SUSPENSE
Jacques Dauban, in his pleasure at escaping from Antoine’s very angry
threats, hurried forward to the house with Lucette, unsuspiciously, and
said little beyond a word or two of rebuke for her disclosure of their
mutual plan.
“You should not have said anything. It may increase the difficulty of
getting rid of him.”
“But I would not have him think he could use me as a decoy.”
“It would have been safer to have told him afterwards.”
“Safer? You do not mean you are afraid of him, Jacques,” and look and
tone and gesture were alike eloquent of indignant repudiation of the
thought.
“Afraid of him? Indeed, no,” he replied stoutly, but with a timorous
glance over his shoulder.
“If you were a coward, oh----” and her disgust was intense.
“I am no coward, but prudence is always valuable,” and in this way she
plagued him till they reached the house, and as they entered the door
they were met by Pascal.
Lucette gave a little cry of pretended alarm, and Dauban changed colour
in alarm that was very far from pretence.
“Ah, you recognize me, I see,” said Pascal, with an ominous smile.
Dauban gazed at him a moment and then at Lucette, and in that moment
the truth dawned upon him. He saw how he had been fooled, and with a
cry of rage and despair, he raised his arm and rushed at Lucette to
strike her. But Pascal caught his hand and thrust it back.
“Stay, little spy, stay. If you’ve a fancy for striking some one,
strike me, not a girl.”
“So you are not a coward. Is this the proof?” asked Lucette. “Master
Dauban has brought me to Malincourt, monsieur, in order that I may
get a disguise for Mademoiselle de Malincourt, and then go with him
to Crevasse to find the fugitives there and hand over M. Gerard and
the monk to the soldiery after enabling miladi to escape. He will be
able to get me out of the city with a permit which he has thoughtfully
brought with him.”
Pascal laughed.
“You she-devil!” cried Dauban, white and trembling with his passion.
“Both you and Antoine had a frenzy to use me as a decoy; well, you have
had your way--and a lesson,” and with a laugh she went away.
“You seem to have made a mess of things, spy,” said Pascal. “Give me
the permit she spoke of.”
“She lied, as she has lied all through. I have no such thing.”
“Come, no nonsense,” said Pascal sternly. “Hand it over. I am in good
humour as yet, and may not hurt even you. But don’t put me in a bad
one.”
“What does this mean?” asked Dauban.
“That you have come back to Malincourt. Will you give me that paper or
shall I have it taken from you? I think you know whether I am safe to
trifle to with,” and he held out his hand.
With trembling fingers Dauban drew it from his pocket and handed it
over; and Pascal called up a couple of men and gave him into their
charge. Antoine he did not even trouble to see, but gave orders that
he should be kept in safe custody, and then carried the permit to
Gerard to consult with him as to making use of it.
Lucette first hurried to Denys, whom she found sufficiently recovered
to have been able to leave his bed, and having told him all that had
occurred at the Castle she went to Gabrielle.
“How calm and strong you are, Gabrielle,” she said, when the first
greetings had been exchanged. “And I am in a perfect fever of
restlessness.”
“We can do nothing yet but wait, Lucette.”
“But what will happen? Can’t we do something? Tell me everything that
has happened. I am dying to know everything--everything.”
Gabrielle told her as shortly as she could what had occurred in the
cell and afterwards in the futile attempt to escape from the city, and
then the return to Malincourt.
“They think you are all at Crevasse.”
“So M. Pascal brought us word when he told us to expect you. I am so
glad you have escaped, and to have you with me again. Now tell me how
you managed it.”
Lucette made her recital very brief indeed, saying little or nothing of
the means she had employed to cozen the two men.
“They must have been mad indeed to think you would betray me,” said
Gabrielle.
“They were thinking most of the thousand crowns, and when a man’s head
is set money-wards, he is most easily blinded to other things.”
“What a philosopher you are, Lucette--about men.”
“And so M. Gerard is M. Gerard still, Gabrielle, but not de Cobalt,”
said Lucette, changing the subject. “How glad and proud you must feel.”
“If only this danger were over; but the suspense is racking,” replied
Gabrielle, with a sigh. “Any hour, any minute may bring the Governor
to Malincourt with a strong force.”
“But are we not also strong?”
