That evening, at eight o’clock, Jean Labrouk was buried. A shell had
burst not a dozen paces from his own door, within the consecrated
ground of the cathedral, and in a hole it had made he was laid, the only
mourners his wife and his grandfather, and two soldiers of his company
sent by General Bougainville to bury him. I watched the ceremony from
my loft, which had one small dormer window. It was dark, but burning
buildings in the Lower Town made all light about the place. I could hear
the grandfather mumbling and talking to the body as it was lowered into
the ground. While yet the priest was hastily reading prayers, a dusty
horseman came riding to the grave, and dismounted.
“Jean,” he said, looking at the grave, “Jean Labrouk, a man dies well
that dies with his gaiters on, aho!... What have you said for Jean
Labrouk, m’sieu’?” he added to the priest.
The priest stared at him, as though he had presumed.
“Well?” said Gabord. “Well?”
The priest answered nothing, but prepared to go, whispering a word of
comfort to the poor wife. Gabord looked at the soldiers, looked at the
wife, at the priest, then spread out his legs and stuck his hands down
into his pockets, while his horse rubbed its nose against his shoulder.
He fixed his eyes on the grave, and nodded once or twice musingly.
“Well,” he said at last, as if he had found a perfect virtue, and the
one or only thing that could be said, “well, he never eat his words,
that Jean.”
A moment afterwards he came into the house with Babette, leaving one of
the soldiers holding his horse. After the old man had gone, I heard him
say, “Were you at mass to-day? And did you see all?”
And when she had answered yes, he continued: “It was a mating as birds
mate, but mating was it, and holy fathers and Master Devil Doltaire
can’t change it till cock-pheasant Moray come rocketing to ‘s grave.
They would have hanged me for my part in it, but I repent not, for they
have wickedly hunted this little lady.”
“I weep with her,” said Jean’s wife.
“Ay, ay, weep on, Babette,” he answered.
“Has she asked help of you?” said the wife.
“Truly; but I know not what says she, for I read not, but I know her
pecking. Here it is. But you must be secret.”
Looking through a crack in the floor, I could plainly see them. She took
the letter from him and read aloud:
“If Gabord the soldier have a good heart still, as ever he had in the
past, he will again help a poor friendless woman. She needs him, for all
are against her. Will he leave her alone among her enemies? Will he not
aid her to fly? At eight o’clock to-morrow night she will be taken to
the Convent of the Ursulines, to be there shut in. Will he not come to
her before that time?”
For a moment after the reading there was silence, and I could see the
woman looking at him curiously. “What will you do?” she asked.
“My faith, there’s nut to crack, for I have little time. This letter but
reached me with the news of Jean, two hours ago, and I know not what to
do, but, scratching my head, here comes word from General Montcalm that
I must ride to Master Devil Doltaire with a letter, and I must find him
wherever he may be, and give it straight. So forth I come; and I must be
at my post again by morn, said the General.”
“It is now nine o’clock, and she will be in the convent,” said the woman
tentatively.
“Aho!” he answered, “and none can enter there but Governor, if holy
Mother say no. So now goes Master Devil there? ‘Gabord,’ quoth he, ‘you
shall come with me to the convent at ten o’clock, bringing three stout
soldiers of the garrison. Here’s an order on Monsieur Ramesay, the
Commandant. Choose you the men, and fail me not, or you shall swing
aloft, dear Gabord.’ Sweet lovers of hell, but Master Devil shall have
swinging too one day.” He put his thumb to his nose, and spread his
fingers out.
Presently he seemed to note something in the woman’s eyes, for he spoke
almost sharply to her: “Jean Labrouk was honest man, and kept faith with
comrades.”
“And I keep faith too, comrade,” was the answer.
“Gabord’s a brute to doubt you,” he rejoined quickly, and he drew
from his pocket a piece of gold, and made her take it, though she much
resisted.
Meanwhile my mind was made up. I saw, I thought, through “Master
Devil’s” plan, and I felt, too, that Gabord would not betray me. In any
case, Gabord and I could fight it out. If he opposed me, it was his life
or mine, for too much was at stake, and all my plans were now changed
by his astounding news. At that moment Voban entered the room without
knocking. Here was my cue, and so, to prevent explanations, I crept
quickly down, opened the door, came in on them.
