"I TRUST YOU, COME WHAT MAY"
What the priest said I do not know, for he spoke in patois, but the
grip on my wrists and arms relaxed--reluctantly, I thought, as if it
was a pity to lose so excellent an opportunity of paying off old
grudges. Very slowly all four drew back, breathing heavily, as men do
who struggle to overmaster their breathlessness. So we stood for half
a minute, then I moved aside to the upward face of the rock.
"Good!" said I, answering Mademoiselle's bitter mistrust, rather than
her broken appeal upon the men's behalf. Against them I had no
rancour; the fault was none of theirs, if their zeal lacked
information. "Good! He is the Count de Foix! Let Foix and Navarre
save him, only let them remember that there is fifty feet of a tumble
below that bundle of linen there, and a bed of saw-toothed rocks to
fall upon."
It is my belief that for these thirty seconds, and the minute or two of
stress which preceded them, Mademoiselle had utterly forgotten the
boy's danger. Instantly she turned, and, pointing downward, broke into
passionate command. Her speech was that quaint mixture of slurred
French, Spanish and Basque which passed for a language in Morsigny, and
so was strange to me. But the clamour of the boy's need made her
meaning clear, even had she spoken no word. Nudely, ruthlessly clear,
and a grim gladness warmed me to see that Hugues and the Spaniard grew
cold as she waxed more and more passionate, her brief authority lost at
the last in a pleading almost choked by tears.
A word or two of the slurred French I understood, such as peace,
Navarre, their duty, then Navarre again, and yet again Navarre. But to
more than fifty feet of a fall left them cold. Peace? The peace of a
loosened grip was too profound a peace for their taste! Duty? Surely
the soul's first duty is to its own body! Navarre? They looked at one
another; Navarre would have battles to fight, and dead men, even dead
in duty, make no war. So they argued, speaking no word; and so, with
my back against the cliff, I read their reasoning and laughed aloud.
But the laughter died in my mouth.
If it failed to shame them, being coarse-grained peasants, it moved
Mademoiselle to an unendurable despair. With a last indignant word,
some acid, biting phrase of scorn, she knelt to renew her folly of
descent. But to do Hugues and the other justice, if they were careful
of themselves they were careful also of her, for even before I could
reach her they held her back.
"Leave me go, you cowards, leave me go!" she cried, struggling, her
face wet with unconscious tears of rage and shame. "My God! is there
not one man amongst you!"
"It is for Navarre," said I, giving my bitter mood rein, now she was
safe. "It is for Foix and Navarre; let me beg you both to fall down
fifty feet for the glory of Foix and Navarre. The thought will comfort
you--till you hit the stones at the bottom."
It was not a very manly gibe, but in the best of us, and I do not claim
to be that, there is a beast who only needs rousing, and at that moment
the man in me was not uppermost. From the hilltop I had sunk to the
valley. My new found and newer trampled love was too raw in its wounds
to be just. Had not Mademoiselle, in her very last words, called me a
coward with the rest? And yet it was she whose scorn and contumely
forbade me to climb.
"Oh, that I were a man!" she said, swallowing her sobs till they choked
her; "then would I sooner lie dead with the child."
While she was speaking, Brother Paulus had risen and stripped himself
of his clinging frock. Now, flinging it aside, he turned to me.
"So would I; she is right, Monsieur Hellewyl; the shame of it is not to
be borne."
"A man," said I, answering Mademoiselle, but laying the flat of my hand
on the priest's breast, that he might do nothing useless. The spirit
within him was strong to dare, but the flesh was weak. Had there been
ten Father Pauls, they must have followed one another to the bottom of
the cliff. "A man--that is, a true man--one trusts. Do you trust me,
Mademoiselle?"
"Oh, you are cruel!" she cried, but the sobs were softer. "Would you
let the child die because of a girl's----?" she paused, searching for
an adjective, but finding none that fitted her thought went on--"Must I
ask your pardon, Monsieur? Must I humble myself to you? I'll do it,
I'll do it gladly."
"I would have you say: I trust you. Come what may, I trust you, now
and always."
As a child repeats its lesson she answered me, her face all drawn by
pain, the tears still shining in her eyes. "I trust you, Monsieur, now
and always, come what may."