“In numbers, perhaps, strong enough; but our men are virtually without
arms.”
“If he comes you can hold out as long as possible and then fly.”
“Do you think he would leave us a way out?”
“What do you mean, Gabrielle?”
“Why, that Malincourt would be surrounded, of course, and every chance
of escape stopped. We have indeed been considering within the last
hour, whether it wouldn’t be best to risk a flight and seek concealment
in the city while there is yet time.”
“Of a truth, it is well I came back,” exclaimed Lucette excitedly,
jumping up. “Where are your wits, Gabrielle? They say love sharpens
them in a woman and blunts them in a man; but this does not look like
it.”
“Lucette!” cried Gabrielle, flushing partly in confusion at the words
and partly with the gathered infection of Lucette’s excitement.
“Yes, you ought to blush for your forgetfulness when the man you love
is at such a dangerous pass.”
“What do you mean?” cried Gabrielle, searching her memory vainly for
some clue. “What have I forgotten?”
“Why, the passage that leads from the chapel crypt to the old burial
ground and out to the woods beyond. Were the Duke’s soldiers swarming
in thousands round the house, that way would still be clear for every
man and woman inside to pass out in safety.”
“My wits must have been dull indeed not to think of it,” cried
Gabrielle, as excited now as Lucette. “You have saved us all, Lucette.
We must tell them at once. That it should have been left for you to
remind me of it!”
“I have been in it: you have only heard of it; and it’s easy to
remember what one’s actually seen. I’ll go for them,” and she was
hurrying out when Gerard and Pascal came.
Gerard held the permit taken from Dauban, and greeted Lucette with a
smile and many thanks for what she had done.
“This will clear the way for us, Gabrielle,” he said then. “We can get
out of the city, and I have decided to go at once if you are willing to
run the risk.”
“Ah, but Lucette has done more than bring that, Gerard. She has
reminded me of what, to my shame, I had forgotten,” and she told him of
the underground passage. “We can wait now in confidence for the coming
of the Duke and use that permit in the last resort.”
“We are never to be out of your debt, it seems, Lucette,” said Gerard.
“Shall I go and see that the way is clear?” asked Pascal. “Perhaps
Mademoiselle Lucette will show me?”
“How quick and ready-witted she is,” said Gerard, when the two had left.
“And how dull I am not to have thought of it,” replied Gabrielle. “I
feel almost humiliated. Lucette hit me harder than she deemed with her
words.”
“She has a sharp tongue. What said she?”
Gabrielle’s colour heightened and she smiled.
“That with you in such peril my wits should have been specially sharp;
yet that very peril dulled them.”
“There is no such peril. I have no doubt as to the end. See, we have
first the chance that the Governor may not discover our presence here
until it is too late for him to force us to yield before my cousin gets
up from Cambrai. Next, we have means of resistance for some hour or
two at worst. Then we have the means to get from Malincourt should he
drive us out. Then again, we have this permit to pass the city gates.
And besides, we have yet to see that he will dare to resist me when he
knows that I am here in Bourbon’s name. I have no fears of the issue;
my distress is that you have had to endure so much.”
“But don’t you know we women like such trials, Gerard, even if our
hearts are not so stout to face them as yours? It is for you I
fear--yet not fear; I have too much confidence in you. Besides, there
is always a last resource.”
“We are very far from any last resource,” he answered cheerily. “But
what is the one you have in mind?”
“It is I who am the cause of all, Gerard; and in the last extreme I
could avert all ill even from you.”
“We would die here in Malincourt one by one before that sacrifice could
even be thought of, Gabrielle,” he answered earnestly. “Do you think
there is a man of us Bourbons who would purchase his life at such a
price?”
“I would let no harm come to you,” she answered, her tone as resolute
as his.
“How you must love me,” he whispered tenderly, taking her in his arms
and kissing her. “You would suffer worse than death for me; but you
shall do better than that, dearest, you shall live for me.”
“Pray God it may be so; but this Governor is a hard enemy.”
“And we Bourbons are no easy ones. But how sweet to me this thought of
your infinite love.” She smiled up to him and whispered with rueful
self-reproach--
“Yet it could not spur my wits to remember what Lucette thought of on
the instant.”
“Lucette is not as my Gabrielle. Her heart is under the discipline of
her judgment.”