They wheeled at my footsteps; the woman gave a little cry, and Gabord’s
hand went to his pistol. There was a wild sort of look in his face, as
though he could not trust his eyes. I took no notice of the menacing
pistol, but went straight to him and held out my hand.
“Gabord,” said I, “you are not my jailer now.”
“I’ll be your guard to citadel,” said he, after a moment’s dumb
surprise, refusing my outstretched hand.
“Neither guard nor jailer any more, Gabord,” said I seriously. “We’ve
had enough of that, my friend.”
The soldier and the jailer had been working in him, and his fingers
trifled with the trigger. In all things he was the foeman first. But now
something else was working in him. I saw this, and added pointedly, “No
more cage, Gabord, not even for reward of twenty thousand livres and at
command of Holy Church.”
He smiled grimly, too grimly, I thought, and turned inquiringly to
Babette. In a few words she told him all, tears dropping from her eyes.
“If you take him, you betray me,” she said; “and what would Jean say, if
he knew?”
“Gabord,” said I, “I come not as a spy; I come to seek my wife, and she
counts you as her friend. Do harm to me, and you do harm to her. Serve
me, and you serve her. Gabord, you said to her once that I was an
honourable man.”
He put up his pistol. “Aho, you’ve put your head in the trap. Stir, and
click goes the spring.”
“I must have my wife,” I continued. “Shall the nest you helped to make
go empty?”
I worked upon him to such purpose that, all bristling with war at first,
he was shortly won over to my scheme, which I disclosed to him while the
wife made us a cup of coffee. Through all our talk Voban had sat eying
us with a covert interest, yet showing no excitement. He had been unable
to reach Alixe. She had been taken to the convent, and immediately
afterwards her father and brother had gone their ways--Juste to General
Montcalm, and the Seigneur to the French camp. Thus Alixe did not know
that I was in Quebec.
An hour after this I was marching, with two other men and Gabord, to the
Convent of the Ursulines, dressed in the ordinary costume of a French
soldier, got from the wife of Jean Labrouk. In manner and speech though
I was somewhat dull, my fellows thought, I was enough like a peasant
soldier to deceive them, and my French was more fluent than their own. I
was playing a desperate game; yet I liked it, for it had a fine spice of
adventure apart from the great matter at stake. If I could but carry it
off, I should have sufficient compensation for all my miseries, in spite
of their twenty thousand livres and Holy Church.
In a few minutes we came to the convent, and halted outside, waiting for
Doltaire. Presently he came, and, looking sharply at us all, he ordered
two to wait outside, and Gabord and myself to come with him. Then he
stood looking at the building curiously for a moment. A shell had broken
one wing of it, and this portion had been abandoned; but the faithful
Sisters clung still to their home, though urged constantly by the
Governor to retire to the Hotel Dieu, which was outside the reach of
shot and shell. This it was their intention soon to do, for within the
past day or so our batteries had not sought to spare the convent. As
Doltaire looked he laughed to himself, and then said, “Too quiet for gay
spirits, this hearse. Come, Gabord, and fetch this slouching fellow,”
nodding towards me.
Then he knocked loudly. No one came, and he knocked again and again. At
last the door was opened by the Mother Superior, who was attended by two
others. She started at seeing Doltaire.
“What do you wish, monsieur?” she asked.
“I come on business of the King, good Mother,” he replied seriously, and
stepped inside.
“It is a strange hour for business,” she said severely.
“The King may come at all hours,” he answered soothingly: “is it not so?
By the law he may enter when he wills.”
“You are not the King, monsieur,” she objected, with her head held up
sedately.
“Or the Governor may come, good Mother?”
“You are not the Governor, Monsieur Doltaire,” she said, more sharply
still.
“But a Governor may demand admittance to this convent, and by the order
of his Most Christian Majesty he may not be refused: is it not so?”
“Must I answer the catechism of Monsieur Doltaire?”
“But is it not so?” he asked again urbanely.
“It is so, yet how does that concern you, monsieur?”
“In every way,” and he smiled.