Of what followed I have no desire to say much. Of neither the manner
nor the motive of the exploit have I any reason to be proud. For the
one, I am a man of the flats, and with no skill for such a piece of
work. To every crevice, every cranny, every boss of rock I clung as a
drowning cat clings to a crumbling bank when a swishing current tears
at her flanks; and if I did not howl in my terror like the same cat, it
was because I grit my teeth and whimpered inwardly, for there is no
denying I was horribly afraid. Fifty feet of air hung from my ancles,
dragging me down like so many pounds of lead. As to the motive, it was
compounded of as many diversities as go to the mixing of an
apothecary's potion. There was a little pity, a little pride, a little
love, some contempt, some braggadocio, Jan Meert's throat, and a new
roof to Solignac all blent through it. But most of these I left on the
ledge or dropped into the void at the first touch of despair, and
thenceforward pride and a dogged love of dear life were motive enough.
Blunderer as I was, and hampered by Brother Paul's frock knotted
loosely across my shoulders, I must inevitably have followed the bulk
of my influencing ingredients, had not Mademoiselle directed every move.
"There is a knob of rock to the right; no, more to the right--more
yet--yes, that is it; but, oh, Monsieur, try it first before you trust
your weight upon it, lest it crumble. It holds? Thank God for that!
Now a foot below there is a crevice, and then to the left an open seam
for your fingers. You have it? That is splendid, splendid! Remember,
always to the right, little by little, the--the--boy lies there,
and--oh, God! he is stirring. Gaston! Gaston! do not move! Jesu!
Jesu! that he may not move! Lie still, Gaston, lie still, _mon gars_;
the brave Monsieur Gaspard is going down to you, and there is nothing
to fear, nothing--do you hear me?--nothing at all."
For which sore straining of the truth may she be forgiven! Nothing to
fear? If there was nothing to fear, why was the sweat pouring down my
back, or that sob rattling in my throat? And why was the brave
Monsieur Gaspard realising fully for the first time how good a thing is
life?
How long the boy had recovered consciousness I do not know, but the
bewilderment of the shock had passed away, and now the courage that had
squared his fists in the whin brake saved him. From the silence which
followed Mademoiselle's passionate adjuration, a thin voice piped out:
"I'm not afraid, Suzanne. I hear you, and I will be quiet."
"_Mon brave_! Thou art not afraid, no, not thou; but do not stir, my
heart, no, not a finger. Monsieur Hellewyl, are you rested? There is
a ledge below you sloping to the right. It must be four inches
broad--good! that is it. Only a moment now Gaston, and the rest is
easy." For which second straining of the truth, I say again, may she
be forgiven! Later, long after, I learned that this time the lie was
on my account. In the brief pause I had glanced up, and from the agony
of soul stamped on my white face, Mademoiselle for the first time truly
recognised the risk I ran. The Paris rabble had taught her it was no
common danger that made Gaspard Hellewyl go in frank terror for his
life--I use her own words--and with a quick wit she set herself to put
heart in me, and at a time when there was least heart in her own hope.
But I believed her, and the lie steadied my nerve. Believing the rest
to be easier made it easier, for there is no courage like the courage
of faith; that of manhood or despair alike pales before its forces.
Nor was the upward journey so difficult, even with the child upon my
back in the monk's frock, knapsack fashion. Every foot climbed was a
year or more of life gained, and Mademoiselle's face, still white, but
with the tears dried from the eyes, turned down to mine, drew me. Not
a word was spoken, hardly a breath except my own seemed to stir; but
God, He knows what prayers went up through the silence. Then came the
end. Down from the top 'Tuco stretched his long arms, grasping my
wrists. With a heave, Hugues helping, I was breast high; another, and
we rolled forward on the ledge, four pairs of hands holding us, with
Mademoiselle sobbing and crying as she had neither sobbed nor cried
while the fear of death was cold upon her.
"Let come what may, Mademoiselle?" said I, when I could command my
breath.
"Let come what may," she answered, and this time it was not the tears
that shone in the eyes, but the eyes behind the tears.
Thenceforward, not even 'Tuco the Spaniard held us in doubt, and as we
rode into Morsigny I knew that my bleeding finger-tips had drawn nearer
three such differing rewards as Mademoiselle's friendship, Jan Meert's
throat, and the building again of Solignac.