“And mine is all in all to me--all I have to live for; or so it seems
almost. I cannot understand this sweet wild change in me. I am as
one in a dream when I think of you, Gerard; self-centred, absorbed,
self-lost. I had not thought it possible--for me. And yet that great
blank past, when you were not in my life, is but a few hours ago. I
seem to have stepped out of the wilderness with a single stride into a
world all rich and lovely with delight. And it is real.”
“It shall always be real to us, dearest.”
“When these other shadows are past,” she sighed. “But they will pass I
know. If I have my moods of doubt it is only the dread lest the dream
shall be broken and I shall lose you.”
“Nothing shall part us, Gabrielle, not even death,” he declared
earnestly.
“No. Not even death. For if I lost you, I should die. I should wish to
die, indeed. And it is that which fills me with courage and energy to
fight out with fight and conquer.”
“Spoken as I would have my Gabrielle speak and think,” he said.
Some one came then saying that Babillon was asking for Gabrielle, and
he was brought in to them.
“You have some news, Babillon?” asked Gabrielle.
“I have not been idle, miladi. The news of your trouble has roused the
burghers of the city, and at a word from you they will rise in your
defence.”
“Have you said aught that mademoiselle is here?” asked Gerard quickly.
“No, my lord. The tale has spread from the Castle that you have all
escaped from the city and are hiding in the hills to the north.
That miladi should be thus driven to such extremities to avoid the
persecutions of the Governor has caused the present tumult, and I am
supposed to be able to communicate with her. Miladi has many adherents
even among the troops of the Governor, and from them has gone abroad
the story of her wrongs. The burghers have long had their bitter
grievances and have been arming themselves; and now this last news is
like to act as tinder to dry shavings and kindle the flame.”
“I would that we had but some of their arms here in Malincourt,”
exclaimed Gerard. “It would save all other anxieties. Could you get us
muskets and powder and ball, Babillon, think you?”
“Alone, I am helpless. A word from miladi would do all; but that might
involve the disclosure of her presence here.”
“It is worth any risk,” said Gerard decisively. “If there is to be
fighting, it can best be done from behind these walls.”
“There must be no rising in the city, Babillon,” said Gabrielle.
“Indignation, on the top of wrongs so long endured, burns very strong,
and is spreading like a forest fire, miladi.”
“It will be useless and worse, far worse than useless. Men untrained
to fighting, lacking in leaders, and ill armed, cannot prevail against
the Duke’s soldiers. The citizens would be massacred and their houses
sacked. It must not be,” she declared.
“It need not be, if Babillon can but get the arms we want to
Malincourt. How soon could you do this?” asked Gerard anxiously.
“We could get all in readiness, and as soon as night falls to give the
cover of darkness they could be brought here.”
“By nightfall,” exclaimed Gerard in a tone of disappointment.
“My lord, it would be hopeless to make such an attempt in daylight with
the city overrun as it is by troops.”
“Stay, let me suggest,” said Gabrielle. “Push on the preparations,
Babillon, to do my lord’s wish, and if aught should occur to spoil the
venture and we should have to abandon Malincourt, have prepared some
place where we can lie hid, safely protected by the men of the city,
until the danger has passed.”
“A shrewd thought,” said Gerard readily. “And now come with me, and we
will perfect the plan for getting the arms. I will speak with Dubois
and Pascal,” he added to Gabrielle, and led Babillon away.
Dubois was found and a long conference followed, to which Pascal,
who had been strenuously engaged in clearing the secret passage, was
presently called.
Both Pascal and Dubois agreed in urging that the citizens should be
encouraged to rise, but Gerard, in deference to the wish Gabrielle had
expressed, would not agree, and the utmost he would yield was that
Dubois should go with Babillon, taking with him written authority from
Gabrielle to consult with the chief burghers on the whole position, to
judge the chances of success, and to offer himself as a leader of any
movement. But he was to sanction no revolt without first communicating
with Gerard; and his chief efforts in the meantime were to be bent upon
getting the arms and ammunition so sorely needed.
The gruff old soldier protested that it was no more than a one-handed
scheme.
“We cannot fight a man like this Governor with one hand in irons, and
that the sword-hand,” he said. “A rising to-night in the city would
mean everything to us here. There might be bloodshed it is true; but
blood has been shed before and will be shed again in many a worse
cause. Nor could anything really serious happen before d’Alembert
reaches the city.”
