he should be shot,” was Gabord’s reply,
producing the order, and handing it over.
The officer contemptuously tossed it back, and now, a little more
courteous, ordered me against the wall, and I let my cloak fall to the
ground. I was placed where, looking east, I could see the Island of
Orleans, on which was the summer-house of the Seigneur Duvarney. Gabord
came to me and said, “M’sieu’, you are a brave man”--then, all at once
breaking off, he added in a low, hurried voice, “‘Tis not a long flight
to heaven, m’sieu’!” I could see his face twitching as he stood looking
at me. He hardly dared to turn round to his comrades, lest his emotion
should be seen. But the officer roughly ordered him back. Gabord coolly
drew out his watch, and made a motion to me not to take off my cloak
yet.
“‘Tis not the time by six minutes,” he said. “The gentleman is to be
shot to the stroke--aho!” His voice and manner were dogged. The officer
stepped forward threateningly; but Gabord said something angrily in an
undertone, and the other turned on his heel and began walking up and
down. This continued for a moment, in which we all were very still and
bitter cold--the air cut like steel--and then my heart gave a great
leap, for suddenly there stepped into the yard Doltaire. Action seemed
suspended in me, but I know I listened with singular curiosity to the
shrill creaking of his boots on the frosty earth, and I noticed that the
fur collar of the coat he wore was all white with the frozen moisture of
his breath, also that tiny icicles hung from his eyelashes. He came down
the yard slowly, and presently paused and looked at Gabord and the young
officer, his head laid a little to one side in a quizzical fashion, his
eyelids drooping.
“What time was monsieur to be shot?” he asked of Captain Lancy.
“At seven o’clock, monsieur,” was the reply.
Doltaire took out his watch. “It wants three minutes of seven,” said
he. “What the devil means this business before the stroke o’ the hour?”
waving a hand towards me.
“We were waiting for the minute, monsieur,” was the officer’s reply.
A cynical, cutting smile crossed Doltaire’s face. “A charitable trick,
upon my soul, to fetch a gentleman from a warm dungeon and stand him
against an icy wall on a deadly morning to cool his heels as he
waits for his hour to die! You’d skin your lion and shoot him
afterwards--voila!” All this time he held the watch in his hand.
“You, Gabord,” he went on, “you are a man to obey orders--eh?”
Gabord hesitated a moment as if waiting for Lancy to speak, and then
said, “I was not in command. When I was called upon I brought him
forth.”
“Excuses! excuses! You sweated to be rid of your charge.”
Gabord’s face lowered. “M’sieu’ would have been in heaven by this if I
had’nt stopped it,” he broke out angrily.
Doltaire turned sharply on Lancy. “I thought as much,” said he, “and
you would have let Gabord share your misdemeanor. Yet your father was a
gentleman! If you had shot monsieur before seven, you would have taken
the dungeon he left. You must learn, my young provincial, that you are
not to supersede France and the King. It is now seven o’clock; you will
march your men back into quarters.”
Then turning to me, he raised his cap. “You will find your cloak more
comfortable, Captain Moray,” said he, and he motioned Gabord to hand
it to me, as he came forward. “May I breakfast with you?” he added
courteously. He yawned a little. “I have not risen so early in years,
and I am chilled to the bone. Gabord insists that it is warm in your
dungeon; I have a fancy to breakfast there. It will recall my year in
the Bastile.”
He smiled in a quaint, elusive sort of fashion, and as I drew the cloak
about me, I said through chattering teeth, for I had suffered with the
brutal cold, “I am glad to have the chance to offer breakfast.”
“To me or any one?” he dryly suggested. “Think! by now, had I not come,
you might have been in a warmer world than this--indeed, much warmer,”
he suddenly said, as he stooped, picked up some snow in his bare hand,
and clapped it to my cheek, rubbing it with force and swiftness. The
cold had nipped it, and this was the way to draw out the frost. His
solicitude at the moment was so natural and earnest that it was hard to
think he was my enemy.
When he had rubbed awhile, he gave me his own handkerchief to dry my
face; and so perfect was his courtesy, it was impossible to do otherwise
than meet him as he meant and showed for the moment. He had stepped
between me and death, and even an enemy who does that, no matter what
the motive, deserves something at your hands.
“Gabord,” he said, as we stepped inside the citadel, “we will breakfast
at eight o’clock. Meanwhile, I have some duties with our officers here.
Till we meet in your dining-hall, then, monsieur,” he added to me, and
raised his cap.
“You must put up with frugal fare,” I answered, bowing.
“If you but furnish locusts,” he said gaily, “I will bring the wild
honey.... What wonderful hives of bees they have at the Seigneur
Duvarney’s!” he continued musingly, as if with second thought; “a
beautiful manor--a place for pretty birds and honey-bees!”
His eyelids drooped languidly, as was their way when he had said
something a little carbolic, as this was to me, because of its
hateful suggestion. His words drew nothing from me, not even a look of
understanding, and, again bowing, we went our ways.
At the door of the dungeon Gabord held the torch up to my face. His own
had a look which came as near to being gentle as was possible to him.
Yet he was so ugly that it looked almost ludicrous in him. “Poom!” said
he. “A friend at court. More comfits.”
“You think Monsieur Doltaire gets comfits, too?” asked I.
He rubbed his cheek with a key. “Aho!” mused he--“aho! M’sieu’ Doltaire
rises not early for naught.”