“This is unseemly, monsieur. What is your business?”
“The Governor’s business, good Mother.”
“Then let the Governor’s messenger give his message and depart in
peace,” she answered, her hand upon the door.
“Not the Governor’s messenger, but the Governor himself,” he rejoined
gravely.
He turned and was about to shut the door, but she stopped him. “This is
no house for jesting, monsieur,” she said. “I will arouse the town if
you persist.--Sister,” she added to one standing near, “the bell!”
“You fill your office with great dignity and merit, Mere St. George,” he
said, as he put out his hand and stayed the Sister. “I commend you for
your discretion. Read this,” he continued, handing her a paper.
A Sister held a light, and the Mother read it. As she did so Doltaire
made a motion to Gabord, and he shut the door quickly on us. Mere St.
George looked up from the paper, startled and frightened too.
“Your Excellency!” she exclaimed.
“You are the first to call me so,” he replied. “I thought to leave
untouched this good gift of the King, and to let the Marquis de
Vaudreuil and the admirable Bigot untwist the coil they have made. But
no. After some too generous misgivings, I now claim my own. I could not
enter here, to speak with a certain lady, save as the Governor, but
as the Governor I now ask speech with Mademoiselle Duvarney. Do you
hesitate?” he added. “Do you doubt that signature of his Majesty?
Then see this. Here is a line from the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the late
Governor. It is not dignified, one might say it is craven, but it is
genuine.”
Again the distressed lady read, and again she said, “Your Excellency!”
Then, “You wish to see her in my presence, your Excellency?”
“Alone, good Mother,” he softly answered.
“Your Excellency, will you, the first officer in the land, defy our holy
rules, and rob us of our privilege to protect and comfort and save?”
“I defy nothing,” he replied. “The lady is here against her will, a
prisoner. She desires not your governance and care. In any case, I
must speak with her; and be assured, I honour you the more for your
solicitude, and will ask your counsel when I have finished talk with
her.”
Was ever man so crafty? After a moment’s thought she turned, dismissed
the others, and led the way, and Gabord and I followed. We were bidden
to wait outside a room, well lighted but bare, as I could see through
the open door. Doltaire entered, smiling, and then bowed the nun on her
way to summon Alixe. Gabord and I stood there, not speaking, for both
were thinking of the dangerous game now playing. In a few minutes the
Mother returned, bringing Alixe. The light from the open door shone upon
her face. My heart leaped, for there was in her look such a deep sorrow.
She was calm, save for those shining yet steady eyes; they were like
furnaces, burning up the colour of her cheeks. She wore a soft black
gown, with no sign of ornament, and her gold-brown hair was bound with a
piece of black velvet ribbon. Her beauty was deeper than I had ever seen
it; a peculiar gravity seemed to have added years to her life. As she
passed me her sleeve brushed my arm, as it did that day I was arrested
in her father’s house. She started, as though I had touched her fingers,
but only half turned toward me, for her mind was wholly occupied with
the room where Doltaire was.
At that moment Gabord coughed slightly, and she turned quickly to him.
Her eyes flashed intelligence, and presently, as she passed in, a
sort of hope seemed to have come on her face to lighten its painful
pensiveness. The Mother Superior entered with her, the door closed, and
then, after a little, the Mother came out again. As she did so I saw a
look of immediate purpose in her face, and her hurrying step persuaded
me she was bent on some project of espial. So I made a sign to Gabord
and followed her. As she turned the corner of the hallway just beyond,
I stepped forward silently and watched her enter a room that would, I
knew, be next to this we guarded.
Listening at the door for a moment, I suddenly and softly turned the
handle and entered, to see the good Mother with a panel drawn in the
wall before her, and her face set to it. She stepped back as I shut the
door and turned the key in the lock. I put my finger to my lips, for she
seemed about to cry out.
“Hush!” said I. “I watch for those who love her. I am here to serve
her--and you.”
“You are a servant of the Seigneur’s?” she said, the alarm passing out
of her face.
“I served the Seigneur, good Mother,” I answered, “and I would lay down
my life for ma’m’selle.”
“You would hear?” she asked, pointing to the panel.