“We will fight if we are forced in self-defence, Dubois, but we will
not force the fighting from our side,” was Gerard’s reply. “This is
Mademoiselle de Malincourt’s matter more than ours, and her will must
prevail.”
“It will fail, my lord,” was the answer bluntly spoken.
“Then we’ll try something else that will succeed. I am quite resolved.
Let it be as I say.”
“So much for a woman’s leadership,” growled Dubois to Pascal as he was
starting with Babillon.
“He might take another view if he’d had as much married experience as
you,” laughed Pascal.
“If he lives to marry her,” was the gloomy response. “To think he
should sacrifice a chance like this for the sake of a squeamish girl.”
“Get those arms, man, and we may have yet a tough bout or two here,”
but Dubois shook his head discontentedly. Pascal looked after him and
shrugged his shoulders, as he muttered to himself: “Your husband never
sees the same light in a pair of bright eyes as your lover. Save me
from marrying, say I, Pascal de la Tour.”
A soft laugh broke in on his soliloquy, and he turned to find Lucette
looking at him, her face severely demure but her eyes dancing with
quizzical light.
“Are you then in danger, monsieur?” she asked in a tone of deep
solicitude.
“Any man might well be at such short range as this,” he answered,
meeting her gaze and laughing. “So you heard me?”
“I heard you calling on some one else to save you from some dreadful
fate, and the thought of any one in deep trouble appeals to me.”
“Danger it might be and yet not deep trouble. I can well imagine there
would be compensations--when I look at you. You’re a born coquette, I
fear, Lucette. I shall have to read you a lecture or two.”
“The experience of professors in any art is always to be welcomed,
monsieur.”
“Do Dauban and de Cavannes agree in that? They’ve had a pretty fair
taste of the experience, at any rate,” he laughed.
“Do you rate yourself on the same footing with them?”
“In your eyes, do you mean?”
“They are canaille, Monsieur Pascal.”
“Some fishermen are so keen at the sport that when they can’t hook the
trout they are glad to take the minnows.”
“And some minnows are so self-ignorant they do not know they are not
salmon,” she retorted, with a flash of the eyes.
“A fair hit, mademoiselle. Shall we cry a truce?”
“I came to ask what has been decided?”
“Babillon has been here”--and he told her what had passed.
“Ah, you soldiers always want to be killing something or somebody,” she
answered. “Gabrielle is right. She is always right. She will be able
to escape to this hiding place at any moment and can lie hid in safety
till the storm passes. Men never think a woman can be right except when
she says ditto to what they may decide.”
“Until I met you I may have held to some such heresy. But did we not
cry a truce? I am waving the white flag of surrender.”
“You are very provoking, Monsieur Pascal.”
“And you are very charming, Mademoiselle Lucette.”
At this moment a soldier came hurrying to them.
“Another messenger has arrived from the Castle, Lieutenant. We
managed to mislead him long enough to get him to deliver his message.
He reports that the hunt for the fugitives at Crevasse has proved
fruitless; the men have returned from there to the Castle empty-handed
and he was despatched at once to ascertain whether anything had been
seen of them here.”
“Well?”
“We were sending him back with a message that all was quiet here when
his suspicions were aroused and we had to detain him like the rest.”
“Did you question him?” asked Pascal, looking very grave.
“Yes, monsieur. He would say but little; he made a dash to escape
and when we stopped him, declared that there would be plenty of his
comrades here to know why he had not returned.”
“Keep him safe. That is all,” said Pascal; and when the man had gone he
turned to Lucette. “The beginning of the end, mademoiselle. We shall
soon know now which plan is right, the soldier’s or the woman’s?”
They carried the ominous news to Gerard, who was with Gabrielle.
“It had to come some time,” said Gerard. “Thank God it hasn’t come
earlier. Have all in readiness, Pascal, to close the house the moment
there is any sign of the Duke’s approach.”
And when all had been made ready against a surprise, they waited, all
filled with anxiety for what was to follow.
They had not long to wait. In less than a hour the men on the look-out
reported the approach of a strong party of troops, and Gerard and
Pascal hurried away to decide upon the next step.